The board’s role in fundraising & resource development

Steven Shattuck: All right. Sabrina, I’ve got the start time, so is it okay if I go ahead and kick us off officially?

Sabrina Walker: Oh, yes, please.

Steven Shattuck: This is great. Thanks to all of you for your patience, and I’m so happy to see a full room. It’s April Fools’ Day, but this is a real webinar, and it’s going to be a good one. This is not a trick at all, and you’re really in for a treat. We’re here to talk about the board’s role in fundraising and resource development, one of my favorite topics, and we have one of my favorite people here to talk about it. Thank you all for being here. If you’re watching the recording, I hope you’re having a good day, no matter where you are. We’re going to have some fun over the next hour or so. I’m Steven, I’m here at Bloomerang, and I’ll be moderating as usual.

Quick housekeeping: we are recording, and we’ll send out the recording and the slides later today, so look for an email from me. If you have to leave early, no problem. You’ll get all of it, and you can share it. If you want to share it with a board member, that would be fun too. Most importantly, feel free to chat in your questions and comments along the way. There’s a chat box and a Q&A box. I know a lot of you have already introduced yourselves. That’s awesome. Keep doing it. We’ll save some time for Q&A, and you can send us a tweet as well. I’ll keep an eye on Twitter. If this is your first Bloomerang webinar, welcome.

Little plug for Bloomerang: besides doing these webinars, we’re a donor management software provider. If you’re curious about that, check us out, but not right now, because we have Sabrina Walker joining us from beautiful Texas. Right, Sabrina, you’re in Texas? Where?

Sabrina Walker: I’m in South Texas. I’m wearing a little sweater because the temperature dropped.

Steven Shattuck: It’s cold here in Indy too if it’s cold in Texas.

Sabrina Walker: It’s like 60 degrees here, and that’s unheard of for us.

Steven Shattuck: For South Texas, that’s serious. I’m going to send you a Bloomerang blanket. If y’all don’t know Sabrina, she’s been blogging for us. We became fast friends over the last few months, and she’s just an awesome person. You’ve got to check her out. She’s been an ED, she owns her own consulting shop now, and I think you’re going to want to connect with her after the presentation. She’s been in your shoes, leading an organization and raising a ton of money, and she does a lot of these trainings. She has an awesome YouTube channel with lots of free trainings, and she’s certified by Harvard Business School. That’s pretty serious.

Sabrina, thanks so much for doing this. It’s a real treat to have you live. All we’ve been doing is emailing, and maybe if we weren’t socially distanced, we would have met already. I’m going to pipe down, because they don’t want to hear from me, they want to hear from you.

Sabrina Walker: Thank you, first of all, for your space and your grace. It’s been a lot of balancing, as all my CEOs know, with so many hats, and we just do what we can and prioritize how we can. I will honor your time. You’ll get exactly the same amount of content, and your questions answered, in the time you’ve allotted for this training. So again, this is board roles in fundraising and resource development.

I’m so happy to be partnering here. You are worth it. So close your emails, close the 20 browser windows you currently have open, close the door, and ask the kids not to kill themselves or each other for the next hour or so. That will let you focus.

I’m Sabrina Walker. I studied political science and public administration, and I earned a nonprofit management certification from Harvard Business School. For the last 25 years, I’ve worked in the nonprofit industry, in direct services, operations, and executive leadership.

In 2018, I was diagnosed with cancer and felt I needed to retire. People ask me all the time why I include that. It’s because I have worn your hat. I started my whole company to support founders, CEOs, and executive directors, because you wear multiple hats, it’s very stressful, and you have to take care of yourself. I partner with organizations like Bloomerang that provide free webinars, and I conduct free webinars too. My whole goal is to serve you.

Since my retirement, I’ve built a nonprofit consulting practice where I help small nonprofit staff and boards build relationships that convert into more donations. That’s why I love Bloomerang. They focus on the first-time donor experience, and that turns into repeat donors.

Today we’re here to talk about the board and fundraising. I do workshops, board retreats, webinars, coaching, and consulting. Who benefits from this? Nonprofit CEOs looking to engage their board members in resource development and fundraising, nonprofit chairs seeking to inspire their boards to fundraise, and anyone looking to enhance their board’s resource development and fundraising experience.

The goals of this webinar: first, that you understand the role of the board in resource development and fundraising. Second, that you learn how to engage the board in each of those roles. And third, that staff know how they can support the board in resource development and fundraising.

