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Written by Ron Haas
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My Board Won't Raise Money!
 Maybe you don't verbalize your feelings in a board meeting, but your frustrations are real. Your board members expect you to raise all the money, but they don't lift a finger to help. Even worse - some of them don't give at all. If you feel this way, you are not alone. Countless nonprofit executive directors struggle to motivate their board members to get involved in fundraising. Before you pull that resignation letter out of your desk one more time, consider these words from the Apostle Paul as paraphrased in The Message,
"Get along among yourselves, each of you doing your part. Our counsel is that you warn the freeloaders to get a move on. Gently encourage the stragglers, and reach out for the exhausted, pulling them to their feet. Be patient with each person, attentive to individual needs. And be careful that when you get on each other's nerves you don't snap at each other. Look for the best in each other, and always do your best to bring it out" 1 Thessalonians 5:13-15.
Paul wasn't specifically writing to executive directors and board members, but if you apply his principles of working together, you might actually look forward to monthly board meetings! You probably know this already, but each board member is unique. That means they have different gifts, different strengths and weakness, and different interests. They see fundraising from different perspectives, which means that you must motivate them with their individual needs in mind. Paul suggests four approaches for working with people:
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Written by Donald G. Distelberg, CFRE
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What if Your Board Tells You to Raise More Contributions?
 Imagine after all your work to put together a budget for next year, your Board members reaction is: rather than raise fees quite that much, or decrease expenditures quite that much, they charge you, the director, to raise more contributions. What do you do?
First, don't panic! Don't just assume that there is only one answer; that you have to add this to the list of things you already do. Consider the range of options open to you. There may be more than one choice, or possibly a combination of options. And don't get angry at the Board, just yet.. It is the job of the Board to set policy and to ask the CEO to implement that policy. But that doesn't mean you have to do all the work yourself.
The likely range of options you can choose from includes: you become more involved in fund raising; hire staff to do the job; employ a consultant; or turn to volunteers. Probably the best choice will involve some elements of each. Let's look at the choices. But first:
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Boards of Directors
