Connecticut Water Trails Association
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Connecticut Water Trails Association |
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Connecticut Water Trails Program How To Build A Water Trail Fundraising Tips - How To Recruit Your Volunteer Fund-Raising Team
Volunteers are the lifeblood of a development
operation, and trustees are the most important volunteers of all. The
trustees approve an organization's budget and they must accept personal
responsibility for raising called-for contributed income. They are
expected to set the pace in giving, recruiting other volunteers, and
soliciting major donors.
Leadership is the key element in determining the
goal or deciding whether you should even conduct a fund-raising
campaign. Be it this year's edition of the annual fund campaign, a
first-time attempt to raise endowment, or a first-ever fund-raising
effort, leadership is what will make or break your campaign. At its best, a truly responsible and effective board
will produce a volunteer development organization along these lines:
The Development Committee The development committee has basic responsibility
for overseeing and advising on the organization's fund-raising
activities. Its main duties are to:
Chairs of development committees, like development
directors, must resolve the various contributed income needs of the
organization without exhausting its base of support. The best
development committee chairpersons are able to see the job in its
entirety. They have broad vision. They don't fall in love with one
fund-raising idea, campaign, or concept at the expense of the overall
development effort. The preferred development committee chairperson is a
general managerial type with a strong marketing background. Ideally,
this chairperson is something of an alter ego of the development
director. You will be most successful when your development chairpersons
and you share the same fund-raising vision. In a sense, the best
development chairperson is a leader whom a competent development
director is able to lead. The development chairperson has clout within
the community that the development director is unlikely to possess,
while the latter has fund-raising knowledge that is probably outside of
the development chairperson's purview. The partnership between the
development chairperson and the development director works best when the
professional develops the ideas and then gains the agreement of the
volunteer leader, who uses their clout to get cooperation from the board
and other volunteer campaign leaders.
Recruiting Leadership And Solicitors For Annual,
Endowment, Capital, And Sponsorship & Underwriting Campaigns Non profits with strong development operations also
may have committees for ongoing fund-raising endeavors such as the
annual fund, endowment, capital, and sponsorship & underwriting
campaigns. The chairs of these campaign committees also sit on the
development committee. Most of the members of the secondary committees
will be trustees, but volunteer fund-raising leaders who are not
trustees are also included. Sometimes, recruitment of the chair of a campaign
(annual fund, endowment, capital, sponsorships & underwriting) occurs
simultaneously with the development of the campaign plan, and in some
instances the chair is involved in the planning process. However, it is
best to contact a prospective chair with a job description and a
campaign plan in hand. There are two distinct advantages to proceeding
in this order. First, control of the planning process is left in the
hands of the person who has responsibility for raising an organization's
contributed income. Presumably, this person is a professional
development officer or has extensive fund-raising knowledge and
experience. Such a person should be better equipped than the volunteer
leader to develop a realistic and effective plan. The second advantage to having a plan prepared before recruiting a campaign chair is that it speeds the process of recruitment. A well-prepared plan shows a level of commitment and professionalism on the part of the organization that should be attractive to the person being recruited. It prevents a prospective chair from putting you off by saying, "It sounds good, but why don't you get back to me when you have a game plan, and then I'll take a hard look at doing it." Well-conceived campaign plans in hand at the very start of the chair recruitment process provide the information prospective chairs need to determine whether they have the desire and time to commit to a campaign.
The Chain Of Command The primary responsibility for recruiting a campaign
chair falls to the chair of the organization's board of trustees. If he
or she is unable to do it, then some other trustee should take
responsibility. If that is not feasible, then the organization's
executive director must do the recruiting. In the ideal scenario, the
board chair will collaborate with a committee on development and the
organization's executive director and its development officer to
generate a short list of campaign chair candidates. From that list the
committee on development, working with the development officer, will
choose a prospective campaign chair. It is then up to the board
chairperson or, if there is such, a trustee having a special
relationship with the candidate to make the recruitment contact. Often, a trustee of the organization will be recruited as the campaign chair. There are times, however, when someone other than a trustee may be better suited to run a campaign. The chair of a campaign needs to have leverage and clout proportionate to the amount of money to be raised. It is the chair who will recruit other key players and who is likely to be called on either to solicit or help solicit the largest donors. Even with a good plan, a campaign that has inappropriate or insufficient leadership will be doomed.
Division Leadership For Individual,
Corporate And Foundation Gifts Once a person has signed on to chair the campaign,
they then recruit campaign division chairs (Individuals, corporations,
foundations) and, if needed, a campaign co-chair. The division chairs
then recruit the team captains, and the team captains recruit the
solicitors. In each of these stages, the pool of recruits can come from
the contacts of the person doing the recruiting or the organization's
volunteer base (usually it's a combination). However, the stronger the
relationship between a campaign chair and the division chairs, between a
division chair and the team captains, and between a team captain and the
solicitors, the greater the likelihood of success, because the campaign
will benefit from the team's interlocking feelings of personal loyalty
and responsibility. The only weakness of teams organized along these
lines occurs when there is a break in the chain. If the captain of a
team of solicitors is unable to continue in that leadership role and no
one on the team wants to step up and become captain, it is almost
impossible to transfer responsibility for the team to a new captain and
have it work at the same level of efficiency. Given the potentially
positive results that can arise from encouraging volunteer leaders to
recruit the people who will report to them, it's worth risking that
occasional downside. In the ideal campaign no more than five persons
report to any position, which is why we make provisions for vice-chairs
at the campaign and division chair levels. Although there will be
exceptions to this rule, keep in mind that campaign leaders and
solicitors are volunteers. The fund-raising campaign is not their only
priority. Never saddle a volunteer with an excessive amount of work or
management responsibility. When it comes to fund-raising campaigns, you need an attainable goal, a plan for getting to that goal, and the tools to execute that plan. But in the end, the success or failure of a fund-raising campaign hinges on leadership, and that leadership starts on your board.
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