Let’s start with the role of board members individually, and their responsibilities. The first is to give generously, and we’ll go into detail on that. The second is to be an advocate. The third is to participate in resource development and fundraising. I’ll tell you how to get them to do it and what the conversation should be about, because a lot of people focus on asking, and that’s not what it’s about. But I don’t want to put the cart before the horse, so we’ll take these one at a time.

When I talk about giving generously, board members need to make their own personal gift. There’s a school of thought that this is an antiquated notion. I don’t believe that. It’s hard to go ask someone else to do something you’re not willing to do. It also shows commitment, and it makes board members much better fundraisers. It gives the CEO great power to say, “100% of my board members give, including myself.” And you’re inviting donors to join that.

How do you facilitate that discussion about 100% board giving? It starts with recruitment. If you don’t have a recruitment process in place, I encourage you to create one. A lot of people use what I call the Bubba theory: they place a warm body on the board. They place their mother, brother, or sister, or another board member says, “Hey, I have this friend who would make a good board member.” They didn’t vet them. They didn’t ask, “What are the gaps on my board? What characteristics do I need to recruit for?” They just put a warm body on it.

Instead, sit down and say, “Here are the characteristics we’re looking for. Here’s the industry we’re trying to fill. Here’s a list of potential candidates. Let’s interview them.” When you interview those candidates, you ask a set of questions and you state your expectations. One of those expectations is that 100% of board members give. You say that in the recruitment process, so if a candidate doesn’t want to do that, they eliminate themselves.

People ask, “What is the amount?” That’s something you and your board need to decide. On my board, the expectation was $500 a year. That might be small for some organizations and too big for others, but the board made that decision. For those who balked, we changed the conversation: that’s $40 a month, or $10 a week. As a family, if you can’t invest $10 a week, you have to question whether you’re really family.

Another tip: we set up ACH, automatic drafts, for board members. That worked perfectly because the gift came out of their bank accounts and they didn’t have to think about it. Even after they rolled off the board, the automatic drafts usually stayed in place, because most people don’t cancel them. I will not ask my board to do anything I wouldn’t do, so I gave $500 a year to the organization, and I still do, even though I’ve been retired for two or three years.

To facilitate that conversation, you or the board chair, depending on how your board is set up, should meet individually with each board member yearly. Ask, “Where are you with this? What does it look like?” Review the annual commitment form and have that discussion. Board members are busy, just like you. They have full-time jobs, they’re dealing with illnesses, they’re getting COVID shots, they have children. If you have a giving policy in place and they haven’t given, it doesn’t mean they don’t consider themselves family or don’t want to give. It means they got caught up in life and need to be reminded.

If you have nothing else in place, at least have that conversation yearly. I also recommend scheduling a time every year to pull out the annual commitment form and have each board member renew it. I did that in January. My fiscal year ended in October, but the calendar year worked. At our January meeting, I’d revisit the form with everyone and have them renew their commitment around resource development and giving. Then we had an accountability process.

This is where it gets fun. My board developed its own accountability process. We reviewed giving quarterly, and the board came up with a competition and an Excel chart, not me, the board. Each board member had a giving goal of $500 or $5,000, and the chart was presented quarterly. If a board member was in the green for the quarter, they were on track. Yellow meant a little behind, and red meant nowhere close. We talked about it and presented it quarterly. At the end of the year, those who reached their goal got an incentive: another board member sponsored a dinner at a fancy restaurant where everybody wanted to go, and we paid for it.

Just remember, it’s not personal if they don’t give. It’s just life, and they forgot. Give them space and grace, as you extended to me today. Don’t ask just one time and say, “We talked about it in January and nobody gave.” They forgot. You’ve been on Facebook, you’ve seen those donations you meant to give, and you started scrolling and got caught up in something else. They’re human, just like you.

Next, being an advocate. Board members need to share their personal stories, and you have to teach them how. They also need to spend time in the nonprofit. I don’t just mean attending board meetings, though if you hold them in your nonprofit, that’s great. I mean volunteering at a program event, taking off the board member hat, and doing hands-on work with clients. That should be one of the expectations, because it gives them a true picture of what it means to serve clients in the community. I was with youth services, and I gave my board members an annual schedule of all the volunteer opportunities. They weren’t coming in as board members to speak. It was hands-on.

