How to Recruit Your Volunteer Fundraising Team, part 2

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:

•     Set policies, priorities, and goals for fund-raising programs for the current fiscal year.
•     Review the ongoing performance of each campaign.
•     Review campaign achievement versus its objectives.
•     Identify and rate all major prospects for support.
•     Recruit key volunteer leadership and solicitors for the organization’s fund-raising campaigns.

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.

My 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. I have been my most successful when my development chairpersons and I shared 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 his or her 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, he or she then recruits 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.

To learn if FundRaiser is a good fit for your organization, explore which program might be right for the size of your nonprofit.