So You Might Join a Board... (discounts available)

Are you thinking about joining the board of directors for an organization? Does your organization want to grow the diversity of experience, skills, and backgrounds of your board of directors? Keep reading!

"When done well, a board of directors is a group of folks with a diverse set of skills, backgrounds, and experiences. But like many of society’s spaces, most boards are monocultural by design, built to serve the needs of a fraction of the community. A board can include members who don’t know much about the communities their nonprofit serves. We're grateful to know that many organizations are working to change that. They know that a board of directors should be full of folks who reflect the nonprofit and its community. That might be where you come in…"

This guide is for people who identify as Black, Indigenous, or as a Person of Color (BIPOC). You may be thinking about joining a board or someone is recruiting you into one. This guide is also for folks who identify as LGBTQ+ or queer. It's for poor folks or people who don't have an absurd amount of wealth.

It's definitely for people who are any combination of the above!

Itai Jeffries, PhD, and josh martinez have both joined, served, and consulted for boards of directors. We've brought our skills and experiences to this guide. It's full of questions, recommendations, and conversation starters you can have with folks on an organization's board of directors. The book is beautifully illustrated throughout by artist Trae Middlebrooks.

Discount Codes

We offer this guide barrier-free to our community. Please use the following sliding scale when making your purchase.

If you consider yourself BIPOC, POGM, LGBTQIA+, or low-/no-income, we wrote this book for you. Please use code POWER to buy this book for $1. If this price is a hardship, please email store@bethefuture.space for a free copy no questions asked.

If you work at an organization with an annual budget of less than $500,000, please use code BOARD to buy this book for $50.

If neither of those codes apply to you, please consider paying full price for the book.

About the authors

Itai Jeffries, PhD (they/them/y’all) is a yesah/Occaneechi sociologist, educator, researcher, and change consultant whose work spans tribal public health, 2SLGBTQ+ healthcare, systems capacity building, and organizational development. They are a co-creator of the Two Spirit Support Boat, and regularly work and consult with The Raven Collective and Emerging Equity. Itai and their sister steward an urban microfarm and raise chickens.

josh martinez (he/him) is a consultant and the founder of Future Emergent. A Brown and queer man with Mexican and Sri Lankan ancestry, josh collaborates with leaders to dismantle systems, processes, and programs that harm communities of color and historically oppressed groups. He writes about ideas to challenge, disrupt, and replace systems of oppression on his blog, be the future.

Trae Middlebrooks (he/him) is a Black queer comic and graphic artist, librarian, and scholar from High Point, North Carolina. Learn more about Trae's art on Instagram at @trae.drew.that.

Copyright © 2026 by Itai Jeffries and josh martinez. All rights reserved.