How do you determine who to ask to join the board of your wonderful cause?

Who is your dream board member?

If you really want to enlist a Dream Team Board, look for folks with these qualities.

And if you’d like a recruitment guide – you can use my 24-page Recruit Your Dream Team Board Workbook (it’s free to my subscribers.)

Here’s my short list of top qualities I want in a board member (warning – I’m biased – and this is not a politically correct list!):

1.    A person of influence and connections.

Above all, I like to have people who know other people and can make things happen. My favorite board member is someone who can pick up the phone and help us make a key connection.

This type of board member can open new doors for us and help us network at a new level. They know people with resources, and people who can influence others on our behalf.

2.    Deep passion for our work.

Do they have the passion and care for our mission? If they do not, they may bring a clinical approach to our work and miss the heart of what we do.

3.    Time and willingness.

Some of the most wonderful people simply don’t have the time. Even if they are wildly passionate, they may be on the road all the time or stacked up with family and work commitments.

Even the most passionate board member is unhappy if they feel that they are not fulfilling their commitment to the organization.

So be sure they have the time.

4.    Deep pockets and/or access to deep pockets.

I like board members who are passionate AND have deep pockets.

I want someone who can open fundraising doors for us. Who do they know? What is their own giving potential?

Sorry but I like people on the board who can write the big check.

Not everybody on the board needs to be a deep pocket, but you certainly need some of them on your board.

5.    Current donor or volunteer.

Let’s hope your new board members are already donors. If they are not, I’d think twice!

And a loyal current donor might be just the passionate, knowledgeable, capable person your board needs.

6.    Reputation for balanced, sound, deliberate thoughts and actions.

How are her leadership skills? Is she a good team player? Can she handle ambiguity or robust discussions?

I like very much to know how someone operates within a group before I bring them into the mix.

You’ll be smart to vet them this way too.

A well-vetted board member is more likely to be a happy board member.

7.    Experience on a nonprofit board.

Isn’t it wonderful to have folks who understand the nonprofit ball game?

If they are experienced, then there’s less chance of them trying to meddle in the staff’s work.

8.    Professional experience.

I find that people who have worked at some point in their lives are often better board members.

People who have some professional experience, I think, are better able to leave their personal “stuff” home and behave in an unemotional manner on the board. (told you this wasn’t a politically correct list!)

9.    Fundraising experience.

People who already know and understand fundraising are invaluable.

Their knowledge and expertise helps to back up your own recommendations to the board about smart fundraising strategies.

They’ll save you time and energy and even heartache, because they will help

• motivate the rest of the board,
• set an example for everyone,
• keep everyone else in line supporting a well-thought-out fundraising
• plan.
• reign in less-than-productive distracting fundraising strategies.

10. Knowledge of our community and our environment.

Again, a little experience wins. When you have board members who understand your unique community or the environment you operate within, it just save time and energy.

It’s like they are on your team before you start, and you don’t have to spend valuable time and energy educating them.

Now, here’s my disclaimer:

There’s an exception to every single attribute on my list.  One size doesn’t fit all boards – and like I said above, this is my own personal biased list.

It’s simply a sweeping generalization of what I have found over two decades of working with boards.

Bottom line:

Be clear and specific about the qualities you want in your new board members.

Define what and who you want and then go after those folks!

Use my “Recruit Your Dream Team Board Workbook” (free for subscribers) as a guide to enlist the most fabulous people you can imagine to join your own bandwagon.

I bet you have an opinion on my list! What are YOUR favorite qualities in a new board member?

Is your board ready to assume real leadership for your organization’s future?

Create a board that's ready to ROCK!

If your board is ready to move from “managing” to “leading,” here’s a Manifesto for them to embrace.

Wikipedia defines “manifesto” as “a public declaration of principles and intentions.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if your board members had an open discussion about their responsibilities in fundraising?

Why don’t you add this to your next board meeting agenda as a discussion item?

And ask, “what are your impressions of this set of principles?”

Who knows what you might create!

