Selling without Overselling

June 30, 2025

Filed under: Communications,Fundraising,Online Communications — jonathanpoisner @ 10:59 am

I was recently talking with a former Executive Director whose organization thrived under their leadership.

I’ve been thinking a lot about one of their comments.

Their comment: “In promoting their organization to funders, allies, stakeholders, and others, they were always trying to find the balance between selling and overselling.”

What did they mean by that?

If you fail to “sell,” you’re organization is going to flounder.  The nonprofit space is crowded and people need to be motivated in some way to take actions you want (whether it’s offering direct financial support, volunteer energy, or some other action).

Yet, if you “oversell,” you can overstate your organization’s role in events, particularly when your work is done in coordination of some form with other nonprofits.  You may secure funds this way in the short-term, but there’s a high risk of this boomeranging against you over the long run as the truth emerges.

I’ve personally seen an organization go from solid to in trouble because a new Executive Director “oversold” to key funders and those funders lost faith when the organization didn’t deliver and the word got back to the funders that the organization was taking credit for coalition work that was outsized for their role.

So how do you know if you’re finding the balance between selling and overselling.  Or perhaps worst of all, not selling at all.

Here are some techniques for finding the right balance.

Evidence that You’re Not Selling Enough

While not the focus of the comment that prompted my thinking, I’ve seen Executive Directors reluctant to tout their organization and unwilling to sell.

Of course, some object to the word “selling” when it comes to nonprofits.  In their view, nonprofits aren’t a commercial endeavor. 

I disagree.  Nonprofits are selling impact – something they’re doing in the world that the donor wants and is willing to contribute towards achieving. You are in the business of connecting people’s values with your organization’s mission.  In the process, you’re both making the impact they desire and helping them feel good about themselves.

But what about the “sales” part?  It’s not just about marketing – building the brand so to speak.  You also need to sell:  to get to that point in the conversation you’re having with potential donors where you “ask” and they say yes (or no).

Warning signs you’re not selling enough?

  • You don’t celebrate/communicate your successes and tout the impact you’re going to have with further donations.
  • You’re not willing to stand out from the crowd.  I recently discussed with an organization that was clearly the leading group for a geographic area when it came to an issue, but they balked at describing themselves that way, preferring to say “one of the leading organizations.” I believe their fundraising is suffering because they’re unwillingness to toot their own horn.
  • You meet with donors and don’t make an ask or just generally say: “we hope you’ll contribute.” You’re a salesperson, not just a marketer.

Evidence You’re Selling Too Much

Of course, overselling is also something I’ve seen repeatedly among nonprofits. Sometimes this is based on a charismatic leader who sells themself as much as the nonprofit and its impact.

Those who oversell risk coming across as inauthentic and losing the trust of supporters.

So how do you know if you’re overselling?

  • If you’re prone to exaggerating your claims of success and justify doing so by saying, “everyone does it.”
  • If more than 25% of your communications with supporters represents an “ask.”   (Use the 80-20 rule — 4 communications that are not about donations for every “ask”).
  • If your social media churn and email list attrition is greater than typical for the nonprofit world.  (Check out the M&R benchmarks for some evidence on that front).

You may want to bring in a third party to help review whether you’re overselling.

  • Do a brand audit, looking at your communications and fundraising materials.  Somebody taking a fresh look can help.
  • Use strategic planning (or some other hook) as a reason for having a neutral party confidentially interview the organizations with which you are most frequently collaborating. If you have a reputation for taking more credit than deserved within coalitions, it will likely come out in the interviews.

Finding the Sweet Spot

Presumably, if you’re selling enough, and not overselling, you’ve found the sweet spot.

You’re authentically communicating in a positive way about your impact, taking credit for who you are and what you’re accomplishing.

Donors and supporters respond accordingly.

Relationships are strengthened.

Jim Collins, in his monograph, Good to Great and the Social Sector, talks about organizations that find the sweet spot in a Venn diagram where they are the best at something, they are passionate about something, and there is a resource engine (e.g. donors who’re interested/excited to help, or some other financing method). 

