{"id":347522,"date":"2026-06-05T03:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T03:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/347522\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T03:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T03:38:08","slug":"chamber-nonprofit-discussion-fills-epson-america-conference-facility-in-los-al","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/347522\/","title":{"rendered":"Chamber Nonprofit discussion fills Epson America conference facility in Los Al"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A full house at Epson America conference facility in Los Alamitos for the nonprofit summit.
\nPhoto by David N. Young<\/p>\n

The role nonprofit organizations play in our community again took center stage at a joint meeting of the Los Alamitos and Seal Beach Chambers of Commerce held this week inside the Epson America meeting hall.<\/p>\n

Los Al Chamber President Richard Barnes thanked the audience of business leaders, community members, and nonprofit professionals from across the Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, and Cypress areas for their participation.<\/p>\n

The panel featured four nonprofit executives representing a cross-section of the region\u2019s service sector, from emergency youth shelter to food rescue to international civic service, each making the case that strong boards are not a luxury but a lifeline.
The four nonprofit panelists included Diana Lara, Executive Director of Food Finders.<\/p>\n

Food Finders operates as a food rescue organization, collecting perishable donations from grocers, manufacturers, growers, and food service providers and delivering them directly to nonprofit partners across LA, Orange, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties for same-day or next-day distribution. The organization also runs a Food for Kids program.<\/p>\n

Lupita Gutierrez, Executive Director of CASA Youth Shelter, brought more than 15 years of connection to an organization she described as \u201cvery near and dear to my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Courtesy photo
(L-R) Kevin Young, Seal Beach Lions Club, Michelle Byerly, Executive Director, The Nonprofit Partnership, Lupita Gutierrez, Executive Director, Casa Youth Shelter, Diana Lara, Food Finders and Tiffany Roberts, F&M Bank Foundation, the moderator. <\/p>\n

CASA Youth Shelter serves young women in crisis, she said, describing them as \u201cthe most vulnerable population,\u201d caught between adolescence and adulthood.<\/p>\n

Michelle Byerly, Executive Director of The Nonprofit Partnership (TNP), leads an organization founded 34 years ago by a group of executive directors who recognized that nonprofits themselves needed support to be effective.<\/p>\n

She said the Partnership serves approximately 1,000 nonprofits annually across Southern California through workshops, consulting, grant administration, and convening.<\/p>\n

Kevin Young, President of the Seal Beach Lions Club, said their organization represented a different model entirely, a service organization rather than a traditional nonprofit, but one with formidable reach.<\/p>\n

The Seal Beach club counts over 400 members, making it the largest Lions Club in the Western Hemisphere, with members ranging in age from 19 to their 90s and a membership that is 51 percent women.<\/p>\n

Tiffany Roberts, Director of the Farmers and Merchants Bank Foundation, served as moderator of the Los Alamitos Chamber\u2019s Nonprofit Board Leadership Forum.<\/p>\n

Roberts directed much of the discussion around the various boards and directors of these nonprofit organizations, comparing them to \u201csteering wheels\u201d in autos.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we look at cars, we think about engine power, interior design, exterior design,\u201d she said, noting that \u201cin the nonprofit world, the board is like the steering wheel. It doesn\u2019t power the engine day-to-day; that\u2019s what the executives and their staff are doing. But without the steering wheel, the organization can drift, stall, or even head straight into a ditch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roberts steered the executives into a discussion about the roles played by board members of each organization.
Byerly was direct: \u201cThe board\u2019s job is governance, not management. They set the direction, they ensure accountability, they protect the mission. They are not there to run the programs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

What boards are expected to provide, across all four organizations, fell into recognizable categories: strategic guidance, financial oversight, fundraising, and access.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe board is your connector,\u201d Lara said. \u201cThey open doors that staff can\u2019t open on their own.\u201d
Gutierrez described the board\u2019s role at Casa Youth Shelter in terms of what the young women served by the organization see in board members.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen our board members come to an event and interact with the young people, those kids see that there are adults in the community who care about them. That matters more than any program we can design,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Young said his club represented a different model entirely, a service organization rather than a traditional nonprofit, but one with formidable reach. He said the club manages roughly 150 to 160 projects annually, from vision screenings and graffiti removal to beach wheelchairs, rescue drones, and the restoration of a World War II submarine memorial on Seal Beach Boulevard.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have everything from just going and cooking hamburgers and hot dogs,\u201d Young said, \u201cto some big fundraising projects.\u201d
The Seal Beach Lions Club\u2019s board has 21 members, drawn from across the community, he said.<\/p>\n

