Channel Your Complaints: How Committees Can Become a Board’s Best Friend – Dawn Lower, CMCA, AMS, PCAM
Do you have a community in your portfolio that seems to have more problems and complaints than the board and manager can handle? Are the complaints revolving around the same topic over and over? Is your board feeling stressed and pushed around by the community members?
Often a community has too many issues for the board to tackle, and homeowners push the board for resolution on topics that the board may acknowledge need to be addressed, but have neither the time, the interest, or the know-how to take on. Maybe they just simply don’t know where to start and feel overwhelmed.
With boards comprised of between 3 and 5 members (in rare cases, more) sometimes there is so much work that needs to be done, and not enough people to do it.
The above scenario sets the perfect stage for you to talk to your board about forming a committee. The first step is to identify why you need a committee in the first place. For example, is there no set process in place to manage the clubhouse and every resident has a different idea on how it should be done? You may suggest to your board to form a Clubhouse Committee. Landscape complaints can be the bane of every board’s existence, especially in a community that has a lot of common area or more complex than average landscaping. Perhaps a landscape committee is in order. This committee can work closely with the landscape contractor (with the board’s oversight); can solicit bids and recommend community landscape projects. Are residents clamoring for more social events or asking questions about crime prevention? A Social Committee can be a good place to utilize the talents of your more social residents, and a Security Committee can tackle crime prevention and safety measures. Residents who want to get information out to the community can form a Communications Committee to write a community newsletter (the newsletter should always be reviewed by the board and the manager prior to distribution).
Once the need for a committee is established, there are a few steps to get started, assuming your board is amenable to the idea.
- Propose the idea to the community members who seem most interested in the topic (also known as problem!) at hand. Ask if they would be interested in assisting the board by forming a committee.
- Recruit members. This is most effective by simply asking those who have shown interest and can be done at a board meeting or with a telephone call. Many times, people will step up simply because they are asked, even if they never thought about getting involved with the HOA previously. You can also try to recruit members through a newsletter article or email blast, but in my experience, a personal invitation from a board member or the manager is much more effective.
- Require the committee to write a charter and give them examples on what a committee charter looks like (be sure to check the community’s declarations to see if there is any mention of committees currently to serve as a guideline). A charter has a few elements: a. The purpose of the committee and the scope. This is important to avoid scope creep, where the committee can inadvertently exceed the scope of its authority. b. The type of committee— is it a permanent (standing) committee, or a temporary (ad hoc) committee? Standing committees are needed long-term. The best example would be an ACC Committee. Other committees may be needed to research a one-time project, like the conversion of part of the common area to a playground, for example, and can disband once the project is completed. c. The number of members, their term lengths, and their positions d. How the committee will keep the board informed of what they are working on. Will they provide written reports, and how frequently? e. The budget of the committee, if any. Some committees have line items in the budget—a social committee, for example, may have a budget for community events. Or if the committee will not have a budget, it needs to be clearly stated that no spending will take place without the authority of the board.
The charter, once written, should be forwarded to the board to formally approve. The exercise of writing the charter is important because it allows the opportunity to close the gap between what committee members think they will be working on and what the board would like them to be working on. It is acceptable for the board to make edits to the charter before approving it.
Committees can be a great way to channel residents who seem to want to be involved but are intimidated by the responsibility of being on the board. Committees are less formal, and their meetings are not usually observed by others, so there may be less pressure. In addition to taking some pressure off the board and the manager, you will find that committee members will often become enthusiastic researchers. Sometimes, they may discover through their own research that an idea they once were so set on, may not be feasible (a gate or a swimming pool seemed like a great idea, for instance, until the committee realized the cost involved).
Last, committees are great for community engagement. The more residents feel they are involved in the process, the more they take pride in their own community. They will also begin to see the HOA as less adversarial, as they are now involved in effecting change in their own neighborhood.
For committees to be most effective, the board will need to recognize the committee’s efforts and provide feedback and direction in a timely manner. Also, it’s a good idea for the board to allow committees to be involved in the annual meeting and to publicly praise the work and contributions of committee members.