With that in mind, my final recommendation:

  • Find your passion and don’t be afraid to show it!
  • Be the best at something and let people know it!
  • Authentically communicate with your potential supporters, building relationships based on trust where you tout your successes without exaggerating them.
  • And don’t forget to make the ask.

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A Donor Prospect Identification Exercise

May 27, 2025

Filed under: Board Development,Fundraising — jonathanpoisner @ 3:32 pm

A common refrain I hear when talking to nonprofit boards (and often staff) is that “I/we don’t know anybody who could be a major donor.”

Now if their definition of a major donor is too ambitious, this might be true. The universe of $100,000+ donors is small.

At the same time, the universe of donors who can and will give at the $10,000 level is larger than most people realize. And that’s true and then some with regard to donors at the $1,000+ level. At least for most my clients, anybody giving $1,000+ is a “major” donor.

Yet, even then, the complaint continues: “I don’t know anybody who can give $1,000.”

While this is sometimes true, it’s more often true that they can’t recall off the top of their head the people they know who can give at that level.

Working with various clients, I’ve found that running board and staff through an exercise focused on prospect identification often surfaces new, legitimate prospects to pursue.

Some context — the A, B, C test

Your major donor list should start with existing donors, board members who left on good standing, volunteers, etc.

In thinking about potential donors who don’t fit any of those categories, I was taught the A, B, C test.

  • A = Ability – do they have the income or assets that would allow them to make a donation at the designated level?
  • B = Belief – do they believe in the organization or, the more general “cause” or “impact” that the organization is working to advance via its mission?
  • C = Connection (or Contact) – does somebody in the organization know them at least at the level of acquaintance?

The biggest hang up for many people is when it comes to Ability — they believe only a tiny fraction of Americans donate at the $1,000 level. In reality, I’ve seen estimates showing that more than half of American families donate to charity in any given year and 10% of those say they’ve donated more than $1,000. So that’s 1 in 20 overall.

This may seem like a small percentage, but given that the average person knows hundreds of people, that leaves a sizeable number (on average) that you’re likely to know. Most people know at least one.

This obviously will vary by geography, age, economic situation, and other factors, but bottom line: most people underestimate the level of generosity that their friends (and acquaintances) display.

An exercise

The compounding factor is that many organizations ask “who do you know who could be a major donor” as an abstract question that asks people to rack their brains.

Instead, an exercise is warranted.

  • Provide people a short 10 minute overview of charitable giving.
  • Ask them to take 10-30 minutes on their own scanning through their email address book, their social media account friends/followers, their cell phone contact list, and any old-fashioned rolodex.
  • If this is a collective exercise, as they identify somebody, have them shout out the name. On more than one occasion, I’ve experienced somebody else in the group immediately both recognizing the name AND having that prompt some other name to come to their mind.
  • Don’t call it done when people have scanned their lists. They may have passed over names in haste or more likely there are people they know not included.
  • Ask them a series of questions:

Who in their family (extended) may have the ability and belief?

Are they part of a religious institution and do they know others through that with the likely ability and belief?

Are they a member of any club or regular activity and who from those would have the likely ability and belief? — I once had this exercise cause somebody to remember some people in their book club that they had neglected to consider.

Do they know people through participation in sports (active or as spectators/watchers) who would have the ability and belief? – I once had somebody remember somebody from their fantasy football league when prompted in this way.

Who do they know via employment, such as co-workers (current or former) or via professional networks – I once had somebody remember that a former co-worker had retired with some degree of wealth and had spoken with passion of the cause the organization addressed.

Getting people to ask

Of course, creating a strong prospect list is only valuable if people are willing to network with, cultivate where necessary, and make asks. That’s worthy of a different article. For now, recognize that your team almost certainly knows more potential donors than you realize if you’re prepared to be systematic in working with the team.

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Five Lessons for Effective Staff Management

April 22, 2025

Filed under: Human Resources,Leadership,Uncategorized — jonathanpoisner @ 2:30 pm

Business author Jim Collins, in his monograph Good to Great and the Social Sectors identified getting the “right people on the bus” as a core attribute of highly functioning nonprofits.

