This is a question-and-answer series related to community college fundraising. This is article nine of the series.
Question: How do you focus board members on their area of expertise and interest to encourage an increased time commitment? Can you provide a success story?
Answer: Like all community colleges, we have effective and ineffective foundation board members. Ironically, those who are most effective truly do focus on their areas of expertise and interest and have an increased time commitment.
We have several success stories to demonstrate this:
- One foundation board member is an alumnus. He loves the college, and it shows. He graduated from our nursing program after a very successful career in corporate America. He has identified donors to cultivate, solicit and steward and works closely with college employees to raise funds. His areas of interest and interest are the nursing program and one of our five campuses. His time commitment is aligned with those two entities, which is why he is incredibly effective.
- One foundation board member is a former board chairman. He leads the golf tournament, which has been successful in the past. This leadership reflects his love of golf and our college. The golf tournament committee is one of the most active foundation board committees. This is no coincidence and reflects the committee chair’s leadership and time commitment.
- Another foundation board member is an active Rotary Club member. His Rotary Club is a huge support of the college and established a scholarship. He is actively engaged with encouraging other Rotary Clubs to also support the college.
Finally, several foundation board members are military veterans and have expressed an interest in supporting active military and veterans who attend the college or would like to attend the college. We have developed a fundraising letter – to be signed by the foundation board members who are veterans – to mail to military-friendly organizations. The letter is asking these organizations to contribute to the foundation in support of active military and veterans who attend the college or would like to attend the college.
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