Archive for March, 2010

My client was seeking to add five new Board members and had a list of twice that number. The discussion began with the personal qualities and financial resources of each candidate. I then asked, “What type of new resources does your Strategic Plan require?” When they relooked at their strategic initiatives that they will [...]

How do you assure that your board is fulfilling its legal and operational responsibilities while at the same time keeping your board meetings interesting?
Conducting interesting board meetings is a must if you are going to attract and maintain top-level leadership for your agency. I have written that Board meetings must include at least three [...]

When a client agreed several months ago that they wanted to build a power Board of twenty-five, it seemed like this would take years. It turned out to not be so difficult. In September, this agency “could hold their board meetings in a telephone booth”, and now there will be 17 members at our meeting [...]

WHY DO WE MAKE FUND RAISING SO PAINFUL?
How do you enlist of group of people to help with their agency’s fundraising when their only experience in raising money has been uncomfortable or unpleasant?
That was the task I faced in my first meeting with my new client, which provides scholarships for needy kids to go [...]

I have been receiving a great deal of positive comments about my blogs, which I try to write 3-4 times a month. These are usually small pieces of a philosophy of my best practices for nonprofits and deal with subjects like board governance, fund raising, staff development, and strategic planning. I have a long-term [...]

HOW TO UTILIZE A CONSENT AGENDA

In the last blog I introduced the concept of a Consent Agenda. This blog will deal with how to utilize it and how to introduce the idea to the board.
How does it work?
1. Committee chairs are told they have to write reports to the board and have them [...]

IMPROVING A BOARD MEETING WITH A CONSENT AGENDA
Why are board meetings so long and often so boring? Maybe it’s because we subject people to sit and listened to long reports, one after another, month after month. We do this because we believe that as board members they have to know what’s going on at [...]

Is it really impossible to raise more money for an organization during a Recession? I don’t think so.

While there is no doubt that these are difficult times to engage in fundraising, my experience shows that many organizations do such an inadequate job in the first place, that refocusing their efforts will result [...]