No More Madness: Board Fundraising
Can I share with you the one thing that every nonprofit leader I talk to thinks is uniquely a problem at their nonprofit, but I see at work at EVERY nonprofit that I work with?
“My board is a disaster.”
“My board isn’t engaged.”
“My board members promise a lot in meetings, but then don’t do anything between meetings.”
If you’re having a hard time with your board, and ESPECIALLY if you’re having a hard time getting your board to engage in fundraising, you’re not alone! I hope knowing you’re not alone is at least a little helpful right off the bat.
Now, if you’ve got bigger board issues, like governance, recruitment, etc. I’m not your gal. For that, I’d send you to Jean Block and her excellent book The Invisible Yellow Line. Or you can take a peak at Joan Garry’s blog about boards. Whenever I’ve implemented their advice with my nonprofit boards, I get amazing results.
My specialty is getting boards engaged in fundraising. So this month, I want you to get your board marching forward on fundraising (get it?! See…I can do more than just baking puns), so every tip this month will be one to get your board engaged.
First tip: Get your board engaged in stewardship first.
While I know we’d all love it if our board members just woke up one morning and decided to ask all their friends, colleagues, and network contacts to donate to our organization…that’s just not going to happen. Even when I’ve worked with highly engaged boards, they don’t really self-initiate asking.
And that makes sense. Let’s think about it this way: soliciting financial support for a nonprofit is using someone’s social capital to do something that has no direct benefit for the person soliciting that support.
So even if your board members are highly connected to lots of people with wealth, it’s not a given that they’ll just go out and make asks for you. They respect their friends and contacts. They don’t want to “pester” them. They might need that contact to do something to help them, their family, or their business, and therefore don’t want to use their social capital in that moment.
Now imagine the very likely real scenario that your board members are incredibly dedicated to your mission, but only know a handful of people capable of making significant gifts. Of course, they want to be careful with when they call that support in. That might be showing up as reluctance to fundraise, but it probably feels like not wanting to blow it with their contacts.
So let’s start from a place of understanding that board members aren’t unwilling, they just need a compelling reason to go out and ask their networks for support.
I’ll use myself as an example, even though I’m a professional fundraiser, I don’t go asking willy-nilly when I’m on a board either. Sure, I have the tools to be a great fundraiser for any organization I serve (it is my job, after all), but because I’m a professional fundraiser, I need the right ask to take to the right contact at the right time. Sometimes I don’t fundraise for an organization I’m on the board of right away because I’m trying to be respectful of my friends’ and family members’ time. I ask the organizations on whose board I serve to please respect that, and know that when we do have the right ask, I will go to bat for the organization. It’s a timing thing. It’s a right-fit thing. It’s not a dedication thing.
But most board members AREN’T professional fundraisers! So they feel this, but they can’t articulate it the way I can. So on behalf of all of your board members, I’m telling you now: they will get engaged when you have the right ask for the right person at the right time. But until you can make that case, they are going to protect their contacts.
Does this reframe help you understand where your board members are coming from?
So how do you get them started engaging with fundraising while you make this case? You get them to help with stewardship.
Supporting stewardship is a line in the sand for me with board members. It’s fine with me if they don’t all want to fundraise. I fully believe that boards should be representative of the communities we serve, and if that’s your goal, then not all board members are going to be wealthy or connected to wealthy folks. That’s more than fine, that’s completely appropriate. However, everyone should be able to help out in stewarding donors in some way, shape, or form, no matter why they are on your board.
This is your first assignment this month:
STEP 1: Take 30 minutes to figure out how your board can support your stewardship efforts.
Here are some ideas:
Make thank you calls
Write thank you notes
Come to a donor thank you event
Come to a general event so they can be a “buddy” for a donor that will be there
Send an email to a donor asking why the donor supported the organization
STEP 2: Figure out which board members would be best at what job.
Think about each board member’s personality and what they’d be best at. If the board member is shy and quiet, maybe being a donor “buddy” at an event is going to be a little intimidating. Maybe writing thank you notes or stewardship emails might be more their speed. But for that board member who stays for the whole social event, writing thank you notes might be torture…get them to events and let them socialize.
STEP 3: Send an email to each board member to ask them to do one of these jobs.
In the next hour, you’ll have your board well on their way to supporting your stewardship program. You’ll have happier donors. AND, my favorite bit, interacting with happy donors gets board members more excited about fundraising. Win-win!
