What Donors Get

Non Profit Board Members Are Key

Ask any non-profit what they think of their boards and they will tell you without hesitation that board members are important people. While boards don’t usually get involved in the a day to day operations of an organization, they support the work of the administration so that the organization can provide services to support its mission. How boards support their respective organizations depends on whether the board operates in a fiduciary or advising capacity.

Volunteers as Donors

Many times donors volunteer within the organizations they support. Sometimes they volunteer before becoming donors, and at other times they become donors and then subsequently want to become more involved with the organization. Many organizations strategically involve volunteers because they know that when a volunteer becomes involved, they are 10 times more likely to make a donation.

Keep in mind that non-profit organizations operate on the premise that all of the profits of the organization are fed back into the mission. No one person or entity profits from any revenue streams generated by the organization.

It’s imperative to remember, for the integrity of your organization and for the integrity of the non-profit world at large, that organizations should not even appear to reward donors with board seats, special volunteer positions, or other rewards for supporting an organization. This does not include special donor recognition levels, or appreciations, that all donors may enjoy based on their levels of support. That’s not what we’re talking about here. Many times a donor may volunteer to chair or sponsor an event and then challenge his or her peers to match their support. That’s not what we are talking about here either. What we are speaking of is if the donor receives some type of benefit, service, or gain – solely because they gave  a donation. In that case, it’s not a donation. It may be a sponsorship or other type of support, but it’s not a donation.

Board Members As Donors

In the for profit world it may not be unusual to have a pay for play arrangement. In the non profit world, that concept should not apply. A donor should not expect to be rewarded with a board position just because he or she has made a large donation. This doesn’t mean that a large donor won’t end up being on the board of an organization. An organization may strategically want to have certain members of the community on its board because of the connections and skills that the potential board member brings to the table, AND a donor’s past and present philanthropic ability. Once becoming a board member, the organization should have a requirement that all board members support the organization at a certain level.

Any organization that is approached by a donor who wants to give a donation solely for the purposes of getting on to the board should proceed with much caution, and consider that this control tactic may not end with this first request.

Motive For Board Membership

Whether your non-profit is a church, youth agency, or other social service agency, it’s important to know what types of board members you need to move the organization forward. It’s helpful for existing board members and the senior executive to complete a board matrix that will enable all of the stakeholders to see the skills and talents already represented on the board , and those that are lacking. Completing such an exercise provides the ability to see the critical skills the agency needs. Further, completion of the matrix will give your nominating committee a map of sorts. With this tool the agency can enjoy a much more strategically targeted process, rather than accepting someone as a board member because you have to fill the seats.

Want to know more about the ideas presented here, or need to have an idea session to generate ways that your small to medium sized organization can find board members? Contact JDHouseSpeaks@gmail.com for an idea session focused on helping you find a unique approach to a common issue.

The Board Vetting Process is Key

Everyone who volunteers to serve on a board does so with motives and expectations. Knowing what those motives and expectations are before board members sign on, as much as is possible, will make for a much more fruitful and productive relationship.  Not knowing could lead to board members who are not good community advocates, and not engaged with the work of the board.  A vetting process that allows your organization to get to know the prospective board member and for the prospective board member to get to know your agency and your agency’s expectations can ferret out whether this would be a good match for all parties concerned.

Donors Get Satisfaction

Donors get the satisfaction of knowing that they are providing support to a worthwhile organization that is making a difference in the world. Donors also get thanked and appreciated by the non-profits they support. Donors get recognized for the gifts they give and that recognition can be any number of ways. The best way to recognize a donor is to discuss with them how they want the gift to be recognized. They can also get a tax deduction for making a donation to a non-profit. What they don’t get are promises of volunteer positions, board seats, or other personal benefits just because they made a donation.

What are your thoughts? Do you think donors should demand or be rewarded with a seat on the board just because they made a donation? Why or why not?

Is this your first time here? If you find value in this post, be sure to subscribe to JDHouse Speaks by entering your e-mail address into the subscribe feed to the right of this post. You can find comfort in knowing that JDHouse will never share your e-mail address and will only use this information to share future posts and communications from JDHouse.

Copyright © 2013 JDHouse. All Rights Reserved

I Need A Fundraiser Now!

