Getting your board members to participate in fundraising can be a huge challenge. Even the most enthusiastic person could be intimidated or not know how to start. It’s even more difficult if they’re not enthusiastic!
There are some steps you can take to help make your board members more confident—if you’re looking for that information, we wrote another article that breaks down some tips you can use to get your board members more involved in fundraising.
In this article, though, we’re going to focus on how you can use some tech tools to support your board along the way.
1. Board Portals for Easy Access to Resources
Where do your board members go to find information about your organization, review financials, and look over meeting minutes and agendas? Do they have printed materials they can review? Or do you have a single online location that houses everything they need?
Putting together an online board portal is a good way to keep your board organized. It’s also a great way to encourage fundraising!
Many board members are reluctant to ask their networks for money—they don’t know how! They may not even know how to talk about your work or programming.
Use a board portal to store tools and resources they can use to get started. Think about what they’d find useful—what would help them have those conversations?
Give them assets like:
- Talking points, impact statements, and FAQs
- Templates for email and social media
- Links to donation pages and fundraising campaigns
- Training materials and fundraising best practices
If your nonprofit CRM doesn’t include the option to create a special portal for your board (psst, Neon CRM users—you can do this!), you’ve got other options. Some common solutions are Google Drive or Sharepoint, a private page on your site, or even a communications platform like Slack or Teams.
2. Campaign Pages That Track Progress
Does your board have its own fundraising goal? We hope so!
People are hardwired to meet goals, and setting goals either for individual members or for your board as a whole can be an effective way to motivate them to stay active.
If you choose that route, consider creating a campaign page that tracks their progress toward those goals. Whether you keep that page private and accessible only to your board or make it shareable, being able to visualize that progress is compelling!
3. Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Pages for Personalized Outreach
Are your board members struggling with traditional fundraising? They may be more comfortable with raising money through a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign.
People are pretty accustomed to sharing birthday fundraisers or even GoFundMe pages with their networks. If your board members are equipped with personal fundraising pages they can use when they ask their networks for support, they may find that more comfortable than asking for donations in other ways.
Try creating a peer-to-peer campaign for your members and ask them to:
- Personalize their pages (this is where those talking points and other assets that are in your board portal can come in handy!)
- Share their personal stories on their page and through other channels
- Invite friends, family, and colleagues to donate
This is a great way to get your board fundraising. If you’ve got the right mix of personalities, adding a little friendly competition—like tracking who can raise the most—can be extra motivational!
4. CRM User Groups for Controlled Access to Reports
Board members really need to have insight into fundraising progress… but giving them full access to your CRM can get tricky very quickly.
Instead, try setting up CRM user groups specifically for board members!
If you can, give them permissions that:
- Allow limited access to key reports or dashboards
- Restrict access to donor data
- Give key board members (like committee chairs) the ability to pull updates
This gives your board members the ability to review your progress without having to worry about them breaking reports or accessing donor data.
5. Scheduled Reports for Transparency and Accountability
Keeping your board up to date on your progress is important, but painstakingly reviewing reports during a board meeting takes up time you could otherwise spend actually discussing your results.
Instead, try creating a report, saving it, and scheduling it to send to your board members a day or two before the meeting. That way, they can spend time reviewing it before the meeting.
You can even try creating and scheduling different reports for different committees and different campaigns.
Does Your Tech Encourage Board Fundraising?
There are a few different tech tools you can use to get your board more familiar and comfortable with fundraising. Things like board portals, scheduled reports, peer-to-peer campaigns or campaign pages, and user groups are all great options!
Does your CRM make it easy to share those resources with your board?
If it doesn’t—and if you’re looking for a platform that does—Neon CRM could be the solution you’re looking for! Here’s a self-guided tour you can use to get a feel for what you can do with the system.
