When nonprofits think about having a strong fundraising board it can be tempting to think about filling your board with lots of big name individuals that you expect to write huge checks. In reality, these people may have no real connection to your cause. And if you are lucky enough that they do, they may be too busy to either commit to board services or worse, they'll commit and never show up at meetings.
Too often, eager to fill a vacant seat or secure a well-known name, nonprofits fail to clearly articulate expectations of service to prospective board members, or downplay the expectations of service.
"There is no question that orienting new board members to their responsibilities, especially around fundraising, is critical," says Linda Crompton, BoardSource President and CEO. "In our 2010 Nonprofit Governance Index, BoardSource found that 90% of the boards with a structured orientation process were rated as effective, compared to only 67% of the boards without such a process."
In addition to a job description, prospective board members should receive a board manual and board contract to help them understand and be successful in their role.
Board members are your most committed volunteers. By providing them with excellent training and clear expectations, you are showing that you value them as exactly that.
Read the entire article to learn more about board job descriptions, manuals and contracts. Visit AJFCA's Resource Library for templates.
Priming Your Board for Fundraising, April 26, 2012, Connection Cafe, by Rachel Muir
Too often, eager to fill a vacant seat or secure a well-known name, nonprofits fail to clearly articulate expectations of service to prospective board members, or downplay the expectations of service.
"There is no question that orienting new board members to their responsibilities, especially around fundraising, is critical," says Linda Crompton, BoardSource President and CEO. "In our 2010 Nonprofit Governance Index, BoardSource found that 90% of the boards with a structured orientation process were rated as effective, compared to only 67% of the boards without such a process."
In addition to a job description, prospective board members should receive a board manual and board contract to help them understand and be successful in their role.
Board members are your most committed volunteers. By providing them with excellent training and clear expectations, you are showing that you value them as exactly that.
Read the entire article to learn more about board job descriptions, manuals and contracts. Visit AJFCA's Resource Library for templates.
Priming Your Board for Fundraising, April 26, 2012, Connection Cafe, by Rachel Muir
If you ask a CEO "What does your HR leader do?" he or she is likely to say: "You got me. I jusbusinessweekt know I need to have one." CEOs expect HR execs to look after employee records, hire and train people, administer performance reviews, and see that comp and benefits practices chug along. Beyond that, the mission can get fuzzy, fast. Most CEOs Liz Ryan, an expert on the new-millennium workplace knows don't have a ready answer to the question "How does your HR leader help your organization compete?" nor do they have a handy list of must-do activities for an HR exec charged with boosting the organization's competitive mojo.
It's every HR chief's highest calling to make sure his or her employer has the most excited, switched-on, and capable people on the market. Read about the 10 things your HR head should be doing right now in the remainder of this article.
What Every CEO Needs to Know About HR, April 25, 2012, businessweek.com, by Liz Ryan
It's every HR chief's highest calling to make sure his or her employer has the most excited, switched-on, and capable people on the market. Read about the 10 things your HR head should be doing right now in the remainder of this article.
What Every CEO Needs to Know About HR, April 25, 2012, businessweek.com, by Liz Ryan
If you do anything professionally related to online technology, you understand the immense amount of data you need to sort through daily. There are the daily content roundups, blogs to read, Facebook posts and to check, tweets to scroll through, and news sites. That doesn't include whatever else arrives in your inbox. Debra Askanase, founder and lead consultant at Community Organizer 2.0, a social media strategy firm for non-profit organizations and businesses, literally cannot keep up with all that she wants to know about social media technology and its use for engagement, fundraising and advocacy. It's really ... too much to know. That's when she began trusting the curators.
Trusting the curators was a strategy Askanase employed to begin to figure out what to read, what she needed to read, and what others that she trusted thought was important to read. We cannot read it all. We cannot begin to imagine trying to read it all. We must trust to the curators.
There are many curatorial platforms. What's important is to find what works for you, and why. What's your curatorial strategy?
Read the entire article to learn more about Askanase's favorite curatorial platforms.
Trust the Curators, April 24, 2012, eJP, by Debra Askanase
Trusting the curators was a strategy Askanase employed to begin to figure out what to read, what she needed to read, and what others that she trusted thought was important to read. We cannot read it all. We cannot begin to imagine trying to read it all. We must trust to the curators.
Trusting others to curate content has become her primary means for gathering relevant information about social media and particularly, nonprofit technology.
There are many curatorial platforms. What's important is to find what works for you, and why. What's your curatorial strategy?
Read the entire article to learn more about Askanase's favorite curatorial platforms.
Trust the Curators, April 24, 2012, eJP, by Debra Askanase
