Join Our Board
Join the Board of Directors
Thank you for your interest in serving on the Board of Directors of Taking Back Our Lives (TBOL).
TBOL is committed to creating communities where young people have the knowledge, skills, confidence, and support they need to build healthy relationships and prevent dating violence.
For more than 20 years, TBOL has worked with Chicago youth through Take Back the Halls, providing education, leadership opportunities, and schoolwide prevention strategies that help young people recognize unhealthy behaviors, practice healthy communication, establish boundaries, resolve conflict, and become positive leaders among their peers.
Our board plays an essential role in ensuring that TBOL remains strong, sustainable, accountable, and positioned to expand its impact.
We are looking for thoughtful, committed community members who believe that young people deserve safe, respectful, and healthy relationships, and who are ready to contribute their expertise, connections, resources, and leadership.
We invite you to consider joining us.
About Taking Back Our Lives
TBOL is a community-based organization that focuses its work on ending domestic and sexual violence. We believe that the most effective way to end this violence is through empowering community members with a grass roots, social justice model that supports participants to become leaders in their own communities.
The program is interactive, youth-centered, and rooted in the belief that young people themselves are powerful agents of change. Students are not passive participants. They help shape conversations, challenge harmful norms, and build a culture of respect and safety within their schools. Together, we can help young people break cycles of violence, strengthen their voices, and create safer futures for themselves and their communities.
Our Signature Program: Take Back the Halls
Take Back the Halls is TBOL’s youth-centered healthy relationships and teen dating violence prevention program serving Chicago schools.
- Classroom-based education on healthy relationship skill-building
- Youth leadership
- Schoolwide awareness campaigns
- Upstander intervention
- Peer leadership
- Staff education and technical assistance
- Parent and caregiver engagement
- Counseling and referral partnership
- Inclusive and culturally responsive programming
Core topics include emotional regulation, boundaries, healthy communication, conflict resolution, recognizing unhealthy relationship behaviors, and strategies for safely intervening when students see harmful behavior.
TBTH is designed to meet young people where they are and give them practical tools they can use in their friendships, families, dating relationships, schools, and communities
Why Board Service Matters
Board members are more than advisors or ambassadors. They are stewards of the organization and share responsibility for ensuring that TBOL can fulfill its mission today and remain strong for the future.
Provide Fiduciary Oversight
Ensure that the organization manages its finances responsibly, protects its assets, and operates in accordance with its mission and legal obligations. Help establish priorities, evaluate opportunities, anticipate challenges, and guide the organization’s long-term growth.
Support and Evaluate the Executive Director
Provide appropriate oversight, support, feedback, and annual evaluation of the Executive Director.
Strengthen Fundraising
Help create a culture of philanthropy by opening doors, identifying funding opportunities, cultivating donors, making introductions, participating in fundraising activities, and personally supporting the organization to the extent possible.
Represent and Promote TBOL
Serve as an informed and enthusiastic ambassador for the organization within professional, civic, philanthropic, educational, and community networks.
Strengthen Organizational
Bring expertise, relationships, perspectives, and resources that help TBOL become stronger and more sustainable.
Protect the Mission
Ensure that organizational decisions remain aligned with TBOL’s mission, values, young people, and the communities we serve.
What We Are Looking For
We are seeking board members who bring both commitment to the mission and a willingness to participate actively.
You do not need to have experience serving on a nonprofit board.
We value individuals who are:
- Committed to preventing violence and promoting healthy relationships
- Interested in equity and creating safer communities for everyone
- Collaborative and respectful of different perspectives
- Comfortable contributing their expertise and networks
- Reliable and willing to follow through
- Able to think strategically while remaining connected to the organization’s mission
Board Expertise We Are Seeking
A strong board benefits from a range of professional and lived experiences.
TBOL is particularly interested in candidates with experience or connections in areas such as:
Finance & Accounting
Individuals with financial management, accounting, budgeting, investment, audit, or business experience.
Legal & Risk Management
Attorneys and professionals with expertise in nonprofit law, employment law, contracts, compliance, risk management, or governance.
Marketing & Communications
Professionals with expertise in communications, public relations, marketing, social media, branding, storytelling, or media relations.
Corporate & Business Leadership
Business owners, executives, entrepreneurs, human resources professionals, or other leaders who can bring strategic, financial, or organizational expertise.
Technology & Data
Individuals with expertise in technology, cybersecurity, data management, evaluation, or organizational systems.
Lived Experience with Domestic and/or Sexual Violence
Survivors or witnesses of domestic or sexual violence bring valuable lived experience to our work and help us shape our program and messaging.
We do not expect one person to bring all of these skills.
We are building a board whose collective experience strengthens the organization.
What We Ask of Board Members
Board service is a meaningful commitment.
