logo
  • Nonprofit News
  • Management
    • Boards and Governance
    • Communication
      • Framing & Narratives
    • Ethics
    • Financial Management
    • Fund Development
    • Leadership
    • Technology
  • Philanthropy
    • Corporate Social Responsibility
    • Donor-Advised Funds
    • Foundations
    • Impact Investing
    • Research
    • Workplace Giving
  • Policy
    • Education
    • Healthcare
    • Housing
    • Government
    • Taxes
  • Economic Justice
    • Economy Remix
    • Economy Webinars
    • Community Benefits
    • Economic Democracy
    • Environmental Justice
    • Fair Finance
    • Housing Rights
    • Land Justice
    • Poor People’s Rights
    • Tax Fairness
  • Racial Equity
  • Social Movements
    • Community Development
    • Community Organizing
    • Culture Change
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Gender Equality
    • Immigrant Rights
    • Indigenous Rights
    • Labor
    • LGBTQ+
    • Racial Justice
    • Youth Activism
  • About Us
  • Log in
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Webinars
    • Leading Edge Membership
    • Sponsored Webinars
    • Economic Justice
  • Tiny Spark Podcast
  • Magazine
    • Magazine
    • Leading Edge Membership
Donate

Your Board Is Not a Fundraising Squad

Simone Joyaux
August 11, 2011
Share2
Tweet
Share4
Email
6 Shares

target

Simone P. Joyaux, ACFRE is recognized internationally as an expert in fund development, board and organizational development, strategic planning, and management. She is the founder and director of Joyaux Associates. Visit her website here.


Stop thinking that the principal focus of your board is fundraising. Please. Stop it right now!

Over and over, I hear staff talking about their boards and fundraising. Staff want the board to give more. To help identify and solicit major donors. To participate in fundraising events. To use their connections to get money. In summary, staff expect the board to focus a lot on fundraising. And that typically means that staff want board members with the capacity to give (and give significantly). And staff want board members with good connections.

But wait. There’s some confusion here.

The board is accountable for corporate governance. Corporate governance is the process whereby a group of individuals (e.g., the board) ensures the health and effectiveness of the organization. Corporate governance is a collective act and only happens when the board members come together for their meetings. Read the Role of the Board, posted in the Free Download Library on my website.

To fulfill its “due diligence obligation” for ensuring corporate health and effectiveness, the board needs people with specific skills and behaviors. Skills like financial expertise and governance expertise, legal and accounting expertise, and more. See the Inventory of Skills for the Board as well as the Composition Policy, both posted in my Free Download Library.

To ensure that the due diligence obligation is observed, the board needs to be composed of diverse individuals. Diversity comes from experiencing life differently. Experiencing life differently results from such particulars as gender, generation, class, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, and more. That diversity of life experience causes people to think differently, to ask different questions, and to challenge assumptions. And that’s what makes a good board.

Stop focusing on fundraising for your board. Your board focuses on corporate governance. Only one part of corporate governance focuses on financing, i.e., ensuring the financial integrity and sustainability of the institution.

How does the board ensure the institution’s financial integrity and sustainability as articulated in its job description? The board adopts a budget and fund development plan. The board reviews the audit. The board talks about fund development results, trends, and implications. The board adopts policies that define the role of board members in fund development. See this outlined in the Due Diligence Plan, posted in my Free Download Library.

And board members—not “the board”—participate in the fund development process. Yes, board members. There’s a big difference between the board and the board member. Please do not confuse the two. See the Board Member Performance Expectations, posted in my Free Download Library.

Every single board member can help with fund development—but only if you, the staff, enable them well. Every single board member can be successful in fund development—but only if you, the staff, understand that fund development is not about money. Rather, fund development focuses on helping donors and prospects fulfill their aspirations.

Create a menu of choices for your board members. Effectively enable your board members. See my bookStrategic Fund Development: Building Profitable Relationships That Last(Third Edition, 2011) for details and for examples of how to enable them.

And stop thinking that your board and/or your board members exist to help fundraise. Stop that right now!

Share2
Tweet
Share4
Email
6 Shares

About The Author
Simone Joyaux

Simone P. Joyaux, ACFRE is recognized internationally as an expert in fund development, board and organizational development, strategic planning, and management. She is the founder and director of Joyaux Associates.

Related
Board Building, but to What End?
By Rob Meiksins
August 22, 2019
Who “Owns” Your Nonprofit?
By Judith L. Millesen
August 13, 2019
12 Reasons Why You Should Gracefully Resign from a Nonprofit Board
By Gene Takagi
July 26, 2019
The Road Less Traveled: Establishing the Link between Nonprofit Governance and Democracy
By Chao Guo
May 28, 2019
Here We Go Again: The Cyclical Nature of Board Behavior
By Julia Classen
May 17, 2019
Effective Board Chair-Executive Director Relationships: Not About Roles!
By Mary L. Hiland
August 29, 2018
other posts by The Author
Measuring Fundraising Performance vs. Fundraiser...
By Simone Joyaux
June 29, 2018
After the Donation: A Research-Based Workshop on Retaining...
By Simone Joyaux and Ruth McCambridge
December 19, 2017
Channeling Real Human Beings in Multichannel Fundraising
By Simone Joyaux
December 2, 2016
A Series on Sensemaking Organizations
The Sensemaking Organization: Designing for Complexity
The Sensemaking Mindset: Improvisation over Strategy
Structuring for Sensemaking: The Power of Small Segments
logo
Donate
  • About
  • Contact
  • Newsletters
  • Write for NPQ
  • Advertise
  • Writers
  • Funders
  • Copyright Policy
  • Privacy Policy

Subscribe to View Webinars

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by GDPR plugin
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.