Manifesto for a Fundraising Board

We agree that ALL board members are responsible for actively supporting our organization’s resource development. It is everybody’s job.

We agree that ALL board members can take an active role in fundraising by:

•       thanking donors and helping to develop long term relationships with them

•       building connections for fundraising

•       lobbying for grants and gifts

•       asking for contributions when appropriate

•       raising the visibility of our organization in the community.

We acknowledge that this will help

•       increase contributions

•       build organizational credibility

•       create long term donors who will sustain and support our organization for the long haul

•       help lay the groundwork for future capital campaigns.

Do you think your board is ready for this?

Leave me a comment and tell me why, or why not.

The much-awaited Giving USA Report came out this week, with important data on just how much US donors gave last year to various causes.

We all look forward to this data because it tells us how generous American donors are feeling. And what types of causes donors are favoring.

Any info we can find out about donors’ preferences is like money in the bank to enterprising fundraisers.

Here’s what I think you need to know about the Giving USA Report and today’s giving climate: (I’m using inflation-adjusted numbers here.)

• Donors gave 2.1% more this year than last.

Giving is rebounding –  but slowly — just like the US economy.

As the Nonprofit Quarterly puts it, we have “a still-depressed domestic giving scene. ”

• Overall giving is still down 11% from pre-recession highs.

In ’08 and ’09, giving took a huge dive, dropping by 13% in two years.

It was the largest drop in giving in more than 40 years. (sobering, isn’t it?) This year’s increase of just over 2% still puts us at an overall decline of 11%.

• Overall, in 2010 donors gave an estimated $290.9 billion.

Last year donors gave $280 billion, so we are up by 10.6 billion.

So giving is beginning to recover as the economy slowly climbs out of the recession.

And donors are showing that they really do continue to care about philanthropy.

• The philanthropic outlook is still uncertain.

If giving only grows at this slow rate, it may take years to get back to where we were before the recession.

• US human services groups took the biggest hit last year, with contributions dropping 5.6%.

Originally this sector looked ok, with a decline of only 1.5%.

But the sector includes special funds raised by US charities for Haiti relief efforts.

When you take out the Haiti gifts, you see a real decline of 5.6%.

This couldn’t be worse news for our safety net charities.

With more government cuts expected and demand spiraling, human service agencies can expect continued fundraising challenges.

• Donors are not going to be giving enough to make up for government cuts to nonprofits.

There are going to continue to “be significant gaps between between needs and services,” according to Patrick Rooney, executive director of the Center for Philanthropy at Indiana University, one of the report’s co-sponsors.

• Gifts from individuals are by far the largest source of funding to nonprofits – totaling 87% of all gifts.

According to Giving USA: “Combined charitable giving by individuals, bequests, and family foundations is estimated at $254.10 billion in 2010, or about 87% of the  total.”

Never forget: Individuals give so very much more than foundations and corporations.

Focus on major gifts from real people if you want to make your goals.

• Bequests make up 8% of all charitable gifts.

  

  Corporate gifts are rebounding.

Never, never forget that the profit in fundraising is in planned giving and bequests.

Don’t lose out on these potentially transformational gifts!

• Corporate giving grew 8.6% in 2010.

This is not surprising, since corporate giving plummeted during the recession.

But this figure also includes in-kind support – which is an increasing part of the overall total.

• Foundation grant making dropped slightly – 1.8%.

Foundation grant making by private, community and operating foundations was $41 billion in 2010, according to the Foundation Center.

Foundation giving also took a dive in the past two years, and apparently it has not rebounded yet.

• Gifts to education grew 3.5% in 2010.

This great news since education gifts dropped in the past two years.

We can typically expect that larger nonprofits, like educational institutions,  will pull out from the recession more quickly than smaller more grassroots organizations.

Giving to education rose to an estimated $41.67 billion – 14% of the total.

• Gifts to health organizations were about flat: down by 0.3%.

Giving to health was $22.83 billion – 8% of the total.

(1.3% in current dollars or down 0.3% in inflation-adjusted dollars).

