Working Toward a Diverse Board
by Juri Jennings, Board President
Recently, a friend shared with me her sister’s experience serving as board president at the Silver City Food Co-op in New Mexico. When she started, the majority of the board members were retirees, including herself, but now their co-op has many younger, working members serving on the board.
I felt a sense of hope hearing this story, because this is something our Co-op has been striving for—to have intergenerational voices on our board—and we’ve been succeeding, too. One step we made to help recruit (and keep) the working generation is to offer board stipends, since board work does take a chunk of one's time, to make board service possible for people juggling commitments. I remember this stipend allowed me to shave a couple of hours off my full-time job when I started on the board, giving me time to do my board work.
Another thing I’ve realized—over this past year in particular—is that it is really important for me to be on the board as a person with Japanese heritage and so a minority in PT. I hope that if people who never thought they could run see me on the board, maybe they’ll say to themselves, “I can do that, too.”
This has been my first time ever being on a board, and I can say without exaggeration that I would be a different person without this experience. It has been super hard at times to juggle my relationship with my partner, toddler, household chores, my business, etc. I could not have done this much without a passion to learn and to explore new ideas and perspectives—a yearning that being on the board helps me fulfill. The unique group synergy of this board, with our continuous learning and our support of each other, has also been most rewarding,
Please feel free to reach out to any of us if you are interested in hearing more about what we do. It might just be the thing for you :)
Cooperatively yours,
Juri
For an overview of board work, please check out https://www.foodcoop.coop/boardservice.
For more information, email us at coopboard@foodcoop.coop.