The biggest secret to successful fundraising comes down to one thing:
Your nonprofit board.
And if you want to raise more money for your organization, you need a specific type of board — a fundraising board. This is when your board operates as a well-oiled fundraising machine.
Sounds impossible? Keep reading…
Nonprofit Boards Are Capable of Amazing Things
The real secret when it comes to your board helping with fundraising is the ability to leverage your board members and their connections. If you can do that, your fundraising will be magnitudes more successful.
Let me give you a real-world example of how you can leverage your board members and their connections.
Some years back, I was hired by an organization to provide fundraising training for board members. Board members had not been helping with fundraising or making their own gifts — primarily, because of two reasons:
- They had not been asked to provide a gift.
- They had not been provided with any fundraising training.
Within two months of our time working together, three board members had solicited and received 5-figure gifts from their peers. Seems amazing, right? It’s not — it’s just that someone had finally taught them how to ask.
Bottom line — a nonprofit board’s experience with and expectations around fundraising can seriously impact your overall results.
6 Ways to Leverage Your Board for Successful Fundraising
If you don’t have a fundraising board, don’t worry. It may take a year or two to transform a non-fundraising board into a fundraising board — but it can be done.
Below are six steps for transforming your board members into a successful team of fundraisers.
1. Recruit the right board members.
Are you recruiting new board members on a regular and ongoing basis? Do you have a nominating committee of the board that is responsible for bringing on new board members?
Recruiting good board members begins with a good job description. Here’s an example:
- Attend and participate at regular board meetings (approximately 8 per year).
- Commitment to and passion for the mission and programs.
- Serve on at least one subcommittee of the board.
- Advocate for the organization to your contacts and networks.
- Give a significant annual donation ($10,000 minimum).
- Attend and bring people to organization fundraisers.
- Help support fundraising activities of the organization.
- Provide financial oversight and governance.
Make sure that each new board member understands that they are responsible for making a personal donation each year, as well as helping with fundraising. It should be communicated verbally, as well as in writing.
2. Train your board members.
Don’t expect board members to know how to raise money. They must be provided with tools, skills, and resources on a regular and ongoing basis. Hold at least one annual board retreat with activities and training dedicated to fundraising, as well as periodic mini-trainings throughout the year.
If you can afford to, bring in an outside trainer. If you don’t have the resources to hire a fundraising consultant to provide training, do an exchange with another local organization. Your development director can train their board in exchange for training your board. Outside trainers generally bring a fresh perspective and new ideas to any situation.
3. Require 100% board participation.
All board members should be expected to make a personal donation to your organization. They should be asked to give a significant gift for them. This means that everyone will contribute at a different level, and hopefully at a meaningful level, for their personal budget.
Ideally, board members should be the first in line to give and lead by example when it comes to raising funds.
4. Ask board members to give more.
In order to increase you board member’s giving, ask them to consider doubling or quadrupling their gift by making monthly or quarterly payments. In most cases, this will significantly increase your overall board giving.
5. Have board members sign an expectation form.
Create a board member expectation form so board members understand what’s fully expected of them — that will make things easier for everyone in the long run. At a bare minimum, be sure to include:
- committees they will serve on
- a specific dollar amount they will give
- which fundraising activities they will participate in
6. Leverage board member contacts.
Board members should make every attempt to introduce their circle of friends to your organization. There are a number of ways they can do this:
- by making introductions to the CEO
- by bringing guests to fundraising events
- by taking friends and colleagues on tours of your organization
It is often then up to staff members to keep these new individuals engaged and involved.
Going Further to Boost Your Board
For more tips and tricks to get the most out of your board, check out the following board-boosting posts:
- Major Gift Fundraising 201: Board Basics for Raising Bigger Gifts
- 8 Ways Your Board Can Fundraise Without Asking
- 5 Stellar Ways to Engage Your Nonprofit Board in Fundraising
- Top 3 Board Member Excuses Not to Give
- How to Fire Utterly Toxic Nonprofit Board Members
Share your ideas, too.
So how about your experience boosting your board? What sort of things have you tried? Did it work? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Great advise on raising funds! In these tough economic times, this type of information is critical to securing donations.
This is so true! We are all so nervous to ask our Board members to give, but how can we ask anyone else to invest in our work if our Board won’t? It took us a couple of years to get to 100% Board giving, but its worth it because more and more corporate and foundation grants are asking for Board giving rates.
Great job, Mark! Congrats on getting 100% participation. It can be a lot of work the first time, but the results are worth the effort.
I think we all know how important and how successful our fundraising efforts can be when the board plays their important role, however, what to do you do with a board who knows this is their responsibility but when push comes to shove they are still looking at the development director to raise all the money?
Great question, Dawn. I would start by making sure they are all giving. Do you have 100% participation?
Also, do you have at least 1 or 2 board members who “get it”? If so, have them do some fundraising with you and then ask them to report their success stories at the next board meeting.
Next, meet with each board member individually at their home or office (don’t spend money on lunch) and ask them what they think they can do this year to help with fundraising efforts. Give them a “menu” of choices, such as – host a reception, bring 3 people on a tour, bring 5 people to your next event, make thank you calls, sign thank you letters and appeal letters, etc.
Finally, provide board training, so they fully understand their role and the impact they can have.
For many of my Board members, expectations about their role in the fundraising process were not made clear from the outset. This helps me remain patient but it certainly is gratifying to see how excited our newest Trustees are about making connections and supporting our cause. It really does boil down to being clear and specific about what’s expected of them.
This is good advice. My board recently decided they would have to become a fundraising board. They are very aware that they don’t really know how to do this or feel suited to it, but they are trying. During our spring and fall appeals this year, they took seriously their role in passing on the letters to colleagues and friends- and we more than doubled our typical annual donations. (This sounds fabulous, but the original number was really small! But still kind of fabulous.) Anyway, it’s good advice to arrange periodic training for boards- mine would appreciate it and benefit from it.
Jessica – Congratulations on doubling your annual appeal income, no matter how small the amount. That’s a significant milestone and one your board members should feel proud of! Great work.
After running a recent LYBUNT report, two board member names appeared on this report…how disappointing. Our board does not know it is a fundraising board and rarely attend special events. Training has been offered but declined. Any suggestions?
First, were those board members asked for a gift this year? If not, then you as staff need to make sure you are asking each board member for a gift each year.
Are you the ED or DOD? First, the ED needs to understand the importance of having a fundraising board. Then, it will be up to the ED to start convincing the board. First, have a conversation with the board president. If he/she agrees, then you can start adding small bits of fundraising training to each board meeting agenda. Do you have a development committee of the board? They should be driving this process as well. Your goal this year should be to create a board expectation form which states that each board member is responsible for making a personal donation as well as attending fundraising events. Make sure that this is made clear to new board member recruits. I am available to coach ED’s, DOD’s, and board members through this process if you would like assistance.
I hope this is helpful. Good luck!
I don’t agree with having board giving “minimums” as, in my experience, those often become “maximums” in other words those that can give more only give the “minimum” required. In my view, it is better to talk about averages and encourage board members to give at least the average gift, or more if they can.