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The Fundraising Masterminds Podcast
127. Rethinking the Leadership Triangle: The Missing Link to Nonprofit Growth [Development 101]
00:30:03
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- [00:00]
A
You're listening to the number one podcast for nonprofit leaders getting your nonprofit fully funded. This is the Fundraising Masterminds podcast. The board isn't even that excited, and they're just showing up like a guest, right? Then guess what? The guests are looking at the board going, well, if you're not even helping out with this thing, why should I care about it?
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B
Exactly. That's right.
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A
It's leading by example. You would not believe how many boards just have this, like, call me when you get there, and I'll just show up. Welcome to this episode of the Fundraising Masterminds Podcast. My name is Jason Galasinski, and with me, my co host, Jim Dempsey.
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B
Hi, Jason.
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A
Well, Jim, how are you doing today?
- [00:44]
B
I'm good. Boy, this is July. It's beautiful. It's a great time of the year.
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A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [00:49]
B
Love it.
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A
Well, we have a great topic lined up for you guys today. This episode is part of a development series called Development 101. And if you haven't checked it out, you might want to go back and look because we've talked about episode, like the top fundraising books. We talked about the four biblical paradigm shifts that need to take place, Journey of the faithful steward, how to scale major partner relationships. And now, finally on this episode, we're going to be talking about the leadership triangle and how to rethink it. Now, the leadership triangle is kind of an interesting concept. I remember the first time I heard about this a while back, I just thought, wow. I don't think many nonprofits think about leadership this way. I think they think about the leadership. Like, the executive director is the leader, right? And the executive director is kind of like the CEO that, like, kind of everything stems from him or her. And then. And then from there, everyone kind of has their, like, little department. So you have, you know, the development director does all the development fundraising, and then you've got, you know, the finance department. Finance department, they do all the bookkeeping. And then you got technology department, and they do all the technology. And then you have, you know, the people depending on what your organization does. You know, there's different things, right? But we. We kind of look at it from an org chart perspective. Like, the executive director is at the top, and he's doing everything. And then, like, well, what does the board do? Well, they get together once a month or every once in a while, and they just kind of, like, approve whatever the director does. Right. So the director's responsibility is to you, like, prepare, you know, update the board, and the board just kind of comes in and kind of says, like, yeah, that looks great, you know, offers a little bit of tidbits and, like, approves it.
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B
Right. Well. And everything is siloed. There's no coordinated effort per se. Everyone does their own function. And like you said, the executive directors out there, the board's out there, but nothing is coordinating together.
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A
Yeah. And that's. And we're painting this picture of, like, this is kind of what we see. It doesn't necessarily mean that that's what you're doing. There's always, you know, everyone's set up a little differently. But typically, you know, we see boards that are kind of siloed, and they're just made up of people who are just advisory kind of roles. Might be a few that are involved more than others, but the executive director is really the one, you know, leading the charge, and then everything kind of goes from there.
- [03:22]
B
Right.
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A
And the. When we talk about, you know, the title of this message, rethinking the Leadership, what we're saying is there's a different way you can do leadership in a nonprofit, and we refer to that as the leadership triangle. Yeah. So, Jim, why don't you just briefly, you know, you can go back and watch, you know, the episode. I think it was episode 125, where we gave the overview, but just sum it up in, like, two minutes. Like, what is the leadership triangle?
- [03:50]
B
Well, the leadership triangle allows you to maximize the relationships that you've built, because no one person can handle a growing organization with a lot of major donors where those major donors need depth in the relationship. So no one person can handle it. It has got to be a coordinated, combined effort.
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A
Right. So it's really the idea of more of a leadership team.
- [04:18]
B
Correct.
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A
Right. That's made up of three distinct roles. You know, it kind of sounds like Trinity, actually. You know, one guy, very reflective, three persons. Yeah.
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B
Maybe.
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A
Maybe that's where it came from. I don't.
- [04:32]
B
Could be.
