Board Development

02 Jun CoronaVirus and Fundraising – Cultivating Board Members

Posted at 07:24h in Board Development, Board Members, COVID-19, Donor Cultivation, Donor Stewardship 3 Comments

2 June 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I am not a gardener. We live in an urban home on just shy of an acre, and we are busily converting anything that is now grass into something else – trees, flowers, vegetables, and so on – that...

26 Mar Strategies for Cultural Change

Posted at 05:30h in Board Development 0 Comments

By David Allen, Development for Conservation I’m working with several groups right now who are interested in changing their Board’s culture. Specifically, they have Boards who have not been particularly involved in raising money and are interested in encouraging and supporting Board level efforts in this...

15 Jan Board Members Need to Be Ambassadors

Posted at 06:39h in Board Development, Term Limits 3 Comments

By David Allen, Development for Conservation As I teased last week, one of my three checklist items each year in January is to get my Board Campaign organized. The hot link there is a downloadable paper about how to organize a Board Campaign mechanically. I won’t...

25 Sep Implementing Term Limits is No Accident

Posted at 06:08h in Board Development, Term Limits 1 Comment

By David Allen, Development for Conservation I spent a lovely week last week in McAllen, Texas at the Summit conference for Nature Center Administrators. I learned a lot and met some terrific folks involved in nature education all over the country. Among the many stories I heard,...

07 Aug Pocket Change

Posted at 05:40h in Board Development, Board Members 3 Comments

By David Allen, Development for Conservation When I come home every evening, I throw the change from my pocket into an old coffee can. (Remember when coffee used to come in cans?) It’s an old habit that has served me well around Christmas on more than...

10 Jul The Secret Place to Find GREAT Board Members

Posted at 05:25h in Board Development, Board Member Recruitment, Board Members 2 Comments

People should not give money to an organization because they serve on the Board. They should give money because they believe in the work enough to give money. Doing so shows the kind of passion for the mission that inspires others – especially other donors....

20 Feb Sustainable Organizations Teach Financial Literacy

Posted at 05:34h in Board Development, Board Members 2 Comments

My accounting friend Dana says that every Board director should know how much money the organization has that is unrestricted – that it can spend on operations – and exactly how each restricted gift was spent. That would be an improvement for most land trusts...

09 Jan Board Members and Donor Stewardship

Posted at 07:46h in Board Development, Board Members, Donor Cultivation 1 Comment

When you have donor meetings set up, when you will be at an event or field trip where one or several top donors will be present, take a moment to invite a Board member to come along. I would not go so far as to...

18 Jul Make Plans to Give AND Get This Year

Posted at 07:18h in Board Development, Featured 2 Comments

The level of your giving also sends a signal to the public. Donors – including you – think of different organizations differently. When you, as a board member send $100 or less, or even $200 or $500, you signal how the Board considers this particular...

20 Jun How Much Does Fundraising Cost?

Posted at 05:03h in Board Development, Featured, Plans and Budgets 0 Comments

The job of fundraising, then, is to build a program of interrelated strategies (membership, campaigns, events, planned giving, and so on) that delivers a net result large enough to meet the organizational need. The mission is perpetual, so the fundraising strategies must be designed to...