Dear “Calling” Colleague,

Summer is almost over. It’s time to focus on your fall and winter fundraising activities. Now is the time to seek out volunteers with the skills, potential, and connections to help you raise funds for your organization or program. This issue of On-the-Go e-TA focuses on the importance of fundraising volunteers and maximizing their effectiveness for your initiative.

Refer to the content section on the right to click on resource development topics. Use the hyperlinks within blurbs for more detail. For past editions, use the right side and click Read Back Issues of OTG e-TA. Tell us what you think of OTG e-TA and link to LEADline.

We encourage you to send this and other issues of OTG e-TA to friends and colleagues who would benefit from the information. Also, if you’re on information-overload, you may request email removal. Otherwise OTG e-TA will be back in two weeks with another edition. Both, the sponsor, CNCS (Corporation for National and Community Service) and its provider, Campaign Consultation, wish you ongoing success in raising resources, come rain or shine.

Why Fundraising Volunteers Are Essential

Recruiting, training, and motivating volunteer fundraisers can be a lot of work. Are they really so necessary? Yes. Are they worth the trouble? Yes, if you take the time to cultivate and train them.
(Click here for a few reasons why we need fundraising volunteers.)

Build Team Spirit

Your volunteers will get a great deal of satisfaction working with you and others on your team if they are motivated and excited about their work. There are lots of ways to build team spirit among your volunteers. Here a few to start:

Make your meetings fun
Keep the agendas short. Keep the meetings on time and on subject. Most of all keep them from being deadly boring by encouraging a spirit of friendship. It is important to keep within everyone’s comfort zone.

Include short biographical “sharings” in your meetings
Remember why everyone is there. It is for their connection to the mission. Don’t assume everyone knows, though, or is comfortable with everyone else. This is not a group of friends…not yet. One way to easily break down the barriers is to have a short sharing at the beginning of meetings (vary it and don’t do one every time). Examples might be: What was the most fun paid job you ever had? What one place have you never been to where you would love to take a vacation?

Do a once-a-year retreat for your volunteer leaders
This common practice for boards often doesn’t get used for other volunteer activities. Volunteer leaders want to have a sense that they know what is going on. They often want to help steer the process. A retreat is a great way to do that and to build team spirit.

Do occasional social events
Many times even though we get to know our volunteers and volunteer leaders, their spouses or significant others are off our radar screen. That needn’t be the case. Why not give our volunteers and volunteer leaders a chance to share (perhaps to build) the pride of association by creating an occasional social event. It can be as simple as a meal in a favorite restaurant or as elaborate as a long (and well) planned special event for the organization.

Keep it something everyone likes to do
Whether it is the small touches or the big things, it is important that volunteers feel they are welcome and appreciated. Part of this means listening to what people like to do and not like to do. We are not dealing with students, not even adult students. These are people giving up their private time, and often time away from their family and friends.

Other ideas?
Share them on LEADline@campaignconsultation.com.

Where to Look for Volunteer Leaders

You know you need to have as fundraising volunteers and now you need to know where to find them. Most of the time they are right there in the community and may be waiting for you to invite them.

You can start by contacting and networking with volunteer resources in your region. Interact with:

• United Way staff and executives
  
• Service and fraternal organization (Rotary, Lions, etc.)
  
• Volunteer job banks
  
• Community Foundations
  
• Large company human resource departments
  
• College/University human resource departments

(Click here for details regading requitment of additional fundraising volunteers)

IN THIS ISSUE:
click on titles below to read full articles

Details from above:

Fundraising Volunteers:

Well-trained, highly motivated volunteers can provide services no paid employee can deliver. If you recruit the right volunteers, they will:

• Have access to opinion-shapers in your community
  
• Open doors to donors often closed to staff members
  
• Have greater credibility because they have no personal financial incentive, unlike paid staff
  
• Be living proof that the mission is community-based
  
• Speak the donors’ language
  
• Land contributions often illusive to staff
  
• Increase resources—more limbs, more voices,
  more hearts
  
• Keep initiative focused
  
• Keep initiative relevant
  
• Ask the tough questions to help initiative coax
  the answers
  
• Others?