- [04:32]
A
I don't know. Yeah, we're kind of tongue in cheek joking a little bit here. But yeah, it's totally kind of coming from that model. Right. And so, you know, the leadership triangle is basically, each aspect is, you know, the board has specific roles. The executive director has specific roles. The development director has specific roles. But they work together as a team.
- [04:54]
B
Yes.
- [04:55]
A
And together they move development forward. That's right. And we're not talking about. Together they run the nonprofit.
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B
Right, right.
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A
We're talking specifically about the development side of things.
- [05:07]
B
Yeah. It's not an organization run by committee. That's not what we're saying the executive director is still the executive director, but it functions. Your development department functions better when you've got a leadership triangle.
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A
Well, before we go into kind of like what it should look like, why don't we talk about some examples that we've seen from dysfunctional teams and. And what that looks like.
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B
Right, right.
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A
We see a lot of that, you know, coming into our programs. Do you have any examples off the top of your head that you can think of?
- [05:35]
B
Well, I'm just thinking of an organization that you and I worked very closely with in Chicago where an executive director started the organization, they were founder of the organization. They developed some deep, meaningful relationships with major donors. You used a great example of remembering that every time. It seem like every time he went to lunch with a major donor, he came back with a check for 50 or $60,000, and so went very deep. But you can only go so far. And in an attempt to kind of diversify the relationships, he hired a development director in hopes that that development director could take on those relationships and he could move on something else.
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A
To a degree, yes.
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B
In theory, he was doing the right thing on. Fortunately, it did not materialize to the way that he envisioned it. Wasn't they.
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A
Well, really, what it boiled down to is he didn't have the right expectations of the development director.
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B
Correct. Yeah. The expectations really were that it would just be an easy and immediate transition of relationships, that immediately these major partners would all of a sudden just latch onto the executive director and he would have the same success. And it didn't. I mean, this executive director spent years, decades, pouring his life. Some of these was a counseling ministry, and he helped transform marriages, lives, kids lives. And the partners felt like they owed him, owed this ministry something. And that just doesn't just transfer immediately or easily.
- [07:16]
A
Yeah. And, you know, I'm thinking of an organization that I tried to help personally, because it's a. It's a local organization in my hometown.
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B
Okay.
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A
And, you know, I won't name any names or anything. Don't want to throw anyone under the bus, but, you know, they were struggling financially. We knew the executive director personally. It's like family friend.
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B
Right.
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A
And they did a banquet, kind of a traditional banquet, and I was invited to it. My family, my wife and I were invited to it. And, you know, it was in a gymnasium. There were plastic forks and knives and plastic everything.
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B
Paper and a band.
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A
There was a buffet. And there was everything wrong about this. And, you know, with a tin can in the back of the room with, like, if you could please give us something, you know, kind of appeal, Walk
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B
out the door, huh?
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A
Yeah. And. And, you know, I just. You know me, right? I'm sitting there going, oh, man. You know, they have such a great ministry, and, you know, I know that the heart of this director is really wanting to reach kids for Christ, but they're just. They're just going about it the wrong way.
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B
Right.
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A
So I was, you know, on the way home, I was, like, talking to my wife about it, and I'm like, how do we tell the executive director that everything she's doing is wrong? You know, how do we help? Because it's like, I. You know, when you. When you know the right way to do something, you know, and it's like, I don't want to go to her and be like, you know, you know, good try, but, you know, you kind of did everything wrong. Let me step in and help you, you know, so I'm trying to work through this with my. With my wife, and, you know, we didn't say something right away. We just kind of encouraged her and stuff like that. And then I can't remember how it happened exactly, but I think my wife started talking to her and just kind of giving her some podcast episodes. And somehow she realized, like, oh, Jason's like, the fundraising mastermind. He's, like, right here in my hometown. And so she ended up going to the board and trying to get the board on board with the perfect vision. And it was a little bit of a fight, because the problem was, is that the board was. You know, the typical problem that we're trying to paint here is that the board was kind of more of an advisory board. They had more of the idea of the executive director should just do everything. We're here just to advise you on how to do things the executive director is bringing to them. You know, we need to bring in fundraising masterminds because they're going to take us to the next level. And the board is sitting there going, well, what are we paying you for?
