How to Build a Board That Fundraises (And Is Active and Engaged)
A Board is not just 3 people on a piece of paper. You learned the hard way. You chase them down, beg them to fundraise. They ghost you. You probably have a Founding board who have no idea what they're doing--neither do you. Learn how to create a culture of giving, active and engaged through effective board training that creates the roadmap, process and practices for an active board.
Episode 156 | How to Build a Board That Fundraises (And Is Active and Engaged)
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A Step to Freedom Pt. 4
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you're tired of chasing down board members who ghost your calls, skip meetings and just refuse to fundraise. In this episode, I'm going to outline what a high functioning board actually looks like, how to transform and transition the one that you have.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Welcome to On Air with Amber Wynn, where nonprofit leaders learn to fuse passion and commitment with proven business strategies to create long-term funding impact and sustainability. And now here's your host and resident Philanthrepreneur Amber Wynn.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Welcome to On Air with Amber Wynn. Today I'm going to talk about a topic that is near and dear to my heart because so many times I get nonprofit founders approaching me saying, I have a sucky board. They suck, they ghost me. They won't return my calls. I have to chase them down just to attend meetings, and I say to them, this is not the board that you want. You need a board of high functioning, high powered individuals, number one, who understands what it is that they're supposed to do, what your needs are. Because as the executive director, one of the main goals of a nonprofit board is to support the executive director. So if your nonprofit board is ghosting you, if it's like herding cats to try and get them to attend meetings, and if your board is not fundraising, then it's time for you to take action.
(01:44):
Be strategic and intentional. Lovingly thank them for the work that they've done. If they've done anything, if they haven't, we're just lovingly thanking them to rotate them off of the board. Because here's the thing, especially in this climate right now, your nonprofit board is essential. They are crucial. They should be providing you with resources. Yes, they should be paying board dues because you want that unrestricted monies, but you really need them to be out there serving as ambassadors to your organizations, bringing in resources, connecting you to opportunities, and those opportunities don't always have to be financial, right? A part of your sustainability plan should be cost savings. So your board should be in a position where they can help you save money as well. So when we come back, I want to talk to you a little bit about what your board should be doing versus what most boards actually do, and then we'll dive into why it's not just about who's on your board, but how you onboard them. That gets your board to the type of board that you want to be an organization when we come back.
(03:04):
All right, welcome back. Today we are talking about how to build a board that fundraises and actually shows up for your organization. Listen, those three people on your board are not there as warm bodies or placeholders. There is a purpose. The IRS has said that the purpose of the board, the nonprofit board, is for them to do five things. One, is to provide vision and oversight. Two, is to make sure that the organization is ran ethically. Three, is to support hire, fire. The executive director. Four is to serve as an ambassador. They're supposed to be out in the community talking up your organization, and five, they are supposed to fundraise. Those are the five things that the IRS set that your board is supposed to be doing. So if your board is ghosting you, if it's like herding cats and you can't even get them to attend the meetings, if they're not paying dues and fundraising for the organization, then it's time for you to lovingly rotate them out.
(04:15):
Or I'm sorry. If you are a founder who had no idea what it is a board is supposed to do, so it's like the blind leading the blind, then maybe your solution is to actually provide training to your board so that they understand what their roles and responsibilities are and they can step into the role. Oftentimes, I have my executive director saying, oh, there's no such thing as a good board member. I've had four or five and they never do anything. And I beg them and I ask them, and I say to them, what is it that a board is supposed to do?
(04:52):
They don't know. They say, well, I just want them to fundraise. What is it that they're fundraising to? They just need to bring money into the, no, that's not how that works. A lot of times the issue with dysfunctional boards ties to my founders, and so what I encourage my founders to do is two things. One is to educate yourself. You need to understand what those five things are that the IRS is saying a board is supposed to do. Because if you don't know, how are you going to hold your board accountable? So that's number one. Number two, you need to bring in someone objective who can come in and train them. Board members don't listen to executive directors. They're not supposed to. You know why? Because the IRS says that the executive director reports to the board. So it's not even your role, your position, your responsibility to talk to the board about what their duties are.
(05:47):
In a high functioning nonprofit organization, the executive director attends the board's meetings. They what's called an executive director report, 15, 20 minutes on the day-to-day things that are going on in the organization, and then the board continues to run their meeting. This is not the case in most nonprofits. Most nonprofits, the founders, the executive director, and they show up and they run the meeting, they present the financials. They're talking about what's going on in the day-to-day. They're providing the visioning. That's not the way that the IRS set up the nonprofit. Your president should be a strong leader and should be guiding those meetings. Your president should be holding your board members accountable. So if it's the flip side, then there's certain things that you need to be doing as a nonprofit leader to create a different culture in your organization. When we come back, I'm going to talk to you about training your board to fundraise and creating realistic expectations and the tools that you need to put in place to help your board become more active and engaged when we return.
