Maddy Roche: [00:00:00] Welcome to Childfree Life By Design. Today, we’re talking about how to step into civic life with purpose, how to find the causes that genuinely move you, and how the path from volunteer to board member can shape both your community and the life you’re building. I’m Maddy Roche, and in this episode, I’m joined by Lemon Price. We’ll be covering today how to identify organizations worth your time, what to expect when you are a board member, and what it looks like to design a Childfree life that includes meaningful impact that may even evolve over time. If you’ve ever wanted to get more involved in your community but didn’t know where to start, or if you’ve been volunteering for years and have wondered what it would be like to move more towards a leadership position at an organization, and possibly serve on the board of that organization, this conversation will give you a clear path forward.
Intro: From Childfree Insights, this is Childfree Life by Design, the go-to resource for building the Childfree life you want. Every [00:01:00] episode gives you practical guidance, clear direction, and meaningful conversations to help you live intentionally and design a future on your terms. This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please consult your advisor before implementing any ideas heard on this podcast.
Maddy Roche: Joining me today is Lemon Price. Lemon is a civic leader, an ICF-trained leadership coach, and a certified public speaker whose work sits at the intersection of institutional influence, intentional living, and women’s leadership development. She hosts the Well Lived Society podcast, ranked in the top 2% of podcasts globally, and has been featured twice in Forbes for her work in leadership development. She’s also the founder of Civic and Board Fellowship, a six-week experience helping accomplished women enter rooms where decisions are made. She currently serves as a public relations chair for the Junior League of Savannah Centennial Year, and is a legislative liaison for the Georgia State Public Affairs Committee. She’s been in civic [00:02:00] rooms since she was 10 years old, and she’s here to help us figure out how to get into yours. Lemon, welcome to the show.
Lemon Price: Thank you for having me, Maddy I appreciate you.
Maddy Roche: Of course. Let’s start where we always begin. Lemon, do you mind introducing yourself and some of the work that you do?
Lemon Price: I’m Lemon. I live in Savannah, I am currently in graduate school for my third master’s, which is really fun. I know, I’m just racking them up. It’s like Infinity Stones at this point, I think. But it’s in public administration, and then I added a graduate certificate in nonprofit management, leadership, and innovation, which is really fun. So I’m taking way more than normal people do. Normal graduate school is three classes. I’m like, “I’ll take four. That sounds so good.” And then I’m a member of the Junior League of Savannah, and then I also, I just found out I’m moving from being their legislative liaison to being their trainer. So now I’ll be training all of the junior leagues in Georgia on how to do legislative work and advocacy work, and all that kind of fun stuff.
Maddy Roche: Wow, [00:03:00] impressive. Okay, thank you. And Lemon, I was doing my research for this podcast. I was getting more and more excited to talk with you. It’s not every day that someone on their website says that they’ve been kind of a civic leader since they were young. And even just hearing you say so confidently that you help people, navigate that system, can you tell us a bit about what brought you into this space?
Lemon Price: I think I was born into it. So my grandparents were very community involved, every politician like just came over, like, “This is my Uncle Bruce,” but meanwhile like he’s the mayor. Or like my mom’s ex-boyfriend was the mayor. So it’s just like normal for me. When I was little, my parents actually had to put me in speech therapy because I was telling people, going around at three, asking if they had voted and telling them it was their constitutional duty to vote. And so they were like, “You had to go to speech therapy ’cause you were using vocabulary that like a three-year-old mouth cannot say, and you were getting frustrated by it.” And I was like, “That feels very on brand for me.” And so when, [00:04:00] my mom coached cheerleading my whole life, I was a cheerleader, shocker. I feel like when I tell people that they’re like, “That totally tracks.” And so, but my mom didn’t know anything about cheerleading. She just knew that I wanted to cheer, so she was like, “Well, I’ll volunteer to coach so that way I can spend time with you.” And so by the time I was in the sixth grade, my sister was cheering too. At that point she’s four years younger than me. And so they were like, “I actually don’t know how to do choreography. I actually don’t know how to teach stunting. I don’t know how to do any of those things.” So I was like head coaching for like the second and third graders when I was in the sixth grade. I’m making parent phone calls and sizing uniforms and they were like, “We’re the adults in charge on paper, but like you’re actually in charge.” And now I look at sixth graders, I’m like, “Who let you actually do that? That is deeply concerning.” And so it’s always been just normal for me to do that. And I think it helps, too, I grew up in New Jersey, so I was, like, very close to DC, Philadelphia. Being surrounded by so much history, I think [00:05:00] encourages you to be more involved.
