Episode #267
Do your board members resist fundraising?
In today’s video, Vanessa Chase Lockshin has a great example of when a board member didn’t want to make any asks, but was still able to bring in new donors.
You might want to show this video to your board members. What Vanessa had her board member do was pretty simple, and not nearly as scary as making an Ask.
If you’d like more help in getting your board members to tell engaging stories, check out the book: “Nonprofit Storytelling for Board Members“.
Or…
Come to the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference. Click here
If you have any stories or advice around ways to help board members fundraise, please share it with everyone else. Leave a comment under the video. Thanks.
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If you have any stories or advice around ways to help board members fundraise, please share it with everyone else. Leave a comment. Thanks. 🙂
Excellent video!! I will be using it at my board meeting.
I’m glad you found it helpful, Don! Let us know how your Board meeting goes.
Vanessa did a great job in explaining the importance of keeping board members engaged but not necessarily through an ask. They all bring different strengths and attributes to the board and often times asking is not one of those strenghts. In order to get and maintain valuable board members it is expremely important to identify where their own passion may lay. We must give them the tools to be successful when they are ready to ask, we want them to succeed. Thanks for the perspective.
Dawn – I love your points! It’s a great reminder that there are many ways for Board members to be engaging beyond making asks. It’s important for us to find out how Board members want to be involved and then give them the tools to make it happen. As you said, we want them to succeed and we also want them to have a positive experience as a Board Member. Sometimes we focus too much on the resistance we think exists and forget to look for ways to work through it.
Agreed, too, that it is great to get them involved in building links for the MGO (Major Gift Officer) or ED, or whomever the appropriate staff person is, to then represent the agency for an ask. And that shouldn’t happen the first or even second time the Board Member, MGO and Donor meet. It might not happen for six months while the MGO helps the Donor develop a relationship with the agency and the Board Member has then stepped aside. (Every once in a while you have a Donor who wants their “friend” or “initial contact” (being the Board Member) to stay with them each time they meet with the MGO or ED, but most are happy to get to know the staff member one-on-one and let the Board Member then go focus on building other links for the agency with new Donors.) To me it is about finding what Donors are passionate about and linking them with your programs that meet their passions. Introducing them to that program and even recipients of those services and start to build a long-term relationship with the Donor and your programs for not only that first ask, but for future asks as well. Good video!