Can Your Staff Lead Your Nonprofit Board in Relational Fundraising?

Nonprofit GrowthDevelopment
Written By Sherry Quam Taylor

Nonprofit CEOs - I don’t need to tell you that every person who is part of the nonprofit plays a role in fundraising. Board members are in a unique position to introduce their networks + foster relationships with donors.  

Sounds great! So what’s the problem? 

Well, Board Members are most valuable in a relational role—which is the opposite work of all the give/gets, appeals, social media posts, golf outings, 5Ks, Giving Tuesday pushes, & so on, which are more transactional in nature. 

Those transactional fundraising activities are important, in some capacity. But, a nonprofit’s overall revenue strategy should include a maximum of 25% from these transactional strategies.  

To grow the organization’s bottom line, 75% of revenue should result from relational fundraising strategies and activities to maximize unrestricted gifts.

So, organizations are missing out on up to (or more than) 7-figures in financial gifts when teams task their board members with transactional responsibilities.  

I find that on DAY ONE, a board’s Give/Get sets the pace for transactional fundraising. 

If your fundraising staff is not equipped with the relational skills they need to secure larger, general-operating dollars, it will be hard for them to lead your board in this manner.  

❓First ask if you need to equip your staff with these skills.

❓Do they know how to truly do relational fundraising?

❓Do they know how to lead donors through investment-level conversations?  

Last thing I’ll say on this . . . Board members have very important work to do—and it’s not transactional in nature. Educate and empower your board members to focus on key relationships. This aligns their hours to dollars.

Whenever you’re ready, here are THREE things you can do next:

👣 Follow me on LinkedIn where I share the same lessons I teach my clients about attracting larger gen-ops dollars and adding 7-figures + to their bottom line. 

🍎 Read my GUIDE! THE TRUTH ABOUT GIVE/GETS :: Top 5 Reasons Your Board’s Give/Get Is Leaving Thousands (Sometimes Millions) on the Table. See how limiting board members to the Give/Get model restricts gifts and keeps your staff from reaching their full fundraising potential. Here to get it.

📈 Work with me to scale your org's revenue by 2-5X and fund your organization’s Strategic Plan // If you’re a business-minded CEO already raising MILLIONS but need to diversify revenue and secure more general-operating dollars to invest in growth, you can apply to work with me here.

Sherry Quam Taylor

Sherry Quam Taylor works with business-minded Nonprofit CEOs whose Strategic Plans require expansive budgets and larger amounts of general-operating revenue for growth. To become investment-level ready, Sherry helps leaders see their revenue potential and helps them see what may be blocking donors from giving in this way. Sherry’s clients know how to attract larger donors by solving the funding challenges at the root of the issue.

As a result of learning her methodology, Sherry’s clients become sustainable, diversify revenue, and know how to add significant amounts gen-ops revenue to their budgets. But mostly, their development departments and board have transformed into high-ROI revenue generators – aligning their hours with relational dollars and set free from the limitations of transactional fundraising.

Sherry attributes the success of her business to her passion for modeling radical confidence to the future CEOs in her house - her two college-aged daughters.

https://www.QuamTaylor.com
Previous

GUEST POST // 6 Pro Tips to Increase Your Nonprofit Website's ROI
Next

The Parallels Between Investing and Nonprofit Fundraising