Author: Michael J Bates

10 Commandments of Board Development

February 22, 2023by Michael J BatesLeave a comment

I’m not bringing these bits of advice down from some mountaintop somewhere.

But they do deserve consideration as tried-and-true principles of building a strong, effective board.

If someone doesn’t care about your mission/cause, they should not be asked to serve on your board. Better to leave a seat unfilled than to carry that dead weight for a term…or two!
Asking insightful, strategic questions in a respectful manner is the most valuable behavior a board member can bring to the table.
Before being invited to join your governing board, a candidate should have some donor and volunteer history with your society. You should know something about him/her, and they should be acquainted with you and your mission.
Anyone who serves as a board member should have your society in his/her top 3 organizations for charitable giving. (#1 always preferred!)
Your board is responsible for advancing your mission. As such, board members must help raise money to fulfill the mission. Wait, forget “help.” Board members must LEAD the fundraising charge.
There’s board orientation AND there should be ongoing board education/re-orientation.
There are myriad ways for board members to lead the fundraising charge without asking for money. Make introductions, identify potential donors, open doors, thank donors, host a small group lunch or cocktail party, speak enthusiastically as ambassadors and advocates, help develop strategies for approaching donors, help define the case for support.
Rigorously enforce term limits. Doing so ensures new blood, new thinking, and new perspectives.
Develop a scorecard or report card that your governance committee can share with each board member on an annual basis. The scorecard should reflect competencies and tasks. It’s a great tool for ongoing education as well to bring any performance issues to the table before things get out of hand.
Make sure you build time for socializing into your board calendar. Encouraging this kind of offline, informal team-building. Board members need to interact with one another outside of official meetings.

As with anything worth doing, success in board development takes time, teamwork, and heroic leadership. It will require attention, determination, and patience from both your executive director and board leaders. But it’s an investment that will pay off in tangible ways: increased giving, entrepreneurial energy, and just plain old support for your everyday work as a staff leader. As with anything worthwhile, you will get out of your board exactly what you put into it.

Do you have a commandment or two you would add? Let us know!

Mike Bates, CFRE

Principal

Consultants in Association Philanthropy

Your Intention: Team Retention

November 8, 2022November 7, 2022by Michael J BatesLeave a comment

Leaders are bracing for 2023 to be a tough year in organizations and economies everywhere. Budgets are under review, next year’s goals may be in a state of ongoing change, and the situation may be putting your team on edge. The situation places a premium on clear priorities and confident leadership so you can keep your people focused and your association or society concentrating on what matters.

So, here are a few tips for supervisors getting ready for 2023…

Ask each member of your team these questions. Give them a week to mull them over and email their responses back to you. Then sit down and discuss the results with each individual. You may even consider sharing the aggregated responses at a team meeting or retreat.

“What do you need from me to do your best work?”

It’s essential to devote time to your team. You get busy as a leader. Competing responsibilities pull you in many different directions. You must ensure your team feels like they have the resources they need to do their jobs and that you have their back.

“How would you like to grow within our association?”

Discover where your team members want to grow. Find out what career development they need to seek out and facilitate these opportunities for them.

Do they need increased visibility in the organization?
Do they need mentoring?
Do they need a challenging special project?

“Do you feel like there’s a work-life balance?”

If your team has a work-life balance, they are more likely to be satisfied with their job and to perform well. Help your people prioritize a balance between working hard and playing hard. To help your team reduce their stress levels, prevent burnout, and cultivate a strong culture, you must prioritize a healthy work-life balance

“Do you feel a sense of purpose in your job?”

This question will help you connect their personal values to your association’s values. Find out what’s meaningful to them and connect the dots for how their job impacts the association as a whole. Help them understand that what they do everyday matters.

“Are you able to do your best work every day?”

This question helps you identify their strengths. You must figure out if they are playing to their strengths every day. You could even ask them a follow-up question such as: “What tasks would you eliminate if you could?”

“Are there specific activities we should be doing as a fundraising team?”

This question drives home if they feel like part of the team. Research has shown that employees who have friends at work are more successful in their careers. It’s essential to host events outside of work (you might have to get creative in this era of remote/hybrid offices) to thank your team and show them that you value them.

Powerful leadership will be essential as all organizations continue to transform into a more interconnected and interdependent workplace during whatever the “new normal” of 2023 is. Take the counsel offered in this article to enhance and elevate your leadership and personal brand within your association or society.

Michael J, Bates, MS, CFRE
Principal
Consultants in Association Philanthropy

Time for Some Thoughts About Time

June 22, 2022by Michael J BatesLeave a comment

Here’s a timely list of comments many of us use every day. Sound familiar?

I don’t have the time.
I need more time!
Where does the time go?
Time flies when you’re having fun.
There’s just not enough time in the day!
It’s just not the right time.
I don’t have time for such nonsense.
I wish I had the time to read a book. (Or watch a movie. Or go to the gym. Or play with my kids.)
Well, I guess I’ll just have to make the time.
This is a complete and total waste of time.
You can’t make up for lost time.
I’m making incredible time! (Typically expressed when traveling a long distance by car.)
We need to buy ourselves a little time.
There’s no time like the present.
Time and tide wait for no man.
Say, do you have some time to talk?
I’m just killing some time.

There are sure a lot of expressions about time, aren’t there? I don’t have an original, pithy saying like the ones above, but let me share a few observations I’ve picked up about time after 39 years in the fundraising business:

The Pareto Principle still applies. 80 percent of your results come from 20 percent of your efforts. This does assume that you and your team are focused and stay focused on the right stuff. Google “Eisenhower Matrix” and let it be your guide.

By definition, you can only have one single priority. If you have more than one of those, what you really have is a to do list. The secret to time well spent is identifying the one tru priority in the list and focusing your efforts there—suddenly the entire list becomes shorter and less daunting.

Can you justify your salary on a day-to-day basis? If you make $100,000/year, work 50 weeks/year, and put in 40 hours/week, your per hour rate is $50. If you work an 8-hour day, and are responsible for raising money, do you generate $400/day? If you do that, over the course of a full year, your association or society will break even on you. But the job of a frontline development office is to do more than break even. So, the question is this: What will you do with your time to generate 2x, 5x, or 10x of your employer’s investment in you over the course of a year?

I will suggest that elimination or reduction of lower-level administrative tasks should be a starting point. If you are getting paid to build relationships, then that is what you should be doing. You should not be manipulating Excel spreadsheets, generating generic acknowledgement letters, or managing the logistics for your annual meeting or golf outing. (Yikes!)

Here’s an oldie but a goodie. Knock out the most difficult or the least enjoyable task (related to you number 1 priority, of course) early in the day. (Slight amendment: With so many of us working from home now, knock it out during your daily “prime time” window.)

Spend at least one hour a week alone. Take time to think, plan, assess, and reflect. Build it into your weekly schedule. Developing this habit will give you amazing clarity as to what is important and in turn, how and where you should focus your time.

I’ll leave you with two great quotes about time. Internalize them by printing them out. Then tape one to the mirror in your bathroom and the other right above the computer monitor in your office.

“Time management is an oxymoron. Time is beyond our control and the clock keeps ticking regardless of how we lead our lives. Priority management is the answer to maximizing the time we have.”—John C. Maxwell

AND

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours in day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”—H. Jackson Brown

Principal, Consultants in Philanthropy