Executive Issues

The question of nonprofit sustainability came into greater focus last week, after I had lunch with Professor Adlai Wertman from the USC/Marshall School of Business, founding director of Marshall’s Society and Business Lab and founder of nonprofit Chrysalis. Wertman has pushed wide open a national discussion of applying entrepreneurship and business principles to alleviate not only poverty, but many other social ills as well.

Wertman’s spirit of social sector entrepreneurship should be having an impact upon almost every discussion in the nonprofit sector — including fundraising.

In the June 2009 cover story, "Safety Line," former FS Associate Editor Abny Santicola explained how for-profit ventures help nonprofits shore up the funding they need to maintain and expand their programs — even in stormy economic times.

Organizational leaders say they want big-time fundraising results but they don’t want to take time to understand what it takes  — or spend money to make it happen. Based on the research data in this article, and on my own experience, I humbly offer this recipe to create a fundraising effort that won’t succeed. Here’s how to demoralize the staff, distract them from agreed-upon goals and plans, and undercut your fundraising in every way.

A strategic plan is essential for your organization to determine its future, provide focus and align resources. Through a planning process, you identify the great things about your organization to protect and what priorities need improvement. After decades of facilitating planning processes, here are Lighthouse Counsel’s ingredients for successful strategic planning.

A disease found in nonprofits has its genesis in the inspiration and personality — or personalities — that created the organization. The ailment is called "Founder's Syndrome." Here are nine ways you can avoid or overcome Founder's Syndrome.

Assuming that the organization has a compelling mission and does good work, the real keys to effective fundraising are the leadership, vision and skill of the executive director; an engaged, committed and high-functioning board; and a strong working partnership between the board and the executive. If those things are in place, a development director can be successful. And if those things are not in place, even the most talented development director will struggle.

In our March 2009 cover story, "How Does Your (Fundraising) Garden Grow?" Bernard Ross, director of U.K.-based fundraising consultancy The Management Centre (=mc), and Paula Birnbaum Guillet, then head of fundraising development and innovation for UNICEF, collaborated to outline a strategic process for nurturing innovation in the fundraising mind-set.

Fundraisers need to stop apologizing for spending money on more effective management and fundraising and, instead, educate people about the realities of how fundraising works.

If fundraising is the biggest challenge of the nonprofit sector, then strategic planning is second only to it. The crazy thing is, if you connect the two (strategic planning and raising money) you not only are more financially sustainable, but you also achieve more social change.

Being a board member, and especially a board chair, is a serious commitment, and there is a fiduciary role that can't be abdicated. The selection of board members and especially leadership is such a critical decision for your nonprofit.