Editor,

As I write this letter to the editor on 2024’s Martin Luther King Jr. National Day of Service, I want to encourage you to consider serving as a board member of the local nonprofit organization of your choice.

Whidbey Island has hundreds of nonprofit organizations that serve our community, working to help our community thrive in a myriad of ways. Some provide food to those who struggle with food insecurities, some work to provide affordable housing for local workers.

Some organizations exist to maintain and make available community spaces for events, public and private — Clinton Hall, Bayview Hall, Freeland Hall, etc. Some exist to assure our community can experience culture and the arts. Some organizations concentrate their service to community on a single day but work all year to assure that one day of concentrated service comes off without a hitch – Mobile Turkey, Hearts and Hammers, etc.

With the exception of some of the larger organizations, all of them struggle to find community members willing to serve as board members. On this island full of artists, activist, and community-minded people, I do not understand why this struggle exists. I understand that board-work is not for everyone. However, I think perhaps some misconceptions about the nature and time-commitment requirements of board membership may also contribute to the problem.

For most small nonprofit boards, the time commitment is about 5 – 10 hours per month (maybe a little more for board leadership). The nature of the work is simply to maintain a healthy organization that has the capacity to further its mission.

Admittedly, for most small organizations, that work includes some level of fund-raising. I understand that word has frightful connotations for many people, including yours truly. However, this is a demonstrably generous community. Membership organizations generally have no trouble enlisting and retaining dues-paying members and most every major fundraising effort, focused on a specific goal, that I am aware of meets or exceeds its stated goal. In this community, the fear of the concept of participating in fund-raising is overblown and, generally, unwarranted.

Perhaps it is the policy work and board meetings in general that contribute to the reluctance to get involved in a nonprofit board. Granted, some board meetings seem to grind on interminably, and the onus is on board leadership to run well-organized and productive meetings. The real work is the practical guidance of the organization to assure it can further its mission and to assure its donors and members that it complies with the legal strictures placed on nonprofits to benefit the greater community and not the individuals serving on the board.

Please, for the sake of our healthy, thriving community, reach out to one or more local nonprofits and seriously consider volunteering.

Mike Clyburn

Clinton