 be joining us. Welcome to another episode of the nonprofit show, but not just any episode because this is Friday and Friday is Ask and Answer, which is my personal favorite day. Maybe it's because it's Friday too, Jack. But today I have the great honor and privilege of doing Ask and Answer with Fundraising Academy's trainer extraordinaire, Jack Elotto, CFRE. Welcome, my friend. Thank you for having me again. It's always great to be on this Friday, Ask and Answer show because I love the questions and I learned so much from the questions as much as the answers. You know, it's fun and I'll tell you, Jack, these questions come to us through social media. People will ask us when we're out in public. Sometimes they call, email. I mean, it's really an interesting way that these questions come to us. Sometimes we feel compelled to withhold a name or withhold a community because they can be a little dicey and we don't want to put anyone into a precarious position, but they come from all over the place. So it's really exciting. And thanks to our sponsors who allow us to do this exciting work without any interference. They never use any of their muscle on our editorial content or direction. And those folks include Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, which is celebrating your 30th anniversary in business this week. Nonprofit Thought Leader, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Nerd herself, Jared Ransom, and Nonprofit Tech Talk. If you've missed any of our episodes, check us out on Roku, YouTube, Amazon Fire TV, and Vimeo. And you can now download all of our episodes on podcast format. So if you'd like to consume your content that way, cue us up. Okay, here we go. Josefina, I would say Josefina or Justifina. I don't know how she says it. Josefina in Los Angeles, California says, I know you were asked this question quite a bit, but how do we get our board to be more present in the process of non-profit fund development? They seem to think that success is all on the backs of our development team. They are not stepping up and helping us. Wow. This is a common problem, isn't it, Julia? I mean, we've heard this before. I like to say the first thing is that fundraising is a team effort. It's a team that involves staff and leadership and board. And here's another thing. It's not my thought, and I can't remember where I read it, but the role fundraising, the role the board plays in fundraising is inescapable. They must have some role in fundraising. Secondly, I like to say Josefina, manage up. And here are some ways that you can manage up. One, the first thing that I think is critically important, Julia, is that development team members must present at every board meeting. They must present their success and they must bring their challenges so that the board can discuss those challenges. Successes and failures must be achieved. Josefina, here's something I would recommend. I would recommend that you do a training assessment of board members as it relates to fundraising. So you can make this up or you could go online and find some instrument out there, but I like for you to create your own. So here's how you would do it. You might say to your board members, on a scale of one to five, rate the following things. One, your knowledge of prospecting. If they say, I have no knowledge of prospecting, that's a one. If they say, I have a huge knowledge of prospecting, that's a five. What is your knowledge of cultivation? What is your knowledge of stewardship? What is your knowledge of solicitation? And have them rate that. Also, I'd include in that assessment. I understand my role and responsibility as it relates to fundraising. Get that assessment back and then create a training system that you will do with the board, maybe 20 minutes at every board meeting, maybe 30 minutes at every board meeting. Finally, and Julie and you and I have talked about this before, we both endorse this, create a board engagement agreement. In that agreement, they agree that they're going to introduce you to their network. They're going to, they know somebody at a foundation, they're going to have a house party. They're going to make this gift. They're going to serve on this committee. They're going to be involved in fundraising in this way. So all of those things, I think, are really important with managing up, because that's what we have to do as fundraisers. We have to manage our board's work in fundraising. You know, Jack, I love that you said that because this is undoubtedly the number one, I truly believe this is the number one issue that comes my way. And it has for my entire career, serving on boards, serving in the community, you know, asking for money. This has been at the heart of so much heartache, if you will. And I think that it's because that the development team, one, they are not present at the meetings unless there's like a drama. And that could be, we got this huge gift or lost this huge gift. It's two extremes and not the everyday grind. But I think you are right. We are not educating our board members to understand this. And we're not accountable. Yeah. I don't think they have to be at every single meeting. I agree. And when I hear from staff, staff who say, well, I'm not invited to the board meeting, hey, I've left jobs or I didn't take jobs when they said you're not going to be at the board meeting. I didn't, I just so critical. Here's the thing that board members must understand. Money fuels mission. Yeah. That's a simple three word sentence. Money fuels mission. What are we talking about money? We're talking about fundraising. Right. Well, you know, I say, I say the same thing, but probably in a more punitive manner. I would say no money, no mission. Exactly. Absolutely. This