- [09:56]
B
Right.
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A
Aren't you here to take. Take us to the next level? And she was like, well, you know, These guys have 40 years of experience. Da, da, da, da. She finally kind of pushed it through with their. Kind of. They were a little bit.
- [10:08]
B
With great hesitancy or whatever.
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A
Great hesitancy. She pushed it through. And then, of course, you know, in our programs, we really want the board involved, especially with, like, the name storming and all this stuff.
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B
There needs to be alignment.
- [10:20]
A
Yeah. So guess what happened? As soon as the board needed to do anything now my job. They were like, you mean you want us to do something? You know, and they were just, you know, and so it frustrated this executive director. She has, she's such a great heart and everything, but she was. Just got to the point and unfortunately our program kind of broke, you know, got her to the point where she realized, I don't think I can grow this nonprofit at all.
- [10:49]
B
Probably surfaced all the problems.
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A
Surfaced all the problems because she realized this board really should be helping me with a lot of things and they just aren't right. And so she just kind of realized, like, there's. I'm not going to be able to do anything meaningful in here. And she ended up resigning about six months later. And I don't know what happened after that, but the, the board was, you know, just very unengaged. You know, they're there. I went to one of their board meetings and it was just so passive. You know, it was like these, these older people that were just, just kind of had this, you know, I don't know, attitude. Like, you know, we are the experts of everything and we're gonna, we're just gonna give you all this advice. And it was very general. Right. But then, you know, the executive director had she. The expectation was she was gonna do everything.
- [11:44]
B
Yeah.
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A
And she couldn't do everything. She needed their help.
- [11:47]
B
Right.
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A
But, you know, they were like, what do we need? You know, you're the one that we'll tell you what to do, but you need to do everything. Wow. The sad part was that she was a part time person. She just had a baby. You know, she wasn't even full time, but they had expectations of like a full time person. You know, it's that typical ministry mindset of like, well, you know, if you feel called to this, then you should just do whatever it takes.
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B
Be willing to sacrifice.
- [12:12]
A
Sacrifice for the Lord, you know. And unfortunately, Jim, this is another example of so many nonprofits that we see out there where the board of directors has this advisory role. They put all the expectations on the executive director. The executive director is so stressed out, they're carrying everything. And so then what do they do? They start saying, well, I need to hire an assistant or I need to hire this. And the board's like, what do you need that for? I mean, just here's what we think you should do. And they throw out all these ideas that sound easy, right? But then they're not. They're so disconnected from the day to day. They have no idea, like even how much time it would take to do that. So those are some negative examples. And maybe you're listening to this and you're thinking, man, Jim, did you just read my mind? Jason, did you just read my mind? It's like exactly my situation. So how do we get ourselves out of this if we're kind of, if anything that we're talking about is resonating with you? Maybe we're not describing exactly, but how would you recommend, Jim, in all your 40 years of development experience, how would you recommend kind of reframing and getting the leadership to a better place where everything is working, more unified?
- [13:29]
B
Yeah, Well, I would say first of all, and I know this is going to sound somewhat self serving, but go back to our podcast to talk about the role of the board of directors and the role of the board in development, because it's so important and I get it. I understand that there are a lot of board members who are brought onto boards without understanding what their role and responsibility is. So it might good. And I would enlist the services of the board chair because the board chair typically, you know, unfortunately, in most cases, the executive director reports to the board, they evaluate the board, the board is their boss. It's tough to change your boss. But if you can enlist the board chair and they are bought in and they understand, then they can help change the look and the feel. And what that might mean is, unfortunately, if people don't want to embrace this new role, this new responsibility, it might mean that you're going to have to slowly change the makeup of the board. Bring on individuals who do understand their role, do understand their responsibility. But once again, the exec director needs to be bought into this and the development director needs to be brought into this as well too.
