Through my time working at CMI a regular issue was how to ensure gender parity in the boardrooms of our biggest companies.  Much of the research at the time put part of the blame for this disparity in the lack of executive experience amongst our female managers.

I remember having a conversation with social entrepreneur Robert Ashton a year ago where we discussed the potential for CMI to provide a marketplace for non-profit organisations to seek out experienced managers (of whatever gender) that were looking to bolster their CV whilst doing a good deed at the same time.

Alas not long after that conversation I moved on from CMI and the idea never went anywhere.  Except now LinkedIn have jumped in to provide just such a service.  It’s called Board Connect and aims to connect non-profits with potential board members.

“There’s a huge supply and demand issue we’re trying to solve — more than 2 million non-profit board seats need to be filled each year and non-profit leaders are challenged with finding the right individuals to join those boards.” Meg Garlinhouse, head of employment brand and community for LinkedIn said today. “Board Connect takes advantage of connecting talent with opportunity and ties in social impact.”

To begin with Board Connect has just four non-profit launch partners – Teach for America, New Schools Venture Fund, Charter Board Partners and the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation – but the hope is that this will quickly expand.

In order to use the feature, LinkedIn requires non-profits must be 501(c)3 registered organizations and participate in the educational webcast about how Board Connect works.

So it’s a nice new feature from LinkedIn and will hopefully help managers find experience and non-profits find talented board members.