As everyone who has ever led a fundraising campaign knows, it’s hard to get everyone on the committee to take responsibility and truly embrace the goal.
6 Tips on How To Get Your Committee to Take Responsibility
Communicate. In fact, OVER-communicate. You’re familiar with all the details — and you remember them — because you focus on them daily. But your committee members are busy living their lives. Unless you keep reminding and updating them, they’ll forget all about it. Keep them in the loop.- Motivate. Continually restate the goal and benefit and focus on accomplishments and progress. No one wants to be on a losing team.
- Make it fun. Humans avoid suffering. It’s a fact of life. They also avoid boring, tedious, futile and pointless meetings and activities. So don’t do that. Instead, find ways to include laughter, good food and drink, music, beauty and fellowship in all activities.
- Assign at least one committee member to focus on making it a good experience for the volunteers. It’s hard to ask for money and keep going in the face of rejection. Make sure they know they are appreciated and that their efforts are making a difference.
- Assign at least one other person to focus on making it a good experience for the donors. Recognition events, opportunities to meet beneficiaries, and events where they can socialize with others who are helping is a great way to strengthen these relationships.
- Rather than struggling with too few helpers, challenge each committee member to bring in one other to join the fun.
Sure, it’s hard to remember all these details, but once you get the initial structure in place, you can focus on being the FUN meister who talks to everyone and cheers them on.