8 Essential HOA Board Member Traits

Serving on an HOA Board provides a way to take an active role in maintaining your community’s value, security, and aesthetics. 

In this position, with a wide range of personalities and perspectives -- not to mention a detailed set of regulatory guidelines to adhere to -- it can become challenging to accomplish what you set out to do when you initially volunteered.

To be a successful HOA board member requires a specific set of traits like these listed below:

1. Goal-Oriented: Setting goals in work and life help do to more because there is a formal list of things you want to get done or where you want to make certain improvements. It involves looking ahead and making plans that guide the intended results.

That same trait can be useful in the association management setting to focus on each quarter and year to make your community better. For example, if you set property maintenance and amenity upgrade goals that align with your available resources, then you will spend more time enjoying the community rather than dealing with a costly repair crisis.

As a board member, work with other members to establish a clear vision to complete quarterly goals. Include community members in getting feedback on what they would like to improve or change. 

2. Financially Literate: With a significant inflow of monthly association dues, a board member must manage and budget that money in a way that ensures a fiscally healthy community. That means you need to know how to oversee financials, maintain cash flow and reserve funds, and make sound financial decisions about how and where to spend money.

The level of financial knowledge and skill necessary is akin to what’s required to operate a business. And, like a business, you will have stakeholders (community members who pay their monthly dues) to answer to about how you spend their money.

Before taking on the role of an HOA board member, it’s a good idea to increase your financial literacy through an online course, books, and/or workshop. You can also learn from others in the property management industry that hold classes about HOA financial management.

3. Open-Minded and Flexible: No one has been successful in business by staying the same or sticking with the same processes that they’ve always used. That’s because everything is changing around them, and what might have worked well once doesn’t forever. But, if you are open to change, you’ll be more likely to create an innovative, forward-thinking HOA.

While an HOA community often feels like its own world, the reality is that it is part of a bigger society where trends and changes impact those who live there. For example, with the advancing importance to be more environmentally conscious, you, as a board member, should be considering community upgrades like solar panels, LED lighting, or drought-resistant landscape materials.

Also, being open-minded means recognizing the value diversity plays rather than seeing the differences as conflict waiting to happen. Each board member has different backgrounds and experiences and varied skills and knowledge that they bring to the table. Appreciating and leveraging these wide-ranging perspectives will only make your community better.

4. Fair: Emotions often run high among community members. If they are are dissatisfied with how issues are being handled, then they will vocalize these to the Board. It’s critical that you are able to look at situations rather than the people involved in them, using the Association’s rules and regulations as your decision-making framework.

Knowing how to balance individual and community needs is integral to board member success because you are looking to the overriding impact on everyone. That means having the ability to be firm and tough, yet agreeable and willing to work with members of the community.

Every situation you encounter as a board member will be different. You have other board members that you can confer with as a checks and balances system. And, with the right property management company partner, you also have an more advisor to help ensure you have addressed everything fairly.

5. Consistent, Collaborative, and Communicative: These three traits are important on an individual basis but even better if you have -- and use -- them all. All three traits can build trust and understanding with others, including other board members and those in your HOA community.

As a board member, being consistent means always delivering information and completing your work when and where you say. Collaboration and communication involve being transparent with information related to the community.

Providing regular updates like newsletters and emails as well as asking for feedback keeps all community members involved. Also, creating committees that include more community members is another way to exchange ideas and give everyone a voice.

6. Professionalism: When situations become heated in a community, members often become angry and take it out on those that they can see. In this case, that’s board members. As a result, you need to develop a thick skin and not take these things personal. Instead, in your leadership role, it’s important to remain professional and courteous to everyone regardless of what they say.

The best approach is to stay calm, ask questions, listen to what’s said and, if possible, look to provide a solution. Look at each community member as a successful business would view their customers, and you may be able to diffuse the anger and win them over.

7. Honesty: It’s important to be ethical in everything that you do as a board member and as a representative of the HOA community. This means adhering to all the bylaws, covenants, and regulations that govern the board and the community.

It’s important to understand and value every legal aspect of your role even if you may not always agree with every rule. Even outside your board role, it’s important to value honesty in everything that you say and do because it reflects on your reputation in the community.

8. Tech-Savvy: You may already be a lover of gadgets and like to stay current on the latest technology like virtual assistants, connected devices, and more. At the very least, you must be willing to evolve with the times as a board member, understanding that technology can improve community relations. For example, that might mean offering a community app, digitizing all forms and board paperwork, providing mobile devices like tablets for board members, and/or using live stream video feeds for board meetings.

