Who is your nonprofit board taking their cue from?
There’s a phrase I hear a lot when leaders describing their team’s approach to individual fundraising. It goes something like this:
“They just need to move from transactional to relational fundraising.”
Well, that’s kinda the problem.
Teams don’t always know how to make the shift off the transactional gift spin-cycle and into the activities that will fully finance your organization. And this is a huge problem because this kind of revenue is what funds your growth, a strong reserve, and gen-ops!
It’s not your staff’s fault. They’ve probably never needed to know how to do this in their current career or role. If there’s a gap in skill set and they’re already wearing too many hats, it’s hard for them to know if their hours invested are strategically aligned with dollars coming back. And, I can assure you: the day’s transactional urgency always wins over the more relational strategic work.
But, here’s the deal. This impacts your donor pipeline in huge ways. You see, boards take their cue from the staff. That’s why they’re defaulting to transaction-based activities too.
So, if this scenario describes your leadership and staff, it will describe your board members as well. Board members already think they hate to fundraise… think they aren’t good at it. In reality? They kinda don’t know what they don’t know.
And while some board members can get their networks to give modest gifts, if most people in their networks are giving transactional gifts as a result of galas, golf outings, and personal emails at year-end, you’re leaving money on the table.
Here’s something else I know: Large general-operating donations don’t come as a result of transactional fundraising.
I don’t need to tell you that if you’ve got big growth plans, your organization not only needs larger gifts, but also larger gifts that are unrestricted. This is how you grow your budget year after year.
If you do one thing this year, please invest so your leadership, staff, and board learns how to attract and secure gifts as a result of relationship-based fundraising. You’ll see the dollars you’ve been leaving on the table for years.
Whenever you’re ready, here are THREE things you can do next:
👣 Follow me on LinkedIn where I give away insider info every week - 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 in so many ways and keeps your staff from reaching their full fundraising potential. Here to get it.
📈 Work with me to fund your organization’s Strategic Plan and scale your budget by 2 - 5X // If you’re a business-minded CEO already raising MILLIONS but still need more general-operating revenue from individuals and family foundations to invest in growth, you can apply to work with me here.