We ask board members to:
- Attend regularly scheduled board meetings
- Participate actively in board discussions and decision-making
- Support fundraising and resource development
- Make introductions and open doors when appropriate
- Attend or support TBOL events and activities
- Serve as an ambassador for the organization
- Maintain confidentiality
- Disclose and appropriately manage conflicts of interest
- Support the Executive Director while maintaining appropriate board oversight
- Make a personally meaningful financial contribution, based on individual circumstances
Our expectation is not that every board member gives the same amount. Our expectation is that every board member contributes in a meaningful way.
The Board Member Commitment
We want board service to be mutually beneficial.
In return for your commitment, TBOL offers board members the opportunity to:
- Help prevent teen dating violence before it occurs
- Support young people in developing healthy relationship skills
- Contribute to the growth of an established Chicago nonprofit
- Use your professional expertise for a meaningful purpose
- Participate in strategic decisions that shape the organization’s future
- Help expand access to effective prevention programming
Our Board Culture and Values
TBTH believes in creating an organization that models the healthy relationships, communication, and conflict management skills core to our curricula. We view staff and Board members as lifelong learners and invest in the learning and professional development of our team.
We strive to be:
Mission-Driven: We keep young people, diversity, equity and inclusion, and the organization’s mission at the center of our decisions.
Curious: We ask questions, seek information, and remain open to learning.
Collaborative: We value different perspectives and work toward shared solutions.
Accountable: We follow through on commitments and take our responsibilities seriously.
Respectful: We create space for different experiences, identities, professional backgrounds, and viewpoints.
Strategic: We look beyond immediate issues and consider the organization’s long-term sustainability and impact.
Generous: We contribute our time, expertise, relationships, advocacy, and resources.
What Board Service Is Not
Board services is not:
- Managing the day-to-day operations of the organization
- Supervising staff other than the Executive Director
- Making program decisions independently of staff
- Working directly with program participants on an ongoing basis
- Acting as an individual spokesperson without authorization
- Using the organization for personal or professional advantage
- Expecting staff to carry out individual board members’ personal priorities
The board and staff work together with clearly defined roles and mutual respect.
FAQs
Do I need nonprofit board experience?
No.
We welcome individuals who are new to nonprofit governance. Orientation and ongoing opportunities to learn about board responsibilities will be provided.
Do I need experience in teen dating violence prevention?
No.
A commitment to young people, healthy relationships, violence prevention, and TBOL’s mission is more important than having specific subject-matter expertise.
How much time does board service require?
Board members should expect to attend regularly scheduled meetings every 2 to 3 months, participate in committee or other board work, prepare for meetings, and contribute to fundraising, outreach, and organizational activities.
The exact time commitment will vary depending on the board member’s committee assignments and level of involvement.
Is there a financial commitment?
Yes. Board members are expected to make a personally meaningful financial contribution each year.
We recognize that financial circumstances differ. What matters is that each board member participates in supporting the organization’s financial sustainability.
Do I have to live in Chicago?
Not necessarily.
However, because TBOL’s work is rooted in Chicago communities and schools, candidates with Chicagoland connections, relationships, professional networks, or knowledge of the community are especially valuable.
What happens after I express interest?
Prospective board members will generally participate in an initial conversation with TBOL leadership, learn more about the organization and expectations, and have an opportunity to ask questions. Candidates who appear to be a good mutual fit may then be invited to meet with board leadership or a board committee before a formal nomination process.
Questions for Prospective Board Members
We encourage you to reflect on the following questions before joining the board:
- Why does TBOL’s mission matter to you?
- What interests you about preventing teen dating violence and promoting healthy relationships?
- Are you comfortable representing an organization that is anti-racist, feminist, pro-choice, and inclusive of all gender identities and sexual orientations?
- What skills, professional experience, relationships, or perspectives would you bring to the board?
- What would you like to learn through board service?
- What communities, organizations, businesses, funders, or professional networks could you potentially connect with TBOL?
- What role could you play in helping the organization raise resources?
- Are you comfortable making introductions, attending events, and advocating for TBOL?
- Can you make the time commitment required for active board service?
- Are you willing to participate in difficult conversations and make decisions in the best interests of the organization?
- What would make board service a meaningful experience for you?
Ready to Apply?
Do You need More information before Applying?
Email our Heather Flett our Executive Director at heather@takingbackourlives.org
A Final Invitation
Young people deserve relationships built on respect, communication, trust, boundaries, and safety.
Preventing violence does not begin after harm occurs. It begins by giving young people the knowledge, skills, relationships, and supportive adults they need to recognize unhealthy behavior and build something better.Your leadership can help make that possible.
If you believe in the power of prevention, youth leadership, and healthy relationships, we invite you to consider becoming part of the Taking Back Our Lives board.
Together, we can help young people take back their lives and their futures.