Maddy Roche: Yeah. You can, you can feel it as you fly towards DC. This feeling of, “Ooh, I need to be a bit more involved than I am.” I say that living in, in Montana. I’m really interested, Lemon, our audience are primarily Childfree people, that are really designing a life of their dreams and a life of their own choice. And part of our mission on this podcast is to plant as many seeds of opportunity into the ears of our audience members about how you can live an alternative, fun, engaging, and aligned life. And, we really wanted to have you on the podcast to talk a bit about board service, and really what that means, what the role is, and why it can be so satisfying for people, and how women and others can enter the boardroom when they’re not always, having the doors open for them themselves. Would you mind talking a bit about the work that you do around board service and how our audience can start thinking about it?
Lemon Price: Yeah, of course. So I am a big believer, in the fact that [00:06:00] our time is very limited and it’s precious, and what we do with it, I think speaks volumes about who we are and what we value. And so I really focus on what are you passionate about? What are the causes you care about? What’s something that’s happening in your community that is bothering you? Because there is something in your community right now that’s probably bothering you. I know for me the hot topic is everybody just got their property tax bill, and we’re in the middle of primaries. And so everybody was like, “I should be more involved to know what’s going on with my property taxes.” And so knowing what you’re kind of passionate about, and then volunteering with intention or making your skill set kind of known to people so they can tap you for things that they actually want and need. I think knowing the strategic plan of an organization that you wanna be a part of, even your city, knowing kind of where people are going and then where you fill the gap is where my sweet spot kind of lands, and how do you position yourself to volunteer with intention. So like for Junior League, prime [00:07:00] example, I went to one meeting at the Capitol with the State Public Affairs Committee, and they were like, “We need somebody who has legislative experience. We need…” You know, they started listing things that they needed, and I was like, “I have legislative experience. I’ve been doing it for 10 years. I’ve had federal legislation passed, I’m right here, I could do that.” Boom, immediately within like two weeks, they were like, “Great, you have a seat on the board.” And then they just renewed my board seat for a bigger role. And so I was intentional. I was just like, “I’m in the right space. I’m here with something I’m passionate about, something I care about.” And when the opportunity came, because I asked the question “What do you need? I can see we’re voting on the slate. There’s not every role is fulfilled, so what are you actually looking for? What does this entail?” And then being like, “I can, I can fulfill that.” Or knowing who I can point it to, which I think networking too is very important, ’cause I don’t think you should serve every board that asks you. Just don’t do that. You’ll burn yourself out and get resentful. So being also a really good [00:08:00] networker and finger pointer is also how I think you get way more opportunity than you could have ever had to begin with.
Maddy Roche: Mm-hmm. Well said. I’m interested in kind of how you describe what a board is, what the role is. How do you think about it? Because as a volunteer, you don’t really have access into, the strategic plan, say, of an organization. I mean, you can go find it, especially if they’re a nonprofit, but what’s the difference between just volunteering for an organization and actually being asked to be on a board? Like, what kind of expectations are there of board members?
Lemon Price: This is gonna sound so unsexy when I say it, because everybody thinks being a board member is really cool, your name goes in the press release, you’re, like, on the website, it’s really fun. But it’s literally just about governance. That is a board’s only focus, is on governance, and making sure things are flowing the way it’s supposed to, and supporting the volunteers or your heads of a committee to make sure that they have what they need to carry out the mission, and things are not [00:09:00] getting, like, effed up, basically. Like, you wanna make sure that things are running smoothly, it’s not super sexy by any stretch of the imagination. You’re not taking cool photos at the bank when you’re doing it, but it’s how the organization functions because you’re doing this very, unsexy job.
