The Region’s Economy (And Your Career) Are Enhanced By Participation On A Non-Profit Board
By Mike Oates
The best investment I have ever made in the Hudson Valley economy never cost me a dollar. It cost me a few Tuesday nights.
We usually talk about economic development in terms of sites, incentives and shovels in the ground. That work matters — it is my day job. But look at the list of the largest employers across our nine counties and you will find hospitals, colleges, arts organizations, land trusts and human services agencies sitting right alongside the manufacturers and the distribution centers. These institutions meet payroll every two weeks. They buy from local vendors. They fill hotel rooms, restaurant tables and Main Street storefronts. They are a big part of why a young family chooses Beacon over Charlotte, and why a company looking at a site in Orange County believes its employees will be happy here.
And nearly every one of them is governed by volunteers. Not by a state agency, not by a consultant — by neighbors who agreed to serve on a board. Which means the quality of life we market to the world rests, to a remarkable degree, on who raises a hand.
Here is what surprised me most about board service: your ordinary professional skills are extraordinary in a room that does not have them.
The banker who can read a cash-flow statement. The contractor who can tell a realistic construction bid from a fantasy. The marketer who can explain why nobody under 40 has heard of a 60-year-old organization. The HR director who can write an employee handbook that actually protects the staff. Any one of those people can save a nonprofit a year of painful trial and error in a single evening. Good boards are where private-sector discipline meets public-spirited mission, and the organizations that thrive are the ones that have both.
The region’s visible wins start in those rooms. A college adds an aviation program because its trustees pushed for it. A theater reopens because someone at the table knew how to assemble the capital. A trail connects, a scholarship gets endowed, a shuttered building finds a second life. Nobody issues a press release about the committee meeting where it was argued through — but that is where it happened. If you want to point at something in the Hudson Valley and say you helped build it, board service is the shortest path I know.
I want to make a particular case to people early in their careers.
If you are 28 and someone tells you to go network, you end up in a hotel ballroom with a name tag and a drink ticket, trading cards with strangers. Board service is the opposite of that. You spend a year — or three — working shoulder to shoulder with bank presidents, developers, hospital executives, superintendents and attorneys on something you all care about. These are people whose calls get returned. They are not hearing your elevator pitch; they are watching how you handle a budget shortfall, whether you deliver what you promised by the next meeting, and whether you are good company at 7 p.m. That is how trust gets built, and in this region trust is how business gets done.
The skills come home with you, too. Board service teaches you to read a financial statement, ask a hard question without blowing up a room, run a meeting that ends on time, and make an ask — which is simply sales with better manners. I have watched young professionals get promoted on the strength of what they learned volunteering. If a full board seat feels like a reach, ask to join a committee. Say yes to a finance or development committee and you will learn more in six months than any seminar will teach you.
So find your passion. Not the organization that looks best on your LinkedIn profile — the one you actually care about. If it is the arts, our theaters, museums and arts councils need you. If it is health, our hospitals and community health centers are making decisions right now that will shape care for a generation. If it is education, every college, school district and scholarship fund in these nine counties is short of people willing to do the work. Youth sports, housing, food security, open space, veterans, the river itself — take your pick. There is no shortage of worthy causes in the Hudson Valley. There is a shortage of hands.
Then make one phone call. Ask what they need. Commit for three years instead of three meetings, read the materials before you show up, and bring somebody with you next time.
The Hudson Valley is a great place to live, work and play because generations of people treated it as theirs to look after. It is our turn. Pick a cause, take a seat at the table, and get to work.
And if the region’s economy is your passion then reach out to me directly. Let’s see if we can get you involved with the Hudson Valley Economic Development Corporation.
Mike Oates is President & CEO of the Hudson Valley Economic Development Corporation, a nine-county regional economic development organization serving Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess, Rockland, Orange, Ulster, Sullivan, Greene and Columbia counties.
