No. No! HELL NO!!! They’ll try to be helpful, of course. But giving a board committee the right to approve or reject staff work is (a.) lousy governance (as board experts will tell you) and (b.) worse employee relations (as human resource experts will tell you). It won’t end happily. I’ve said it before (in […]
Archive | Boards
Managing Up
Meet the frustrated: So MANY fundraisers quit so fast. They learn “best practices” … and then collide with the “Ignorance Ceiling.” I.e., bosses and boards insisting: “I don’t like it. No way.” A.k.a., Approvals Gone Wild —— This was the promising tweet from first-term AFP president and CEO, Mike Geiger: How to Manage Up for […]
On the delicate topic of approvals
If you’re an ambitious fundraiser, advice for your next job interview… ¶ What is the Mt. Everest-sized obstacle which prevents many nonprofits (yours?) from taking advantage of “donor-centricity”? Surprise! It could very well be your charity’s reely stoopid approval process. Said another way: IGNORANCE in positions of authority. I’ve seen it over (2001) and […]
Fundraising communications are the work of specialists, not generalists
Why profitable fundraising communications are the work of specialists, not generalists … and why a standard-issue, untrained university marcomms department will almost certainly fail to deliver strong results when given a fundraising assignment which depends on an effective call to action Thank you for subscribing … and for getting in touch with all sorts of […]
Historians argue
Which did more damage to society? The Black Plague? Or charity watchdogs? Nonprofit boards now FEAR spending money … even when the point is to MAKE much more money, as organizations most definitely can. How do you pile up $350,000 in donations every month using Facebook alone? By spending $50,000 on sponsored posts and ads, […]
To every new fundraiser…
“The struggle for justice is a marathon, not a sprint. And the biggest contribution that any one of us can make is maintaining a lifetime of involvement until we win those struggles.”— Kumi Naidoo, former Greenpeace International ED; via Reinier Spruit, 101Fundraising blog 1. Successful fundraising is hard work. Even unsuccessful fundraising is hard work. […]