Of course, once you get the right people on the bus, there are many elements that go into turning them into an aligned, effective team that advances your mission. 

I was recently asked to summarize some of my past writing on nonprofit leadership as a guide for Executive Directors who’re building staff teams. At a high-level, here are five lessons that I believe every nonprofit Executive Director should take into account when building their team.

Lesson 1: Prioritize building on strengths instead of mitigating weaknesses

All employees have areas of strength and areas that, for lack of a better term, are weaknesses when it comes to delivering on their intended role.   Instead of focusing on mitigating weaknesses, my experience has been that identifying strengths and adapting work to take advantage of those strengths better maximizes team performance and results in higher job satisfaction for employees. 

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t identify weaknesses or blind spots with employees that can be worked on.  But more of your time and energy should go into aligning the work with employees’ inherent talents. 

Lesson 2: Foster Autonomy and Mastery as Motivational Tools

By and large, the nonprofit sector more than the for-profit sector can rely on the nonprofit’s mission as a built-in motivator for employees.  Almost always those employees motivated by money or status could better achieve those in the for-profit sector.

Yet, even with the mission as motivator, I’ve seen huge differences in nonprofit employee satisfaction.

Dan Pink has written and lectured about motivation in a broader context and highlights the concepts of autonomy and mastery as key.  Nonprofit leaders should keep these in mind when thinking about their own staff supervision.  (Here’s a video for more background).

Autonomy: Employees who have freedom to make decisions within the a broad strategic framework are more likely to be motivated than those who are continually constrained to simply implement decisions made by others. 

Mastery: Employees who have the opportunity to develop and exercise expertise are more likely to stay motivated than those who feel like they’re able to go through the motions.

Lesson 3: Building and Sustaining Relationships

Strong interpersonal relationships are vital for effective staff management.  People are more likely to respond well to those who they like and trust and to dig deeper to help a team with which they feel a sense of community.

That can all emerge spontaneously, but leaders who nurture relationships are more likely to succeed.  That means not neglecting regular activities that are designed to further the relationship, including both one-on-ones in the workplace and opportunities to engage beyond the workplace.  That doesn’t mean you have to become “friends” with those you supervise.  It does mean consciously working to draw connections within your staff based on open communication and opportunities to engage in informal activities.

Lesson 4: Time Management Matters

Time is a precious commodity in any organization as most nonprofit staff could probably work twice as many hours as they’re being paid for without running out of productive things to do.

To address that, choices need to be made as to where to prioritize time, preferably by looking at a strategic plan or other functional plan that identifies goals and top strategies for achieving them.

Even within those choices, too many nonprofits waste time and fail to adapt tools to save time.

Several time wasters relate to meetings:

  • Overly long meetings that could be done in half the time if there was a clear agenda, active facilitation, and a willingness to call the question rather than allow people to drone on.
  • Unnecessary meetings that could be eliminated with a few short emails and/or shared document editing.
  • Meetings that involve several people that really only need 2-3 participants. 
  • Executive Directors who feel compelled to be the organization’s face at every partner/allied organization meeting when they should be delegating that role to others.

There are also tools to save time that many nonprofits fail to use. Mostly these fall into the area of technology.  I’ve been amazing that in this day and age some nonprofits are still having multiple people edit Word documents sequentially rather than adapting to tools that allow for multiple people to collaborate at the same time (such as GoogleDocs).  Project management tools (like Asana, Trello, etc.) and communications platforms (like Slack) can also allow for a lot of project planning and task list accountability in ways that cut back significantly on the need for drafting/reading/responding to emails and meetings.

Lesson 5: Embrace Strategic and Functional Planning

I’ve seen too many nonprofits whose staff are frenetically doing lots of things, but those things are not strategic and thus not advancing goals. While this can bring temporary satisfaction to a team, it rarely does so over the long haul. 

While they serve other purposes as well, do not underestimate the value of strategic and other forms of planning as a staff management tool. 