(07:02):
If you're thinking about hosting a golf tournament or any other kind of event, make sure at the end of the event you generate a profit and not come out with a loss, there's a formula for guaranteeing that your event will generate a profit. You'll find it in my How to Price Event Tickets for Profit Toolkit. Learn the insider secrets for how to ensure your event will always make a profit every time. Order your copy today. Hey, we're back, and today I am talking to you about how to build a board that fundraises. Listen, a lot of the reasons why nonprofit boards are dysfunctional has to do with things that you would never think about. Number one, how you onboard your board members. If you just go up to people and say, Hey, would you be on my board? You are creating a formula for disaster, right?
(07:56):
Because this person is going to join your board with no structure. If you want a board that is active and engaged, you need to create a structure for that. What does that look like? Number one, don't just let somebody shimmy shimmy on your board. You should have a process whereby they are vetted. Number one, you want to make sure that you're getting your needs met. So you want to look at who's on your board. If you have a board full of attorneys or a board full of accountants, you're going to have like-minded people. You want to have a diverse board because a diverse board is going to bring in different types of skills, different types of resources. So don't just look at the career, look at the personality. What is that person's zone of genius? When I am training board members, I don't even really ask what their career, their job position is.
(08:51):
You know what I focus on? I focus on their zone of genius, and it's four things. One, are you behind the scenes? Are you a worker bee? Are you a closer? Are you a connector? If you have a board, and generally speaking, those inaugural boards are all going to be worker bees and behind the scenes because when you start your nonprofit, they're typically out there doing the work. You don't have staff, and that's fine, but you need to go to that second board. You've got your inaugural board, you've got your founding board, and then you've got your institutional board, I mean your governing board, and then your institutional board. The governing board is that board that starts to bring in that structure. They understand their role. They start to separate the day-to-day from the visioning, which is what your board is responsible for. So when you bring in an objective person, a consultant that understands what it means to train a board, then you start to create this culture.
(09:51):
So you don't just ask a person to be on your board, you find out what their zone of genius are. How do you find that out? You ask them, Hey, are you comfortable with asking? A person is going to tell you? Well, no, not really. They will tell you every time I administer my board training, I ask the question, are you comfortable? How many people are comfortable with asking? And they're going to raise their hand and are they're going to keep it down. And what you'll find, especially on those inaugural boards, people aren't comfortable with asking. That's not why you recruited them. You didn't know. So as you rotate folks out and you rotate people in, you need to ask the question, are you comfortable with the ask? If they say yes, you want to make sure that you have people who are comfortable with doing the ask, and then you have people who are connectors.
(10:38):
Nine times out of 10, your connectors generally aren't going to be the people who close. Why? Because those people feel uncomfortable with asking people who are in their network because those people in their network are their friends. But guess what? If you have an equal balance of people who are comfortable with connecting with the people who are comfortable with asking, then you have a formula for success. So that's what you want to focus on when we're talking about building out high power board, not just what those individual's careers are, but what's their zone of genius? What are they comfortable with? Are you comfortable with making the connection? Are you comfortable with asking? That's part one of creating a culture. Part two is making sure that you onboard your board members properly. They understand what the programs are. If you have individuals who are showing up for meetings, but they don't ever attend any of your programs, what are they going to talk to funders about?
(11:37):
They have no stories. Think about it as the founder and the executive director and the person who's doing direct services. When you come to your board meeting and you're saying, oh my God, all these amazing things happen, your board's like, oh, this is amazing. They can only speak to what you tell them. That's why it's important that you don't just do board applications. You do a board invitation, and in your board invitation, you say, the expectation is that you're going to participate in at least two thirds of the meetings because you want them present. The expectation is that you are going to attend at least three programs because they need to have their own personal experience to talk to people about. They can't just repeat what you say, because when a person asks them for a deeper question, they can't answer it, and that's why your board members are uncomfortable, unwilling, or unable to ask because they know if someone asks them deeper, they can't answer the question.
(12:34):
That's why when you onboard your board members, you want to make sure that they attend an orientation. In the orientation, you outline all of the things about your organization. You let them know what the expectations are in terms of finances, in terms of attending your events, in terms of attending your program so they can speak to it, and you make sure that you present your optimal budget, not the budget that reflects what is right. What is right now is small. You want to give them the optimal budget. How much does it really cost to run your organization? Because that's the number you want your board to fundraise to. If right now you've only been able to generate $70,000, meaning you have 50 in the bank and you've got 20,000 coming in, if you present that number to your board, that's what they're going to fundraise to.
