Ask a board in September what worries them about the election and very few say ballots. They say they cannot find anyone to run.
The usual diagnosis is apathy. In smaller communities particularly, that diagnosis is almost always wrong, and acting on it guarantees another year of the same problem. People who show up to complain about the landscaping are not apathetic. They have simply concluded that board service is not for them, and nothing the association has ever sent them suggested otherwise.
The job description owners have in their heads
Most owners who decline believe they would personally become responsible for the community.
They picture being stopped at the mailbox about a neighbor’s fence. They picture approving a roof replacement they are not qualified to assess. They picture being the person who has to say no about an assessment, and then living four doors down from everyone affected.
Almost none of that is accurate, and the correction is a single sentence from Doug Jenkins in this month’s Board Governance Review: "Winning the election provides the opportunity to serve. It does not provide individual authority to act for the association."
Acting alone, a director cannot commit the association’s money, authorize a repair, hire or fire a contractor, waive somebody’s assessment, or instruct the manager. They cannot promise an owner an outcome, and they cannot speak for the board without being asked to. Even the president operates inside authority the board has granted.
A director is one vote on a governing body. That is a far smaller commitment than the one owners decline, and most of them have never heard it stated.
Be honest about the time
Overcorrecting is its own mistake. Boards that pitch service as effortless lose the director within a year.
The real answer is that it varies. Directors review financial reports, proposals, contracts and meeting materials. They may join workshops, committees, planning sessions, property inspections and educational programs. Some months are quiet. Others bring a major project, an insurance renewal, budget season, or an issue that generates twelve emails before breakfast.
Doug’s framing is useful because it is not a sales pitch: directors do not need to be available every minute, but they do need to be prepared for the meetings they attend. Preparation is the actual commitment. Reviewing the agenda beforehand, rather than for the first time while someone waits for an answer, is most of what separates a functioning board from a slow one.
What a board can do between now and the next cycle
Four things, none of which require a budget.
Explain the role before you need candidates. By the time the first notice goes out, your candidate pool is already set. Anyone who was going to consider it had to have considered it by then.
Use committees as the on ramp. An owner who has served on a landscape or social committee has seen
how board decisions actually get made and is far more likely to stand. Committees are the cheapest recruitment tool an association has and most communities underuse them.
Say what the board actually does. Directors set direction, adopt policies,
approve the budget and the service level it funds, and oversee the professionals. Management handles daily operations. Owners who understand that split stop imagining themselves as the person taking the maintenance call.
Share the October issue. Doug wrote it to be forwarded to owners rather than read by directors, and he asked boards to share it freely. It covers what a director does, what the election requires, and what the first thirty days of service look like. Send it out well ahead of your notice, put it on the community website, and mention it at the meeting before election season starts.
The part worth saying out loud
Board service also builds the community in ways that do not appear in any statute. Directors shape the culture through how they communicate, how they listen, and whether they treat disagreement as useful. Doug makes the point plainly: people may not remember every motion the board approved, but they will remember how the board treated them.
Owners who hear that, rather than a 60 day legal notice, are the ones who end up on your ballot. They are also the ones who will carry
the compliance work already on the calendar.
If your board would like help putting an owner communication plan together before the next election cycle, we would rather have that conversation in the quiet months than in week eight.