  • They are a means of honing your staff’s thinking, to the extent you involve staff in this planning.
  • They are way to bring your staff into alignment (with each other and with the board), so their work is less likely to be at cross-purposes.
  • They produce products that are invaluable as orientation tools when you have staff transitions.

What do you think?

If you have a high-level staff management lesson you’d like to share with my readers, please comment away! Or shoot me an email for me to incorporate in an updated post.

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On Fundraising Stories

April 16, 2025

Filed under: Communications,Fundraising,Online Communications — jonathanpoisner @ 12:11 pm

I often talk about the importance of shifting fundraising language from a bullet-point approach to a story approach.

I know that for some nonprofit leaders this is challenging because storytelling isn’t their natural inclination. It’s not mine either.

Yet, by taking into account some basic techniques, virtually anybody can generate effective fundraising stories.

A more complete primer on fundraising stories can be found in my E-Book, the Essential Major Donor Toolkit. 

For those getting started, here’s a handful of important things to bear in mind when trying to craft a fundraising story. 

Include all the Elements of a Story

In crafting fundraising stories, ensure they have all three elements of a story.

  1. An objective.  The objective could be a community need or the need of individuals within it. 

  2. An obstacle.  The obstacle could be bad policy, lack of funding, natural causes, or some other threat or barrier that keeps the community (or individuals within it) from achieving their objective.  

  3. Impact.  There needs to be either harm if the objective isn’t overcome and/or some positive impact if the objective is overcome.  These are the stakes.  They don’t have to be huge stakes, but they must be clearly articulated in a way that the donor will find important.

Every story you’ve ever read – not just fundraising stories –have all these elements.  Don’t just talk about community need.  Don’t just talk about obstacles.  Don’t just talk about impact.  Make sure all three show up. 

Incomplete and Complete Stories

Make sure you are crafting both complete and incomplete stories.

A complete story is backwards looking and shows how you have made an impact in the past.  Complete stories are an important way to demonstrate to donors that their past support has translated into the charitable impact they desire and thus a good bet for future donations.      

An incomplete story is one where the outcome is not yet known and, importantly, one where the donor can make a difference by helping the organization have future impact.  Incomplete stories are essential to create urgency and to ramp up the emotional stakes.

In writing any story, ask yourself: am I writing this to demonstrate past impact or am I writing this to create urgency so donors will want to give right now.

In writing the set of stories that may go into your fundraising, make sure you have some of both type.

Put the Donor in the Stories

Too often I read fundraising appeals that talk about all the great things “we” did as an organization.

As you write/edit your stories, use the word “you” instead of “we” whenever possible.

You want donors to feel like they’re a hero making an impact and that means making them central to the appeal.  “Your support ensures IMPACT.”  “You can help IMPACT.” 

The word “you” should show up in both completed stories where the donor had a role in the organization’s past impact, and incomplete stories where the donor can be the hero.

Where possible with the technology, you can also insert their name into appeals.

* * * * *

Want to run a fundraising letter or email by me for a quick reaction, I offer all nonprofits a free half hour consultation.  Just reach out if interested.

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Short-term planning and project management 101

March 31, 2025

Filed under: Human Resources,Leadership,Strategic Planning — jonathanpoisner @ 10:47 am

As a strategic planning consultant, I focus a lot of my energy on helping groups grapple with a 2-5 year time-frame.  Too often we’re so focused on the current moment that we never look beyond to define who we are, where we want to go, how to get there, and how we’ll measure progress. 

Yet, even as I write that sentence, I know that the current moment matters.  This year perhaps more than most. 

And as I talk to Executive Directors, I often find a haphazard approach to how they prioritize their work and track their to-dos on a daily or weekly basis.

Nonprofit leaders – more than just Executive Directors – need workable systems for short-term planning and to-do management.

Too many just wing it.

I recently was challenged to describe the elements of a useful system.

Here are four essential requirements for a nonprofit short-term planning and accountability system

1. Tracking to-dos

This is the basic building block.  This should include a nutshell version of the task, an opportunity to provide more details (preferably with a hyperlink to external information of relevance), a due date, and the ability to track progress (including marking the item as completed when appropriate).

