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

Benefits of Enabling

Enabling may be the single most important contributor to improving your organization’s fund development performance. Enabling certainly is the primary factor in a healthy relationship between governance and management.

The thing is, people are loyal to your organization’s mission, not to fund development. So it can take lots of work to get them to help fundraise. Enabling does this.

Enabling holds multiple benefits for your organization. First, enable your volunteers and they will do tasks well, including fund development activities. Second, enable your volunteers and they will feel successful and important to your organization. Third, enable your volunteers and they will stick with you longer.

If your volunteers have good experiences, they are more likely to continue volunteering and to volunteer more. They will likely give you money and even increase their gifts. Equally important, satisfied volunteers will tell others about how great your organization is, thus encouraging more gifts of time and money.

Enabling can do more. It will:

• Engage volunteers in the meaning of your organization rather than the tasks and mechanics alone.
• Develop stronger relationships between your organization and its volunteers.
• Enhance the quality of your organization’s decision-making.

Preventive Measure

Enabling is the strategy to enhance volunteer performance. When incorporated into the way you do business, enabling anticipates potential problems and prevents them from occurring. ...