Strategic Fund Development: Building Profitable Relationships That Last, Third Edition

Making Your Organization Effective

Without good internal relationships—between the board of directors and staff, among staff, between departments and functions—your organization will most likely falter. And when these basics falter, your fund development program will surely falter as well. I call this the first relationship—referring to the internal operations of your organization, your organization’s relationship with itself. The task is to create the holistic infrastructure that produces a healthy enterprise.

No organization can survive on mission and vision alone. Infrastructure provides the supporting systems and framework that allow your organization to pursue its vision and achieve its mission. Infrastructure defines how your organization conducts its work. Infrastructure is formal and informal, documented and casual. Infrastructure includes such activities as financial and personnel management, marketing and planning, and the behaviors and attitudes of staff and volunteers. Infrastructure, in short, amounts to your corporate culture plus your organization’s systems.

Fund development is part of the infrastructure and, at the same time, depends on infrastructure for support. If the rest of your organization has problems, fund development will, too. For example:

• Poor quality in your services affects your ability to raise charitable gifts.
• Without good decision-making, your organization establishes an unrealistic fund development goal.
• Board members are reluctant to identify ...