Are your board members resistant to helping you fundraise?
How would you like to hear a story about how one nonprofit organization was able to get their very reluctant board to fundraise? And not just fundraise, but to fundraise joyfully.
In fact, you’ll also hear how this affected the donations of the donors the board members had contact with. (Donations DOUBLED!)
Susan Howlett is going to walk you through what the organization did, and how they were able to make fundraisers out of their board members in a very easy and non threatening way. Please share this with your board members.
Okay, grab a pen and something to write on. You’ll want to take notes.
You are going to LOVE this week’s video.
By the way, Susan has written a fabulous book that includes roadmaps for overcoming all sorts of obstacles board members face. You can find that book here: “Boards on Fire!”
If you have any stories or tips on helping board members, please leave a comment below the video. Thanks.
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Do you have any stories or tips on helping board members to fundraise joyfully? If so, please share them in a comment box to help your friends get their boards to fundraise. Thanks.
This is truly wonderful and I am going to put show it to the newly convened board fundraising committee.
When you can get Board members to do this it really DOES work. However, the challenge is bringing board members on with the expectation that they will either steward donors or raise funds …ideally, do both of course! When board members say – you make me do either and I’ll quit is quite challenging. AND yes, they should just quit but that is not always an option for a small board.
Any good ideas when you get that kind of response?
The key is to take baby steps. Leaving a message for someone is easy. (Of course someone has to draft the script.) And if the potential donor actually picks up, the board member has to know enough to to speak about the organization. So you need board members who know the organization…or you need to educate them as soon as you get them on the board. But that part is easy, because you know what they need to say. Or if you don’t, you need to sit down with them and figure it out.
As Susan was talking, I was writing down all the steps and from my figuring, it’s a ten-step process. That sounds like a lot — but look at the pay off! Susan is right – it’s about engagement — I am sure, by the end of the process and as a result of their investment, the Board members and the donors probably had developed some pretty good friendships too — a double bonus.
This was terrific. You can actually visualize the step by step interactions and what Susan and the organization’s staff figured out were simple activities that were varied, informal and fun… except for rock clearing… ACK!! Joke only. This is only my second video. These are like GOLD.
Best video yet!
These steps are laid out in Susan’s fantastic book “Boards on Fire,” which I highly encourage folks to order a copy for each board member and get them to read (it’s not long.) I could watch this video several times over and soak in this wisdom each time; Susan’s practical approach to donor relationships is based on the wonderful premise that donors are Human Be-ings who want to be engaged as such. I will be sharing this with my development committee next week!
Great post. I really appreciate the insight here in this post and confident it’s going to be helpful to me and many others. Thanks for sharing it.