The Development Committee:
Every Board Should Have One

Board-Meeting-Feature

What kind of people should be on a development committee? Those with both the vision to see the big picture and the focus to concentrate on what needs to be done today. A development committee needs people of varying backgrounds, but I have found the best committee chairs share some common traits. They are skilled managers and have strong marketing backgrounds. They are able to lead, and they have clout in the community. As the staff development professional, I found I could supply the nuts-and-bolts “how-to.” Then my committee chairperson would pull together a cadre of volunteers who could be relied on to deliver results. Recruiting other volunteers is an important part of what a development committee chair needs to be able to do.

If you recognize yourself in the forgoing description, you really need to raise your hand to serve on your organizations development committee and then be ready to take a position of leadership. Do so, and you will give the organization what it needs most while at the same time showing yourself to be a community leader.

Let’s suppose for a moment that you are a board member who is already committed to carrying out your fund-raising responsibilities and have risen to a position of leadership in the organization’s development effort. How then can you help bring other board members and volunteers into the fold? You do it by overcoming their objections to and fear of asking for money.

Overcoming The Board’s Fund-Raising
Fears, Objections — And Excuses

Regardless of the excuses given, there are positive steps you and the organization can take to reverse the most negative and defensive attitudes.

  1. Educate them on fund-raising with workshops, retreats, etc. Knowing the process of fund-raising helps diminish fear of it.
  2. Help them reinforce their belief in the value of the organization’s mission by sharing its success with them and encouraging them to involve themselves in its programs. True belief in a cause can turn almost anyone into an effective fund-raiser.
  3. Assign tasks that involve them in a fund-raising campaign, but that do not require them to solicit gifts. These can include rating prospects, adding personal endorsements to funding requests, and writing thank-you notes to donors. It’s a question of learning to crawl before you can walk.
  4. Place them in a position to be visibly associated with the organization and its successes. Ask a board member to be an interviewee in a story the local newspaper is doing on the organization or one of its programs. Let them bask in the organization’s success. We all like to associate ourselves with winning efforts.
  5. Partner a board member who is a successful fund-raiser with a new recruit as a mentor. Have the new member accompany the successful fund-raiser on visits to a donor or two. Nothing beats the experience of being where the action is and watching a pro at work.
  6. Create opportunities for board members and volunteers to experience the organization. They will gain a true appreciation for the organization from the up-close and personal view provide by visits to its facilities, events where they can watch the organization at work, and seeing how real people benefit from the organization. The best way to learn about something is to immerse yourself in it.

Try these approaches and you will increase greatly the willingness of board members and volunteers to solicit gifts. Increase that willingness and you will raise the board’s fund-raising effectiveness.

Board Members Must Avoid Major Solicitation Errors

Earlier I said that as a staff development officer I found that I could provide my committee chair and by extension, other board members and volunteers, with the nuts-and-bolts know-how of fund-raising. If you are a board member, make sure that you avail yourself of the skill, knowledge, and experience of the pros you have on staff. Those of us who have been working at this fund-raising game over the years have learned many of the dos and don’ts of successful solicitation. Some of the things that doom a solicitation effort include:

  1. Not directly asking for a specific gift
  2. Not asking for a large enough gift
  3. Not knowing enough about the prospect before you go into the meeting
  4. Not listening enough and talking too much
  5. Not asking questions to find out what the prospect’s needs are
  6. Not discussing the benefits of the gift for both the prospect and the organization
  7. Not being flexible and able to come up with creative alternatives
  8. Not summarizing the highpoints of the presentation before moving to ask for the gift
  9. Not practicing what you are going to say and how you will say it
  10. Asking for the gift too soon
  11. Continuing to speak, rather than remaining silent, after asking for the gift

After a prospect has made his or her decision, there are two mistakes solicitors commonly make that damage the organization’s ability to obtain future gifts. They are:

  1. Showing disappointment in the prospect after a refusal or when a much smaller gift than that requested is given.
  2. Not expressing a sincere thank-you after every opportunity to present the case for giving, no matter what the outcome.

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QUESTIONS:

1. Should all Board members be expected to fund-raise or just those on the Development committee?

2. Why?

Please contribute your insight or the answers to the questions in the Comment section below.  Thank you!

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Written by Tony Poderis, tony@raise-funds.com. Excerpted with permission from Raise-Funds