Hospitals are challenged by pressure to provide more charity care – so they are focusing more on philanthropy than ever before.

• Gifts to arts and cultural organizations are up nicely.

Gives to arts, culture, and humanities organizations were 4.1% more in 2010 than in 2009.

This follows a decline of 1.8 percent between 2008 and 2009. 

Many arts groups suffered steep drops in support during the recession, and it’s good to see them rebounding.

• Gifts to international organizations are up significantly: 13.5%.

And giving to this sector is up by 18.6% over the past two years.

Clearly there is an increased interest in international causes and issues among donors.

• Environmental and animal-welfare groups had the second largest decline, down 2.3%.

Even the big oil spill in the Gulf last year did not prod an uptick in gifts to environmental groups.

Here are some great reference articles for this report.

U.S. charitable giving shows modest uptick in 2010 following two years of declines (Center on Philanthropy)

The Economy and Giving: How 2011 Fund Raising Will Fare (Chronicle of Philanthropy live discussion)

The Other America’s Philanthropy: What Giving USA Numbers Reveal in 2011 (Nonprofit Quarterly)

You can download the free Executive Summary of the Giving USA 2010 Report here.

Do your nonprofit board members avoid fundraising?

If your board members back off when they should be pitching in, this may be why!

Don’t make these mistakes that hurt, rather than help, our cause.

Mistake #1: Thinking that fundraising is all about “asking for money.”

Many board members are mistaken about fundraising. They think it is “asking for money.”

And that’s what they are afraid of – the money part and the asking part.

But we all know that isn’t true.

We know that asking for a gift is only one small step in a very long, time-consuming process.

Board members don’t understand that fundraising is much more than “asking.”

They often don’t know that it’s a process with multiple activities – things we do every, single day, over and over:

• identifying potential donors,
• cultivating and involving them in our cause,
• finding ways to thank donors and foster their long-term relationship with our cause.

Board members like to imagine the worst, don’t they?

They focus on the most difficult and awkward (to them) part of the fundraising cycle – the asking stuff.

• Don’t let your good-hearted board members get away with equating the entire process of fundraising with soliciting.

• Do help them understand that fundraising is much, much more than “asking for money.” It’s really “building and keeping friends.”

• Don’t give them trainings called “the art of the ask.” That just might get them running in the opposite direction!

• Do focus them first on making friends who join our bandwagon.

Mistake #2: Asking trustees to make cold or “cool” calls.

Cool and cold calls are the worst possible place to use the energy and good will of your kind-hearted board members. Why?

Because cold  – and cool – calls have the highest rate of failure.

If you ask trustees to make fundraising visits that have a low likelihood of succeeding, you’ll shoot yourself in the foot.

Rejection is one of the things they fear most, and this just sets them up for it.

A trustee said to me once after a board retreat:

“Before when someone mentioned fundraising, I immediately imagined cold calls. Yuck!

Now I know that good fundraising is EVERYTHING BUT cold calls.”

• Do send them out to make visits that are already set up for success.

• Don’t let them beat their heads against a very unpleasant wall.

• Do involve them in warming up donors and they’ll be much more willing to help solicit.

• Don’t let your thin-skinned volunteers experience defeat rather than success.

Mistake #3: Too many calls at too low a dollar level.

Yes, we do want board members to help solicit.

But don’t ask them to spend too much of their valuable time on smaller gifts.

They can just as easily be focusing on prospects with much larger potential.

• Do focus them on the most important, the most visible, the highest potential prospects.

• Don’t overload them with piddly little stuff.

• Do focus them where they can do the most good:  fewer calls at much higher dollar levels.

• Don’t waste their time -make the most of the limited time they have available.
  

Mistake #4: Emergency fundraising, not long-term relationships.

I am all for a sense of urgency when raising funds.

But all too often it takes a crisis to mobilize our board members.

And when we focus on the crisis, something deteriorates.

The conversation really does become all about money rather than about the great work our organization is doing for community good.

• Don’t ask board members to help pull in money quickly to respond to a budget shortfall or cover some major financial loss.