As tasks are completed, they should be archived, but not deleted, so that it remains possible to search them or even reopen them if it turns out something wasn’t actually completed.

Ideally the system should allow for recurring to-dos, that automatically get a new due date upon completion of the prior one or that always occur on specific dates of the week, month, etc.

2. Project level organization of tasks

A flat to-do list with hundreds of tasks (as most Executive Directors probably could identify if pushed) can feel overwhelming and makes forward-looking planning challenging.

Ideally tasks should be categorizable by a list of “projects.”  I’m using the word project largely because the various online systems that can be used are often referred to as “project management” tools. 

For most nonprofit Executive Directors, the projects might be the bigger categories of their work (fundraising, board governance, fiscal management, communications, etc.).

Ideally, the projects should be able to be broken down into sub-projects, so that fundraising from individuals can be kept separate from grant fundraising.

The point of breaking things down into categories is so that you have the opportunity to view all your tasks either as one long list, presumably sorted by due date, or alternatively to just see all your tasks within a specific project – or even sub-project. 

While the long daily task list is great for when you start your day and want to see what needs to be done,  the “project” view is nearly essential when it comes to forward-looking planning that involves adding things systematically to your to-do list. 

Did you just schedule your next board meeting?  Take 5 minutes to add all the tasks associated with the upcoming board meeting (crafting the agenda, pulling together materials, sharing the agenda, etc.).   Did you just get invited to submit a grant proposal, take 5 minutes to add all the tasks associated with pulling together the proposal and accompanying materials. 

Yes, you could do this with an entirely flat list, but it’s much easier to think of all the to-dos when you’re looking at a partial list focused on just that project.

I used to accomplish the above in an Excel spreadsheet where I had a column for the broad area of work, a column for the task, and a due date column.  I could sort the Excel spreadsheet either by due date or by the broad area of work and also due date.  And then re-sort back when appropriate.

Of course, in the pre-computer age you could also accomplish this with detailed handwritten notebooks. 

3. Collaboration

While the above three requirements are sufficient for an individual, organizations are team endeavors and whatever system you utilize needs to provide some means by which multiple individuals within the team can share with each other what they’re working on and even collaborate on the same projects and to-dos.  This is where the dozen or so most robust online project-management tools really shine.

Reassigning tasks, sharing deadlines, showing how task A by person A needs to take place before person B can begin Task B, sharing links/comments on tasks taken on by others.  These are just a handful of the most basic boosts to collaboration that can now be secured at a very low cost.  I can only wish these tools had been realistically available in my years as an Executive Director leading a team!  

Getting everyone onto the same system and getting them to use it isn’t necessarily a hill to die on, but if I were a nonprofit leader I’d push really hard to make that happen, absent a really compelling reason otherwise.

4. Some connection to longer-term planning

The above system is a great way to plan for and accomplish a lot of things.  But how do you know that you’re prioritizing the right things?  When you’re an Executive Director staring at the long to-do list and realizing that 3 out of the 10 things you put into your to-do list for the week you’re just not going to be able to do, what gets triaged?

Or better yet, never gets put in at all because you’re thinking about your own capacity as you identify to-dos.

Whether it’s a strategic plan or some other tool, you (and your team) need some method to identify priorities.  This may show up in your project management system where you pre-identify the essential tasks from the “icing on the cake” tasks. 

What system to use?  There’s nothing magic here.  But having alignment around your broad, long-term aims, the major methods you’ve identified to advance those aims, and how to measure progress is a great start. 

Then taking stock – probably monthly – and saying: what’s most important in the next month or two?

Then going back to your project management system and verifying that the things you want to prioritize are definitely incorporated into your projects/tasks. And perhaps deleting or moving out in time those tasks that you’d still like to eventually do, but that aren’t priorities in the short or medium-term.

Is this too much planning?

I can already hear a couple people I’ve known saying: “Who has time to do all that planning? As an Executive Director, if I’m not running 100%, things will fall apart.” 

