Example #2 – Board Decision on Fundraising Infrastructure

This is going to be fun!

First, let's do a short review, just in case you've joined us recently and haven't had a chance to read previous posts on this subject:

Example #1 concerned a Board making a decision about enhancing its own level of giving to their nonprofit organization. What we dealt with there was a set of psycho-graphic factors that make it literally impossible for a board, or any other group of more than 2 or 3 people, to do deliberative thinking. And we've tried to describe the kinds of effects these psycho-graphics have in the context of this decision about the board's own giving. We've had a few digressions along the way, but, ultimately, I think the best way to help a board do what it does best – which is to brainstorm and tell stories – is to be prepared to do most of the work on any serious issue coming before a nonprofit board in the background, outside board meeting, but in a way that involves board members and takes seriously their various kinds of input, needs, wants, values and their points of view.

Now, in Example #2, this decision about whether to invest in fundraising infrastructure, and how much, we are going to see an additional set of factors that, once again, make it impossible for a board or any group of people to do deliberative thinking.

Before, with the psycho-graphics, we enumerated the following:
Factor 1: my view of myself,
Factor 2: my view of you,
Factor 3: my understanding of how you view me,
Factor 4: my grasp to whatever degree on my image within the group, and
Factor 5: my desire and strategies for changing, to one degree or another, either your view of me or my image within the group.

The effect of these, for each member around the table, tends to overpower each person's ability to do deliberative thought on a complex issue or problem facing the group.

Now, we're going to see how additional factors come into play in a decision about funding fundraising infrastructure. Let me set up the situation as I have seen it many times over the last 25 years of fundraising.

It's budget time, once again. The Board of Do-Good Charity is assembled for a regular meeting of the Board, in which the budget discussion has been given a generous 1-hour slot. Typically, for this board, and many others, items are given 15 minutes. But today the CEO has something special in mind.

There's a proposal, represented in significantly adjusted budget figures for the fund development part of the operation, to expand fundraising infrastructure by purchasing new donor software and hiring a person to do both data entry and data retrieval. This will, as the CEO believes – and rightly so – facilitate the stewardship of donors and the start of a major gifts program that will cultivate and solicit a whole new group of donors for major 5-year commitments to the institution.

The CEO plans, over time, to turn this little investment in infrastructure into a $3.5 million increase in revenues for the organization through multiple-year commitments. Got the picture? You've probably seen it yourself, either as a fundraising professional or as a volunteer serving on a board.

Stay tuned for more later today. Are we having fun yet? Things get sticker as we go along.