Why Your Board Should Raise 10 Percent of Your Nonprofit’s Budget

But you can't just turn to board members and tell them to bring 10 percent in the door. Some things are going to have to dramatically change in order to make 10 percent a reality.

Here's what you have to do:

• Work one on one with each individual board member to create an annual plan for how he or she will meet his or her part of the goal.
• Give the board lots of different ideas for how it can meet the goal.
• Provide the training, materials and education they need to execute on that individual plan.
• Hold each individual board member accountable for his or her individual plans and goals, and check in every month to see how each board member is progressing.
• Have the board report at every meeting about its progress on the 10 percent goal.

If we really want to see a shift in how the nonprofit sector is funded, we need to make some pretty radical changes to business as usual. So start to entertain the idea. What would it look like if your board brought in 10 percent of your annual budget?