Keep Staff and Raise More Funds With A Board Culture Of Giving
Keep Staff and Raise More Funds With A Board Culture Of Giving
By Lindsay Jordan, CEO and Cara Thornton, Marketing Manager
What is a board culture of giving? Great question. If you are looking to get your board members more involved in fundraising, continue reading.
A board culture of giving is present where stakeholders share a sense of purpose in fulfilling the mission and work together to ensure resources are secured. To determine if your board has already achieved a culture of giving, you must be able to answer “yes” to the following questions:
Does the entire board share a sense of purpose?
Do board members' efforts work together to achieve fundraising goals?
If you can’t get to two quick “yes”es without doing some serious mental gymnastics, chances are your board is like many others: a little bit afraid of fundraising, unsure of their precise responsibilities around fund development, and without the tools and information they need to carve a path forward. They are, in every sense of the word, stuck.
Let's be honest, fundraising can be really tough. It’s even harder when the burden of raising an organization’s entire budget falls to one person, group, or department. A board culture of giving helps diffuse the responsibility for fundraising by breaking it up into manageable pieces and turning it into a team sport instead of a solo grind.
In our experience, the expectations placed around board members when it comes to fundraising are completely unrealistic. How long did it take you to find your last really good director of development? Six months; longer? And they are an EXPERT in their field. Why on earth do we expect that a volunteer with zero formal fundraising training, a full-time job, a family, other philanthropic and community commitments, and (heaven forbid) the desire for a little downtime is going to sweep in, inherently understand the entire fundraising process, and jump out into the community to bring big bags of cash back to your organization? Pure fantasy.
And yet this is what is frequently asked and expected of our board members.
Building a board culture of giving will strengthen relationships with your donors, increase donations, help you retain your staff, and have a ripple effect of positively through your organization. But you have to approach it realistically. It requires three things:
Address and validate fundraising fears. There are a lot of (very valid) reasons that people don’t like to ask for money. Our comfort-level when talking about cash is rooted in our childhood experiences, cultural norms, traumatic experiences, and so much more. No board is going to overcome the lived experience of every member (Why would we want to? Those experiences are so valuable!). What we can do, however, is name the fear and weigh it against the outcome of philanthropic dollars coming in. It’s also helpful to categorize our feelings into the intangible fears we hold and those items that are actually just a deficit of resources, like feeling that we can’t articulate the nonprofits programs or funding needs.
Segment the fundraising process. Some people are social butterflies and can naturally connect your organization to potential donors. Others like to ask deep questions and cultivate new relationships with people who share their values and affinity for your cause. A few have directly benefited from your services or similar programs and are unafraid to ask for donations to fuel your mission. Your board members have organic fundraising superpowers. Rather than forcing them to engage in activities that make them uncomfortable or expecting them to know everything about fund development, take the time to segment the process and give them just a small part to own. How many board members does it take to win a gift? As many as it takes, my friend.
Give this process the time it needs to be successful. Creating a board culture of giving is a culture change, and all culture change takes time. Set short- and long-term goals for your board, consider a 90-challenge to kick off initial changes, and explore habit and behavior-change models to keep the conversation going, hold board and staff accountable, and reward your team for the hard work it’s doing on behalf of the organization.
Fundraising is a team sport and implementing a board culture of giving can set the tone for equitable fund development and shared responsibility and reward across the organization.
Interested in implementing a board culture of giving at your organization? Schedule a complimentary consultation with our team to learn more about our board fundraising training workshops! Email info@writeonfundraising.com