We did a Thanksgiving dinner where we served 300 people and a Halloween event where we served thousands of community kids. Board members signed up to be servers at Thanksgiving, so they served the parents and kids and sat down to talk with them. They saw the needs of families who couldn’t afford a Thanksgiving dinner. At the Halloween event, they worked a booth or registration. I got to know my board members through these events, and I participated as well. They fell in love with the events and signed up every year because they liked getting to know the clients. That needs to be a requirement, whether it’s volunteering at one event a year or something similar, and it should be on the expectation form.

Finally, dedicate some time to developing an elevator speech, because you want all your board members saying the same thing. For those who don’t know, an elevator speech is how you communicate the why of your nonprofit in the time it takes to go from one floor to the next. We’ll talk about how to get that done as we move through this presentation.

Now let’s talk about getting board members to participate in resource development and fundraising. Let’s put it on the table: to board members, fundraising is the dirty F word. Let’s acknowledge it and accept it, because we’re not going to change that. I think of it as the dirty F word too, and I know many of you do.

When you have this conversation with them, they’re already telling themselves what I call ANTs, automatic negative thoughts. They feel bad because they don’t like begging. They tell themselves, “I don’t know any rich people,” which I’ve heard over and over. They say, “I don’t like to ask because I don’t like to hear no,” or “I don’t like asking my friends or strangers for money.” We already have all these automatic negative thoughts associated with fundraising, so flip the conversation. No one joins a nonprofit board to ask their friends and family for money. That’s reality, so embrace it.

The other reality to embrace as the CEO, founder, or executive director is that fundraising and resource development is more than asking for money. Asking is about 5% of the fundraising process. We get stuck on “My board members aren’t asking for money, so they’re not helping with fundraising,” and that’s not the case. Let’s break down the fundraising process and how boards can participate in it.

Remember, fundraising is donor-centered. It includes events, thanking, advocating, cultivating, giving, and learning. I’m a very visual person, so I’ll walk through the fundraising process so you can see how to plug your board into different roles.

Most people say there are five steps. I say six. The first step is identifying who has the affinity and ability, just building a list of names. There’s a process for that. The second is qualifying, determining who has the ability and the affinity to give. The third is cultivation, my favorite part. Cultivation is about 60% of the fundraising process, and your board can play a huge role in it.

Solicitation, the ask, is only 5%. That’s stage four. I add a stage five, which is giving donors time to process the request and decide yes or no. Be patient in that process and follow up. Then there’s stewardship, which is about 10% of the fundraising process. Nonprofits are horrible at stewardship, but if you spend time on it and get board support, it will change how fundraising is done in your organization. And you repeat steps one through three until you get to solicitation.

Let’s talk about how board members can participate, from identifying to stewardship. Board members can serve as door openers. They open the door to the eventual ask. They help you identify potential donors, build relationships with them, generate interest in the organization, and show prospects what the organization is all about. They share the history and the finances.

Somebody in the corner is thinking, “That’s all they’re doing? Just opening doors?” Let me tell you, I had a board member who only opened doors, and she was my highest-grossing fundraiser. She was honest with me. She said, “I will not ask for money. I don’t feel comfortable asking for money. It’s not what I do.” I had a choice: I could say, “Then you’re not for this board, because that’s where I need you.” Instead, I asked, “What are you willing to do?” She said, “I will introduce you to anyone you ask me to.”

That’s what she did. She’s a shy person and a number cruncher who worked in the back office of a bank, in fraud, so imagine the personality. But she introduced me to the bank owner, not the bank president, the bank owner. As a result, the bank owner appointed the bank president as co-chair of our capital campaign, a $12 million campaign. She gets credit for that.

The bank flew me on a private plane to talk to the Mabee Foundation in Oklahoma, and we received a $250,000 gift. The bank appointed two board members to our board of directors, and has done so for the last 10 years, and each of them has to raise $5,000. They’ve helped us with marketing. If we have any kind of campaign, I can go to that bank and they’ll pass out anything we ask them to, through the drive-thru, to all their customers.

Start adding that up. It’s an astronomical amount for our nonprofit, and it doesn’t take a lot of work. It just takes sustaining that relationship and using her credibility and my role as CEO. She never asked for money. All she did was open the door. So don’t think door openers are getting off easy. If you leverage them right, they can be your biggest fundraisers. Think about what roles you’re using your board members in.