Maddy Roche: Why would you say that that is an important role for folks to lean in more towards the organizations and the missions that they feel called for? Like, why is board leadership so important?
Lemon Price: It’s where decisions actually happen, right? I’m on the student advisory board for my college too. We’re building leadership training for the entire college. So like as a board member, I get to have a say in the leadership training that the college will implement across the entire department. I get to have a role in the training, the direction of it, the requirements of it. That’s where being on the board is really helpful, but then it opened me up to other things. So because I was nominated for the student [00:10:00] advisory board, this is the first student advisory board the college has ever had. And so I couldn’t actually pitch for it. I couldn’t have done anything for it. It was because in six weeks in graduate school, I’d built a reputation that got me nominated from the head of the department to be on this board. With that, then I got asked to go to a leadership conference that the college was hosting, and I was an older student there. A lot of it was undergraduate students, which makes sense. And so then somebody from the alumni office reached out and they were like, “Hey, I actually wanna have a conversation with you because you’re, you know, 10 years older than most of the women in this room. Tell me about your experience with this leadership conference.” And I was kind, but gave honest feedback that a lot of what they taught did not apply to me, ’cause a lot of these girls were looking for their first job and how to dress for an interview and how to network. And so then they were like, “Well, listen, we actually have more opportunities for you because you’re non-traditional. You have all this experience.” So now the college is booking me for speaking engagements and paired [00:11:00] me with an undergrad mentor and things like that because I built a quick reputation, got myself on the first student advisory board, have an impact in leadership development, and now the college is putting me into other leadership roles at the college.
Maddy Roche: That all makes so much sense that once you kind of get in front of people, they start seeing you as who you are, which is a highly competent, motivated woman. Tell us a bit about reputation building and what tips and tools do you coach your, audience on having to be able to really maximize reputation building?
Lemon Price: I treat leadership development as a whole life practice. So I think that it is in everything you do. It’s how you dress. It is how you steward your home. It is how you are showing up in a casual setting with peers or with other faculty or coworkers, or it’s how you are showing up at your HomeGoods. I ran into one of the faculty members at HomeGoods with his wife and [00:12:00] baby and he’s one of the people who nominated me and then sent me some really lovely emails and, they nominated me for a county leadership training and things because we’ve built rapport because I’m consistently showing up. I’m the same way at home that I am at the grocery store, that I am at the college, that I am at work, that I’m at networking events. Like, I am the same person ’cause I think that it matters. And so when I think about reputation building, it really is in the consistency and it starts at home. ‘Cause if, like, my home life was in complete disarray, even doing this interview, like, we moved my office into my bedroom. There is no way I would’ve recorded if, my bed wasn’t made or if, there was a stack of laundry behind me. I can’t show up the best if things are in chaos. And so I make sure, my life is completely handled so that when I go out to have conversations, I can feel good about putting my best foot forward with other people.
Maddy Roche: I love that idea of it being a whole life practice and, no [00:13:00] one in the audience should ask me if my dishes are done or laundry is folded because even without children, I cannot manage that, my friend Lemon. It is impossible.
Lemon Price: It’s literally the worst. I will say I feel so good if I consider it like a banner month, week, whatever, if I immediately unload like the dryer and then put it away. That’s… We 100% We want a hundred percent sometimes restart the dryer a couple times, guys. So just know I do that plenty of times, but at least I don’t see it. And like, it’s, I can’t see it. It’s, it’s in a place that it belongs.
Maddy Roche: I totally agree with you about, how you show up to one thing is how you show up to everything is kind of a motto that I’ve had my whole life, or how you do something is how you do everything. And wanting to make sure that you really do have a consistent persona and, so long as that persona’s authentic. And I think that’s where people in leadership can really spot whether you’re authentic or are you just trying to play a game. And I imagine in these spaces that you hang out in, authenticity’s really [00:14:00] important, and commitment to mission is really important. I have a few kinda tactical questions about board leadership. Should people expect to be paid for their time on a board?
Lemon Price: No. So it’s actually illegal to pay your board.
Maddy Roche: Really?
