After more than 25 years of teaching and training, I know how to engage a group. These workshops are interactive and include a variety of exercises, games, and small group activities. (Warning: we might do role plays.) I rarely use PowerPoints, preferring to create opportunities for participants to work together, try out new skills, and learn from each other.
• Mobilize Your Board to Raise More Money
• Creating (and Using) Your Fundraising Plan
• Beyond Bad Training: A Toolkit for Trainers, Teachers, and Facilitators
• What Every Board Member Should Know About Financial Management … And Probably Doesn’t
• Train Your Board to Ask!
• Ambassador Training: Better Word-of-Mouth Marketing
• Give Up on Your Board! An All-Staff Approach to Major Gifts Fundraising
• The Nuts and Bolts of Fundraising (also available as Big Money for Small Groups)
• Building a Board that Works
• Creating a 12-Week Major Gifts Campaign
• Change Management
• Fundraising House Parties
• What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up? Creating a Sustainable, Successful Organization
• Leadership Skills for Social Change
• Effective Meeting Facilitation
• Succession Planning: Leading by Sharing Power
• Building Your Group: How to Effectively Recruit and Manage Volunteers
Mobilize Your Board to Raise More Money
If your board isn’t raising all the money it could — indeed, if your board isn’t raising any money at all — you’re not alone. In this workshop, we’ll discuss the reasons why, and outline strategies to turn things around. You’ll leave with several practical, specific ideas for increasing board involvement and effectiveness.
• Redefining fundraising: It’s not just asking for money
• Why people give: The psychology of fundraising
• Building a board fundraising menu
• The basics of face to face fundraising
• Helping board members take leadership and hold each other accountable
Creating (and Using) Your Fundraising Plan
Like anything else in life, fundraising works better if you have a plan — and even better if you follow it. In this workshop, we’ll discuss:
• Identifying the best mix of income for your organization
• Building an annual fundraising calendar
• Beyond dollars: Identifying other ways to benchmark your results
• Using your plan to educate your board, deflect random fundraising ideas, and stay on task
Beyond Bad Training: A Toolkit for Trainers, Teachers, and Facilitators
In nearly every workplace or organization — nonprofit, for-profit, government — somebody needs to train somebody. Learn skills to become a better facilitator and trainer, including:
• How to identify and avoid bad trainer behavior
• Designing exercises and activities that engage your learners
• Encouraging everyone to participate — and managing those who over-participate
• Building consensus and running effective meetings
• Tips and tricks from the trainer’s toolbox
Come prepared to participate. We’ll design and demonstrate training exercises in real time.
What Every Board Member Should Know About Financial Management … And Probably Doesn’t
With the possible exception of “How do I avoid fundraising?,” a board member’s most commonly unasked question is, “What do all these numbers mean – and what am I supposed to do with them?” This workshop is designed to help trustees get over their financial phobia — with clarity, humor, and few unexpected metaphors. We’ll discuss:
• Five things you should know about your nonprofit’s finances — without looking at a spreadsheet
• Creating a one-page financial dashboard to simplify board oversight
• Managing financial risks
• Understanding financial statements
Train Your Board to Ask!
Based on the book, Train Your Board (and Everyone Else) to Raise Money, this workshop is designed to teach you how to teach others — especially board members — to increase their comfort and skill in fundraising. We’ll try out several exercises while learning a variety of tips and tricks that will make you a more effective facilitator, trainer, and fundraising coach.
• Reducing fundraising fear and discomfort
• Effective listening and storytelling with donors
• Making the ask
• Managing donor relationships more skillfully
Ambassador Training: Better Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Even in the era of social media, the most effective marketing strategy is word of mouth. Regardless of your role – board, staff or volunteer – you can represent your organization more effectively and encourage positive buzz. Learn how to engage potential supporters, develop compelling messages, and deliver them effectively. We will discuss:
• Listening: The most valuable communications skill
• Shaping your message
• Pitching your organization one on one
• Public speaking without fear (well, with less fear)
Give Up on Your Board! An All-Staff Approach to Major Gifts Fundraising
Most development directors work heroically to engage their boards in face to face fundraising — with very mixed results. Yet we tend to forget about the other “human resource” available to us: the staff. Using successful case studies, we will discuss ways to engage employees in cultivating, asking, and thanking donors.
