April 3, 2008, 01:29 PM ET

Why Most Charity Boards Should Kill Their Fund-Raising Committees

Getting rid of boring board meetings and irrelevant board committees could have big benefits for fund raising and for the future of a nonprofit organization.

Jan F. Brazell on Wednesday told the final session of the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ annual conference in San Diego to “eliminate staff-led committees like development committees.”

Trustees on such committees see the staff fund raisers and think “here are the three suckers who will do all the work,” says Ms. Brazell, a fund-raising and management consultant in Tacoma, Wash.

Besides, she adds, the full board should be involved in fund raising, and a development committee only encourages trustees to think that, unless they’re on the committee, fund raising is not their job.

Another big problem, Ms. Brazzell says, is that trustees spend 80 or 90 percent of their time in meetings listening to dull reports about activities a charity’s staff members pursued in recent weeks or months. Instead they should be spending that amount of time discussing the organization’s future and whether it is responding appropriately to the needs of the people it serves, Ms. Brazzell says.

She recommends inviting other nonprofit leaders or government officials to speak about local issues and trends at every board meeting and holding board planning retreats to shape an organization’s future.

Trustees “get excited when they’re actually doing something,” Ms. Brazzell says. “Give the board meaningful work.”

What steps has your charity taken to get board members involved in fund raising? Share your ideas by clicking on the comment link just below this post.