close window 
His face turning red with exertion, 58-year-old Michael T. Ivers blew up a bright yellow balloon in a Gleacher Center classroom Saturday to make a point about the uplifting affects of serving on a nonprofit board.
He noted that a flaccid balloon “is not half as good-looking” as an inflated one. “One of the things of value for you being on a nonprofit board is that it does give you life, it does put air into us,” he said.
Nonprofit groups themselves breathe life into communities, life that would not occur without them, said Ivers, who has served on the Chicago Housing Authority and Chicago Communities In School boards. Ivers’ main job is president of Goodcity, a faith-based organization that helps poor communities help themselves through the start-up of nonprofit groups.
A former priest for 27 years and the ex-pastor of St. Agatha Church in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood, Ivers preaches passionately about his new calling. He said board members of non-profits learn good judgment, how to make better decisions, and even how to be better public speakers. They also develop connections.
Ivers, speaking to students in the evening and weekend MBA programs, then pressed them to volunteer to blow up a handful of balloons. He clustered the purple, blue, white, and yellow orbs atop a table to make another point: the value of teamwork and networking through nonprofit board work.
“People will say, ‘Mike, isn’t it so terrible that we live in such a who-you-know world?’ And I’ll say, ‘Well, you know what? You can sit back and complain, or you can get off your butt and get to know somebody to improve your quality of life and the quality of life for others.’”
While experience used to be the main thing that corporations looked for in leaders, the trend today is to look for “character,” and helping others through nonprofit board work definitely builds character, Ivers said.
— Mary Sue Penn