• How to define and create a “culture of fundraising” within your organization
• Identifying barriers and strategies to address them
• Training your colleagues how to ask
• Adapting the all-staff model to the specific needs and limitations of your group
The Nuts and Bolts of Fundraising
(also available as Big Money for Small Groups)
80% of charitable funds come from individual donors, not foundations or corporations. Learn to build a fundraising program that honors your mission, engages potential donors, and raises more money.
• Where money comes from: Building a diverse funding base
• The basic principles of fundraising
• Identifying prospective donors
• “The ask” — face to face solicitation
• Ranking the effectiveness of different fundraising strategies
Building a Board that Works
To be effective, nonprofits must recruit board members who support their ideals, represent the diversity of the community, and bring a wide range of skills. This workshop covers:
• How boards change as organizations grow and change
• Finding and filling the gaps on your board
• Creating and using a board “job description”
• Board orientation strategies
• Training and motivating your board to raise money
Creating a 12-Week Major Gifts Campaign
Mobilize your team, identify your prospects, and go out and ask. If you want to build a major donor program from scratch – or improve the one you’ve already got – this workshop walks you through planning, implementation and evaluation, step by step.
• Clarify the case
• Set a goal and build a gift chart
• Recruit and train askers
• Identify, assign, and engage prospects
• Create systems to track results and hold each other accountable
Change Management
Nonprofit leadership is all about designing and creating change, both within and beyond your organization. In this session, we’ll cover:
• Identifying the change management skills you need today and in the future
• Understanding different types of change; choosing the model that best fits your circumstances
• Leadership skills and tools for change management
• Creating change at different levels: personal, interpersonal, and within groups
Fundraising House Parties
A fundraising house party combines the intimacy of a major donor “ask” with the excitement of a benefit event — and unlike a big benefit event, you can organize one in six weeks. We’ll discuss:
• Identifying a host committee and developing an invitation list
• Preparing your party planning calendar
• Different strategies for using house parties to ask for gifts
• Twenty ways to engage board members in creating the event
What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up? Creating a Sustainable, Successful Organization
More and more, your donors, funders, and peers are asking tough questions:
• What are the hallmarks of a successful organization?
• What benchmarks do you use to measure success — and how do you measure up?
• How can you look beyond the next grant cycle (or funding crisis) and design a sustainable nonprofit that grows, adapts, and thrives in a changing world?
In this workshop, we will develop answers that address your specific needs and circumstances.
Leadership Skills for Social Change
Nonprofit leadership requires a wide range of qualities, including clarity of purpose, flexibility, stamina, and the ability to inspire others to do their best work. In this workshop we will discuss:
• Vision and purpose: What’s your true work?
• Leadership styles
• How leadership needs change throughout the lives of organizations
• Hiring and supervising staff
• Leadership for the long haul: Time management and self-care
Effective Meeting Facilitation
Are you tired of aimless meetings that don’t generate energy, commitment, or clear next steps? Learn how to make your meetings more productive, inclusive, and fun.
• Why meetings fail
• The key to effective meetings: Make decisions!
• Building a great agenda
• Robert’s Rules vs. consensus: What’s right for you?
• How to fix a broken meeting
Succession Planning: Leading by Sharing Power
How long will it take to for your organization to meet its mission, declare victory, and go out of business? Some nonprofits can envision success in a decade or two; others will continue for centuries. Will you be around for the victory party? If you’re not training the next generation of leaders, who will carry on? In this workshop, we’ll discuss:
• How organizations grow and change over time – and how leadership needs change as nonprofits grow
• Why “just doing it yourself” is seldom the best choice
• Tangible tips for training and empowering others to lead
Building Your Group: How to Effectively Recruit and Manage Volunteers
Community organizations need three kinds of resources to grow and succeed: time, money, and the leadership to use both wisely. In this workshop, we’ll discuss how to find new volunteers and develop them into a team of committed leaders. Topics include:
• Identifying and filling the holes in your leadership team
• Member and volunteer recruitment
• Motivating and managing volunteers (and easing out the ineffective ones)
• Top tips for effective volunteer-based groups
On request, I also facilitate board retreats and planning meetings.