Then there are the cultivators. Again, that’s my favorite part, because to me it’s like dating. Fundraising is like dating. It’s the courting process, inviting people in on tours and so on, because people give to people. Donors want to trust, know, and like the individuals at the nonprofits they support. The only way to get there is to build a relationship, and you have to do that before asking for money. You can’t go on a first date and ask someone to marry you. You don’t go on a first date with a donor and ask them for money. It’s not the proper courting process, and people will think you’re crazy. If you equate it to dating, you’ll understand this process.

Cultivation connects the organization to personal contacts with prospects. There’s a little formula I use called five by five. One board member has five accounts, five people they’re courting, and the goal is five touches within a year before we ask for money, or within six months. You have to decide based on where the relationship started and where you’re trying to take it. If it’s a cold relationship, I say a year. If it’s warm and the person is already involved, maybe five or six months.

What does cultivation look like? The board member has five accounts. They call to check on them, during COVID or in general. That’s one touch. They might take them to breakfast, lunch, or dinner, whatever’s convenient. They might invite them on a tour of your nonprofit, if you’re facility-based. They might drop off a gift. I don’t mean a swag gift. I mean something like, “I know this person is really into horses, and I saw a little miniature horse statue.” I’m not even going to ask for an appointment. I’m going to impress the gatekeeper, because you have to get through the gatekeeper. I’ll say, “Hey, I know Mr. Hernandez is really into horses. I saw this at a store. Can you make sure he gets it?” They’ll remember that. I’m not talking about logo items or swag. I’m talking about personal, inexpensive gifts that show the donor you’re learning who they are and what they’re into, because you have to make the donor the hero. Another touch is making sure they get an invitation to an event, whether it’s in person or virtual.

Those are your five touches, and you have to be strategic about the touches you make to each of the five people on a board member’s list. You can say every board member has five accounts they’re cultivating, or you can develop a cultivation team. I think every board member can play a role here, because you’re not asking for money, you’re building relationships. Maybe I’m biased, it’s the fun part for me, so keep that in mind when we talk about board roles.

The next role is the askers. I had a board of 21 people. Three of them were comfortable saying, “Will you consider a gift of $1,000 to my organization?” That’s 3 out of 21. The others were more comfortable being a sidekick or a wingman. Board members can contribute to fundraising by accompanying staff on face-to-face solicitations, whether they’re the asker, the wingman, or the sidekick. They have a role in that meeting.

Their role as a board member is to lend credibility to the process. They’re volunteers, they’re not paid, and the donor acknowledges that this volunteer took the time to attend. They’re there to say, “This is why I support this organization. I support it with my time and my talent, and I also support it with my treasure.” Remember, every board member should be giving, because that shows commitment. So in the meeting, they can say, “As a board member, I’m sharing my time by serving on this board, I’m sharing my talent through my committee work, and I’m sharing my treasure.” They’re not asking the donor to do anything they’re not already doing.

The role of staff is to answer program questions the donor may have. And when it comes to the ask, a lot of times the person comfortable making it isn’t your board member. It’s your job as the CEO, founder, or executive director, whether you’re comfortable or not, to say, “Will you consider a gift of $1,000 to XYZ nonprofit?” Then both of you wait in what I call the golden moment of silence, because he who speaks first loses. Most people don’t like silence, so ask the question and then wait. There’s more to it than that, but that’s a brief overview of how the meeting would go and the two roles board members can play in the ask.

Finally, there are the thankers. That’s the last role board members can play. The organization’s fundraising responsibilities aren’t over once it receives the donation. The final stage of fundraising is stewardship, which means thanking the donor and maintaining a relationship that keeps them connected to the organization. Board members can send donor thank-you cards and make thank-you calls. They can let the donor know the gift was appreciated and made a difference.

Here’s a tip for getting board members involved in thanking, even superficially at first. At the end of each board meeting, pass out two or three thank-you cards with a script that board members handwrite in ink. Give them the same pen so it stays consistent. They don’t address the card to anyone, but they sign their name. As the executive, you keep those stacks on your desk. When a gift comes in, you add the donor’s name at the top, sign your name next to it, and send it out within 24 hours of the gift. If you do this at the end of every board meeting, you’ll always have a stack ready.

It will feel mundane to your board members, and they may wonder why they’re doing this every month. The reason is stewardship, and making sure donors receive timely thank-yous. A timely thank-you is within 24 hours of receiving a gift. Wearing the many hats you wear, the only way to be timely is to have a process with cards already stacked on your desk. I get down to the details, same color, same pen. You add the name and your signature, and you send it off. Boom.

