What are innovative ways to find and recruit new nonprofit board members?

Try your local state nonprofit association, community foundation, or United Way. Many of them run board training and matching -- a bit like speed-dating for nonprofits and prospective Board Members. In NYC, I used United Way's https://home.uwnyc.com/boardservenyc/?pg=site and it worked well for me. They train Board members and match them. I know many nonprofits and board members who have successfully used their services as well. Linkedin is also trialling features to recruit nonprofit board members, see: http://blog.linkedin.com/2012/09/17/board-connect/and this website has loads of other international options: https://www.boardsource.org/eweb/dynamicpage.aspx?webcode=Board-Posting-and-Matching-Programs. http://boardassist.org is another. Note that whatever service you use though, the quality of the placements will come down to the work you do once you have prospective candidates. You still need to do your research and due diligence -- know the skills gaps you need to fill, and select accordingly. Once you have a candidate, conduct a sufficient number of  interviews to ensure a good cultural fit as well as clear mutual expectations. For example, what do you expect from your board in the way of contributions, both connections, time, how much money they can directly contribute or raise on your behalf? Once you have agreed someone will join, go out of your way to create a positive experience for them . Provide an information packet for them with your by-laws, your yearly calendar of meetings, fundraising information, a list of staff and board contacts and roles. Match new board members with a buddy, create social opportunities so board members can get to know each other and the organization, and offer to provide support and coaching for those who are new to fundraising for a board.Good luck!

One good way to do so is also to run a search in LinkedIn, in the advanced search options, you would find (even for non Premium users) a check box to filter out people in your network (1st and 2d level) interested in volunteering in non-profit - either to serve in the board or to volunteer skills.

You could post an ad seeking Board members on Idealist.org: http://www.idealist.org

These are some great answers, but this past year our number one recruiting tool has been LinkedIn. We have gained 3 board members that would never crossed our radar another way. You can do an advanced search for city, interest in board service and even industry. I like being able to review their profile before making a pitch. Then send a message with a invite for coffee and see what happens. I find that a little over half will at least have the conversation.