Besides being aware of what technology is out there, even more beneficial is having a board member who is savvy enough to understand how it can be used to benefit the HOA. This includes increasing transparency so everyone is aware of what the board is doing through shared digital documents and information access. Also, technology can enhance and speed communication across multiple channels as well as improve member experience through secure online payments.

Traits in Action

You can develop and improve these HOA Board Member traits over time. These admirable traits may get you elected to the board, and they can influence and enact greater change in your HOA community.

For more information about community associations, please visit our website at: AvalonWeb.com

Improve Community Pride

How to Build Community Pride
by: Mark D. Jones, AMS®, PCAM®

Community Pride is fostered over time, with communication and through a series of achievements that bring a sense of belonging to the homeowners. Where there is a high level of community pride, communities will have much more voluntary compliance with the governing documents, so raising the level of pride is critical to a smooth running community and reducing administrative costs.

First and foremost, regular positive communication (please note I use the word "positive") of the accomplishments that the association completes helps the owners understand what you are doing for them. A good example would be outlining things that were fixed or installed, or that a savings was achieved. Members will never know what you don't tell them, and often have a myopic view of the community. It is the Association's job to communicate to the Members those accomplishments they would otherwise never know about. Try to avoid turning the communication (email, newsletter, etc.) into a "rule of the month reminder". Most Members that are breaking the rules know they are, and it is best to reduce communicating negative aspects to the membership, which does the opposite of instilling pride.

When I spoke in China about community associations, they had an English TV channel that I called the "Good News Channel", it was all good news and left me feeling happy, quite a contrast to watching our evening news. Think "Good News" when communicating with the members.
Begin a "Home of the Month" or "Home of the Quarter" award program. Put a sign in the winner's front yard, put a photo of the home on the website or in the newsletter, send them a $25 gift card to Home Depot. Receiving recognition for doing something that increases the curb appeal within the community and creating a sense of competition inspires Members to improve and builds pride once they receive recognition.

Engage Members by asking for their input prior to a change of rules, policies or services. By example, think of the difference for the homeowner; you publish that the Association plans on removing trees whose roots are creating problems and would like everyone's input at the next meeting prior to a decision being made. You have informed the Member of your intention to remove trees, let them know the reason, and asked them for their input. In many communities, the first time a Member finds out about tree removal is when they walk onto their back porch with a cup of coffee and see their favorite tree being chain-sawed down. Engagement, or at least the offer of engagement does wonders to make a Member feel prideful.

Arrange volunteers to help with city events, or a charity function, then communicate that to the membership. If possible make sure the local paper knows about it so the owners can read something positive about their community.

Send out "thank you" letters. If the Association inspects the community for violations, send thank you letters to those Members that have improved their home or are properly maintaining their homes. If the only time the Member hears from the association it is bad news (as in the case of a violation letter) - it will be harder for that Member to feel prideful about their community.

There are hundreds of other small changes you can make, but these are the top ones.

March Landscape Tips

Your turf is ready to go on its summer growth marathon. It has more sunlight, enough moisture, and it is now time to make your second application of turf fertilizer of the year. Look for a mix labeled 16-6-8 or similar. Broad leaf weeds will likely be popping up, so you may find and try fertilizer with weed control products all in one bag in the home stores. A favorite is "Turf Supreme 16-6-8 plus trimec, and can be found only at specialty sprinkler supply stores open to the public (Ewing, John Deer, Hydroscape, and Crop Production Services formerly L&M are good examples). 

The rain, morning dew, and tender new growth bring out slugs and snails.  They now have pet safe slug and snail bait that works well and the active ingredient is basically just iron. The warmer longer days and added fertilizer has made your turf start growing at a more rapid pace.  In March you must go back to mowing our lawn every week again. If you did not sharpen your mower blade, do it now. Take advantage of the pleasant weather and possible rain, and plant to your hearts content. Almost any shrubs will do well if planted now.

Bonus tip:  To keep your blue-flowered hydrangea blue, acidify the soil now. Apply aluminum sulfate, which is often packaged expressly for hydrangeas, following label directions. You can also use cottonseed meal, but we do not find it as effective. 

Download the Avalon Mobile App!

Avalon has rolled out our mobile app for every community we manage.  Instant access to association information, communications and notifications.   Here is a short video overview: Community Base

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