Another thing you can do right away is ask for board members to serve on a thank-you team. When a gift comes through the door, I send them an email with the donor, their cell phone or contact number, and the amount donated. Those board members agree to pick up the phone and say thank you. You provide them with a script. You’ll see why I keep saying this over and over.

If you don’t have a group that proactive, you can dedicate part of a board meeting to thank-you calls for that month or quarter. Say, “For the last 20 minutes of this board meeting, here’s a list of five people I want each of you to call right now.” Give each board member the script, and they pick up their cell phones and make those calls. That’s the accountability, because it’s happening right in front of you. Those are some of the little tips I learned along the way.

I had two or three very responsible board members, and I knew that if I emailed them, they wouldn’t forget and would make the call right away. I’ve had donors say, “Sabrina, your organization is the only one that calls to say thank you, and I appreciate it.” I’ve had that exact quote said to me, and it’s so much easier to ask for a repeat gift when you do that.

The other thing about thankers is that if you don’t have a process in place for your first-time givers, thankers can help, because the ultimate goal isn’t one gift. The ultimate goal is gift number two, gift number three, gift number four. There’s a ladder in fundraising: from that first-time gift to repeat gifts, then up to major gifts, and ultimately to bequests and legacies. If you know the strategy going in, you understand why thankers are so important. They’re part of that bigger strategy. They’re not getting off easy, so separate yourself from that mentality. It’s very strategic, and as the executive director, you have to think about the bigger picture.

There are ways to engage board members’ hearts, minds, and passion for fundraising. I like to talk about the CEO role, because you’re critical in getting board members engaged. You have to focus your board, inspire your board, ready your board, and engage your board. Those are just words, and you’re probably thinking, “Sabrina, how do you do that?” I’ll give you some simple things that have worked for me and for my clients, and that won’t stress you out. My company’s mission isn’t to add hats. It’s to add real-life implementation you can use.

How do you focus your board? Two things, so I don’t overwhelm you. First, the mission moment. If you’re not starting your board agenda with a mission moment, you’re missing an opportunity. It takes about five minutes at the top of the agenda. In my organization, I had a youth come to every board meeting to share their story: why they attended our youth center, what they liked about it, and what they didn’t like. Board members could ask them questions. They learned things like, “If I didn’t come here, I wouldn’t have anybody to help me with my homework, or access to technology, or a meal because my mom works all the time, or I’d go home to an empty house.”

With the mission moment, you’re creating advocates. Board members remember the stories. They’ll remember Steven getting up there and saying, “If it weren’t for this youth center, I wouldn’t have a dinner meal. I eat breakfast and lunch at school, but I come here after school because they feed me, and that’s my third meal a day.”

They’ll remember that story, and when they go to their chamber meeting or their Rotary Club and talk about your organization, they’ll share it, and it will connect with somebody’s heart. If you do this at every board meeting, you’re equipping your board members with 12 stories a year and creating advocates.

Now, some of you are saying, “We serve very confidential clients, like a women’s shelter, so we can’t have them come in and share a story.” Or, “We work with foster kids, and I feel like I’d be exploiting them.” I’ve heard all of these, so I say you have to get creative.

I worked with an organization that serves abused children. They created an avatar, and every child who came through the program got a teddy bear so they wouldn’t feel alone. They made a series of videos, not complicated and not expensive, using their cell phones, where the story was told through the teddy bear. Board members understood that the teddy bear went on that journey with the child through every phase: the interview process, meeting with the police department, the court system, and foster care. The teddy bear told that story.

That way the child isn’t up there and doesn’t have to repeat the story, but you’re still sharing client stories. If you work with a battered women’s shelter, think about that bag packed in the corner, waiting for the moment the abused spouse is ready to go, and maybe it holds diapers. You tell the story. You have to be creative. I see all the questions, and we’ll get to them at the end. I’ll make sure we have time.

The other thing you can do is focus on real outcomes and results. Close your meeting with outcomes, and I mean outcomes, not outputs. We had programs on drug and alcohol prevention, so we shared things like, “Kids who participated in this program before did not know how to say no to drugs, and now after the program they say they feel more confident saying no.” Whatever your outcomes are, this is where I brought other people into my board meetings, to grow them as professionals. My operations person would deliver the report, or you could have a program person deliver it. Give them some leadership moments, and focus on real outcomes and results. You can do both of these or pick one, but it’s a practical thing I know works.