My response: Better to spend 4 hours/week planning and 36 hours/week doing.   You may do 10% less “activity,” but you can feel far more confident that you’re doing the right activity, especially in alignment with your team. You’re also far more likely to be proactive than reactive to events.

In my experience, leaders who operate with a higher degree of planning and project management also feel less stress.  Not zero stress.  But less, because they can more easily take stock and see with their own eyes what needs to be done by when and make adjustments accordingly, rather than relying on intuition and hope. This means less burnout and a longer-term ability to stay in the role.

If you have specific project management tools or approaches you recommend for others, please share as a comment!

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Staying Grounded in Dangerous Times #2

March 26, 2025

Filed under: Advocacy,Leadership,Politics — jonathanpoisner @ 10:30 am

February 28, 2025

I wrote my last email less than a week into our current wannabe dictator’s Term.

Now I can say: one month down, 47 to go.  Sigh.  

Last month, I noted that it felt wrong to put out an e-newsletter as if the world hadn’t changed fundamentally for nonprofits.

Of course, there are thousands of nonprofits right now struggling to survive as illegal and/or callous decisions seek to claw back their grants and contracts.  This is especially true for those involved in US AID and those reliant on funds related to the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act’s climate spending  If you’re among them, I feel your pain and hope you’ve found a way to get the legal and other support you need.  

For those of you who have yet to have your own funds cut, how do you react?  

Three bits of quick advice this month:

1. Reach out to your friends who’re struggling, either financially or emotionally.  We are stronger together.  

2. Speak out. Whether that’s calling your members of Congress (daily), writing letters to the editor, speaking out at town halls, or some other activity.  Now’s not the time to cower. 

3.  Be realistic about your own nonprofit’s fundraising.  I know a lot of groups whose annual budgets called for growth this year.  I’m not saying it won’t happen, particularly if you had solid plans and had investments (of time in particular) in place to actually do more fundraising.  Recognize there’s a very strong chance that increased inflation and massive layoffs, among with the business uncertainty engendered by chaos, will equal a recession. 

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What makes a high functioning board?

March 12, 2025

Filed under: Board Development — Tags: — jonathanpoisner @ 2:53 pm

Not every one of my client engagements involves work with a board of directors, but enough do that I can safely say I’ve worked with several dozen boards and that’s allowed me to reach some conclusions regarding what separates those that truly lift up their organizations from those that drag them down.

Unfortunately, it could also take a book to spell out all these differences, along with recommendations for how to improve boards.

Nonetheless, someone challenged me to identify the most important attributes of a high-functioning board so they could know where to begin for improving their own board.

So without further ado, here’s my best effort.

Effective boards do five things particularly well:

  1. They’re efficient
  2. They’re responsible
  3. They’re financially supportive
  4. They are connected to the cause
  5. They are continually improving

Efficient means they hold well-run board meetings that are actively facilitated and focus on essential topics, they use committees or task forces where appropriate between meetings, and board-staff relationships are managed in a way that doesn’t create additional, unnecessary time sinks.

Responsible means the board meets their legal, ethical and fiduciary responsibilities.  Plus, it also means they are accountable to each other and to the staff.  Put another way, they plan for the board and they ensure the organization has a culture of planning.  Plus, they do what they say they’ll do. 

Financially supportive means they donate themselves and they have some involvement in raising funds or securing revenue for the organization.  Not everyone needs to be an asker, but everyone needs to somehow engage as an ambassador, steward, cultivator, or some other way that either directly bring in dollars or helps someone else on the team bring in dollars.

They have some connection to the cause (that staff should help reinforce) so that their passion for the mission can help get past any inertia or fear that would otherwise block them from being effective board members.

Lastly, they are continually improving, meaning they are constantly asking relevant questions, such as: who else should be on the board?  And what could we be doing better?

There are, of course, many details underneath each of these.  Books worth of details.  And the process taking a mediocre board to high-functioning can take multiple years.

But if you’re beginning the process of building or improving a board, I think reviewing the above with the board and asking them: “how are we doing?” is a good place to start.