(13:25):
That's not what you need. You want them to fundraise to the optimal budget. How much at the optimal level does it cost to run your organization? These are the things that you need to put in place in order for your board to be active and engaged. They need to know how much it costs to run your organization at an optimal level. They need to understand what are the needs of the organization. They need to be able to speak to the successes, their experience as board members. All of these things are going to keep your organization active and engaged. The last thing I'm going to say to you is that you need to have a fund development plan that requires your board to drive it. What do I mean? In the Nonprofit Mastery Academy, there's a whole module on diversifying your funding strengths, but guess what?
(14:13):
As the executive director, you are not responsible for it. Your board is in this course. It aligns your optimal budget with your funding strategies. The last column is the key person who's responsible for it, and it's not you, the executive director. It is your board. So every meeting that your board comes together, your president says, alright, Amber, you signed up for the gala. Can you report out on it? Alright, Janine, you signed up for signing up the organization for matching employee matching programs, report out on it. So there's a whole list of funding strategies that's attached to each budget line item of that optimal budget, and that's how your budget gets funded. That's how you keep your board active and engaged because now they're very clear about what the funding goal is. Now they have volunteered to be responsible for a funding strategy, and now your president is going to hold them accountable for each meeting.
(15:14):
Instead of you as the executive director standing up there every board meeting, delivering your success stories, talking about, no, you let your president drive that meeting because your president is going to hold all of these board members accountable. Does that make sense fam? That's what you need to do in order to build a board that fundraises. All right, when we come back, we're going to talk about sample fundraising roles beyond asks, right? When we come back, are you looking to leverage your 501(c)(3) tax exempt status to get products and services donated for an event silent option or to support your program but aren't quite sure what to say? Get the donation request letters tool. It provides you with the templates you can customize to fit any request, eliminate the guesswork of what to say, how to say it, and what to offer potential donors as benefits for their donation.
(16:14):
You had no idea you should offer donors something in exchange for their donation. Did you offering benefits triples your response rate? Plus the toolkit comes with the donor acknowledgement form template. It's the form you give them after they donate. This toolkit has everything you need for a successful donation request. Order your copy today. Welcome back. You're on air with Amber Wynn, and we are talking about how to build a board that fundraises the IRS says it is the board of directors responsibility to fundraise. Did you know that? If you did not, I need you to know when you are recruiting your board members, you don't want to just recruit people who believe in your mission. I hear that all the time. Well, they really love the mission. So what does your, we want these people to be able to fundraise. Don't just say, oh, they're really good people.
(17:04):
Who cares? Who cares? You are doing so much work. The purpose of your board is to support you. The design of a nonprofit is not for the founder or executive director to carry the weight of that organization. You are supposed to be in partnership with your board. So when you're recruiting your board, you want to make that clear. The expectation is that you're going to support the executive director. How do you do that? You do that by fundraising. What do we mean by that? Most people believe that if you are in a high powered position, you are an asker. That is not the case. There are plenty of high powered people out there who do not feel comfortable with asking. There are other roles on the board. Before we went to the break, I told you there's the worker bee. There's the behind the scenes, there's the closer and the asker.
(17:55):
The asker is important because that's how you get that check. But if that asker is just a person who thrives off of being around people, but they don't have a network of people, then what comes of that? Nothing. You need to have other people on your board. You need to have connectors. Connectors are super important. They are going to partner with your askers, and together you have the formula for success. I'm going to introduce you to all these high powered people, and then we're going to put you in front of our asker and our asker is going to close. So yes, you want your board to be able to fundraise, but you want people to function in their zone of genius. You want them to be comfortable. I can't tell you how many times my executive director said to me, Amber, can you teach them how to do an elevator pitch?
(18:46):
Amber, can you teach them how to ask Amber? Listen, my zone of genius is asking I can close. My mom used to say to me, girl, you can sell sand to a beach because that is my zone of genius. That's not everybody's, and sometimes it can't be taught even if you want to. When I listen to people talk, I listen for opportunities. So some people go in saying, they're going to ask for this, and they're going to, in my position as an asker, as a closer, if you say no to me, it's just not right now and I'm good with that, but I'm listening to what piques your interest so that I can go back and find something that I can connect with you on. So it's just important to understand you want board members who are going to function in their zone of genius.
