Effective Fundraising. F. Warren McFarlan
of the organization who convene once or twice a year to give advice). The existence of term limits defined by the governance committee ensures that there will be continued turnover in these boards and officer positions. This turnover is critical in allowing space for new development-oriented trustees to join the board. With regard to term limits, one or two positions on the board may be reserved for people of such unusual skill or development capability that you do not want to lose their link to the organization and, therefore, want to insulate them from the constraint of term limits. Discipline, however, has to be maintained to ensure this insulation does not get out of control. In a recently studied case of an organization with an ironclad term limit of eight years, one trustee is now in his 17th year on the board. The individual has headed two capital campaigns and a building is named for him. A guiding principle about term limits is that you need them but “don't do stupid things.” Excessive reliance on standard procedures can sometimes get you into unfortunate decisions that can harm the organization (exceptions, of course, can have their problems as well).
Trustee Career Path
Several years before a trustee retires, efforts must be made to work out their level of engagement with the organization post-trusteeship (above all, you do not want a deeply committed trustee transferring their wealth and philanthropy to a competing organization). Trusteeship should be seen as simply one part of a life-long period of an individual's engagement with the organization. Planning this engagement in advance is critical. A few trustees may go on to be trustees emeritus or emerita (you must be careful, however, not to crowd the board room). Others join special program advisory committees, hopefully in areas of great personal interest. Others may stay on one or two board committees (investment is a frequent one, as is planned giving and capital campaign). Still others may move to special advisory boards called “the corporation” or overseers that meet once or twice a year. Many will turn out to be effective solicitors and connectors for future campaigns.
Efforts are often made to get key corporators involved in advisory boards and programs that require regular contact with the organization's staff. This contact can help facilitate planned giving discussions to extend the impact of the former trustee's philanthropy beyond their life span. For some trustees, however, unfortunately there will not be an ongoing role because of lack of fit between their skills and the organization's interests, interpersonal conflict, and so forth. That is too bad but inevitable.
Building Trustee Engagement
Involving a trustee in a project's implementation complexities can get their visceral juices flowing, and in the right circumstances, commitments can flow beyond imagination. The author watched in fascination as a $3 million building project sponsored by a donor ran into local zoning issues. With the donor on the project team (including his involvement in direct negotiation with the city bureaucrats), over six years the project budget ultimately grew to over $20 million, much of it covered by the original donor who was appalled by the regulatory environment and what he saw as regulatory abuse. Fortunately, he reacted with both fury and also personal generosity. The deeper one gets involved in execution details, the more one's personal financial prudence can fly out the door as commitment to task completion grows at any cost.
Donor Recognition
Donor recognition is a funny topic. Some people want it and consequently every corner of a building can be filled with plaques. Intriguingly, not everyone, however, wants recognition, even for very sizeable gifts. They simply want to do good. The story of a major donor to a university, who served first as a trustee and then as a member of an advisory committee, is illustrative. As his most recent gift, 25 years after his initial trustee service, he gave an eight-digit anonymous gift to cut the cost of endowing staff positions by one-third. This lowered cost enabled otherwise financially stretched individuals to endow staff positions in their name and brought substantial new funds to the organization. The major donor found it appealing that his anonymous gift to a major project encouraged other people to make gifts. In other venues, he wanted some recognition so people knew he supported a project, but almost always it was recognition at levels well below his actual gift.
Multigenerational Trustees
The work of donor management by the governance committee can be multigenerational. Consider the following story. A university alum had great success professionally in the for-profit world. He then followed this work up by leading a nonprofit institution with distinction for a decade. On his retirement, his alma mater gave him a picture of their campus as part of thanking him as an alum for giving such distinguished service to society. To their surprise, several weeks later, he appeared on campus to present a $20 million gift for a vital new facility. In subsequent years, he became a trustee of the institution and ultimately head of its next capital campaign, where his philanthropy only grew. Today his children (also alums) are now trustees and supporters.
Summary
Relationships grow in complex and unexpected ways over long periods of time. In ways not always recognized in the literature, governance and development are absolutely interlinked. The cold reality is that the closer people are to the heart of an organization, the more generous some of them become. It should not matter, but the fact is, it does. Unfortunately, the larger a deliberative group is, the longer and more diffuse its discussions can become. This means garrulous donor trustees are a real burden versus those who drop off for a short nap (as long as they do not snore!). This puts a special burden on the governance committee to properly vet potential board candidates to make sure they will comfortably fit into the board activities. When there is doubt, a year's advance service on a board committee can provide useful insights.
In summary, the governance committee of the board is fundamentally responsible for spearheading the creation of a board and network of supporters, who can mobilize the resources to allow the organization's mission to become reality. This task can take years to execute. Exhibit 2.1 identifies key levers that can be activated by a governance committee to impact the development environment in an organization. The organization needs not only board members who can help bring the mission to reality, but also a CEO and board chair who share this perspective and have the skills to make it happen. Juggling this among other priorities of the organization is very hard for the governance committee. It can be particularly hard to get started, in cases where it is hard to find mission supporters, let alone affluent ones. From this perspective, geographically centralized communities, such as churches, schools, and universities, can find it much easier to attract donors than cause-oriented programs such as healthcare in homeless shelters.
Exhibit 2.1: Governance—Levers That Can Be Activated
Size of board
Number of development trustees on board
Trustee postboard service links
Number and length of terms for a trustee
Head of development committee serves on governance committee
Vice-chair exception—a great way to keep indispensable trustees who have completed their term
Friends and potential trustees serve on board committee
Questions a trustee should ask about governance
Has the board taken into account the development needs of the organization in building its board and officers? Is there an appropriate development climate in the boardroom?
Is the governance committee appropriately focused on development as it recruits new members and officers?