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The Leadership + Plan + Team formula

March 6, 2025

Filed under: Human Resources,Leadership,Strategic Planning — jonathanpoisner @ 10:45 am

One of the lessons I took away from the last few years is what I’ve come to think of as the Leadership + Plan + Team formula.

Organizations lacking any one of these elements are unlikely to thrive on a sustained basis.

Leader + Plan but No Team: I’ve seen leaders who’re personally impressive and have a plan, but who don’t cultivate a team around them. The result is an organization that thrives in fits and starts, but not on a sustained basis because there’s only so much one person can do.   The organizational challenge becomes particularly acute when the leader in question decides to move on.  

Leader + Team but no Plan: I’ve seen leaders who’re personally impressive and do cultivate a team around them, but who never take the time to develop and use a long-term plan.  The result is an organization that does a lot of things, many of them well, but the lack of planned focus leads to lots of activity, but often misaligned and poorly thought out.     

Team + Plan but no Leader: I’ve seen great teams, who have a focused plan, but who fail to secure a top leader who has the leadership skills to attract new resources around their shared vision and to keep the team aligned over time.  The result is an organization that chugs along, but doesn’t shine.

Every example I can think of a nonprofit that thrives over a sustained period of many years the formula has always included Leadership + Plan + Team.

If you see your organization missing one of these elements, address it.  Don’t wait for the situation to somehow resolve itself. 

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Preparing for a Likely Recession

February 27, 2025

Filed under: Board Development,Fundraising,Strategic Planning — jonathanpoisner @ 1:45 pm

February 2025

Preparing for a Likely Recession

No, I’m not an economist (although I do have a B.S. in Economics). 

A lot of smart people – including economists — thought there’d be a recession 2 years go and there wasn’t.

And the same thing the year before that.   And a few years before that.

You get the gist.   In any given year, somebody is predicting a recession.

Of course, this year, between the federal chaos/layoffs, tariffs, and general economic uncertainty created by businesses unwilling to invest under a unpredictable regime, it’s hard not to believe that the long overdue recession will finally come.

It doesn’t mean the end of your nonprofit.  Indeed, you may actually thrive during the recession.

I managed the Oregon League of Conservation Voters through the 2001-2002 recession and the first half of the 2008-2010 “great” recession. 

Having managed a nonprofit through these, what do I wish I’d done differently in the 6 months prior to them?

Here are six ideas of what to do and one of what not to do.  Some of these lessons are directly based on my experience at OLCV and others are based on my knowledge as a consultant.

  1. Pay attention to your cash reserve.  If you haven’t already, have a conversation with your board up-front about what level they are willing to let that reserve drop to during a recession.  It’s okay – indeed, it’s appropriate — to have an annual loss during a recession if you began the year with a large enough reserve.  Have this conversation openly with your board rather than making decisions on the fly

  2. Be open with staff about your financial situation.  Are you in a really solid position?  Or somewhat precarious?  At OLCV, I wasn’t always open with my staff about how tight our finances were leading up to the 2001-2002 recession.  When a difficult decision was made by the Board Executive Committee (with my support), to freeze all staff salaries (e.g. no pay raises during the year, even COLAs), there was some staff frustration.  If I’d done more in the year prior to educate staff about how thin our reserve was, I would’ve saved heartache later on.

  3. Think about delaying “icing” expenditures.  Some of what you do is the cake.  It’s what you absolutely need to do to advance your mission.  Other things are nice, but if you don’t do them, nobody’s going to look at your nonprofit and say: you’re failing.  Take a hard pass through your budget/expenditures and ask: what can easily be deferred 6-12 months until we know more about our financial situation?  Ask staff their opinion about what to defer (or just cut).

  4. Don’t stop fundraising!  If anything, step it up.  Some people might say: “our donors are probably freaked out, so now’s not the time to ask.”  Don’t make that decision for them!  You never know their situation.  I once had a donor who I knew had been laid off make his largest ever gift to us.  (I learned later it was because he’d received an inheritance).   Even in bad recessions, plenty of people have jobs/situations that leave them doing well financially.  They are sometimes even happier to donate recognizing the need and their relative good fortune.