The panelists also described in some detail what board members do for the organizations they serve.<\/p>\n

Byerly reinforced the accountability dimension. \u201cThe board holds the executive director accountable. And the executive director, in turn, is the one resource the board directly manages. Everything else flows from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roberts wondered if some boards have a \u201cGive, get or get off,\u201d board strategy, asking each panelist about what board service actually requires.Young offered the Lions Club perspective, saying a dues structure had replaced traditional board members\u2019 giving expectations, and where the real currency is time and active participation in Lions Club projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want people who show up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gutierrez was candid about what that looks like in practice: \u201cI\u2019m going to be honest with you. If you join our board, I\u2019m going to need you. Not just at meetings. I\u2019m going to need you to answer a text sometimes. I\u2019m going to need you to make a call.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lara described Food Finders\u2019 current board as focused primarily on connections and strategic thinking during its rebuilding phase, with financial contribution expectations that are meaningful but tiered.<\/p>\n

Gutierrez noted that Casa Youth Shelter asks board members to participate in its annual gala \u2014 one of the organization\u2019s primary fundraising events \u2014 both as attendees and as ambassadors who bring others.<\/p>\n

The panelists all agreed that not everyone who is asked to join a nonprofit organization board accepts the challenge.
The most common reasons people decline board service, they said, are time, perceived lack of expertise, and the fear of fiduciary responsibility.<\/p>\n

Roberts addressed the last fear directly, noting that \u201cwhen some people hear \u2018fiduciary,\u2019 they think it means they\u2019re personally liable for everything. It doesn\u2019t mean that. It means you have a duty to act in good faith, in the organization\u2019s best interest, with the information you have. That\u2019s a standard any reasonable person can meet,\u201d she suggested.<\/p>\n

On the time involvement concern, Byerly offered an interesting observation.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people spend more time scrolling their phone in a week than a board commitment would require. This is about priorities, not availability,\u201d she suggested.<\/p>\n

Lara said serving on a nonprofit board does make board members \u201cfeel like they\u2019re a part of a connected community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young spoke to the depth of engagement that board service creates.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re a member, and you just go to the meetings and go to a project, sometimes you don\u2019t understand what\u2019s going on. But if you take that step and get involved in the board, it\u2019s a deeper commitment, you learn more, you get more out of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Despite the challenge of serving on a board, all of the executives agreed that it has been their experience that personal fulfillment was always the result.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen our board members come to our community marketplace and actually see the distribution (of food) in person, they just come away with such fulfillment. They\u2019re like, \u2018We know what you do, but to actually be a part of it makes a huge difference.\u2019<\/p>\n

That whole fulfillment is a big part of what board service is,\u201d said Lara.<\/p>\n

Gutierrez pointed to what that fulfillment looks like at Casa Youth Shelter.
Board members are seeing their dollars and their effort in action with the young people the organization serves, she suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice to get excited about something,\u201d she said. \u201cFind something that you\u2019re passionate about, then it feels like you get to be a part of something instead of feeling like you have to go do something.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want fulfillment, connection, impact, and joy, it sounds like you might want to join a (nonprofit) board,\u201d Roberts said with a closing summary.<\/p>\n

Barnes thanked the panelists, the moderator, and the title sponsors, including CIU Networks and Landon HR Consulting, thanking also the executives of Epson America for its relationship with the business community and their participation in it.<\/p>\n

The Los Alamitos Chamber of Commerce hosts regular forums, luncheons, and community events throughout the year. For more information on upcoming events or board service opportunities with the organizations featured in this story, contact the Chamber directly, or reach out to Food Finders, Casa Youth Shelter, The Nonprofit Partnership, or the Seal Beach Lions Club.<\/p>\n

This event was jointly hosted by the Los Alamitos and Seal Beach Chambers of Commerce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A full house at Epson America conference facility in Los Alamitos for the nonprofit summit. Photo by David…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-347522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}