Are you singing the “Bad Board Member Blues?” If the secret to a great board is to recruit the right people in the right way, what do you do if your board members are appointed and you don’t have control over the recruitment process?
Most fundraising professionals have very specific goals—how much to raise by when. In contrast, I have worked with very few nonprofit organizations that have meaningful goals for program directors, human resources personnel, marketing personnel, and others. Everyone would benefit (including our clients) if we would demand the same level of excellence from all staff that nonprofits are pretty routinely demanding of development professionals.
The latest Better Business Bureau Wise Giving survey results released this week reveal that less than one in five (19%) of the American public “highly trusts” charities. Yet, this same survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of people report trust as essential before they donate. The low levels of trust exposed in this survey do not foretell strong future giving.
In addition to giving, what is it that we want our board members to do? Have we asked them to do it? If not, we should!
A 360-degree review can help uncover cultural issues about which board members may be totally unaware, the kinds of issues that run good staff—fundraisers as well as other professionals—out the door. A regular, 360-degree review process of nonprofit CEOs just might help end the revolving door crisis in fundraising.
When fundraising isn’t good, it is never [or almost never] simply the result of having an ineffective development professional. When fundraising isn’t strong, it’s because one or more of these things at your organization is broken, damaged, or failing. This isn’t to say that a good or bad fundraiser doesn’t matter; it’s simply that that isn’t the whole story (often it’s not even the biggest part of the story). The bad news here, also, is that a great fundraiser can’t fix fundraising when other fundamental organizational things are broken. Before you reach for a pink slip…