Does this sound like your Board at all: You have a fundraising committee with 4 Board members, 3 staff members, and you cannot understand why the Board isn't more active in the events and asks for your organization? Your committee has a clear objective, after all, but the results aren't showing up.
At the annual conference for the Association of Fundraising Professionals held this past week, one speaker suggested getting rid of your fundraising committee. Why? With such committees, the Board gets used to the fund raising being handled by those on the committee ("that's their responsibility, not mine!"), and the Board members on the committee end up expecting the staff members to do the heavy lifting for events and such, and so it's no wonder that you might not be seeing the results you're expecting.
I agree with Jan Brazell, the speaker, that giving the Board members meaningful work helps tremendously (though I'm not sure I'm on board - ha! - with her idea of inviting other nonprofit leaders or government officials to each Board meeting to discuss local issues ... ). When I'm given a specific task to do - call Joe Smith about this, check with Acme Corp. about sponsoring this event - I'm far more likely to actually get something accomplished than when I'm asked to do something broader and less-defined such as just think about how the organization might be able to increase its revenue this year.
Throwing out the committee entirely, though, may not be the best idea for many organizations. If you can put together a committee of interested Board members who then go to the rest of the Board and give each other Board member something to do, it might be far more effective than having the fundraising discussions during the Board meeting. Some Board members just aren't as interested in brainstorming the topics that are brought up in fundraising discussions, but if someone else does the thinking and asks them to do a discrete task, they're happy to step up to the plate. So long as the whole Board is told that there is an expectation that they will help with fundraising, it seems like there is little harm in pooling together those who enjoy it to come up with the big plan and then involve the Board in the activities to complete the plan.
Sometimes it just takes having the conversation with the Board and asking them why they are not more involved in fundraising to see what you need to do. The answers might really surprise you.
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