Congratulations to retired Wells Fargo CEO Jim Campbell upon being honored as The Business Journal’s Executive of the Year. When his award was announced, the headline read that he truly was “raised for community banking and service.” The standing-room-only crowd at the luncheon in his honor on February 6 confirmed the overwhelming respect and support Campbell enjoys from the entire Twin Cities community.

Jim Campbell’s list of business accomplishments is long and impressive. Just as long and impressive is the list of nonprofit boards where he has had membership and often leadership positions.

It is certain that Campbell served on these boards selflessly and with dedication to improving our community. But it is no secret in the business world that serving on non-profit boards can be good for growing a business.

Serving on boards is the ultimate networking experience. Where else can you mix with other CEOs in a totally non-competitive atmosphere? Certainly not on the golf course!

Let’s use Mr. Campbell as an example of this kind of networking. 

Trying to show the net cast across the myriad of organizations he has served would be impossible. So let’s just take three as a sampling: the Minneapolis Foundation, Greater Twin Cities United Way, and the University of Minnesota Foundation.

Mr. Campbell’s colleagues on the boards of these organizations represent the upper eschelon of Twin Cities business: Law firms like Faegre & Benson and Gray, Plant, Mooty; industrial and commercial giants like 3M and Marshall Field’s; political insiders like Ember Reichgott Junge and Mike Opat; public opinion-formers like Burton Cohen and Stanley S. Hubbard. The list goes on.

Each board meeting is another opportunity for these business leaders to interact on a personal level. They can see the ways that their businesses can develop synergies while advancing the charitable causes that brought them together in the first place.

Are these boards the walled domain of those who appear in The Business Journal Book of Lists? Not by a long shot.

Jennifer Alstad, Founder and President of B-Swing, Inc. sits on the board of the University of Minnesota Foundation, too. And she’s barely been out of college for a decade.

B-Swing is an up-and-coming web site development company with a sterling list of clients – including the influential nonprofit McKnight Foundation. Did Alstad get that account through a referral from some of her fellow U Foundation trustees? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case. 

Is B-Swing in the Book of Lists? Not yet. But with the connections that Alstad is making at the U Foundation, you may find her listed in the next couple years. The company has been listed on the Minnesota Keystone Program’s Honor Roll for three years already. 

When Jim Campbell goes to a U Foundation trustees meeting, he sees other familiar faces of those like him who sit on multiple nonprofit boards. L. Steven Goldstein, Principal of the Quatris Fund, shares a spot at the table with Campbell at both the Minneapolis Foundation and the United Way. Judith Corson, President of Custom Research, can greet Campbell at meetings of the U Foundation and the United Way.

How do you get on one of these influential boards? The best way is to sit on other boards. Just as there is a career path in business, there is a career path on boards. And there is significant crossover between the small organization boards and those in the big time. H.B. Fuller’s Tony Andersen has served on virtually every major nonprofit board in the Twin Cities, but he still participates on the board of the small Casa de Esperanza, which provides services for battered women in St. Paul’s Latino community.

The Management Assistance Program for Nonprofits (www.mapnp.org) is a matchmaker for company executives who want to serve on boards of local charities. The choice of organizations is wide, the chances for service are vast, and the opportunities to expand your business contacts are wide open.