NAMI North Carolina Affiliate Tool Kit | What Affiliate Officers & Board Members Do

Virtually all affiliates elect officers, including—

• President
• Vice-president (Note: Some affiliates elect a first and second vice president.)
• Secretary
• Treasurer

Normally, one person serves in each office, but in several of our affiliates, two members share an office. In addition to electing officers, your members may also elect at-large board members to represent them on your affiliate’s Board of Directors.

What the Board of Directors Does

• Prepares and submits affiliate bylaws for member approval
• Establishes goals, priorities and strategic plans for the affiliate
• Determines how the affiliate spends its money
• Develops general policies and procedures for operating the affiliate
• Establishes committees and appoints committee heads
• Creates task forces to handle special projects
• Helps members develop leadership skills to qualify them to hold affiliate offices and encourages turnover among affiliate leaders

All officers and directors are expected to—

• Understand the affiliate’s mission, services, policies and programs.
• Identify key political issues and decide how the affiliate will address them.
• Establish policies for the affiliate’s relationships with area mental health programs and other organizations with similar interests and goals.
• Develop policies for support the affiliate will provide to individual members.
• Set policies for length of officers’ terms, elections and other operational matters.
• Attend and participate in all board and membership meetings.
• Attend affiliate functions and special events.
• Serve on committees that can benefit from the board member’s expertise

What the President Does

• Works with other officers and board members to develop long-range plans and set priorities for the affiliate.
• Plans, schedules and presides over board and affiliate business meetings.
• Heads the affiliate’s executive committee.
• Calls special meetings when needed.
• Appoints members to chair affiliate committees.
• Oversees affiliate operations to make sure essential tasks are getting done.
• Serves as the affiliate’s primary contact with the state and national organizations.
• Reviews and responds promptly to mail and messages from the state and national offices.
• Acts as the spokesperson for the affiliate.

What the Vice President Does

• Attends all board meetings.
• Serves on the executive committee.
• Manages special projects as requested by the president.
• Takes over the president’s responsibilities when the president is absent.

What the Secretary Does

• Attends all board meetings.
• Serves on the executive committee.
• Notifies members about upcoming meetings.
• Records and reports minutes of all affiliate board, executive committee and business meetings.
• Takes on the president’s responsibilities when the president and vice president are both absent.

What the Treasurer Does

• Keeps the affiliate’s financial records.
• Reports financial information to officers, directors and members.
• Prepares operating budgets and monitors spending.
• Collects dues and other affiliate revenues.
• Forwards dues collected from affiliate members for the state and national organizations, along with a statement showing the exact amounts due to the state and national organization by December of each year.
• Manages member records.
• Supplies the state office with current information, including members to be added or deleted from the affiliate roster and address changes.
• Notifies the state office promptly of changes in affiliate officers or contact persons.
• Collects and classifies donations to the affiliate as gifts from individuals, gifts from organizations or grants.
• Pays bills.
• Files appropriate tax forms and reports.

Notes for Board Members: About Those Bylaws

• Consider limiting officers and members to two consecutive terms.
• Consider requiring officers and members to take a year off from holding office after serving two consecutive terms. (Of course, these former board members can head committees and task forces during their year off from the board.)
• Stagger terms of service so that one half or one third of the board members are elected every one or two years for terms of two to three years.

Notes for Officers & Board Members: About Those Goals, Priorities & Strategic Plans

• Survey your members annually to find out what programs and projects they want and need most.
• Include questions about skills, interests and the types of tasks and projects members want to work on.
• Schedule a planning retreat soon after your affiliate elects its officers and board members.
• Make general long-range plans for membership growth, program growth and funding growth you anticipate during the next year or two.
• Discuss and reach consensus on your affiliate’s three most important priorities. Make strategic plans and allocate affiliate resources to address your affiliate’s priorities.
• Make specific plans for programs, projects and activities during the upcoming year.
• Outline responsibilities and tasks for the upcoming quarter and identify the member(s) who will see that they get done.

Notes for Officers, Board Members & Committee Heads: About Those Responsibilities & Tasks

In the smallest of our affiliates, the officers are the members—all of them. For those officer-members, being responsible for a task means doing the task. Ideally, for the rest of our affiliate leaders, accepting responsibility for seeing that a task gets done means breaking it down into manageable chunks and delegating tasks to members.

Why is delegation so important? Here are a few of the many reasons:

• Delegation allows affiliate members to share the work—and the satisfaction that comes with working together on a successful project.
• Delegation allows more members a chance to be interested and involved in your affiliate. When a few officer-members keep all the responsibilities and all the tasks to themselves, newer members or those who feel outside your affiliate’s “inner circle” lose interest.
• Delegation helps minimize the burnout that comes when too few members take on too much work.
• Delegation allows your members opportunities to develop the knowledge and skills they need to head committees and hold offices. This is how your affiliate develops new leaders.
• Delegation of tasks frees officers to concentrate on leading and managing the affiliate. By shifting from a task orientation to a leadership orientation, your officers and board members can concentrate more on planning, setting goals and establishing priorities.

Notes for Officers: About Those Meetings You’re Supposed to Run

• Keep meetings focused on a single purpose—education or support or affiliate business. Schedule separate sessions for each function.
• Prepare a simple written agenda for meetings and stick to it. If possible, mail, fax or email a copy of the agenda to meeting participants in advance.

Notes for Treasurers: About Those Dues You’re Supposed to Collect

• Mail members the first dues notice the same month each year, followed by a second reminder by mail the next month.
• When the time comes to submit your roster and dues to the state office, you may still have members of long standing who have not yet paid up. Your board may want to place some last-minute telephone calls before removing those names from the roster.
• NAMI does not pro-rate dues, so regardless of what time of year a new member joins your affiliate, NAMI dues are still  $7—even if there are only a few months left before it’s time to renew memberships. We recommend you adopt a similar policy at the affiliate level.
• We encourage you to submit your annual dues and current member rosters promptly to make sure your members’ subscriptions to the state and national newsletters are not interrupted.

Notes for Treasurers: About Those Books & Records You’re Supposed to Keep

• Keep accurate records of the income your affiliate receives, the money it spends, the value of any assets it owns and the amount of any money it owes.
• See the “Nuts & Bolts” Section for a suggested chart of accounts.
• Add new members immediately to your affiliate’s mailing list for newsletters and meeting notices.
• Develop a system for promptly updating member records as members’ addresses and other information changes.
• Develop a system for sharing current member information within your affiliate and with the state office.
• See the “Nuts & Bolts” Section for a suggested member database design.

Notes for Treasurers: About That Budget You’re Supposed to Prepare

• As the end of your affiliate’s fiscal year approaches, begin work on a budget for the upcoming year, using financial records from previous years as a guide.
• Provide past financial reports to your affiliate’s board, committee heads and program coordinators to use as a guide and ask each of them to prepare a proposed budget for the coming year’s income and expenses in their areas of responsibility.
• If your affiliate plans to recruit new members, be sure to factor in the additional variable costs to serve them, such as increases in newsletter printing quantities, postage and refreshments.
• Keep financial records up to date and review them at least quarterly. Compare actual income and expenditures to budgeted amounts and make adjustments as needed.