Make Fundraising a Team Sport

For a lot of folks, springtime also means sports time – there’s March Madness, the start of the MLB, and the WNBA draft, to name a few. And, just like playing a sport successfully, to fundraise successfully, you need a strong team with players that have different but complementary skillsets.

Fundraising can often feel isolating. But when we frame fundraising as a team sport, more people can shoulder the stressors (and the joys!) of fundraising work. 

So… how do you make fundraising a team sport? You can start by developing a culture of philanthropy in your organization. This means that everyone – from your board members to your volunteers – understands that fundraising isn’t a magical skill possessed by only a select few individuals. Rather, everyone in your organization supports fundraising efforts, and everyone is a fundraiser in some way, shape, or form

Here are some examples of the different fundraising roles board members, staff, and volunteers can take on as part of your fundraising team: 

• Board members calling to thank your donors
• Non-fundraiser staff members understanding the value of individual donors when it comes to building community support for your work  
• Making sure fundraisers have a space to share updates on their work – whether that’s a standing agenda item in board meeting or a quarterly presentation to the non-fundraising staff members of your organization
• Engaging volunteers in stewardship practices, like writing thank you notes to individual donors 
• Staff members looking out for prospective donors 

When everyone in your organization is on the same fundraising team, more ideas are generated, and all team members are energized to make concrete changes within their organization and for their community. Nonprofit leaders who took part in GiveMN’s past training focused on a culture of philanthropy found that organizational alignment helped them to craft quarterly and annual fundraising plans, hire additional staff members to handle fundraising, introduce community-centric fundraising principles to their board, and more.

Developing a strong fundraising team takes work, but having one can lead to sustainable fundraising practices that ensure your organization continues to thrive for years to come. If you’d like more strategies on how to develop your organization’s culture of philanthropy, join the GiveMN team for our upcoming Learn-Along: Engaging Your Board to Grow Your Network, or check out the full slate of 2025 Learning Opportunites