Making "Be an Ambassador" a Clearer Assignment

In the past few weeks, I've done Board Ambassador Workshops with two community foundations. One was virtual, with Otsego Community Foundation in Michigan, and one was in person with the Community Foundation of the Fox River Valley in Illinois.

Between the two, there were more than two dozen board members in the room or on Zoom, each with their own network of business owners, attorneys, financial advisors, nonprofit leaders, neighbors and friends. Their circles add up to lot of people who could be hearing about the foundation, and I think most community foundations are only tapping a small part of it.

Board members are already out having conversations where the foundation could naturally come up. The problem is that “be an ambassador” is a pretty vague assignment. A lot of board members hold back because they're worried someone will ask about fees or the difference between fund types, and they'll look like they don't know their own foundation. So they don't bring it up at all.

We spent a good part of both workshops making the assignment more practical.

We talked about the board member's role as a bridge between people in the community and foundation staff. They don't need to remember every fund type or answer questions about fees. They need to know enough to recognize when the foundation might be useful, share an example that helps the person understand what's possible and then connect them with staff.

You could see that was a relief for some of them. They didn't have to become mini foundation executives. They just needed to pay attention, know a few good stories and be willing to make an introduction.

And there were plenty of stories already sitting in the room. At Otsego, board members talked about funding fourth-grade swim lessons, a fishing club that grew with foundation support and a family whose experience eventually led to a fund for free ultrasounds for expecting mothers.

At Fox River Valley, we heard about a business owner who uses the community foundation to handle the steady stream of donation and sponsorship requests he gets. Another had a conversation at the gym that eventually led to a grant for a local organization. Staff shared how a conversation with a financial advisor led to an introduction, then more conversations and eventually a $1 million gift.

Those examples are a lot easier to remember and repeat than a list of fund types. They also make it easier for board members to recognize when something similar comes up in their own conversations.

There are smaller ways to help, too. One board member said she'd happily invite people to her house, put out wine and cheese, have foundation staff over and let them do the talking. Others were comfortable introducing staff to their financial advisors, sharing a foundation post, bringing someone along to an event or wearing their foundation name tag when they're out in the community.

None of this is especially complicated, but across a whole board it adds up. Otsego has 14 board members. If each one has one more conversation about the foundation each month, that's 168 conversations a year. Fox River Valley has 17, so that's 204. Most of those won't go anywhere, and that's fine. It only takes one of them turning into the kind of introduction that leads to a $1 million gift.

Lori