Lead the Charge

Executive Directors everywhere realize that they have  a pivotal role in the fundraising efforts of their organizations. Even when there are dedicated staff focused on fundraising efforts , it is the Executive Director, Chief Executive Officer, or the President of an organization, along with an organizations’ board of directors, who are ultimately charged with insuring that the fundraising goals are reached. Savvy directors know that fundraising is a collaborative experience, and that it takes the efforts of everyone in the organization.

Small volunteer organizations who haven’t reached the point of having a paid executive director, or those organizations who are just starting, may find it difficult to organize a formal fundraising campaign.  Many worthy organizations start from small beginnings.

I need a great fundraising activity now!

Tis the season when many youth and other non-profit organizations are taking inventory of their needs and finding that they need additional funds to carry out their programs. Every year around this time, I experience an increase in calls for grant writing, and other fundraising ideas, that organizations can implement now.

While leaders have a pivotal role in the fundraising success of any organization, an important nugget about fundraising is that raising funds starts long before you actually start to see results. Taking the care to know how your organization fits with other organizations in your community will position you to market your efforts to the right people who will be more likely to help.

While you are determining where you stand, here are 5 simple concrete ideas to help you on your journey to figuring out what you can do quickly, with little overhead, to raise funds for a special project or program.

5 Simple Fundraising Ideas

1. Solicit your board members to give and recruit their warm contacts to give. Let’s say for the sake of this exercise that you have 10 board members and you ask each of them to donate $100. Then have each of them solicit 10 of their friends to match their gifts. In total that’s 110 people, donating $100 each, to your organization.  You do the math. All you did was ask 10 people, who asked 10 people. Expand your success by asking more people to participate in the project.

2. Hold a bowling event or tournament. For this activity just contact your local bowling alley. Once you have negotiated the details with them, then all you have to do is find teams to bowl. Your profits will come from team registrations. You can enhance your profits by finding sponsorships and holding a small silent auction on the day of the event. Of course you will want to make it fun, get great prizes for the winning teams, and tell everyone that they are bowling for a great cause!

3. If your organization serves young parents with children, consider holding a Mom’s or Parent’s night out. Many times it’s difficult for young families to find reliable and trusted baby sitters for an occasional evening out. If you already serve the families, you are already a trusted source. Hold a special Saturday evening of activities for children of specified ages from 6 p.m. – 10 p.m. for a fee. Lower your overhead by finding qualified volunteers to help with the evening’s activities.  This type of activity may be very successful around the Christmas Holidays. You are only limited here by the amount of space you have access to and the number of qualified volunteers you are able to recruit.

4. Have a car wash for donations.  Sounds counter productive, but for some reason when you say you are doing a task for a donation, people tend to give more than what they would have given had you advertised a price.  I’ve seen car washes for donations raise thousands of dollars in a very short period of time.

5. Have a drawing for a popular product. Use your connections to see how you can get a company to donate a product to your non-profit organization. Make sure that you follow any rules related to drawings as indicated in your state or county statutes. Recruit a good number of people to help you sell the tickets for a nominal price.

Want to know more about the ideas presented here, or need to have an idea session to generate ways that your small to medium sized organization can generate funds? Contact JDHouseSpeaks@gmail.com for an idea session focused on helping you find a unique approach to a common issue.

The services that you provide to the community could provide a very unique cache of ideas for the type of fundraising activities you can host. For example, a food bank can host an empty bowls event.  It would not be as effective for an organization that provides shoes to children to host an empty bowls event. A shoe organization would want to host a fundraising activity that more closely relates to providing shoes to children. Check out this creative idea from Goodie Two Shoes called, “I Flip Flopped for Goodie Two Shoes.“

The number of fundraising ideas available to you are as plentiful as there are organizations. Choosing 5 to list here is arbitrary. What ideas do you have? What types of simple, and easy to execute ideas would you add to this list?

Is this your first time here? If you find value in this post, be sure to subscribe to JDHouse Speaks by entering your e-mail address into the subscribe feed to the right of this post. You can find comfort in knowing that JDHouse will never share your e-mail address and will only use this information to share future posts and communications from JDHouse.