Next, inspire your board members. Make resource development and fundraising fun, and have a plan. Remember the quarterly tracking process, with the reward of a dinner at an exclusive restaurant at the end. That was fun for my board. Ask your board, “What’s fun for you? What would resonate with you?” Have a board member take leadership on that.

And have a plan. How many times have we gone into the year without a fundraising plan? Please have a plan. You can break it up so it doesn’t overwhelm you. There are four quarters in a year, so if you have a budget goal of $125,000 or $2.5 million, break it up by quarter and ask, “What are we going to work on to reach that number this quarter?” Revisit the plan with your board and tell them, “This is what we’ve thought of, and this is where we’re moving.” They’ll follow you if there’s a plan in place. If you’re half-winging it, they’ll half-wing it. You have to set the tone.

Then ready your board, which means having the proper tools and training in place. Do you have a board education plan? Is your agenda structured so board education is included in every board meeting for 20 minutes? Are you practicing? That can be part of board education: practice, practice, practice. Sit down and talk about a script. What if a donor says no? How are we going to set up these meetings with donors? Let’s practice that.

Educate them on the donor cycle, just as I went through it with you. Does your board truly understand it? Do they understand it’s not just about asking for money? Remember the dirty F word? It’s dirty because they think they have to ask for money. I’ve just told you 60% of fundraising is cultivation. If you break down the different roles, ask, “Where do you feel comfortable?” and let them shine in that role after you educate them, that will move your fundraising forward.

Then engage your board. That means giving your board the proper role in the fundraising and resource development process and creating a support structure. I’ll take the last couple of minutes to talk about that support structure, and then we’ll do Q&A.

Here’s what board members want from staff so they can fundraise easily and effectively. This is where CEOs often get frustrated and say, “My board members aren’t helping.” I’m going to be blunt. You say your board members aren’t helping, but have you oriented them? Did they go through an orientation process? Are you equipping them? Are you making it easy for them? Are you holding them accountable? Are you being explicit? If you want them to help, you have to do these things. You have to equip them, provide board education, share client stories, and create advocates.

You have to make it easy. Give board members scripts, social media posts, and sample letters and emails they can cut and paste. If you want them to fundraise, to do a peer-to-peer campaign or an email asking their friends for money, you have to craft that email for them and say, “Here’s the email, and here’s the timeline I want you to send it out on.” Then you have to hold them accountable, follow up, and ensure they do what they say they’ll do.

After a board meeting, I’d be furiously taking notes. Say Sally said she was going to contact Jake about something. Then you walk away, Sally walks away, and she forgets, and you don’t follow up. At the next board meeting, Sally hasn’t done anything because she forgot, and you get frustrated: “She said she was going to ask Jake, but she didn’t do it.” Where’s your role in that?

Your role is this: after the board meeting, reach out to Sally and say, “Hey, Sally, I know you signed up to reach out to Jake. Let me know if you need anything to support that.” That’s the first email. Don’t wait until the next board meeting. A week later, send a second email: “Hey, Sally, just checking in to see if you reached out to Jake. Let me know, and again, I’m here to support.” Sally will say, “Oh, yeah, I forgot to do that.” That’s a tickler. Hopefully Sally will do something. If you don’t hear back, in week three you say, “Hey, did you talk to Jake? Do you need my support? Here’s a sample scripted email I drafted that you can send him, or use to talk with him on a call.”

Then, hopefully, by the next board meeting Sally has reached out to Jake and can report back to the board, “Hey, I reached out to Jake and this is where we’re going.” That shows the behavior you want other board members to emulate. It just doesn’t happen on its own. You have to put work into it.

I think that’s where people sometimes fall off the track. You’re saying, “They’re professionals. Why do I have to do that?” They’re professionals in their careers. They’re not professionals in your nonprofit organization. They have families and children. If you’re serving in the CEO role, your role is to support them. And you have to be very explicit. When recruiting board members, be explicit about expectations, and have a board expectation agreement and process.

My final slide: mission accomplished. Hopefully you understand the role of the board in resource development and fundraising, you’ve learned how to engage the board in each of those roles, and you know how staff can support the board. I’m Sabrina, and now we’ll do the Q&A. I’m going to stop sharing and go down to the Q&A. Is that appropriate, Steven?