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A
And also, as we're moving towards the solution, you know, Jim, the title of this episode is Revolution. Rethinking the Leadership. Rethinking It. So we're calling it a leadership triangle.
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B
Right.
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A
And you already kind of briefly explained what the leadership triangle is. But let's talk about, let's break it down into how this leadership triangle actually functions when it comes to the role of development.
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B
Right? Absolutely.
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A
Let's start with the role of the executive director.
- [15:12]
B
Well, the executive director's role is that of CEO. They have got to be, in a sense, the captain of the ship or the king. If we're using analogies of empires and going into battle. Going into battle, the executive director is that CEO. So they're the point person and generally the person who, for most major donors, people want to be hearing from they're the ones setting the tone. They're the one crafting the vision for the organization, the director. So they need to play an important role in this because oftentimes people with money, they know they want to interface with the decision maker in that organization.
- [15:55]
A
And one of the key things that we want you to know with the executive director when it comes to development, the executive director should not and will not ever be out of development. So one of the big misconceptions is if I hire a development director, I will never have to do development again. I can wash my hands and let them do everything. And although you could do that, what we're saying is if you do that, just know that hard times are coming, right? Because your main partners, your big donors who want the relationship with the executive director, they're gonna feel like you just kicked them to the side of the road. And so really what you've learned at crew doing this 40 years is and the crew president still has people he meets with, right? I mean literally everyone in your chain of command still has development responsibilities. They have their people. And what you've learned is that everyone in the leadership triangle should have a role in development, correct?
- [16:57]
B
Yeah, they all play a function and are part of that.
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A
Well, let's talk about the role of the development director then. So if the CEO or the executive director is still in development, well then what does the development director do? How does that work?
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B
Well, in a lot of ways they are the conductor of the band. Now you've got a, you know, in any orchestra you've got a producer or director and that's your executive director. But you've got a conductor for the band and that conductor sets the system, set the process.
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A
Well, what's the band? I mean, the band is the, the
- [17:36]
B
band would be, in a sense everyone that's part of the enterprise in there. We will talk later about other functions such as development associ, development assistance. As you build your structure, your development department, that is, that's going to essentially be the band in this example, but in this little microcosm, yeah, the band really in a sense is part of that triangle. So the executive director and the board of directors at this point in this phase is kind of the band, the, the conductor of this band making sure system, services, distribution of relationships. So setting up caseloads for end individuals. That's a portfolio of major donors and who is going to have what relationships. Your largest donors are generally going to go with your executive director. Your mid level people are going to be going with Your development director and then your board of directors, which we'll talk about in just a minute, they're going to have a role and responsibility of also they, they've got a caseload or portfolio of relationships that we're going to ask them to develop.
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A
Right, right, right. And then really, you know, the development director should be trained in their responsibilities. Like, they should know what development is. They should be reading books like Development 101. They should know, you know, the four key paradigms of development. They should understand the journey of the faithful steward, the life across life across the wing, keep and lift. They should be aware of all the stuff that we're talking about. So that they're constantly beating the drum or if something gets off base, Right. Like, you know, some board member says, you know, I have a great idea, why don't we do an auction at our gala this year?
- [19:21]
B
Why don't we wash cars in conjunction with our gala?
- [19:25]
A
And the, and the development director says, oh, hold on, that doesn't fit into our strategy. And this is why. And they, they understand. Right. So they, they're the ones kind of keeping alignment with the team members. So if someone steps out of line, the development director is kind of saying, nope, that was.
- [19:42]
B
Well, one of the things we talk about is the development model. And it's a wonderful continuum, a wonderful plumb line. And why is a plumb line set up for someone in construction? It's so that they know what path to take and they don't deviate. And that's what the development director is helping do, helping ensure that things don't deviate.