is the thing. You can have, you know, all these great intentions and you can want the best for your community and you can want to solve a problem. But if you can't fund, if you can't use the concept of cause selling, selling is not a bad word. Nope. Selling for your cause. You cannot achieve these, these goals. And so. And if you don't, if you don't understand that money fuels mission, then maybe you're on the wrong board. Yeah. Well, and board leadership is not on the right place. I think that's right. For me too, Jack, before I move on, this is a board leadership issue too. You know, you've got to have board chairs. You need to have a CEO that pushes that a board liaison position that pushes this that understands why this is so critical and that it's not just a if wishes were fishes, we'd all have a fry kind of. Yeah. How about having board members paired with development staff as a mentoring relationship where the staff is mentoring, especially new board members around what the fundraising initiatives of the organization are. I love that. There's so many ways to manage up at your point about who is responsible for monitoring those, those board members as it relates to fundraising. It's the board. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the board. Well, Josefina, you did get us on a power hour day because we've just been railing on this. Yeah. But I'm glad I'm glad you're asking the question questions, Josefina. It's it's so important. I think it's really amazing. Okay. This is an interesting question. We've had this kind of before in a way this comes from name with held from Las Vegas, Nevada. I actually took this person's name off. And the question or the comment was we have a development director who's going to lead another organization in our same space. You could say she's going to a competitor. This is great. We don't hear this word a lot, but this is this exists in our sector. She will be their new CEO and we are fearful that she will take all our donor relationships with her. Wow. Yeah, I love this question. You know, one of the things I love to ask organizations is who has the relationship with the donor? Is the donor's relationship with the fundraiser or is the donor's relationship with the organization? If you are building relationships with yourself and that donor, you're following the wrong path. In cause selling, we build relationships with our causes and with our organizations with the people that depend on us as beneficiaries or clients of the organization. So that's number one. You build donor relationships with your organization, your mission, your causes and not with the director of development. Okay. I love that you said this. And to me, the minute you said this, a lot of fear and stress just washed off me. Because I'm like, yeah, that's the more holistic way to look at that. AFP reports association of fundraising professionals, which is really the big umbrella group for our sector and fundraising. They report that the average development officer only lasts 18 months in a job, 18 months. So yeah, Jack, I mean, people are coming in and out all the time. So that's another reason why you are building relationships with your organization, your mission, your cause, the people who benefit from the work that you do, whether it's an arts audience or animal welfare or whenever it is, you build that relationship with the organization. The other thing is, and you mentioned AFP, and this is so true, confidentiality. Donor information is confidential. It doesn't belong to the director of development or the CEO of the organization. It belongs to the organization. And you cannot share that information unless you have the donor's permission. She cannot take pieces of your donor database with her to the new organization. That is an ethical violation. And if your donors, unless they opt in to be their name and address to be shared, then you cannot do it. And I'll tell you something else that's really important as it relates to this. In the future, this organization in Vegas or these individuals, you might consider having staff and board members sign confidentiality agreements where they agree that they will not do this kind of thing. Well, there should be, and this is a discussion for another day, but there are a bunch of things, conflict of interest. I mean, if you are dealing with anything in healthcare, they're the HIPAA, you're dealing with minors under the age of 21, children under the age of 18. You have policies that should be signed that way. I mean, there are a lot of things that should be executed every year with your team and your board. And those I believe should be done in December so that they are in effect for the turn of that next year. And that should be a pro forma kind of thing. It should be. You know, when we talk about handling objections, we say anticipate. Yeah. And that's true for all of the things that you anticipate as it relates to staff and board members. Hey, I was a consultant to an animal welfare organization. And I have signed a confidentiality agreement. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's really important. And again, depending on where it is that you serve what sector within the nine main sectors, there are specific documents that need to be not only executed, but they need to be reported on your 990. I mean, you know, the COI policy. And now if I'm not mistaken, the whistleblower policy has to be declared on the 990, you know, do you and the questions are, do you have it or do you not? It's so, you know, but yeah, things are being looked at. So, okay, well, this has been a doozy of a day. But this question came in specifically for Jack. So I love this always gets me really excited. This is a question for Jack. How important is it to have a CFRE certified fundraising professional or executive, right? Yeah, certified fund raising executive. I want to stay in fundraising. I really like it. And I'm good at working with donors. However, I want to earn more money. And I'm wondering if the CFRE will help me with this goal, goal name withheld from Tampa, Florida. CFRE's earn on average more money. They do. It's a national statistic. I can't remember what it was. And it may have changed over the course of the years, but at least a 25% increase in earning. And that's important because this individual wants to maybe needs to earn more money. So yes, it's really important. The other thing is, it's a credential. It's not a certificate. It is something that you keep. My dad used to say to me, Jack, when you get your bachelor's degree, no one's ever going to be able to take it away from you. That's the same thing with the CFRE. You get it. It's yours. You have to renew every three years, but that's an easy task to do, just getting past it. Here's the other thing in my experience of working with hundreds of CFRE candidates, Julia, is that they bring their best to the profession. When they call me and they say, I am interested in earning my CFRE, I got an email today or actually on LinkedIn, someone connected with me from Great Britain about the CFRE. You know what? I look at them, especially women and women of color. And they talk to me and I say, why do you want it? What's going on? What's your study style? What's your, you know what I see in them? Leaders. I see in this group of people, and I tell them this, I say, you know what? You may be successful at getting your CFRE, but the fact that you're interested in it, like this individual from Tampa, Florida, tells me that your journey is going to end with you being a leader. Maybe the leader of development department and maybe the leader of the foundation, the community foundation, or a corporate giving program leadership. And the other thing I find is that even those who have not passed the test yet, they call me up, they say, I haven't passed the test yet, but they say to me, I've learned so much from doing this process. And I may not get the CFRE when I'm fine with that, guys, when people tell me that, but I've learned a lot that I could take back to my work. And that's important. It's really important. And I got to say, when having this discussion with you, I'm noticing more and more people outside of the development team, like COOs, creating officers, CEOs, even people just in their own ecosystem, somehow working in the nonprofit sector, but maybe not fundraising, having this designation, you know, which I think is really interesting. So I don't think it's just being limited to working on a development team. I love what you said. It just gives you a broader picture for leadership in general. And that's a good thing. Right. And in fact, one of the modules is leadership and management. And I love that. I love talking and talks about teams, it talks about working, talks about evaluating staff, working with volunteers, marketing, all of the things that are necessary. And, you know, Julia, to your point, I have had individuals who are executive directors, and they say, why do you want your CFRE? And they say, I want to be a better manager of my development staff. Yeah. Yeah. Because it goes back to the previous conversation, no money, no mission. I mean, that's the bane of many a CEO's existence is that relationship with fundraising and everything. Well, good luck to you in Tampa. And I'm thrilled to get this question. And I'm thrilled that they've obviously seen you, Jack, enough to know of it. I'm so happy. You're the man. You know, we are both giving back to this profession. And that's one way that I love to get back. I love it. Well, let's go to B from New Orleans, Louisiana, which by the way, in New Orleans, we're going to be at Icon. Jack's going to be there. You need to come by. We'll be broadcasting for several days from the Bloomerang booth. And so anyone who's in New Orleans during that time, it's going to be in April. Yeah, come by and say hello to us. Okay. We're a small but growing nonprofit and are getting more organized on our board policies. Can you help us understand the COI policy, where it should come from and how often board members need to execute this? So conflict of interest policy is really important. And whenever we talk about policy, we're talking about the board's responsibility. It is the board who creates policy. It is staff who implements that policy, whether it's HR policies, financial policies, gift acceptance policies, or a conflict of interest policy. All of those things come from the board. They have to approve them. They have to discuss them with staff. I'm not saying you're out of it, but it does have to come from the board. Where the policy comes from, it really doesn't matter. AFP has conflict of interest policies, a code of ethics, AHP, other organizations. I think there's like 22 organizations, higher education, healthcare, whatever it is, they all have policies around a conflict of interest. And it's really important that you have this policy in place. Every organization should have a board and staff conflict of interest policy. It protects us. When I signed a conflict of interest policy, I'm protecting myself as much as I'm protecting the organization. And as I said earlier, excuse me, the board must approve the policy. The board and staff members must sign a conflict of interest policy. The board's- Let me interrupt you. Let me interrupt you. Go ahead. Excuse me. Because I got y'all choked up with this question. So I get on the board. I get the board signing the COI, but you introduced the