Steven Shattuck: That’s great. I just want to say, thanks. This was awesome. You’re speaking my language. From what I saw in the chat, people were right there with you, and it seems like they could empathize personally with what you were saying. There’s a ton of questions in there. Let me call some out, because a lot of them are along the same lines. What about people who feel, “They’re a board member, they’re already volunteering, I don’t want to ask them for money”? I’m a 100% board giving guy, so I’m with you, but what would you say to those people?

Sabrina Walker: First, I’ll be practical. A lot of foundations won’t support your organization unless 100% of board members give. That’s just fact. I’ve worked with those foundations. They ask that question in the application process, and if you’re trying to grow your organization’s budget, the people giving the money you want are asking it. If you’re pursuing Walmart grants and Target grants and those retail grants, they’re not asking, because they give $1,000, $500, maybe $2,000. But if you want the $25,000, $50,000 and above, call it right or wrong, they’re asking that question. If you want to be eligible for those dollars, you need to do that.

Second, this is my opinion only: if someone is elevated to your board, they should give time, talent, and treasure. If they want to be a volunteer for the organization, different from a governing or working board member, and just give time, that’s fine. We’re not frowning on that. They can serve on a committee where they don’t have governing decisions, or on a volunteer program. But if you want to call yourself a board member, that’s the epitome of ownership of the organization. I’m only looking for people who can do all three, time, talent, and treasure, because that’s the quality of board member you want and need to move your organization forward. This is about being strategic and growing your organization, and you have to set a standard. That’s my soapbox issue. I won’t go too far down the rabbit hole.

Steven Shattuck: I’m so with you. What about people who want to do that but have an existing board where that was never the expectation? It’s probably easier for new people coming on, but do you have to get rid of the existing members first? What can you do with them?

Sabrina Walker: No. I say start with board education. Have a third-party person come in, so they can be the bad guy. You can say it all day long, and I’m being practical here. I’ve served in your CEO role, and I rolled my eyes every time this happened. I could say something until my face was blue, but when a third-party person came in and said it, the board thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.

Steven Shattuck: Isn’t that funny? It always happens. It’s so weird.

Sabrina Walker: I was like, “What? Okay.” I’m a consultant, so I’m shooting myself in the foot, but it doesn’t have to be a consultant. For nonprofits struggling with budget who say, “I can’t pay anybody to come in and do board education,” what I did in the initial phases was reach out to another CEO at an organization with the same values, and we swapped. We did board education for each other’s boards. They heard it from a third party, not from me as their CEO, because for some reason, when somebody else says it, it’s gold.

Steven Shattuck: The life of nonprofit folks. It’s so fun. Sabrina, you got a lot of people’s gears turning when you told the story about having a kid come in and present to the board once a month, the service recipient. How did you do that logistically? A lot of people are asking how you found that person and invited them. Can you unpack that?

Sabrina Walker: Yeah. That was actually easy, and I’ll say that’s because I worked in youth development, and kids are always cute. I wasn’t involved in it as CEO. It was my program people. I’d tell them, “I’m looking for a kid with a story who can come in and talk about this,” and I trusted them to bring me the right kid. They worked with the child, not extensively, probably the day before the board meeting, and said, “This is what you’re going to do. Tell them your name, your age, what school you go to, and why you come to the club.” We had a set of questions: why do you come to the club, what don’t you like about the club. Then the kid would come in, with program staff or my operations person standing with them, and the board would ask questions, and staff would help them through the process. It took literally five minutes of the board meeting, but it was well worth it.

Steven Shattuck: That’s awesome. And you’re in the Boys & Girls Club world, right?

Sabrina Walker: Yes, I was with the Boys & Girls Club.

Steven Shattuck: Kids are great, right?

Sabrina Walker: And we met in the building where the kids were. I was intentional about where we met. It was strategic, to get board members there when the kids were there so they could see the program in action. Now, if you’re not a facilities-based organization, this can still be done on Zoom. You can send a link to a parent or child, or a client, and they can come and speak. If you’re a scholarship agency, reach out to alumni who’ve been successful in receiving your scholarship. If you’re a homeless shelter or have sensitive confidentiality issues, tell the story from a different perspective. But tell the story.

Steven Shattuck: That makes sense.

Sabrina Walker: And you can have the recipient record the video, but then you’d show the teddy bear or the bag.