(19:34):
If it's not an asker, if it's not a connector, then maybe it's behind the scenes and maybe it's a person who isn't really comfortable with being around people, but they will come in and help you set up your gala. They will come in, they will help you with your events. That's just as important. So you just want to have an equal balance in the Nonprofit Mastery Academy, I provide you with all of the infrastructure that you need to get your board to that place where they fundraise. I help you to create that. Board invitation board applications are meaningless people. A board application, a person is just going to tell you what it is that they want you to know about themselves. You want board members to understand what your expectations are from them so that they can say no fast, or when they come on the board, you're not going to have to chase them down because they're going to sign a little contract that says, I understand, right? So we want to set you up powerfully for success so that you have individuals on your board who understand what it is that their role and what the IRS has said that they're supposed to do. Alright, now it's time for you to ask Amber. You get to ask Amber whatever your pressing question is that you have that I may not have covered in all of the 156 episodes that I've already done. I can't imagine, but I'm always, always surprised in today's episode, Brittany is asking her question. Brittany, what would you like to know?
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Hi, Amber. This is Brittany calling from San Diego. I was wondering, is it better to hire staff or continue with volunteers? I'm thinking funders would probably like me keeping the volunteers so that the money can go directly to programs. Right?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Okay. Brittany, thank you for your questions. So is it better to hire staff or to continue with volunteers? All right. How to answer this politically correct. Okay. It's better to hire staff. I'm just going to shoot to the chase. Listen, if you're just starting, obviously you don't have money to pay staff, but if you enroll in the Nonprofit Mastery Academy, I can show you how to make the transition. But before you get there, let me just explain to you why it's better to hire staff than to continue to function. I have lots of nonprofits who function as volunteer driven, volunteer led. I've said this on a couple of episodes, but I'm going to reiterate it. A funder is not giving away money. A funder is investing in your organization. The purpose is for them to achieve their funding goals. And when you have hired staff, meaning that they're receiving a paycheck, a funder feels like there's more accountability, right?
(22:25):
You have volunteers, and your volunteers may be committed and dedicated, but the reality is they can come one day and not the next. So when we're talking about continuity in your programs, if it's volunteer driven, Amber May show up today and then tomorrow John May show up. There's no continuity in the program. So if the question is, is it better to hire a staff or continue with the volunteers, I'm always going to tell you it's better to hire a staff. However, if you're not at a place where you can afford that, then you need to create structure in your volunteer program. I have a book. It's called the Nonprofit Volunteer Program, and what it does is it helps you to build out an infrastructure. So you need to train your nonprofit. So you can say to a funder, listen, we have structure, we have standardization. If Amber shows up today and then John shows up tomorrow, there's continuity in the program because we've trained them.
(23:25):
They're delivering the same curriculum. They're delivering it the same way. They may have different type of swag, but the content is the same across the program, regardless to who is in that volunteer role. We also have structure for them to collect data. We have structure for them to do reporting. All of the things, if you can't afford to hire staff, you need to have structure, and you need to let that funder know, yes, it's important for us to have staff. We just don't have it right now. But in the meantime, we have structure in our volunteer program. I hope that helps. Brittany, if you have a question you want to ask me, hit me up on all of my socials and I'll be happy to answer the question. Now we're going to transition to my favorite time, my nonprofit spotlight, and we are wrapping up our conversation with Kenya Croom from a Step to Freedom part four. Let's wrap it up and listen to what Kenya has to say.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
Well, there are challenges in providing direct service, like ensuring that we hire the right people and that we train those people and that they do not experience burnout or homelessness themselves. So there's the challenge in the work that it takes to do the service. And then obviously, we have to also wait for people to transform or begin to evolve to the place of receiving services, and they have rights and they are adults, and we cannot tell them what to do, and this is not jail. So we are often trying to meet them where they are and use a harm reduction, but trauma informed model in the way that we operate. But then we're an organization spread across the county from South LA, mid city and North Hollywood, and how do we build infrastructure and capacity? We have over a hundred employees now, Amber.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
So that is not an easy beat like that. To do that in a quick amount of time requires in-depth infrastructure development, building capacity. I don't think I knew what that was when I started trying to build capacity.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Welcome back to On Air with Amber Wynn. That was the last episode of my interview with Kenya Croom, the executive director of A Step to Freedom. If you want to hear the entire interview, go on over to my YouTube channel. You can hear all four parts all at once. Thank you so much, Kenya, for the work that you're doing in the community with our impacted residents in LA County. If you'd like for me to spotlight the work that you're doing in the community, hit me up on my socials. I'd be happy to interview you so that people who are your target audience can find you and so that our funders can find you. Today, we've focused on how to build a board that fundraisers, right. If you've liked what you've heard today, like subscribe, share it with someone in your network, and as always, please take care of yourself, like you take care of your community. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe and leave a review on iTunes. Head over to https://thenonprofitmasteryacademy.com/podcast for the links and resources mentioned in today's podcast. See you next time.