Lemon Price: It is. I think it’s just for nonprofits, but it is illegal to pay your board. So there’s actually a ton of laws around nonprofit governance, so you for sure want to check, your state laws around, nonprofit governance. There’s a lot of stuff, for grant writers for nonprofits, I’ve seen people be like, “Well, can I hire a grant writer that way if we get a grant? Can they take a portion of the grant?” You can’t. Grants are, like, very specific for what the money is for. So it’s the same thing with your board members. So you actually can’t pay them. Board members do have a fiduciary responsibility to the nonprofit. So if you’re on the board and, the board gets sued, it’s the board who’s in the lawsuit. So just know that, like, you’re taking that responsibility on and not getting paid for it.
Maddy Roche: Hmm. Is there insurance that we should have if we’re a board [00:15:00] member? Is there anything that we should be doing kind of on our side around due diligence to prepare for that kind of responsibility?
Lemon Price: So your organization should have somebody, and you should be covered through the organization, especially ’cause the board is volunteer, you’re rotating in and out. But I’ve seen plenty of people be like, “I actually don’t agree with this,” and they’ve documented it in the minutes. Like, I personally did not agree with this decision to alleviate some of the fiduciary responsibility for themselves.
Maddy Roche: Fascinating.
Lemon Price: Yeah, so you want minutes. Make sure minutes are taken and they are very accurate.
Maddy Roche: Sure. And how would you coach someone if it’s their first time within a board, where to inject themselves and how and when to speak up and hold their line, and, what’s their role as a new board member?
Lemon Price: It depends on the role that you have, right? ‘Cause it’s, you’re not just like, okay, Maddy’s on the board, right? There’s roles, so there’s usually the treasurer, your president’s usually on the board. There’s usually, an at-large director, like a member at large, something like that. So [00:16:00] depending on your role, I feel like gives you kind of some leeway. But I think it’s really important, one, to know your bylaws for your organization. I keep a copy of every organization I’m a part of’s bylaws literally in a Google Drive on my phone, so I have it if I ever need to reference something really quick, ’cause I do wanna make sure that I sound intelligent, especially ’cause I’m working with multiple nonprofits. I wanna make sure I know their bylaws specifically. And then also know your own, like, moral compass, right? So I just took, a class on ethics, and it was like above all else, you have an ethical duty to yourself. Can you look your friends and family in the face and be okay with the decision you made? Can you look at yourself in the mirror and be okay with yourself with the decision that you made? And if you’re not, you need to speak up. I have a friend who did that. She put herself down, was like, “I do not agree with this, like morally, ethically, you know, financially,” whatever it is, and had that recorded in the minutes. And so you have to be okay with the decisions that you’re making, and if you’re not, then you have to speak [00:17:00] up and say something about it. And again, I think it depends on your relationship and how long you’ve been a board member, ’cause the board should be rotating on a regular basis. At least two years you should be on some sort of a board, before roles change. Like my, for Junior League, I’m still on the board, but my role is completely different now. I went from being their legislative liaison to the trainer, totally different set of rules and things that I’m responsible for as a board member. So I think it really depends on the organization, the culture of the organization. I think that matters a lot, too. Is there a good place for dissent? Are you allowed to have, conflicting opinions? And I think knowing those before you agree to be a part of the board, which is why I think volunteering with intention matters, you need to really know the culture. Is this okay for me to speak up, or am I then going to become a pariah, and now I’m, like, kicked out of the castle?
Maddy Roche: Really important. Thank you. So we’ve talked a bit about volunteering with intention, possibly getting [00:18:00] tapped into these rooms and having the door open for us. Is there a place or how would you coach folks around finding boards that they may want to serve on and do draft a resume for it? Like, how do you apply to get into these rooms if you’re not volunteering for the organization already or known to the organization?
