Fundraising Ireland Board

If you are interested in joining the Fundraising Ireland board or know someone who is nomintaions close May 25th. They have been doing a fantastic job and there are some great fundraisers in the country whose expertise could be used to good effect on the board.

Nominate here

More Board Matching

I wrote a while ago about some good board match sites (read that piece here).

Last week I read on Fundraising Success about another board matching group. Organised by Duquesne University’s Nonprofit Leadership Institute this is a great way to match board volunteers with organisations. The idea here is like speed dating, so instead of waiting for people to find eachother on line or to take the step themselves, this is getting interested volunteers and interested organisations together in the same room.

They meet, chat up their interests and expectations for five minutes, and then move on to the next date. The lucky ones leave with a long list of people to pursue … as potential board members for their nonprofits, of course. It’s speed dating for nonprofits, and it’s a new way for organizations to find the right board members.

Like everything in fundraising, the easier you make things the more successful. According to the organisers no one has ever left date-less!

Something the two Board Matching organisations I spoke about earlier should think about trying out.

Read the full article here

Board Match

I came across Board Match a number of years ago when I was planning a strategy for a non profit. The board that was engaged in the charity werent actually all that engaged (sound familiar!) so I was looking at ways to get some new people invovled and that is when I found out about board match.

Boardmatch matches nonprofit boards and skilled and experienced volunteers. What a great idea.

Ok so here you have a list of people who want to help. But can anyone else see a problem? What board is going to say…oh thats a great idea, we arent doing enough so lets get people on board to show us up. People like (love) being on charity boards for a variety of reasons (we all know them) but often they dont want to be all that active.

So how can you get around this problem? Well one way I think is good is to set up a sub-committee that has a purpose, so maybe its a capital campaign committee. Link people from Board Match onto this committee and over a period move them into the board. They will be engaged by the work of a committee, like a capital campaign committee, and so you will keep them interested in your organsiations mission.

That’s just one example, and each organisation will need to work out how something like boardmatch can work for them. But I certainly think more people should know about this service and use it, both those that want to be on boards and those who need to engage some active volunteers at board level.

Another site that would be great is a similar one for retired people. So many people are retiring earlier from high level positions and would have a wealth of experience to offer your organisation. Go on boardmatch set up retiredmatch too.

Boardmatch Ireland can be found here
BoardMatch Canada can be found here