Nonprofit Leaders: Focus on Relational Fundraising Strategies
Nonprofit Leaders: If your Development Committee spends their entire meeting brainstorming about social media or how to hit your 5K goal, you have a bigger problem than you think.
How so?
Well, Board members are in a unique position to introduce their networks + foster relationships with donors.
That’s 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.
If your Development Committee is only focused on transactional fundraising, the entire board will follow…
What's worse is if your 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 OR development committee in this manner.
Here’s a few things to ask yourself, my nonprofit leader, about your nonprofit fundraising staff:
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. If you think your board and staff may need some help here and you're ready to change this once an for all, we should talk.
You can reach out and apply to work with me here.
Whenever you’re ready, here are THREE things you can do next:
👣 Follow me on LinkedIn where I share insider info daily — the same lessons I teach my clients about attracting larger gen-ops dollars and diversifying revenue.
🍎 Grab FREE Guides + White Papers — download robust resources you can use to push against the sector’s misconceptions, equip your board, and shift your team into High-ROI fundraising.
📈 Work with me to diversify revenue & secure the gen-ops gifts you need to grow. If you’re a business-minded nonprofit CEO with big growth plans but need to make charitable revenue from investment-level donors a bigger part of your budget, you can apply to work with me here.