- [20:04]
A
Yeah. Well, let's talk about the role of the board. So this is. You got me a little scary here because I thought board members just go to board meetings. And now you're telling me the board needs to have a role in development.
- [20:16]
B
They serve in the role of being shareholders. They are co owners of the organization. And yes, they help to set direction for the organization, but they have a fiduciary responsibility to not only make sure that you spend the money wisely and as good stewards, but that you also are raising the money in a fashion that that's wise and also biblical and in sound development principles. So it's so important that those shareholders play a role in this as well too. And that's not just giving advice. That's rolling up their sleeves and getting involved. And we use the life acrostic labor. So that's their time and their influence. That is working with relationships, connecting the dots from their friends to the Organization that's giving the f in finance, they give from their wealth and then lastly they give their expertise. So they, that is not just opinions, it's all for those elements.
- [21:21]
A
Yeah. And if your board isn't doing all four of those elements, you might want to consider asking them to step down and get some board members who are willing to give of their labor, their influence, their finances and their expertise because they need to be the leaders. They need to be setting the example. You know, there's so many situations that you and I have had where, you know, a team reluctantly joins the perfect vision there. You know, the executive director is like, I want to do it. The board's like, oh sure, if you want to do it, we'll let you do it. And then, you know, they start the process and we're like, all right, pull your board together. We're going to do this. Pull your board. You know, we expect your board to do this, this and this and this. And the board's like freaking out, you know, like what you want us to be, you know, and they have the, the attitude of like, well, we, you know, kind of like, well, you can do the perfect vision that are. Mrs. Jones, executive director. We'll just call it, call us when you, when you, when you're ready and we'll show up and the night is a dinner. Yeah, we'll show up and fill a seat for you.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And that's, that's the attitude.
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B
They've got a hands off approach. It's like they give you a rubber stamp to do it, but then they have a hands off which it can work.
- [22:29]
A
Guys. You don't realize if that's the attitude of your board, they are misunderstood. They are missing a huge component. Because your board has an opportunity to get involved. Right. If your board cares any lick of anything about your organization, they should want to get together and help you do a name storming party or stuff some envelopes to help you prepare table host packets or help you make a few phone calls to get tablehosts because they understand that we're trying to build a vision that's going to scale. Right. And if the board really understands what the vision dinner is doing, they should be excited to do the simple. There's nine ways boards can be involved in running a vision dinner. And they're not heart things. They're very simple. Like we're talking about an hour here and an hour there and maybe volunteering the night of and having a little bit. But they should be so willing to jump in and help you with those things, because they are the board. Right, Right. And if the board isn't that involved on board. Yeah. If the board isn't even that excited and they're just showing up like a guest.
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B
Right.
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A
Then guess what? But the guests are looking at the board going, well, if you're not even helping out with this thing, why should I care about it?
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B
Exactly.
- [23:53]
A
It's leading by example. And that's why the board should understand that they need to be somewhat engaged with the perfect vision there. It doesn't mean you need to do all 300 steps or you don't need to, but there's just little things that we ask board members to do. And you would not believe how many boards just have this, like, call me when you get there and I'll just show up.
- [24:16]
B
They push back. Absolutely. And you cannot. Trust me, you cannot do the perfect vision dinner strategy effectively without board's full buy in.
- [24:26]
A
Well, I mean, we have so many orgs that kind of call and they try to, like, skip the vision dinner. They're like, well, we know that you always want us to start with the vision dinner, but, like, we get that. I mean, we do an okay job. Can we just get to the winner circle and stuff?
- [24:41]
B
I think they do a great job when really they don't.
