Why Every Org Should have a Power User on its Board

What does an elementary school music teacher have in common with Stephen Colbert, Fred Wilson, Theresia Gouw, and Jeff Weiner? They all have seats on the DonorsChoose.org board of directors.

Genein Letford, who teaches in Los Angeles and has gotten 50 classroom projects funded on our site, joined our board last year. We have 13 board members, fewer than many other nonprofit organizations, to facilitate nimble decision-making and to ensure that board meetings are discussions more than presentations.

As board members help shape our org’s direction and mission, Genein is a voice for the 400,000 teachers who’ve created projects on our site. Here are some additional reasons we’re so happy to have her on our board:

User focus

At our 2016 partner summit, Ashton Kutcher told us that he only invests in companies whose products he uses.

While our board members have all given to classroom projects on our site, Genein is the one board member who lives and breathes DonorsChoose.org as a teacher who has transformed her classroom using our site. Teachers are our power users, the most active of whom spend several hours per month creating, promoting, and documenting their classroom project requests.

For years, we’ve worked to capture the teacher perspective through interviews, surveys, and analysis of website behavior. And our staff includes a healthy number of former teachers who used our site. But having a teacher voice in our board room provides a special insight at the most critical points of decision-making.

What a power user brings to the table

Long before Genein Letford joined our board of directors, she was well-known in educational circles as an exceptional teacher. She founded a mentorship program for college-bound students, gave speeches across the country, received the Bravo Arts Educator Award, and was named the Great American Teacher of the Year (plus teaching a full class load every year as Canoga Park’s music director).

At our most recent board meeting, we explored the possibility of expanding to Head Start centers.  (Currently, we’re just open to K-12 public schools.) Genein explained to her fellow board members that she can usually see which of her kindergarten students have had the benefit of Head Start or another pre-K program, and that the difference is palpable. That was probably the most impactful comment made by any board member during the discussion.

We take Ashton’s advice seriously: at a minimum, you should make sure that your board members use your product. The real value, though, comes from giving a power user a seat at the table.