Joining a Non-Profit Board Can Boost You and Your Practice, by Vlad Frants

Sir Winston Churchill once said, "You make a living by what you get; you make a life by what you give." But, I think that volunteering on a Non-Profit Board can help attorneys with both.

Citing fastcompany, Carolyn Elefant of myshingle outlines five professional benefits of serving on a non-profit board:

1. Learn about an issue outside of (or complementary to) your area of business expertise--whether it's housing, healthcare, the environment, economic development, healthcare, or education, just to name a few.

2. Gain new perspectives by engaging with people from diverse backgrounds, including board and staff members, the nonprofit's funders, and the community it serves. This can help enrich your awareness of your business's and clients' broader base of customers and shareholders here in the US and globally.

3. Better understand the role and responsibilities of corporate governance by serving on a board yourself.

4. Experience the perspective of the CEO and board of the corporation, including the actual responsibility of envisioning the organization's greater potential, and creating and achieving the organization's revenue/business model.

5. Have an opportunity to step up to lead, by chairing a committee, or serving as an officer; you will learn how to build consensus through process, and you will understand what it means to be accountable to the community that your organization serves.

These are only a few of the dozens of personal and professional benefits of serving on a Non-Profit Board. Few things really are more rewarding than supporting and following through with a good cause.

In September 2009 I founded The Good Heart Group, a New York State-registered Non-Profit corporation, whose mission is to enrich the lives of individuals with health problems stemming from disease or age through art, entertainment and learning. Some of our activities include bringing high school bands to nursing homes and artists to sick children in hospitals. My experience thus far has been educational and rewarding.

For more information on how to join the board of a Non-Profit, Carolyn suggests checking out sites like BoardNetUSA, which matches volunteers with non-profit board positions, or Idealist, which has a searchable database of volunteer positions.

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