Category: Boards

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Include Your Board Members In Your Year-End Giving Plan

Year-end giving is on all fundraisers’ minds right now—we all want to have the best returns possible. Last week, we described what’s ahead for year-end giving in 2022; you can read about that here. Over the next few weeks, I’ll examine various aspects of year-end giving, including the Thanksgiving Thank-A-Thon, year-end appeal letters, and the crucial last four days of the year. Stay tuned.   Today, let’s look at some tips for inviting your board to play a leadership role in your year-end drive. It’s our job as fundraisers to make it easy for board members to participate in fundraising,

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Board Leaders

Cultivate Heavy Lifters for Your Board

By Laurence A. Pagnoni, MPA Your board can be a robust fundraising engine, but not if it’s cluttered with board members who are light lifters. And, let’s face it, most nonprofits have boards that do very little. It’s better to have even a few people on your board who are willing to put in the time to guide your organization to its greatest impact. I’ve seen organizations transformed by three or four such people, and it’s much more advantageous to recruit this type of board member. The question, of course, is how do you cultivate the heavy lifters to ensure that you’re giving them

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Achieving Board Diversity and Inclusion

By Michael Davidson This is a critical time in our history as we finally begin to acknowledge our national failure to take seriously our commitment to equity and the strength we derive from our diversity. Implementing the values of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) carries some special challenges for Boards of Directors. Specifically, they will need to: Commit to the importance of implementing these values by including members who bring diverse perspectives. Create a Board environment that will genuinely welcome and include members who will bring different points of view. Your Commitment to Change It is the legal responsibility of

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5 Reasons Your Development Planning Sucks

5 Reasons Your Development Planning Sucks

Editor’s Introduction: Nikkia Johnson’s blog post is direct by necessity. We do not mean to offend by some of the language. Sometimes great teachers need to get our attention to breakthrough to a truth. This post is important because Nikkia is speaking from her experience, she is sharing a grassroots community-centered perspective, and because her voice as a Black women is often muted within the professional field of fundraising.

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Looking At The Biggest Picture

Looking At The Biggest Picture

By Laurence A. Pagnoni, MPA I’ll just say it right out, a nonprofit’s survival needs do not constitute a sound argument for raising money. To say that “We need money to survive” is a defensive statement. Instead, talk to your donors and funding partners about golden opportunities to make a difference. The fundamentals of fundraising apply now more than ever. An in-depth and emotional case must be made for your support. The best way to make that case is to focus on the fundamental impact your organization is having on the community it serves. “Impact” will be the buzz word

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Build Relationships With Your Trustees and Inspire Them To Give

Build Relationships With Your Trustees and Inspire Them To Give

By Laurence A. Pagnoni, MPA Often trustees will pressure us fundraisers to state which philanthropists we know and if we can get them to give to their cause. After 20 years as a fundraiser, no matter the cause or the organization, trustees still ask me, usually very early in the conversation, to list who might fund them. Ideally, I have previously done my own prospect research on the board members so that I know their giving history and can work this into the conversation. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to talking about the profile or attributes of the donor

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