3 Tools to Help Your Board Fundraise

Nonprofits often struggle with getting board members to participate in fundraising. Board members may have little or no experience with fundraising, and let’s be honest, making big asks can be difficult for even the most professional and well-seasoned fundraiser. Still, being part of the fundraising efforts is an essential task for each member of the board committee and is vital in moving the needle forward for your mission. To encourage board participation remind your board members that fundraising efforts are comprehensive, including more than just asking for monetary donations. Donor identification, cultivation, solicitation, and acknowledgment are all key components of successful fundraising. With that in mind, let’s take a look at three tools that can help all board members fundraise like a professional.

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding forms allow your friends, family, staff, and of course board members to fundraise on your behalf! DonorPerfect’s crowdfunding forms make it easy for your board to create their own pages that they can share within their own social and professional circles.

Crowdfunding Helps Your Board Member Craft Their Story

Your crowdfunding campaign is a great opportunity for your board members to work on their stories. What does that mean? Every fundraiser needs a compelling story that they share with potential donors to motivate them to give. Your board members all have a story about why they dedicate their time and expertise to your cause. Writing it down and sharing it via an online form is a great place to start. Using a board meeting to draft and edit one another’s pages is a great way for board members to learn more about one another while maximizing the impact of their crowdfunding pages.

Crowdfunding Is a Virtual Ask, and Practice for the Real Thing

Once your board members have their pages published, they need to share the form in a variety of ways to increase exposure. This might include writing emails, posting on social media, and sending texts. Writing these messages and asking for support for your nonprofit is a great way to build confidence if they plan on fundraising by phone or in-person in the future. While this might be easier than making an ask face to face, it can still be difficult to know what to say. Help your board members by crafting some sample messages or share these crowdfunding templates with them to provide some guidance.

Bonus! DonorPerfect’s crowdfunding forms require no data entry on your part. The donor makes a gift, the money goes directly to your bank account, and the gift gets recorded on their profile in DonorPerfect.

Manage On the Go Efforts

Consider your board members as part of your remote staff. Typically, when they are working on your behalf they are not in your office or in front of a computer. Give them a tool that they can use while they’re on the go right from their phones. Mobile apps, like DPMobile, can help your board manage their fundraising efforts easily.

Run Reports from Anywhere

A mobile app that connects with your CRM donor database can allow your board member access to valuable information. DPMobile makes it easy to run reports that are great to have on hand when speaking with donors, and many reports can help your board members familiarize themselves with your donors. For example, the View Donor by Image report allows your board members to put a face with a name that can be so helpful in meeting with donors they do not know well yet.

To gather even more details, they can use the donor profile. The donor profile contains the following key data points

• Most recent gift contribution
• Largest gift amount
• Lifetime giving total
• Number of total gifts
• Number of years donated

The profile will also show if they are a major donor, monthly donor, or volunteer, providing even more insight. All of these facts will arm your board members with valuable talking points when cultivating relationships with your donors.

Keep Track of Contacts

Many days, your board members may feel like they’re impossibly busy. At the end of a long day, writing up notes about an interaction they had with a donor is not top on their to-do list. Fortunately, apps like DPMobile can make this incredibly simple to manage.

Once they leave a meeting with a donor or a prospect, they can open their mobile app, search for the constituent record, and record the contact. DPMobile even allows users to record contact notes using the talk to text feature found on their phones. Your board member quickly logs key points of the contact or conversation they had, and it’s in the constituent’s record for you to view immediately.

Bonus! DPMobile also makes it easy to get in touch with donors. The donor’s email address and phone number are listed right at the top of their record. Clicking the email will open the phone’s default email program and clicking the phone number will allow them to call the donor with one click.

Allow Your Board Members to Collect Donations Electronically

So your board member made the ask! Now, make it easy for them to collect the donation. DPMobile allows you to automatically process credit card donations by phone. You can use your phone’s camera to scan the credit card number, use a credit card swipe device, or simply type the number in manually. This makes it easier for everyone: the donation will be processed, the funds will be transferred to your bank account, and the gift will be created in the donor’s constituent record.

Keep Your Board Informed with Reports

Keep your board members informed with reports. Board members play an active role in your organization and need much of the same information your staff needs. With DonorPerfect, you can even schedule reports to land in their inbox at regular intervals taking one more task off of your plate too. Let’s take a look at some great reports to send your board members.

Send Them Their “To-Do” List

If your board members help you with donor cultivation through phone calls, meetings, emails, etc., it can be helpful to create a schedule for them. For example, if you have 30 donor touchpoints that need to get done next month, divide the touchpoints between your board members, assigning them each several tasks. DonorPerfect makes it easy to assign a task to a board member with a due date. Then you can send the Contact Calendar report or use the Easy Report Builder to design a report that will list all of their upcoming contacts.

Inspire Healthy Competition

Use a report to send board members a leaderboard of the top fundraisers. DonorPerfect makes it easy to track how much a fundraiser has raised through soft credits. Soft credits are a way of acknowledging an individual who was responsible for acquiring a donation that was given by someone else. So, every time your board member solicits a donation, a soft credit can be created to track their fundraising efforts. DonorPerfect’s Easy Report Builder can then be used to summarize a board member’s soft credit totals. Share this report with your board so they can see where they stand amongst their peers, providing them with that extra bit of motivation to reach the top of the leaderboard.

Bonus! A report like the Gift Listing with Soft Credits shows a board member’s total amount raised by summing personal donations and soft credits. If board members are required to raise a certain amount within the fiscal year, this report can help them track their progress.

Keep Them Up to Date on the Organization

Finally, your board members must know how your organization is doing as a whole in its fundraising efforts. It helps to keep the team on track if they have a better understanding of where you are and where you need to be. Sending comparison reports, like the AFP Key Donor Metrics report, can be an effective way to create a sense of urgency if you are behind your fundraising goals from last year. If you are ahead of your goals, it can instill a sense of accomplishment and pride in the team they work with. The AFP report shows statistics such as upgraded and downgraded donors, new donors, reactivated donors, etc., in a side by side comparison of the two most recent years. Any deficits are easily identifiable as they are marked in red, and any progress between the two years is marked in green. If your fundraising goals are focused on a specific solicitation, and you need help acquiring sponsors, attendees, etc., something like the Solicitation Analysis report can be very informative as well.

Getting your board inspired to fundraise can be a difficult task, but keep in mind, they are on your board because they want to help. Remember that fundraising may be unfamiliar to some board members, so start by providing them with clear expectations and guidance. Then, make sure you provide them with the proper tools they’ll need to help you reach your goals and move your mission forward.

Share Your Best Tips to Help Board Members Fundraise

Do you have tips and tricks you use to get your board inspired to fundraise? Share them in the comments below. We’d love to hear how you work with your board!