  5. In your fundraising, focus more of your energy on cultivating existing donors to deepen your relationships than adding first-time donors.  When individuals cut back their giving during a recession, they tend to stick with organizations they already support versus those that are new.

  6. Also in your fundraising: focus on your relationship with your top donors.  In most organization, there are 10-15 donors who make huge difference.  Be proactive in the next few months cultivating your relationships with them.  Let me know what you’re doing, how your reacting to the new lay of the land, and how their donations are making a difference.

  7. Lastly, a lesson of what to avoid: don’t choose a recession as the time to launch a business-focused fundraising effort.  Corporate fundraising yo-yos much further down during a recession historically, compared to individual giving or foundation philanthropy.  If you’ve laid the groundwork or you’re targeting businesses that are somewhat recession-proof, this might not apply to you.  But think hard about making a new, business-focused campaign an important part of our 2025-2026 strategy.

Do you have lessons of your own to share? Please leave them as a comment!

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14 Tips for Board Minutes

February 26, 2025

Filed under: Board Development — jonathanpoisner @ 3:20 pm

These tips range from the hyper-specific to general.  I’ve encountered more than a handful of organizations for which board minutes are done slapdash without any real attention to meeting either the need to be legally accurate memorials of what happened or documentation of use to those unable to attend.

  1. The minutes should state when the meeting convened and when it adjourned.

  2. The minutes should state the location (if in-person) or state that the meeting was conducted virtually.

  3. The minutes should indicate who was in attendance (both board members and others).  (And if people arrive/leave part-way via the minutes, the minutes should reflect that).

  4. The minutes should follow the order of the agenda, so that it reflects what happened during the meeting in the order the events take place.

  5. Minutes should be in past tense. 

  6. While it should follow the order of the agenda, the minutes taker shouldn’t just take notes on the agenda it it’s using a shared platform, like googledocs.  You should retain a clean copy of the agenda that doesn’t contain notes of what happened during the meeting. (The minutes taker can always copy the agenda into a new document or cut & paste the agenda into a new document if they find having the agenda useful as an outline).

  7. Motions should be memorialized, with detail on what the motion is, who made the motion, who seconded.  If a voice vote is taken and there are no objections, it is sufficient to just indicate a sentence that the motion passed.  If a counted vote takes place, the tally of yays and nays should be detailed.  Motions are the one thing you absolutely most record in the minutes. 

  8. Minutes should be concise and direct.  They are not a way of reporting everything every person said, details from presentations, etc.  They should focus on the most essential things: actions taken by the board and commitments made by individual board members to take on tasks.  If there are documents shared during the meeting, it can be appropriate to link to those from the board minutes. 

  9. To the extent there is a desire for minutes to reflect informational items where no action is taken, it is sufficient to note the item and provide a very brief summary of the topic covered.  This should not be a transcript of the meeting.  

  10. The Secretary should take notes during the meeting.  And then within 48 hours edit them into draft minutes while their memory is fresh.  This is the time to double-check spelling, write out acronyms and jargon to make them understandable.  In the absence of a Secretary, somebody else on the board should step up and play this role.  Staff can offer to assist, but ultimately these are a fundamental board responsibility.

  11. Before being distributed, it’s appropriate (though not essential) for an Executive Director or Board President to provide suggested edits at this point, for the Secretary to then finalize. 

  12. Board minutes should be circulated as soon as ready, rather than waiting until just prior to the next board meeting.  At the next board meeting, the minutes from the prior meeting should be approved by a board vote (with any corrections identified), usually as the first item of business.

  13. The organization’s online file system should allow for minutes from past board meetings to be easily sought out if it proves necessary.  At a minimum, when new board members are oriented, they should be shown the minutes from the last 2-3 board meetings.

  14. Lastly, while the existence of this Tip Sheet suggests the importance of minutes, careful readers of Why Organizations Thrive will note that Executive Directors are separately encouraged to send an email to their boards within 48 hours of a board meeting summarizing the most significant things that happened.  This is an important way to maintain momentum with those board members unable to attend.
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