Dear Board of Directors: It’s your JOB to raise money.
By
The Center on Philanthropy at IU has been teaching through The Fund Raising School about this topic since at least 1990. It’s not something new or odd or hard. It’s regularly part of “best practices” lists for successful nonprofits. So, why are we still having to convince executive directors and their boards that it’s their JOB to not only raise money but to ensure the continued SUCCESSFUL raising of money for as long as the organizations exists?
You got me.
I just completed a fundraising audit report for an organization in Kansas and the number one finding: the board isn’t involved in fundraising. My number one recommendation? Get the board involved in fundraising.
Since every situation is unique, it’s hard to say just one thing that can help a board understand its role in fundraising. Generally, it has to be an initiative spearheaded by a board chair. Getting him or her on the fundraising bandwagon will greatly increase your chance for success.
The fundraising plan (with explicit board responsibilities) also must become so integral to the life of the organization that it will outlive the current staff and volunteers. People come and go and each of us has different talents, skills, and interests. Advancing the mission of the organization through effective fundraising can’t be allowed ebb and flow. The Board of Directors bears full responsibility for making this happen.
In a nutshell, this is my major criticism of most nonprofit boards: they don’t take (and probably don’t fully understand) the process of maintaining a consistent focus on annual giving and donor cultivation. They allow themselves to get sidetracked by petty, mundane, or insignificant issues, challenges, and projects.
What’s your plan to engage your board in fundraising?
photo credit: Great Beyond via photopin cc
Clay Myers-Bowman 
Clay, you always seem to address just the right topics at just the right time. Would love to get feedback from you and others on some actual tactics/best practices for securing board gifts, which, for the organization I represent, is spelled out with a suggested “get or give” amount in our declaration of purpose/board contract. Should it be handled with an in-person or phone ask from board chair to board member? Should it be handled with a document or electronic means of communication, tactfully delivered?
Let’s talk on the phone sometime. Or visit when I’m in KC. I’m making regular trips now for a client in Olathe.
Would LOVE that. When is your next trip to Olathe?
From: Myers-Bowman <comment-reply@wordpress.com> Reply-To: Myers-Bowman <comment+e3b1li802ci0mzwwd390b0s5npcxrk5cgskuavbeo1l0w7yl@comment.wordpress.com> Date: Tuesday, November 6, 2012 8:48 AM To: Rebecca Sommers <rebecca.sommers@garmin.com> Subject: [New comment] Dear Board of Directors: It’s your JOB to raise money.
myersbowman commented: “Let’s talk on the phone sometime. Or visit when I’m in KC. I’m making regular trips now for a client in Olathe.”
Monday! Not sure my schedule yet. I’ll call.
The “fail”, if you will, is in Board’s understanding and agreeing to their role in the culture of philanthropy, which is replacing decision-making and administrative/oversight roles of the past — in SOME nonprofits. Many board members still play the role of approving or disapproving major financial moves, approving top-level hires, and speaking on behalf of the charity but never had a role in fundraising and do not believe it is their job. I think it’s up to each individual entity to decide what they want their Board members to do.
In addition, they were expected to make annual gifts to the charity. If a board member showed acumen for sales and were not shy about asking, I would ask them to take other board members with them to meetings with potential donors. I found most were happy to bring potential new donors to major events and to engage in their own style of moves management with a slight nudge from me.
I found the best strategy to engage my Board members in revenue enhancement was to ask them to be the facilitator of bringing/inviting those with affluence and influence to the table. That said, to do that, the Board members need to be influential and/or well known and well thought of in the community, and a little affluence wouldn’t hurt either. I found asking my Board members to make strategic phone calls to donors who had either just given a gift or who would maybe be moved to make a gift if the right circumstances prevailed was effective.
That sounds like a good strategy. But how much ownership does the board have in the fundraising culture at Pinecrest?
That would be private information I would not share publicly. I am speaking about my past director roles, not my role in advancement at Pinecrest.
Hardy,
I agree that we need to be having serious conversations about the strategies that boards employ to run the nonprofits for which they are responsible. And it’s been my personal experience that changing a board member’s expectations about fundraising is nearly impossible.
In the end, staff members and board members come and go. I think it’s the boards responsibility to develop and maintain effective strategic fundraising strategies that they can sustain over time. New ideas welcome!
I agree with the article content but disagree with the title. Is it really the job of board members to be fundraisers? The nonprofit world keeps insisting that it is. Through their actions (or in-action) board members keep saying it’s not. My own Why Don’t Board Members Do What They’re Supposed to Do? survey and the most recent BoardSource Governance Index agree that board members are resistant to asking others for money.
Is the fundraising role an assumed one? There is a difference between being responsible for ensuring adequate financial resources are available and actually actively soliciting. There are plenty of actions a board can take to make sure needed funds are coming in that don’t involve board members being direct revenue producers.
Asking others for money is like speaking in public, most people don’t like doing it. So why keep trying to force square peg-nonfundraiser-personalities into a round hole?
Sure training on the why someone is supposed to be a fundraiser, providing motivation, and supplying the how-to can help, but you are probably better off trying a DNA transplant!
While the debate continues over whose job it is to raise funds, there are causes that are still in need of money. Everyone has heard the line about trying to do things the same way and expecting a different result-that seems appropriate here.
Perhaps it’s time for organizations to re-think their approach to fundraising and utilize their board members in a way that actually produces the revenue results that are needed.
Nailed it. How many organizations create job descriptions for volunteer positions? Board positions need specific job descriptions with clear expectations available to potential candidates before they say, “I do”. Just because a candidate can ‘make the meetings’ or ‘its their turn’ does not mean they have the skill set for the job.
When I hear about organizations with this problem I ask myself if as a culture we’ve attached too much “prestige” to being a board member and not enough time communicating that the role requires work . What do you think?