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What to Do When You Are Burned Out but Not Ready to Quit
What to Do When You Are Burned Out but Not Ready to Quit
Board Roles | Explained
- 3 min reading time
Every Board Has Four Core Roles. Most People Only Understand One of Them.
When you join a board, someone hands you a list of titles. Chair. Vice Chair. Secretary. Treasurer.
What they don't always hand you is a clear explanation of what each title means. Like what you're responsible for, where your lane is, and what happens when you drift out of it.
Here's the plain-language version.
The Chair/President
The Chair runs the meeting. Full stop.
That means managing the agenda, recognizing speakers, keeping discussion on track, calling for votes, and making sure the meeting starts and ends like it's supposed to.
The Chair isn't there to dominate discussion or push a personal agenda. Their job is to facilitate and to make space for the board to do its work.
A good chair makes a meeting feel easy. A bad chair makes it feel like a hostage situation.
The Vice Chair/Co-Chair
The Vice Chair is the backup. They step in when the Chair is absent, and they often take on specific projects or committees as assigned.
In many organizations, the Vice Chair is also being developed as the next Chair so this role is a good place to pay attention and learn how the whole thing works.
The Secretary
The Secretary is the keeper of the record.
They take meeting minutes, maintain official documents, track attendance and quorum, and ensure that the board's decisions are accurately documented and accessible.
This is not a passive role. Good minutes protect the board. Sloppy minutes create problems, sometimes legal ones.
The Secretary is also often responsible for managing meeting notices and ensuring proper public posting requirements are met.
The Treasurer
The Treasurer oversees the financial health of the organization.
That means tracking the budget, presenting financial reports, flagging irregularities, and making sure the board understands where the money is going.
A Treasurer doesn't have to be an accountant. But they do need to be organized, detail-oriented and comfortable asking questions when something doesn't add up.
The Board Member
Often overlooked because it doesn't come with a fancy title, but it's the foundation everything else is built on.
A board member shows up prepared, participates in discussion, votes on matters before the board and follows through on what they said they'd do between meetings.
That last part is where most boards quietly fall apart.
Being a board member isn't a spectator sport. You're there to contribute, not watch the officers do governance while you nod along. Come with opinions. Read the agenda before you arrive. Do the thing you volunteered for.
No title required.
One More Thing
These roles work best when everyone understands not just their own job, but everyone else's.
Boards run into trouble when the Chair tries to do the Secretary's job, or the Treasurer operates in isolation. Clarity about roles creates better collaboration.
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