Board Building Brainstorming Sheet

Diversity TEAM NOTES - purpose for your INSTRUCTOR NOTES

Characteristics choices
DEMOGRAPHICS

Female, Male, & all We want the best individuals on our
other gender identities board who are going to represent
welcome C.C.C. regardless of gender identity/
sexual orientation, etc. Everyone
from all walks of life have their own
stories and strengths to bring to the
board.
Depending on your mission, you
may have a reason to go beyond
gender identity to sexual
orientation, to be representative,
etc.

25 - any In terms of our board, we are hoping How you look at age ranges might
to have individuals with enough life depend on the mission, e.g. you
experience under their belt to make may subdivide age 65 – 80, >80+,
them successful in this role. While or just go with >65+ Same if
we will never diminish someone’s you’re doing youth stuff, e.g. High
life experience due to their age, we school, College, vs. <25
think that 25 is a great number to
start off board members. Obviously,
if we come across any sort of special
circumstance, we will happily accept
board members as young as 20, but
we hope to keep it 20 and above.

Any race, ethnicity, or We will never not ask someone to be How can you be sure your board is
religious background on our board because of their race, representative of cultures in the
ethnicity, or religious affiliation. community you’re serving
People who have served in the
military come from all walks of life,
people who have disabilities can
come from all walks of life, we want
representation for all people.

Specific communities The specific community we want to

target is: Veterans (both disabled and
not), as well as those passionate for
 service dogs and service dog
training.

CONSTITUENCY: Constituencies can be obvious, e.g.

Disability / PTSD This is more for brainstorming - but
related therapist we want constituencies that are
Veteran(s) in the knowledgeable about our topic and
community our mission. This is an organization
that has very clear goals and a very
Potential VA workers clear idea of what direction to be
going in, board members NEED to
reflect that.
if you’re doing after-school sports,
you probably need someone who
understands how to interface with
schools, with parks, etc. But they
might also be businesses or
organizations that can help you in
other ways – who might sponsor
teams or supply food for snacks.

SKILLS: This is where you identify skills,

talents, experiences that you would
Fundraising Someone who is a service dog trainer want to inform the actual work you
Veteran / Veteran mentor do. Someone who’s been homeless
Business Planning
Family member of Veteran with a and made it out. A scientist.
Public disability Someone who’s run team sports
Relations/Marketing
before. It depends on your
Financial mission.

Operations
Legal
Lobbying & Political
Nonprofit
Other:

VALUABLE
CONNECTIONS

Emotional/ heartfelt connections What kind of connections will be

with community members, donors,
the Veterans themselves, and the
families of Veterans.
important to you? Doing afternoon
sports and need a field? Someone
from Parks or a school district
might be able to help. Are you
doing advocacy? An elected
official or someone who used to be
one at the level where you want to
advocate. Etc.