Creating Effective Fundraising Boards
As a staff leader, or as a board member who wants other members to raise money, you may have asked the question: How can the board raise more money?
There are really three questions involved:
1.
Why don’t they?
2.How can they?
3.How will they know if they’ve done a good job?
This article discusses the first question. and we’ll discuss the rest in future newsletters. We'll offer answers that will lead to a much more dynamic and effective board. Here's the first Question to think about:
1. Why don’t they raise more money?
Sadly, the reason is usually because staff leaders have failed to manage this relationship well. Creating and maintaining effective board action is one of the very high-level executive skills that successful CEO’s must understand. But we’re seldom taught how to really “lead from behind” for effective group action.
Effective board fundraising doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It starts with effective board self-governance and it connects to every part of board work from identification of board prospects through nomination, orientation, service, completion of service and action as a past board member.
Effective boards require a great deal of CEO time, and can be especially difficult for staff leaders who already wear many hats.
However, in the long run, ineffective boards require even more time and can be much more difficult
I’ve always been a “Do It Yourself” fundraiser, but early on, I learned that creating the board, or re-inventing an existing board, can best be accomplished by a consultant-facilitator. For many reasons, CEO’s can seldom directly tell the board how to act. Happily, today funders want to see you do solid “capacity-building” work, so funding to hire a consultant and trustworthy, effective consultants are both easier to find than they once were.
Next Newsletters:
2.How can they?
3.How will they know if they’ve done a good job?
You’ll find a complete study of basics of managing board relationships in chapters 4, 5 and 6 of my book, How To Raise The Money You Need, Now!