(Click here to download a matrix you can use to select the volunteer fundraising leaders who will be most useful to your program.)

Where to Look…(cont.)

Corporations and local businesses
Recently companies have demonstrated an interest in the health of the communities where they are located or have a direct market interest, often with written policies of “Corporate Responsibility.” In addition, companies thrive when they have good leaders, and leadership experience in fundraising is a valuable resource for programs. Key into corporate responsibility and leadership development programs for volunteer leaders.

Service clubs or civic organizations
Volunteer service clubs are a historical and ongoing feature of the American social landscape. These organizations are both religious and non-sectarian varieties. The Knights of Columbus, Rotarians, Kiwanis, Grange, Lions, Elks as well as other fraternal organizations are prime places to recruit fundraising volunteers. Each has a rotating roster of leadership positions. Some, like Rotary, have volunteer leaders on a multi-year track of leadership service.

Business and professional associations
There are business and professional associations throughout the United States. Some based on geography, others on industry type, and quite a few on job types. You might have business and industry associations or hospitality associations. Still others have civic responsibilities; an example is the Business Committee for the Arts. Subscribe to your local business journal for news about these activities.

Faith-based organizations
Places of worship can sometimes present great reservoirs of well-connected volunteers who know how to donate and fundraise. You can an include this information as an optional inquiry in you volunteer profiles.

Other nonprofit organizations
Be aware of fundraising volunteer leaders who serve with other nonprofits in your community. Monitor their involvement and effectiveness.

Unincorporated organizations
Look for fundraising volunteer leaders in these more informal groups. Some are more stable or permanent than others. For example, certain parts of the country have recently seen a growth of “walking clubs.” Find out about these social clubs in community association newsletter.

Cooperatives
The co-op movement has a long history in our country. Certain parts of the country and certain industries have more examples than others. There are cooperative businesses in banking, finance, food distribution, even in housing. Each of these have a board, and unlike a board of a for-profit company, these are voluntary positions. The most commonly recognized form of cooperative is the local food co-op.

Friends of leaders
Leaders are people who have connections. Forming a work group to identify new fundraising volunteer leaders among your leaders’ circles of friends can lead to the discovery of new talent, and since the invitation comes from a peer, there is usually some inclination to be supportive of the friend and his/her interests. And current volunteers will volunteer again when asked.

Glossary

Fundraising volunteer (n.): a person who works without compensation to seek donations from various sources for the support of an organization or a specific project.

Community foundation (n): a not-for-profit organization that receives, manages, and distributes funds, including any income from endowed funds, for charitable purposes, typically in a specific geographic area.

Additional Resources

National ASK to Sustain Institute, sponsored by Corporation for National and Community Service, provided by Campaign Consultation, Inc. 1998, 2002

Resources Now! National Institute, sponsored by Corporation for National and Community Service, provided by Campaign Consultation, Inc. 2006.

Boards That Love Fundraising: A How-to Guide for Your Board, Zimmerman and Lehman, 2004.

Boards That Work. Douglas C. Eadie, 1994.

Servant Leadership – A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness, by Robert K, Greenleaf, 1977.

The Ultimate Board Member's Book: A 1- Hour Guide
to Understanding and Fulfilling Your Role and Responsibilities, Kay Sprinkle Grace, 2005.

Tell Us!

Let us know by contacting us through LEADline@CampaignConsultation.com

Read Back Issues of OTG e-TA

• June 2006 Individual Donors
  
• Mid-June 2006 Plan Your Fundraising Year
  
• July 2006 Ask Major Donors
  
• Mid-July 2006 Disaster Fundraising
  
• August 2006 Reach Out and Touch Communication