The Extreme Fundraising Blog

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I. FUNDRAISING FOLLIES: Forgetting What Lies Behind…
II. RESOURCE SPOTLIGHT: Boards That Love Fundraising

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I. FUNDRAISING FOLLIES: Forgetting What Lies Behind…
Have you ever heard the tale about the guy that was passed over for promotion? He complained to his boss, “How could you give the job to Frank? I have 10 years of experience. Why didn’t you choose me?” 

His boss responded, “You don’t have 10 years of experience at your job. You have 1 year repeated 10 times.”

Does that sound like your fundraising program? June is the end of many of our fiscal years. And most of us have little option but to hit the ground running in July raising money for the next fiscal year.

But if we don’t learn from this year, how will we improve next year?

So ask yourselves questions like:

• What three things did we do exceptionally well this year?
• What three things should we stop doing?
• What mailing, event, or appeal surprised us by its results? Would it be worth repeating next year?

Take a day with your staff (or with yourself if you’re an office of one!) to reflect and to celebrate. Don’t put this off. This kind of activity makes the following 364 days far more effective.

If you want help setting goals for the next 12 months, check out my free MagnetGoals goal setting e-course. It’s simple but definitely not easy. And, because it involves your whole life, not just your work, it is incredibly effective.

To subscribe to the MagnetGoals e-course, got to Fundraisingcoach.com.

Happy New (fiscal) Year!

II. RESOURCE SPOTLIGHT: Boards That Love Fundraising
One of the cooler things I get to do is participate in Charity Channel’s WeReview as a volunteer book reviewer. The book I’m currently reading for review is Boards that Love Fundraising by Robert M. Zimmerman and Ann W. Lehman. This book is simply great.

If you’re a paid development person, it’s everything you wish your board members understood about fundraising.

If you’re a board member, it’s everything you wish you’d been trained to do when you were recruited for the board.

This book is incredibly readable and packed with a terrific overview of fundraising, as well as dozens of exercises to do as a board. Whether you’re a seasoned professional fundraiser or brand-new to this role, Boards that Love Fundraising will help you improve your ability to raise money!

To your extreme fundraising success!

Marc

I just love this website’s home page! They mention fundraising FOUR TIMES! And it never feels overdone.

Isn’t the handwritten “donate money here” awesome? It definitely shows you the banana–the one thing they want you to do–but it also makes you smile.

Take a minute right now and ask yourself how you can do something like this to your website. (You do have online giving, right? If not, click here to download a free PDF of my “$100,000 Guide to Email Solicitation.” It includes a fairly simple way to provide online giving to your donors.)

Kudos to Moving Mountains Trust!

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I. FUNDRAISING FOLLIES: Not Engaging Your Board
II. WANTED: Your Help With My New Book
III. RESOURCE SPOTLIGHT: CharityUniversity

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I. FUNDRAISING FOLLIES: Not Engaging Your Board
Nonprofit board members must be the eighth wonder of the world! They have lives full of work, family, and obligations yet they commit enormous amounts of time and effort on our behalf. 

Unfortunately, we often aren’t equipped with tools to engage board members effectively. As a result, board members experience the extremes of overwork or mere meeting attendance.

I’m experimenting with an idea inspired by Living Your Strengths: Discover Your God-Given Talents and Inspire Your Community by Albert Winseman, Donald Clifton, and Curt Liesveld.
The basic premise of this book is that if we focus on developing our hard-wired strengths, we’ll live much more productive and fulfilled lives.

I don’t know what board members think their strengths are and it would seem odd asking them, “What are your strengths?” So went to each of them and said:

I’ve been on boards that forgot that I wasn’t an employee of the nonprofit. And, I’ve been on boards that I feel like I’m merely showing up at meetings to rubber-stamp pre-determined decisions.I don’t want your experience on this board to be either.

So if I were to come back to you in 12 months, what one thing would you be most proud of contributing to the board?

Then I shut up. And wait. Each board member had a reason for joining the board. This is one way to make sure they are contributing in ways meaningful both to them and to the nonprofit. Once they answer, and we agree on a way that what they said will best benefit the organization, it becomes my job to make sure that happens.

I don’t know what the results of this approach will be. I’m anticipating board members feeling more fulfilled with their participation. They’ll be able to point to at least on concrete improvement they contributed to.

That’s the kind of board I’d want to be on!

II. WANTED: Your Help With My New Book
Thanks to all of you who responded to me email asking how Creating Donor Evangelists request a few weeks ago. I have another request for help.

I’m in the process of writing a book with the working title Asking for Money: A Get R.E.A.L. Guide to Raising Money from Individuals. I want it to help take the fear out of asking people for money. At little more than 100 pages, it should be ideal for boards to read.

Based on your experience in this field, what topics would be the most helpful to you? If you’ve read books or taken fundraising courses, what do you wish they’d included?

As always, you can send your comments and suggestions to marc@fundraisingcoach.com. Thanks!

III. RESOURCE SPOTLIGHT: CharityUniversity
I’ve talked about this before. I you haven’t checked out CharityUniversity yet, do it now. They’ve just added dozens of new live and on demand classes to its line up.

While you’re there, check out “Fundraising 101” by yours truly. That link is:
http://charitychannel.com/publish/templates/?a=4709&z=58

To your extreme fundraising success!

Marc

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I always suspected there was a user’s guide for spam out there somewhere.

Now I’ve found it!

When you’re fundraising, please remember that email addresses are a priviledge. Don’t fall into the trap of using email exclusively “because it’s so cheap.”

That could quickly devolve into spam. And, as the user guide clearly states, spam belongs on a frying pan–not in your inbox.