Board Development & Organizational Success (In-Person)

This training will focus on the importance of Board Development for the health, sustainability, governance and ability to serve your communities and constituents at an optimal performance level. 

The Higher Expectations team will review the important elements relative to board development such as assessment, recruitment, orientation, retention, board member roles and responsibilities. We will discuss the role of the Board as it relates to the staff, organization, community, strategic direction and fiduciary responsibilities. We will also emphasize how important a robust, diverse, and inclusive board is and how it is also the primary driver in two other important areas, financial development and community engagement. We will reference the Standards of Excellence many great model practices and template forms to help nonprofits in their journey toward excellence.

During our training we will utilize a number of ‘Group Work’ exercises and ask participants to define three takeaways that they are committing to following up on, during the next 12 months, to work with their board team.

In this training you will:

• Learn examples of standard Board structure as it relates to leadership, standing committees, sub-committees, and task forces.
• Understand the difference between a governing Board of Directors and a Board of Management or Advisory Board.
• Learn how to utilize specific tools and methods to build a robust, diverse, inclusive and high functioning Board team as relates to Board Assessment, Board Member Identification, Board Recruitment, Board Orientation and Mentorship, Board Retention methods, and Board Recognition.
• Learn the importance of good Board Development practices and how they drive Community Engagement and Financial Development.

This training will be held in Birmingham and online from 9:00-12:00.

Your trainers are Aubrey Miller and Christian Rieseberg, Partners of Higher Expectations Consulting. 

Aubrey Miller retired as Executive Vice President of Financial Development of the YMCA of Greater Birmingham.  He also retired as Executive Director of the Alabama Chapter-Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) following almost a decade of successful leadership and service.  He is also a Director of First US Bank and immediate past President of the Shelby County Board of Education.  

Prior to his move to JDRF, he served 15 years with Baptist Health System; 11 years as a member of the Board of Trustees, 1 year as Chairman and 3 years as President and CDO of Baptist Health Foundation.  Aubrey enjoyed a distinguished career in the Travel Industry beginning in the Cabinet of Governor Fob James as Director of the Alabama Department of Tourism and Travel followed by 7 years as Director of Travel for Southern Living Magazine.  

Christian Rieseberg has over 31 years as a non-profit Executive with the YMCA from Upstate New York, to the Midwest, the Mid-Atlantic and most recently in Birmingham, Alabama.  Throughout his YMCA career experiences, he has provided leadership from small to large YMCA’s comprising over 17,000 members with seven figure annual budgets.  

Christian’s first YMCA Executive Leadership position was in Manchester, Tennessee where he had the opportunity to start a small-town YMCA from the ground up.  

In Fort Wayne, Indiana Christian served as Branch Executive Director at two of their facilities.  He was charged with opening their flag-ship and largest branch, the Parkview YMCA.  At Parkview, Christian developed the branch’s first volunteer Advisory Board team, staffed-up the facility, held their first Annual Campaign, and positioned the branch for a capital expansion campaign within the first 14 months of operations. 

In Birmingham, Alabama he held the position of the Downtown Branch Executive Director and the Association’s Director of Development.  Christian utilized his skillset of Board Development, Financial Development, Capital readiness, and Community Development to take the branch to a new level of community engagement and service.