Founding Board Member (Volunteer)
Organization: The Names We Keep
Location: Oregon / Pacific Northwest
Position Type: Volunteer Board Service
Compensation: Unpaid
Estimated Commitment: Approximately 3–5 hours per month
About The Names We Keep
The Names We Keep is an emerging investigative nonprofit focused on cold missing persons cases involving people of color in the Pacific Northwest.
We take on a small number of cases each year so we can go deeply into each one. Our investigators find and interview witnesses, track down leads, build timelines, uncover new information, and pursue unanswered questions. We seek to work alongside families, communities, and law enforcement in the search for answers.
Our focus is intentionally narrow. The work is not.
Over time, The Names We Keep also intends to develop meaningful data and public resources around missing persons in the Pacific Northwest and become a source of training, knowledge, and collaboration for investigators doing this work.
We are now building our founding Board of Directors.
The Opportunity
We are looking for thoughtful, committed people who want to help build an organization from its beginning.
Founding board members will help establish the governance, financial stewardship, strategy, culture, and long-term direction of The Names We Keep.
This is a governing role, not a day-to-day operational position. Board members will work with and provide oversight of the Executive Director while helping ensure that the organization remains faithful to its mission, financially responsible, ethically grounded, and built to endure.
Responsibilities
Board members will:
- Attend and participate meaningfully in board meetings
- Provide strategic and organizational guidance
- Exercise fiduciary oversight of the organization
- Review budgets, financial information, policies, and major organizational decisions
- Help establish strong nonprofit governance practices
- Participate in fundraising and development efforts
- Build relationships and make introductions that may strengthen the organization
- Serve as an ambassador for The Names We Keep
- Protect confidential and sensitive information
- Identify and disclose potential conflicts of interest
- Support and evaluate the Executive Director while maintaining the distinction between governance and day-to-day operations
- Approach difficult questions with curiosity, independence, humility, and care
Who We Hope to Find
We want a board whose collective experience reflects the complexity of the work.
We are particularly interested in candidates with experience in one or more of the following areas:
- Nonprofit leadership and governance
- Fundraising, philanthropy, foundations, or grantmaking
- Finance or accounting
- Law and nonprofit compliance
- Criminal investigation, missing persons, or public safety
- Investigative journalism
- Documentary film, media, or storytelling
- Data, research, or technology
- Mental health, trauma, victim services, or family advocacy
- Community leadership
- Tribal and Indigenous communities
- Black, Latino, Asian American, Pacific Islander, and other communities historically underrepresented in missing persons coverage
- Lived experience with a missing loved one
Previous board experience is valuable but not required.
We are interested not only in what someone has done, but in how they think and how they work with others.
Fundraising
Fundraising is a shared responsibility.
Board members are not expected to arrive as professional fundraisers or have significant personal wealth. They are expected to participate.
That might mean making an introduction, developing a relationship, identifying a potential funder, attending a donor meeting, thanking supporters, helping tell our story, or learning how to make an ask.
Every board member should be willing to help build the financial foundation that makes the work possible.
What We Value
The work of The Names We Keep requires rigor, discretion, compassion, patience, and integrity.
We are looking for board members who can listen closely, disagree respectfully, ask difficult questions, admit what they do not know, and remain focused on the people the organization exists to serve.
We welcome differences in profession, background, age, geography, culture, and lived experience.
A Founding Board
This is an opportunity to do more than occupy a board seat.
The founding board will help determine what kind of institution The Names We Keep becomes and establish principles that future directors, staff, investigators, and supporters will inherit.
We are looking for people who understand the responsibility in that and find meaning in helping build something carefully.
If the mission speaks to you, we would like to hear from you.
To express interest: Please submit a résumé or brief professional background along with a short note explaining why the mission of The Names We Keep resonates with you and what perspective or experience you believe you could bring to the board.
Pay: $1.00 per hour
Work Location: Hybrid remote in Portland, OR 97210
