Strategies That Charities Can Use to Improve Board Members’ Fund-Raising Skills

Assembling a group of first-rate trustees is only half the battle for a board that wants to expand its fund-raising potential.

All too often, charities fail to train new board members in development or to keep them engaged in the charity’s mission, say experts. The following tips can help reinforce board members’ commitment to the institution and can pay off in dollars for the charity and satisfaction for the trustees.

Give new trustees a grace period. Some organizations are uneasy about having newcomers to the board seek donations.

“Some boards feel that until a trustee has been on the board for six months to a year, they may not have all the answers that would make them comfortable in the solicitation process,” says Kay Sprinkel Grace, a Newport Beach, Cal., fund-raising consultant.

For those who are not ready to do the asking, experts suggest getting them involved in developing lists of potential donors or in holding a cocktail party in their homes as a thank-you for donors. Getting them started right away is important so they won’t be lulled into thinking they will not be needed to raise money.

Offer training. “Organizations underestimate the extent to which people need training in fund raising,” says Barbara Taylor, senior associate at the Academic Search Consultation Service in Washington. At one board retreat, she says, people took turns acting out the role of trustee and potential donor and then critiqued one another’s performances.

“There are trustees who think this is hokey beyond belief, but it can be very helpful for boards that don’t feel funny about that sort of thing,” she says. “If role-playing doesn’t work, you can accomplish the same thing by talking about it.”

Insist on donations. Seeing that each trustee makes a gift to the organization is essential, say experts. Some organizations ask for a minimum donation of, say, $1,000, while others ask trustees according to their means.

Myrna Hall, vice-president for development at the University of Colorado Foundation in Boulder, says: “If we are working on a campaign and we have stated goals and we’ve put people on the board who are not capable of making gifts of that size, then we’ve put a lid on our fund raising.”

But for other groups, the amount is not as important as how much the gift is in proportion to the donor’s means.

“If I give $500 or $50 and that represents a huge stretch for me, then I can ask you to make a similar stretch,” says Ms. Grace, the fund-raising consultant.

In either case, most experts agree, the gift is essential. Very often when a board member asks for a gift, the potential donor first wants to know how much the trustee has given.

“If you don’t give, how can you ask someone else to?” says Ms. Grace. “I am persuaded that when we write that check, we give a piece of ourselves to that organization. Until we do, people can see through that ask and know that we really haven’t made a commitment.”

Furthermore, she says, many grant makers have begun to ask if charities have 100 per cent financial participation on the part of the board. Ms. Grace recently conducted a successful campaign for a food bank but says that several foundations would not even consider the charity’s request because not everyone on the board had contributed. Other times, foundations and corporations want to be told what the board’s aggregate contribution was or the range in size of gifts made by trustees.

“It’s increasingly important that we demonstrate to our funders that the organization is committed to a level of funding,” she adds.

Ask personally for gifts. “One of the things boards are remiss about is that we don’t solicit board members in the way we expect them to solicit others,” says Ms. Grace. “Board members, because they are ‘family,’ are often solicited with a ‘group ask.’ The chair says at a board meeting, ‘It’s that time of year again. There’s an envelope at your place and we need your gift before year end.’ ”

That is inappropriate, says Ms. Grace, and so is asking for the gift in a letter or by phone. Trustees themselves are urged to ask for donations in person; they should be accorded the same consideration, she says — and that meeting can serve as an example of how it is done.

“Every year the executive director and the board chair should have an individual meeting with each board member and talk about their concerns, their enthusiasm, how they want to be involved, and ask them for their annual commitment. Then they model the way they want the board member to ask people in the community for gifts.”

Reinforce a sense of mission. In at least three board meetings a year of the Family Resource Center in St. Louis, trustee Carol Weisman would bring in someone who had benefited from the charity’s services, such as a woman who had been abused by her spouse. “Fund raising would go through the roof when we did that,” she says. “This is especially important if you have a mission that members do not live with day to day.”

When a group does not serve people directly, photographs that tell a story can achieve the same goal. Ms. Weisman arranged a board retreat for the Missouri Environmental Education Association and placed at each seat a a photo of a toxic-waste dump on the left, a picture of a meadow on the right, and the group’s mission noted in between.

Some organizations encourage board members to do hands-on volunteering to remind them what their work is all about. Paul Leonard, president of a Habitat for Humanity chapter covering four small towns in South Carolina, says most of the members of his board also work on building projects or assist families.

“Going out on a Saturday and working with 10 or 15 volunteers and a family, that is an emotional high,” he says. “If you’ve done that, then when you go talk to somebody about making a donation, you’re talking out of your heart.”