Copyright © 2013 JDHouse. All Rights Reserved

Memorial Day Leadership Lessons

Thank You

I want to offer a simple thank you to the men and women who are serving, and have served in the U.S. Armed Forces. Those who chose to serve  in the United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, or Coast Guard must be recognized for making a totally unselfish choice. Although their service may have been exchanged for certain benefits, no benefit can measure up to the sacrifices our men and women have made in service to our country.

When I look at our military I see some transferable leadership and followership lessons.

  3 Leadership Lessons From Our Men and Women In Uniform

1. The mission must be the boss of the matter. Can you imagine being in the middle of a fight for your very life and having to pause to take care of ego or personality issues?  The mission to cut off the enemy from their supplies, to take control of a strategic geographical location, or to take out an opposing unit has to be the sole, ultimate, and only focus. Losing sight of that focus could have dire consequences not only for the unit in battle, but potentially for thousands of soldiers.

2. A leader must be prepared to create the vision and reinforce the mission day, after day, after day. All of the practice “training runs” that our military pilots take before they are in actual battle assures that they will be able to react appropriately when in the heat of the fight. I’m reminded of  pilots in the movie, “Top Gun.”    Every time they went out (or up) to practice, the mission was reinforced.

3. Accomplishing the mission is important, but nothing is more important than strength of character. No matter how many times a soldier practices a certain scenario, there is no guarantee that the real situation will look anything like any of the practice runs. As a matter of fact, it’s probably safe to say in many instances that the real scenario won’t look anything like the practice run. If the situation takes unpredictable turns, and the soldier loses connection with the designated leader through any number of circumstances, the only thing that ties back is the soldier’s character, or the willingness to not give up even though the odds maybe stacked against her.

With a little tweaking, we can see how these principles apply to leadership in our organizations.

1. The mission must be the boss of the matter. Many of our organizations literally hold lives in the balance. Whether you lead people in a social service agency focused on preventing child abuse, or a youth organization focused on broadening the horizons of inner city youth, the people that we serve depend on us to provide life saving and life giving services.  If we lose sight of the mission and begin to focus on the low road, a road strewn with personality conflicts and ego landmines, we are certain to lose some of our best followers, and even worse we are certain to not provide value in the lives of those we are commissioned to serve. The value that our organizations provide to the world is much too important to let that happen. We must keep our eyes on the prize.

2. A leader must be prepared to create the vision and reinforce the mission day, after day, after day. I read someplace not long ago, that the only reason to have a meeting is to change the world. It follows then that a really good reason to have a meeting is to reinforce the mission that leads to changes in the world. A leader must spend enough time with followers translating and explaining how the completed mission looks and feels. If your organization is a food bank and the mission is for every  man, woman, boy, and girl to go to bed on a full stomach, everyone involved in manifesting that mission has to know how to make it happen. And further more,  they have to know how to tell when they have successfully reached the goal.  If we don’t know what success looks like, what joy can we find in striving for completion?

3.  Accomplishing the mission is important, but nothing is more important than strength of character. Staff members in the field won’t always have access to managers and leaders in the office. However because the leader has spent time creating, recreating, and reinforcing what the completed mission looks like, the follower in the field should know how to apply any number of variables to effect the desired outcomes.  Strength of character will allow staff members in the field to figure out a way to overcome unforeseen obstacles in order to reach the desired outcomes.

There are so many leadership lessons that we can learn from our men and women in uniform. What would you add to the lessons that I have listed here?

Thank you to the many men and women who have taught us so much by their example. Regardless as to our individual perceptions of the job that our military sets out to perform, a collective thank you is hardly enough to express our appreciation to those who put themselves in harms way to protect our country. The least we can do is learn from from the many acts of bravery they perform everyday. And if you have ever personally thanked a member of our military, you know that their response is usually, “You’re welcome. I was just doing my job.”

Here’s to creating bottom line value in your life and business.

Is this your first time here? If you find value in this post, be sure to subscribe to JDHouse Speaks by entering your e-mail address into the subscribe feed to the right of this post. You can find comfort in knowing that JDHouse will never share your e-mail address and will only use this information to share future posts and communications from JDHouse.

Copyright © 2013 JDHouse. All Rights Reserved