staff level. So let's talk about that because I don't hear that as much. Is this C-suite? Is this everybody on the staff? I think everybody, you know, they have- And one of the things you see in a conflict of interest policy, Julie, is I disclose to the organization that I have a potential conflict of interest. My husband is a printer. My wife is a printer. And on the staff person, they say, oh, you should hire Joan Smith to use for printing because she's going to give you the best deal. And I happen to have a relationship with her as a spouse or as a close friend. I need to disclose that. That my opinion of her work and her is not completely free of conflict. So that's important. A child, a board member who is on a foundation that gives scholarships away. You know, if your child applies, that's fine, but you have to disclose, oh, by the way, that's my son who has applied for the scholarship. And then you have to recuse yourself as part of the discussion. Staff have to do that and board members have to do that. I think B, the important thing is that in these policies, it's not 100% punitive. It's also a discussion on how it gets managed. So it'll generally direct what you have to do, how you disclose it, if more bids have to be taken. I mean, if there is a recusal during any voting. I mean, so that policy is the actions, I should say, are defined. But you know what, Jack, where I'm seeing the question, the second part of this is where does it come from? I'm seeing more and more accounting companies that do the annual audits or do that work tracking this. So whoever's doing your books, they should have access to that as well. Because in, and we just talked about this, you know, a few minutes ago, the 990 is now asking, do you have these policies in place? They're not asking to see the policies. They're not asking to see anything other than check the boxes at yes or no. But I would, if you're not sure where to get these documents. Yeah, donors could ask for it. What if your donor asked for, found out that a foundation, a board member at a scholarship gave a scholarship to a child. And they asked, what happened there? How was that able to happen? And you could, you would say, well, they are eligible. So you're right. What you said is really important. It protects the individuals, but it also outlines the different ways that we get out of potential conflict of interest. So those are all really important. You know, one of the things that I find with working in the nonprofit space, we have an intimacy with donors, with our board members, that very few other industries do. Our donors tell us about their wealth. They tell us about their connections. They tell us about their families. They talk about their wills, their bequest and all of those things. And when I look at other professions, maybe a lawyer gets that kind of intimacy or a clergy person gets that kind of intimacy, we have so much responsibility around that information, confidentiality and conflict of interest. They're giving us their money. So that's a huge thing. And they're telling us things that are very personal about themselves. We ask those questions. That's what cost selling does. We ask open-ended questions. How do you decide on making a gift? That's a personal thing. I never thought about that, but you are really spot on. And what a great way to end this time with you, because when you look at your relationships through that lens, it really changes things. And I think it's a pretty august responsibility as well to understand that this is intimate. You made this brilliant context of one of our first questions is the relationship should always be about the organization and not the individual players or leaders within that organization to the donor. And that kind of fits with that. But I love how you brought that forward because I think that's really true. You said august responsibility is to me a sacred responsibility. You wouldn't expect your clergy person to disclose your financial information or your gift that you made. You wouldn't expect your attorney or your tax advisor or any other host of people. We're in the same category. Wow, I love it. Well, Jack, always you bring forward super cool concepts and ideas. If you were with us earlier in the week, Jack spent two days with Jared and I talking about handling donor objections and it was riveting. And so this was another riveting day. I really appreciate your wisdom and your fun. And yeah, I just think it's great. Yeah, he's like, yeah, I'm Jack a lot of CFRE trainer. I'm going to add extraordinaire. You got a new title trainer extraordinaire fundraising academy fundraising academies at national university and you can check them out fundraising dash academy.org fundraising academy has some really cool things coming up. You'll be hearing more and more about them. You have a big conference coming up and we do and I believe that we're going to be there broadcasting from that conference. And so yeah, a lot of fun and what an amazing place for our sector to go and get really good information. So check out fundraising dash academy.org. Again, thank you to our sponsors who've made this conversation possible. They include Bloomerang American nonprofit academy, your part time controller, happy birthday to them for 30 years of service in our sector, nonprofit thought leader fundraising academy at national university staffing boutique, nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk. Hey, everybody, have a great weekend. Jack, thank you once again. Thank you. Thank you guys. You ignited a fire. I love it. I really do. As we end every episode, we want to remind everyone out there to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here, everyone. Thank you, Jack.