Board Fellows Testimonial: Reilly Martin

Reilly Martin is the Director of Product Management at the City of Boston, and a proud Board Fellow alum. She participated in Board Fellows in 2017, working on a user research project for Rebuilding Together. Her year with them resulted in such a good relationship she was invited to become a full-time member on their board. She sat down with the Board Fellows Co-Chair, Amy Wipfler, to share some insights from her experience as a Board Fellow with Net Impact Boston.

Amy: What motivated you to apply for Board Fellows?

Reilly: I am on the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network (YNPN) listserv and have been for a few years. I’d seen the program from Net Impact multiple times, and the fourth or fifth time I thought about it I decided to apply.

At the time, I had just finished grad school. I had been working full time and going to grad school full time, so once I finished I felt like I had all this free time and wanted to fill it again. I saw it and had already been involved in a few organizations and didn’t know which organization I wanted to give my time to next, so it was a way to expose myself to a new organization in a good way.

I really like the concept of being free and being matched and organizations opting in to wanting help, but also being able to have a conversation with them before going forward with it.

Amy: What was your favorite part of the year when you were a board fellow?

Reilly: My favorite part of being part of the organization [I was matched with] is that it was an organization that had historically been very corporate dollar, corporate volunteer based, which is clearly a problematic model.

So one of the things I was tasked with was starting a young professionals organization. We had a few conversations, and I ended up recommending that we should just do research on whether it needs to be young professionals or something else. Really what they were asking for, in other words, was individual engagement, particularly from a younger demographic.

We got to a place where I got to do research through a few focus groups under 35/40 and got actual research-based information to bring back to the board. Unsurprisingly, the people we interviewed said, “actually, before I get involved, I want to get my hands dirty. We’re not interested in speakers; we want to have that physical volunteer engagement.” So more of that hearing from users research led the organizations to devote one of their projects that would have normally been for corporate volunteers to an individual volunteer house build work for the first time ever in the organization. Now we’ve done one of those houses every single year since then.

We also made space on all the corporate days for a handful of individual volunteers because increasing those individual volunteers is bringing us new board members—bringing us new members in different capacities. Having that be the springboard into things I’m doing for them now has been really useful. Seeing a pilot play out, and seeing the board actually adopt this project recommendation—which was something I was skeptical would happen—was the best part.

Amy: What were your biggest takeaways from the project?

Reilly: I think the time devoted to it.

Obviously a lot of the organizations are “working boards”. In my personal opinion I don’t think there’s ever a place for that, given what the true definition of a board is or should be. One of the biggest opportunities and challenges for me in particular with organizations I’ve worked with in Boston is getting people okay with navigating what that looks like and getting beyond that, while also working with boards who are looking to get beyond that and invest in staff. That’s not a surprise to me, but seeing it play out is a thing that I continuously take away and try and figure out what is that nut to move people to a place where clearly the organization wants to grow—clearly they want to invest in staff—but what’s that model and how do we get board members to let go of work so they can approve stuff?

Amy: You’re now on the board full time. What has that transition been like from Board Fellow to Board Member?

Reilly: I think it was fine. I think there were also things they assumed I knew.

I was onboarded differently from other people. I’m a very self-motivated person, so the things I didn’t know I was fine acquiring or calling out. Also, from day one of being a Board Fellow, I was vocal in meetings, but again I think that comes with age and experience; not every fellow is coming in with. At the time when I joined it was a lot of folks who had been there a long time. I was one of the newer faces in a few years.

Amy: How has being on a board impacted other areas of your life or work?

Reilly: Obviously, connections. Connections in general or friendly relationships or other professional connections.

One of the more interesting ones was a guy who was the other co-chair was another Iowan. It was fun to have the board being run by two Iowans in Boston. It’s also helped me find fellows for my department here at the City of Boston. Sometimes our summer fellows are referred from a guy I know from Boston University on the board. So lots of very tangential, positive working relationships and then actual benefits playing out.

Amy: Who do you think should consider applying for Board Fellows?

Reilly: I think someone who’s looking to get involved in a board and doesn’t exactly know how. I’ve recommended it to a lot of people who tell me they want to get involved in a board and don’t know where to start. Or you know organizations that don’t necessarily come with the high dollar amount and connections that larger organizations require.

I think this is a good entry point for people to become familiar with more organizations, or people who are interested in getting involved in lesser known organizations and getting to do good work.

Questions?

Please email boardfellows@netimpactboston.org with any additional questions or concerns.

Stay in touch!

Please subscribe to our mailing list below to ensure that you receive future notices about the Board Fellows Program.