Simona Biancu: Engaging Board members — from the “hook” to developing a major donor campaign

When a nonprofit’s Board approved its fundraising plan but offered no real support, the answer was to find one Board member willing to open doors. Sharing the story, which saw his invitation to a handful of contacts to tour a future university building lead to a first major donation, then two more, and a snowball effect across the Board, ENGAGEDin founder and international consultant Simona Biancu provides her top tips for engaging Board members with fundraising.

This story begins with a situation common to many nonprofit organisations:

• A Board convinced that fundraising is an exquisitely “technical” task to be left to the fundraising team once general guidelines have been established.
• A fundraising team aware of a project’s potential and the target that needs to be reached, but also aware that relationships linked to a major donor programme often require an institutional door opener.

What happens when this cycle is broken?

The story of this campaign — now close to reaching the ambitious milestone of 5 million euros for the major renovation of a building to be used for university services — illustrates how the right spark can change the culture across an entire Board.

The organisation we advised works in education and had never carried out a major donor campaign. The fundraising team, with recent experience just in mass marketing fundraising campaigns, had nevertheless drawn up a feasibility plan for a typical capital campaign project, based on realistic figures, a reasonable timeline, and engaging, emotional communication.

The presentation of the plan to the Board generated approval and enthusiasm, but no offers of support followed. This was not unusual — traditionally, the Board was reluctant to share contacts, leverage relationships, or provide real support, despite showing great respect for the fundraising team’s work.

Tip No. 1: Identifying the problem is already a step toward its resolution. In this case, it was clear that the Board was confusing its approval of the fundraising plan with working alongside the team to help achieve it.

To unblock the situation, the focus needed to shift. We suggested to the Head of Development that they stop focusing on requests to the entire Board for the possible names of major donors. Instead, together, we should work to find a “hook” — that is, a Board member (or ideally more than one) with an interest and willingness to go deeper, to feel part of a project, and literally lend a hand.

In this case, the ideal “hook” was a Board member with significative experience at a university where fundraising was considered a responsibility shared by the faculty. He therefore understood the role they wanted him to play: not necessarily making the “ask,” but supporting the fundraising team in opening up relationships.

Tip No. 2: To identify who, within the Board, might have a proactive attitude toward fundraising, you need to get to know the Board members. This can only happen through meeting them outside of formal meetings or official occasions. The time dedicated to getting to know, cultivating, and involving Board members is undoubtedly among the best investments that a fundraising team can make.

Together with the head of development, we met with this Board member to discuss the restoration project and the associated fundraising in more detail, sharing some ideas for moving forward. This prompted him to recall that among his contacts was a network of international managers and entrepreneurs, many of whom felt a strong desire to put down roots in the area and be useful to the local community.

A simple, informal conversation with one of these contacts at an event gave the Board member an opportunity to talk about and raise awareness of the organisation’s project, and the idea to invite him to visit the renovation site, along with four other contacts. There, he guided them through a tour focused on the future: “imagine the researchers who will be sitting here, the students who will meet there,” and so on. In other words, he shared an experience and an almost tangible vision of the future.

Then, he passed the ball to the fundraising team so they could proceed independently with the “ask”. He did not replace the fundraisers, nor did he feel the pressure of having to ask: he facilitated the relationship, prepared it, and then let the fundraising experts handle the request, the approach, and the communication.

This is what Board members are called upon to do: to be facilitators and relationship builders, and not (necessarily, always) to ask for donations.

The result was a first major donation. This was followed by two further contacts shared by the same Board member, and two additional donations.

At the next Board meeting, he shared what had happened with the rest of the Board — not as a lesson in fundraising, but about the wonderful encounters he had experienced and, almost to his own surprise, how those encounters had generated support.

Needless to say, this created a snowball effect that enabled the organisation to raise nearly 3 million euros thanks to the Board’s support.

At that stage, it became no longer simply a matter of presenting an idea by those who had embraced it — the Board, the fundraising team — but, much more effectively, by real testimonials from the first three donors.

The campaign is now in its final stages and the 5-million-euro goal is just around the corner. It required around two years of work, meetings, creativity, proposals drafted and refined, many “no’s,” but also the “yes’s” that ultimately made all the difference. Above all, it brought the realisation that fundraising is not just a hot potato that can only be handled by specialists in the field, and that an engaged Board brings a quantum leap in quality, particularly when it comes to the most ambitious targets.

Key Takeaways

• When faced with a ‘passive’ Board, rather than asking for contacts it is far more effective to ask yourself how you can bypass that passivity and turn it into a catalyst.  Identifying the right ‘player’ — the Board member with the strongest affinity for the project, the one whose expertise is most aligned, or simply the one most open to organising discussions and building a network of contacts — has the power to take fundraising to the next level. Work directly with that person to exchange ideas and develop concrete actions. It usually works. And, above all, it then inspires other Board members to follow suit.
• The ‘hot potato’ issue of fundraising must be defused by fundraisers: the Board needs to be gradually guided towards a genuine understanding of what this tool entails and what is expected of them. Not necessarily requests, but relationships and contacts: in short, opening doors to share a vision. The fundraising team can then handle the technical proposal and the negotiations.
• Basing the relationship with the Board solely on plans and budgets is not that effective. Instead, it is better to incorporate suggestions, ideas and proposals: a visit to the construction site seemed an obvious idea to the fundraisers, yet it was welcomed by the Board as an extremely useful suggestion they hadn’t considered in terms of engaging prospective donors. Enthusiasm is generated through direct experience, not through PDF reports.

To conclude: involving the Board of Directors does not require miracles, but a shift in perspective.

When fundraisers stop asking the Board merely ‘Who can we contact?’, and start looking at Board involvement from this ‘sideways’ perspective, things begin to change. In this case, the ‘hook’ was a single Board member who took the initiative, providing the catalyst needed. In other cases, identifying and stimulating the ‘hook’ will be the fundraiser’s responsibility. In all cases, we need to find a trigger point from which to generate engagement.

Fundraising is not a cold transaction: it is building a relationship of support. And once the Board discovers its value, there is no going back.

About Simona Biancu

Founder of ENGAGEDin and an international consultant with over 15 years of expertise in strategic fundraising, philanthropy, and board development, Simona Biancu has driven growth for global nonprofit institutions, notably leading development, marketing, and fundraising departments for prestigious organizations such as the European Union Youth Orchestra and Fondazione Accademia Teatro alla Scala. A seasoned board member and international lecturer, she is a pioneer in board governance literature as co-author of “Board in prima fila” (2020) and the blog “Welcome on Board”, backed by a Master’s degree in Fundraising from the University of Bologna and an Executive Certificate in Strategic Philanthropy.