Hi Reader,

When I arrived at Serving Orphans Worldwide, the board met twice a year and wasn't getting regular updates. We moved the meetings to four a year, and I started a monthly board impact report. My team wasn't thrilled at first.

Each report has a letter from me, photos, a story, ministry highlights, prayer requests, and financials. It also has social media posts board members can copy if they want to share. We build them in Canva. Board members email back that they love hearing from the ministry every month.

The report was partly a disguise, too. I needed stories and photos to feed into my writing, and the report gave me a reason to collect them every month.

The lesson I took from it: board engagement and content production can be the same task. And a board that hears from you every month is a board you can ask for something specific.

That's what today is about.

THE BIG IDEA

Ask a board member to "fundraise" and you'll usually get a nervous nod and no action. It isn't that they don't care. "Fundraise" isn't a job. To most people it means asking a stranger for $10,000, so they do nothing, and you decide the board doesn't care.

The fix is to shrink the job until it's easy to say yes to. A good board job fits in an evening, doesn't require asking anyone for money, and has a date on it.

Say you run a small youth literacy nonprofit with a seven-member board. You could announce at the meeting that everyone needs to help with year-end. Or you could hand each member one card with one job, whatever they need to do it, and a deadline. One member thanks five donors by phone. One introduces you to two people she knows who care about kids and reading. One invites six friends to a small gathering before the holidays. One shares your Giving Tuesday posts on her own page. Same board, same four weeks. The second version gets done.

Three things make it work.

First, one job per person, matched to what they're comfortable doing. The member who hates the phone shouldn't get the call list. The one with a big network should get the introductions. Ask each person what they'd be glad to do, then offer a short menu.

Second, make it copy-ready. Give them the names, the script, the post, the email wording. If a board member has to figure out what to say, the task just became a project, and projects stall.

Third, close the loop. After the campaign, tell each person what happened because of their job. That's what makes them say yes next year.

Notice what's missing: nobody on this list is asking for a gift. That's on purpose. Thank-you calls, introductions, and shares are things most board members will actually do, and they build the relationships your next ask depends on.

Timing matters here. Giving Tuesday is December 1, less than four weeks away. Jobs need to be assigned this month, not in December.

ON THE PODCAST 🎙️

New to fundraising? Or new to your organization? This week, on the Nonprofit Answers podcast, we're talking about the first 90 days on the job. Discover the secrets to shining when you're new. Next week, we're exploring AI for nonprofit leaders. Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcasting service.

3 THINGS TO TRY

TRY THIS: Give every board member one job, in writing, with a date, by Friday, November 13. One email or one card each. Offer a menu of three (calls, introductions, sharing), and let them pick.

TRY THIS: Ask willing board members to each call five Giving Tuesday donors between December 2 and December 8. Hand them the names, phone numbers, the gift amount, and the 30-second script below.

TRY THIS: Write three copy-ready social posts and email them to the whole board by November 20, so sharing takes thirty seconds.

GO DEEPER

If you want the craft behind all of this (donor relationships, storytelling, campaign strategy, and fundraising ethics), the Certified Nonprofit Fundraising Professional (CNFP) is a way to prove what you know. It's a 75-question, scenario-based exam. Pass it and you earn a lifetime credential, with no annual fees and no recertification. There's a free practice quiz, no sign-in required, if you'd like to see the kinds of questions first. Learn about the CNFP here.​

STEAL THIS

An email to send each board member this week:

Subject: One small job before Giving Tuesday

Hi [Name],

Giving Tuesday is December 1, and I'm asking each board member for one specific job between now and December 8.

Yours, if you're willing: [thank five donors by phone / introduce me to two people who'd care about our work / share three posts on your own page].

It should take about [30 minutes] total. I'll send everything you need: [the names and numbers / the wording for the introduction / the posts to copy and paste].

Can you do it? Just reply "yes" by [November 13]. After the campaign, I'll tell you exactly what happened because of your help.

Thank you,
[Your name]

And a thank-you call script, for a live call or a voicemail:

Hi [Donor name], this is [Your name]. I'm on the board at [Organization]. I'm not calling to ask for anything. I just wanted to say thank you for your gift of [amount]. It's going to [one specific thing it does]. Thank you.

When to use them: send the email by November 13, and give the script to board members with their call list on December 2.

ONE NUMBER

95%: the share of donors in the Burk Donor Survey who said they would be very appreciative of a thank-you call from a board member within a few days of their gift, according to Penelope Burk's research firm, Cygnus Applied Research.

The handout doesn't share how the survey was done, and it measures how donors say they'd feel, not how they'd give. Treat it as a reason to try a few calls and see what your own donors say.

WORTH YOUR TIME

​9 Ways to Involve Your Board in Fundraising I wrote this one. Two of the nine ways apply directly this week: delegating tasks by each member's interests and skills, and recognizing their efforts afterward.

​6 Ways to Get Your Board Involved with Year-End Fundraising Also mine. It includes board members recording short thank-you videos for specific donors and hosting holiday fundraisers. Good if your board wants something more visible than a phone call.

​Donor-Centered Fundraising handout (Cygnus Applied Research) Penelope Burk's summary of her donor survey findings, including the board-member call number above. It's short, and it's useful to show a skeptical board.

ONE QUESTION

What's one small job a board member did for you that actually helped? Hit reply and tell me.

See you Tuesday,

Jeremy Reis

P.S. If a fundraising certification has been on your list, the CNFP is $199 for one exam and a lifetime credential. Every CNFP comes with a public verification page employers can check. Take the free practice quiz or see the details here.​