• Do capture the urgency of the situation – but in a positive light.

• Don’t set your board members up for unpleasant fundraising experiences with hasty asks.

• Do get your board members involved in friendmaking and fundraising projects before the urgency hits.

Mistake #5: Lack of training, structure, coaching, and support.

We often send our trustees out with too little preparation and backup.

We tend to forget that they are volunteers.

They are not the pros that we are.

We need to give them thorough training to correct their misconceptions about fundraising and pump them up with confidence to venture out into scary fundraising territory.

• Don’t make the mistake of assuming that your board members understand fundraising, or how to talk about your organization.

• Do be sure they understand the true nature of fundraising – developing donors/investors/partners who will stick with your organization for the long run.

• Don’t challenge them to perform without giving them terrific support.

• Do give them first-rate support from staff, clear goals, training and inspiration. They will appreciate your help!

Do you agree with these fundraising mistakes? Yes or no?

Let me know with a comment!

Is your board reluctant to enforce term limits?

If so, the board is in danger of becoming stale and set in its ways.

And when that happens, your entire organization may be at risk - sooner than you think.

This is a very, very dangerous place for any nonprofit in today’s wildly shifting environment.

Five Boards Gone Down the Wrong Path

Here are the stories of five boards gone wrong:

1. The Martyrs.

This board is full of hard-working martyrs. They kill themselves with work – doing things that staff could or should be doing.

They complain:

“We work SO hard and we’re SO burned out. Woe to us.”

The irony is that this board worked very hard to enlist “diverse” members.

But when the highly valued new members saw this group’s attitude and what was expected, the new members fled.

DOWNSIDE:

Martyr boards are no fun. They drive new people away.

The worst thing is that this board will not be able to develop new leaders: a very serious problem for the future.

2. The Social Club.

This board is really, really comfortable and “clubby.” Getting together for the board meetings is social time for a group of friends. They say:

“Implement term limits? Why on earth would we want to kick out one of our friends? That would be rude.”

DOWNSIDE:

Governance becomes a low priority, and any serious work about the organization’s future is at the bottom of the list.

Worst of all, no one wants to rock the boat. Difficult discussions never happen.

Would you want to join this group?

They may have fun but they don’t get anything done. Does this organization have a future?

3. The “Frozen in Time” Club.

This board is full of the same people for years. Their mantra is:

“We’ve always done it this way.”

New ideas? New ways to implement their mission?

Innovation? Close out a nonperforming program? Fire nonperforming staff?

Not a chance.

DOWNSIDE:

Jack Welch said it best: 

“If the rate of change on the OUTSIDE exceeds the rate of change on the INSIDE, the end is near.”

Who would want to hang out with this crowd?

Does this organization have a future?

4.  “We Own This Organization” Club.

This happens when the sense of ownership becomes so deeply ingrained that people think they literally own the organization.

A few people call the shots, and that’s it.

Their opinion is all that matters, because they are so smart and have so much information. And they have all the power.

They start to feel entitled to the position.

DOWNSIDE:

They will drive out or ostracize any new members who will simply feel excluded.

The rest of the board is disengaged.

AND they are pushing out new board members with connections to community leaders and funders. They are cutting off potential fundraising opportunities.

Someone said to me last month:

“If we are ever going to get serious about raising money, we’ll HAVE to have term limits.”

5. The Lazies.

This group is so comfortable with itself that innovation and hard work go out the door.

This board does not want to be a working group. They are stale as last week’s bread.

Are they interested in a learning experience? Stimulating discussion? Strategy discussions? Nah.

DOWNSIDE:

Aesop said it best:

“When all is said and done, more is said than done.

Who would want to join this group? What’s the future for this nonprofit?

Term limits are absolutely essential to good, smart governance.

Rotating more community members through your governing body can only broaden your influence and connections your community’s leadership.

Welcome new board members, and you’ll get fresh thinking and innovation – that you need!

Which type of board have you encountered in your career? How did you overcome it?

Thanks for your comments!