- [24:43]
A
And they're like, well, the stuff in the winter circle is what we really need help with. And we're always like, no, actually, if you can't pull off a vision dinner, because the vision dinner is going to unearth so many issues, and you're gonna. It's gonna force you. It's kind of like. Kind of like going to boot camp. Right. It's like, you know, if you join. I'm just making this up. If you wanted to join the air force, you're thinking about flying fighter jets and shooting missiles and like, you know, all these. The fun things. Right. And it's like, I want to just jump in and do that. Yeah.
- [25:14]
B
But like, now playing without the training.
- [25:16]
A
Yeah. And it's like, what's the first thing you do when you join, you know, anything in. In the military? It's like you're gonna get boot camp for, like, you know, the next six months or something, and they're gonna have you doing all this stuff that you hate. Right. And it's gonna unearth all these inner struggles that you have weaknesses. Right. So. So the perfect vision there is like the boot camp for the winner's circle. It unearths all kinds of stuff. Right. And it forces you to kind of have to deal with this. But the cool thing is that if you can work through those things and you build unity, right then at the end of it, you're like, wow, we did it. Okay, we did it. But wow, we had a lot of issues there. And then we can say, great, now that we recognize those issues exist, we can move those to the winner's circle and talk about them. But, like, you can't just jump in to the fighter jet on day one.
- [26:08]
B
That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So true.
- [26:11]
A
So, yeah. You know, Jim, this is a really great episode, rethinking the leadership triangle, the missing link to nonprofit growth. I think this will be a good episode to add to our Development 101 series. And, yeah, it's just not something that people really think about leading as a team.
- [26:28]
B
Yeah. Well, Jason, absolutely. It's got to be a coordinated effort. You can't. And I don't just say that as a development director, you have to have a coordinated team effort. You can't be out there on an island and do development effectively. It just is not, you know, your executive director, your president, they're leaders. They're the vision casters. They set the vision. Your board of directors set policy and procedures. You can't go out there and expect development to be effective. What you. Without those leadership positions.
- [27:03]
A
Well, I hope that you found that this was a helpful episode. Let us know in the comments what you think of the leadership triangle. If you've even heard of this concept before, we'd love to hear your thoughts about it. And if you decide to implement some of it or talk to your board about it, let us know how it goes in the comments. We'd love to hear from you. Shoot us an email or something and just let us know. We'd love to hear how things are going while you're in the comment section and letting us know that. You can also hit that little subscribe button and click the notification bell because you don't want to miss another episode. We've got a lot of episodes coming your way. If you're a nonprofit leader or a board member or involved in development in any way in a nonprofit, then this podcast is for you. Our title might say Fundraising Masterminds, but we're really actually all about development about what we refer to as friend raising, which is focused on relationships. So if you'd like to learn more about friend raising or development, go back. We've got over a hundred episodes of great development advice. It's all free. We're not charging anything for it, so consider it our gift to you. But once you've learned about that and you've decided to go to the next step and you would like us to help you, just know that we have three big programs. They're kind of like college programs. They're, you know, they are intensive programs. They're designed to really move the needle. And in order for us to really move the needle and make some big changes, we have a team of people that come alongside of you and help you make some big changes. So if you want to learn more about that, you can scan the QR code on the screen. That'll take you to an application where we just want to know if you're a legitimate nonprofit. And then from there, you can book a call with one of our team members, and just for 45 minutes, you can pick their brain and ask them questions, and they will be more than happy to answer your questions and share with you how we can help grow your nonprofit. Well, Jim, this has been a great episode. Thank you so much for explaining the leadership triangle.
- [29:05]
B
Yeah, well, thanks, Jason. I'll tell you, we are committed. This team is committed to helping everyone get fully funded. But this leadership triangle is an important aspect of this. This. Don't let either your board or your executive director or whatever role you have or even your development director, don't work in isolation. Don't be a solo practitioner. Utilize that biblical principle that Jethro brought to Moses in Scripture, how important it is for us to share the workload and share the relationships.
- [29:39]
A
All right, well, thank you guys so much for tuning into this episode of the Fundraising Masterminds podcast. We will see you next time.
- [29:46]
B
Take care.