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As a researcher, I find that most of the leadership books written for nonprofit organizations have shortcomings on the role of the executive director in fundraising. Primarily, the executive director inspires the vision of the organization and leads the fundraising. There are five key leadership ingredients to spark fundraising energy.
The first one is self-awareness, which calls for the executive director to be real, accessible, strong-willed, wise, and able to influence others. He should exhibit confidence, owing to mistakes, emotionally stable, good interpersonal skills, and intellectual understanding. Donors are motivated to give to an organization whose leader they know and trust.
Second, the sense of reality is key to fundraising. The executive director should have dual roles to play: establish a realistic vision and empower people to follow him. Fundraising involves the reality of money coming from donors and the reality of time dedicated to building fundraising programs.
The third ingredient is courage. The executive director must courageously create ideas and take risks. He should investigate situations that require leadership response and move on to solve those problems. Innovation or change requires skills to navigate complex and ambiguous situations. It involves collaboration that works in tandem with internal and external partnerships.
Fourth, compassion and passion are other keys to fundraising. The executive director should figure out what it takes to motivate, appreciate, and congratulate others for their achievements. It would help retain those with a passion to remain in the organization because they will find meaning and faith in their work. Your interpretation of compassion and passion should align with the sector of your organization.
Lastly, in ethical conscience followers always look for leaders who are honest, have integrity, conscientious, and fair-minded. However, it is very difficult to teach ethics since ethics considers personal and societal judgements. Ethics must be learned through experience to discern ethical situations for prompt action.
Leaders who are grounded in ethical principles are catalysts for excellence, caring, justice, and faith
Karla Williams in her book Leading the Fundraising Charge.
By virtue of being in the position of executive director, everyone’s eyes will be on you both inside and outside the organization; they will examine your behavior, reaffirming or questioning it.
Connecting increases your influence in every situation. Experts say that we are daily bombarded with about thirty-five thousand messages—emails, billboards, televisions, movies, newspapers—demanding our attention. We also send messages to others longing for their attention. But only messages that are communicated effectively are accounted for; the rest fail to get across. The key to effective communication is connecting, which is learnable. Good leadership and communication at all levels depend on connecting.
Connecting is the “ability to identify with people and relate to them in a way that increases your influence with them,
John Maxwell
Getting along with neighbors, excelling in marital relationships and friendships depend on connecting. Even at work, connecting is the number one criterion for promotion.
Research has found that the most successful United States’ presidents exhibited five qualities: vision, pragmatism, consensus building, charisma, and trustworthiness. Among these qualities, four of them have to do with the ability to communicate on different levels.
Contrarily, President Bush’s “inability to connect alienated people and colored everything he did as president,” Maxwell explains. Failing to connect can destroy every good thing you have done.
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Today, the stability of an organization is often seen as stagnation. Uncertainty is frightening organizations that were traditionally stable.
Peter Drucker, the father of modern management says, as quoted by Cameron and Quinn, in their book Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture. “We are in one of those 200 or 300 years when people don’t understand the world anymore, and the past is not sufficient to explain the future.” The unpredictability of the changes in the world today makes it difficult for organizations to stay current or accurately predict the future.
Studies have found cultural neglect as the greatest reason why organizations fail. The culture of organizations needs to be managed using six conditions to lead to financial success. Firstly, the presence of high barriers such as high cost, special technology, proprietary knowledge, or competitors blocks entry into the market. Secondly, the condition of non-substitutable products—firm products that are not easily duplicated or imitated by competitors—will bring more revenues. Thirdly, the firm can capitalize on economies of scale and efficiencies when large market shares contribute to it. Fourthly, if the level of bargaining power is low, customers will depend on the firm without any alternative. Fifthly, when suppliers depend on your firmwithout any alternative, there is low bargaining and your firm will have more revenues. Lastly, if there is rivalry among competitors, it deflects attention from your company, enabling you to focus and raise the standard of your performance.