Lemon Price: There’s a couple ways you could go. One, I think start by volunteering, right? Make yourself an asset because that is how you’re going to end up getting tapped, right? Know the strategic plan. Know what the board is missing, too, I think that’s really important. So, like, that was a conversation, a part of our nominating committee for Junior League, and they were like, “We actually didn’t have anybody as trainer.” They’re like, “You have training experience, so, like, we would like to switch your role to being the trainer because we know your resume and we know what you bring to the table, so we would like to switch you.” That’s fine and dandy. So I think volunteering and letting people get to know you, what you bring to the table, filling the gap, like again, knowing, knowing what the gap is on the board is one way, [00:19:00] and then also networking with people who are currently on the board. So usually a nonprofit will have their board listed on their website, or there’s usually a press release if they have a good communications person. There should be a press release that has gone out with who is on the board. Go find them on LinkedIn. Ask them to coffee. Like, buy them a cup of coffee, right? For like 5, 10 bucks. Just, like, actually get to know them, right? I don’t want you to, like, get and sit and have coffee and be like, “So, Maddy it was so great to meet you. I thank you for being on the, I don’t know, sea turtle conservation board. Are there any openings? I would love to be a part of it.” Let’s not do that, right? But, go in with a little tact to build some relationship so that way– And again, let those people know what your skill set is. Have conversations, talk about your interests, your hobbies, former work you’ve done, things like that, so they can get to know you. So you can either, A, be a good finger pointer for them when something opens up that you think they’d be a good fit for, or when an opportunity arises and they could say, “Oh my gosh, Maddy would be so good for this because [00:20:00] XYZ.” And then you’re getting the call.
Maddy Roche: Okay. And how much time should people expect to spend if they’re chosen or identified to being, on a board? How many hours per month should someone expect to prepare, engage, and support that board?
Lemon Price: So I would say it depends on the organization. At, boards are kind of minimal, right? I maybe spend like two, three hours a month on each of them, that I’m currently on. But then there’s another nonprofit that I’m helping with their grant writing process that is hours of my time because I, I gave myself, I was like, “I will help you with this grant writing.” So for them it is a ton of time, but on average I would say like I’m maybe two to three hours a month.
Maddy Roche: Got it. Okay. Okay, very helpful.
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Maddy Roche: I’d love to talk to you a bit about your coaching and just what coaching is and, pivot a bit away from board service. I have been a business coach in my former life, and I love coaching so much, and I think it’s so fun to have, a certified, ICF certified coach on the podcast. So, Lemon, kind of pivoting a bit over to your, your coach role, could you define what a coach is and how it’s different than, say, a therapist?
Lemon Price: I think my job as, like, a coach, is to help you just figure out what it is that you want, and, be a good guide. I don’t wanna give you the answers. I’ve hired coaches like that who are like, “Let me tell you the answer,” and then I was resentful and I hated it because it wasn’t actually me. I was taking on their ideas and [00:22:00] their persona, and it didn’t fit me. And so I never wanna do that to somebody, ever. I don’t wanna tell you what you should be passionate about. I don’t wanna tell you what direction you should go into, especially everybody’s season of life looks different. Your capacity is different. So I really think my job is to just help you figure out what it is that you want, and then how do you actually get what you want without me being like, “Here’s steps one through five that you should take.” ‘Cause everybody’s situation is just so different.
Maddy Roche: And since we were talking about boards and volunteer service, how do we bridge the two together? How would you coach someone in identifying what their passion is? It’s not unusual for people to say, “I don’t know what I wanna do, both with my life or with my spare time or with my resources.” How do you, what framework do you have to help people work through that?
