Five Tips for Building Stronger Relationships With Foundations

2. Get personal. Move from a paper relationship to one of flesh and blood at your first opportunity. Foundations, like many individual donors, fund people — not organizations. The heart of their relationship will not be with an entity, but with individuals they believe are capable of doing good work. Often the most accurate predictor of nonprofit success will be the qualities of your executive director: his or her vision, passion, management skills and ability to marshal resources for the common good. Your executive director should not only inspire, but he or she also should know his or her way around your organization’s financial statements.