Executive Issues

Learn to shape fundraising strategies, operational infrastructure, and day-to-day activities to create a smarter, faster organization.

This is crucial. Your organization will never grow if your top leader cannot embrace fundraising and understand it's a large part of the job.

Relationships can be magical when nurtured. Be sure that you are focused on the right professional relationships to ensure success for you and the worthy cause you represent! 

There are different types of silos that can harm your nonprofit organization. Do any of the following sound familiar?

For nonprofit leaders, summer is a great time to take a hard look at how you bring money in the door and figure out a more sustainable way to do so. It’s time to trash your ineffective fundraising plan. A financing plan, unlike a traditional fundraising plan, is an integrated, thoughtful and strategic way to help a nonprofit raise enough money to achieve its programmatic and organizational goals. Instead of asking, “How much can we accomplish with what we can raise?" you should ask, “How much should we raise to accomplish our goals?”

I recently had the privilege of attending the DMA Nonprofit Federation’s Leadership Summit for nonprofit sector executives, which focused on a critical topic for our nonprofit community: overcoming barriers to growth. Here are fives areas requiring attention in order to tackle this challenge gleaned from the summit: executive education, "short-termism," an industrywide shortage of seasoned direct marketers, a lack of collaboration and acknowledging a changing donor landscape.

Be sure that your organization's plans — overall through its strategic plan and with the fundraising plan as well — are grounded in valid needs.

It’s May! Flowers are blooming, grass is growing and … boards are approving budgets for organizations whose fiscal year begins July 1! Before this magical moment slips away into the haze of summer, consider these three questions: Have we budgeted for smaller projects that will help us move toward bigger projects? Have we budgeted adequately for website updates? Have we budgeted for help where we need it most?

The honeymoon period for nonprofit CEOs should be magical. It is the best opportunity for them to define themselves, including their vision and values, and paint a bright big picture that board members and other donors can embrace.

Executive directors and CEOs have an incredibly challenging job. In my ongoing research with nonprofit executives, they often tell me that boards hire the nonprofit leader to be a fundraiser, but they don’t allow the leader to staff the nonprofit in a way that frees her up to fundraise. As a result, many nonprofit executives find that constantly “putting out fires” crowds out strategic activities like donor involvement.