Lemon Price: So first, you’re not actually married to any of these, right? So I think that’s what’s really cool is like maybe if you are on a board and you’re there for two years, okay, it’s two years of your life. You’re volunteering two to three hours a month of and then people [00:23:00] resign from boards all the time. I mean, that does happen if you’re like, “This actually isn’t a good fit.” It’s okay. So I don’t want people to put pressure on themselves to be like, “I care about one topic right now, and this is the only topic I can care about for the rest of my days.” It’s just not realistic to do. So for me, when I was super young, before I was married, my big passion, I deeply care about sea turtle conservation. I wrote my master’s thesis on it in my- for my first master’s. I care deeply because I grew up on the ocean, so I care about people not running over turtles or like disturbing the dunes when they’re laying their eggs. But then, once I like got married and, my husband came with two kids, and I saw the literacy rate decline, and that stressed me out. And saw the use of AI and saw, the Chromebooks in every classroom known to mankind. That is all the kids use are Chromebooks, and it stresses me out to the umpteenth degree because I’m thinking about workplace productivity and the types of jobs they can have in the future. If [00:24:00] you can’t read, there are certain jobs like you just can’t have them. And so that to me has now become like I- my deep concern. My very, very deep concern. Do I still care about sea turtles? 110%. But I’m like that’s not where I think my focus has to be right now. I think my focus has to be on like the literacy rate or like a fresh food shortage because that, that’s also a big problem. And so it’s okay to, I think, pivot. And so when I talk to any of my clients, I’m like, “Well, what’s in front of you right now? What do you care about right now?” And typically, I will say there is like a through line, right? There is like this common thing that people seem to care about. So when I’m like, “I care about literacy, fresh food, and sea turtles,” you’re like, “That doesn’t seem to make sense.” But I care about living things. I care about preserving life, and I care about seeing life thrive, and that seems to be, you know, in any capacity, right? So if I’m looking at a community garden or a sea turtle [00:25:00] or the literacy rate decline, it is about improving life outcomes. And so that’s like my through line. And so you’ll only ever see me volunteer in that sort of capacity. And so we do, we look at your through line. What have you bounced around between? What are you, what are you passionate about? And it’s okay for your passions to shift and change depending on the situation you’re in, what’s right in front of you, what is happening in your community, what capacity you have. All those things are allowed to shift and change. And so don’t feel like you are married to whatever you’re passionate about today.
Maddy Roche: Lemon, thank you. I love that permission, and I think that’s the role of a coach, is to grant permission, for people to evolve and to embrace that evolution. And I can see it even in myself that sometimes we feel stagnant because we, committed to one thing several years ago, and we feel pressure for wanting to kinda stay in that world. When really, I mean, you can hear it in your voice and through your examples of just how every new experience has opened new doors and taught you new things. And [00:26:00] so, the more we can give ourselves permission to just let the universe deliver what may be our next opportunity, that could be really, meaningful. So just couple takeaways from, our conversation, Lemon. I appreciate your conversation with, me around the difference between volunteering and board service, some of those tactical questions of how to prepare for being on the board, what to expect. I loved your coaching around, how to learn the organization, both the culture and the bylaws. And then most importantly, just how to trust yourself that you don’t need to justify what your interests are, but there are probably doors that can be opened and rooms for you to be in for you to help lead organizations, before we wrap, Lemon, we usually at the end of these conversations with a guest like you do, a little thing called the deliberate detail, and it’s a segment where we ask you to just share one intentional small thing that you’re doing right now to design an amazing life for yourself. What is it? Why does it matter? What does it cost, if anything?
Lemon Price: So for me, because I grew up on the beach, I have to be on water on a regular basis. [00:27:00] So my husband and I, we actually belong to a boat club. It is the best thing I’ve ever done, I have an app, and I can just log in and be like, “I’m coming to pick up a boat in an hour.” And I just pull up to the dock, and we can take boats out globally. So I could fly to Costa Rica and take a boat out. I could go to Spain and take a boat out, ’cause it’s a global boat club. So it is hands down the best investment I have ever made in my life. It cost me just under 400 a month. But for me, I’m like, “This is better than going to therapy. This is better. I will forfeit every manicure, pedicure if I had to.” And this is my, my favorite thing. And then also, it’s really good for networking. They throw quarterly boat parties only for members, and so I am constantly going, or if they’re opening a new marina, we’re going, and just meeting people who also have boat memberships.
Maddy Roche: Wow, that is a great deliberate detail. Love that. Lemon, before we end, thank you for sharing your insights. Where can our listeners find you and your [00:28:00] work?
Lemon Price: Okay, so you could go to my website, which is just lemonprice.co. You can connect with me on LinkedIn. And I host a podcast on leadership development. It’s called The Well Lived Society, which is really fun, so come hang out with me over there.
Maddy Roche: Excellent. Okay, awesome. Thank you. I hope everyone took some notes. That is all for this episode of Childfree Life by Design, folks. Remember, intentionally choosing to invest in moments of joy is just as important as investing in your future. Until next time, happy designing.
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