Steven Shattuck: Some physical, on-premise element.

Sabrina Walker: Some physical storytelling element.

Steven Shattuck: That’s great. Maybe a good last question, Sabrina. A lot of folks on here have board members who’ve been on the board for over a decade, and they feel those members aren’t pulling their weight. So two questions: what’s your take on term limits, and how do you gracefully bless and release those people, if that’s what you should do? Maybe it’s not.

Sabrina Walker: Exit people, even if you should. You might be surprised by my response, Steven, and we might not align.

Steven Shattuck: That’s okay.

Sabrina Walker: We did have term limits, but our terms were renewable. As long as a board member was performing, we renewed their term. Strategically, we had one-year, two-year, and three-year terms. Anyone new automatically went into a one-year term so we could see how they performed, and then we’d decide whether to move them into a two- or three-year term. We had several board members in three-year terms whom we renewed six times. I had board members who served 18 years, 15 years, as long as they were performing.

Let’s talk about the people who aren’t performing. That’s why we started with one-year terms. But you’re saying these people have been here a while, so let’s answer the question being asked. In that situation, you need a structure in place. Are you talking to board members annually? Are you, as CEO, meeting with them, getting to know them, finding out what’s going on with them, and what their roles are? Say, “Here are the different roles. This is the model we’re moving to. Where do you feel comfortable?” That’s your conversation with them. The second conversation is where your board chair needs to be active. That’s a peer-to-peer conversation, and those need to happen.

If I had trouble with a particular board member, I picked up the phone and called my board chair. I didn’t exercise this a lot, but I did when needed. Sometimes you need to be very conscious of who you put in the board chair seat. I say “you put,” but I took ownership of my organization, honey. It was not random, and I was very strong in my organization, and I thank my board for that. You have to understand the pros and cons and different personalities. Sometimes you have passive personalities, and sometimes consensus builders, in that role. But when it comes down to it, you need to call the board chair and say, “Hey, I need you to talk to this board member.” It needs to come from you, because you lend power to it by the position you hold. I’ve had lunch with them and heard their concerns, and fed them as much information as I could. Ultimately, though, the board chair needs to put some authority behind it.

Steven Shattuck: I love it. Delegate.

Sabrina Walker: Delegate, yeah.

Steven Shattuck: This is awesome, Sabrina. There are a ton of questions here, but can people reach out to you offline? Is that okay with you?

Sabrina Walker: Oh, yeah. I love answering questions.

Steven Shattuck: What’s the best way? LinkedIn or your website?

Sabrina Walker: LinkedIn. I also have a Facebook group. What’s best for you, Steven? Should I share my email?

Steven Shattuck: You can put it in the chat, or I can include all of that in the follow-up email. We’ll do both.

Sabrina Walker: Okay. Put it in the follow-up email, and anybody with a question that’s burning your soul, I will answer it. I see a lot of questions here.

Steven Shattuck: They need you, Sabrina. Look her up on LinkedIn at least, because there’s lots of good stuff there. I’ll connect you when I send the slides and recording later this afternoon. Give me a couple of hours and I’ll get those out the door. Thanks for doing this, Sabrina. I know you’re busy, and I’m so thankful you could make this happen. It’s been a lot of fun.

Sabrina Walker: I see the questions here, and I want to answer them so badly. Can you send me the Q&A? Maybe I’ll be proactive and reach out. If I have a name, I’ll find you on LinkedIn and respond to your questions, but some of them say “anonymous attendee.”

Steven Shattuck: I’ll get you that chat transcript for sure.

Sabrina Walker: Perfect.

Steven Shattuck: Thanks to all of you for hanging out. I know we went a little over, but there was a lot of good stuff, and it was awesome to see a full room. I hope you have a good week. We have a great webinar coming up next week, exactly one week from right now, at 3:00 p.m. Eastern next Thursday. Our buddy Sarah Durham from Big Duck, another one of my favorites, is going to talk about engagement. It’s going to be a good one. We have her on almost every year, so if you’re free, join us. There are a lot of other good sessions listed on our page, with lots of cool, diverse topics, so check that out. We’d love to see you on another webinar. We’ll call it a day there. Look for an email from me with all the goodies, and hopefully we’ll see you again next week. Have a good rest of your Thursday, stay safe, stay healthy, and we’ll talk to you again soon. Bye.

Sabrina Walker: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Have a blessed weekend.

Steven Shattuck: See you.