The Development Committee
The development committee has basic responsibility for overseeing and advising on the organization’s fund-raising activities. Its main duties are to:
Set policies, priorities, and goals for fund-raising programs for the current fiscal year. Review the ongoing performance of each campaign. Review campaign achievement versus its objectives. Identify and rate all major prospects for support. Recruit key volunteer leadership and solicitors for the organization’s fund-raising campaigns.
Chairs of development committees, like development directors, must resolve the various contributed income needs of the organization without exhausting its base of support. The best development committee chairpersons are able to see the job in its entirety. They have broad vision. They don’t fall in love with one fund-raising idea, campaign, or concept at the expense of the overall development effort.My preferred development committee chairperson is a general managerial type with a strong marketing background. Ideally, this chairperson is something of an alter ego of the development director. I have been my most successful when my development chairpersons and I shared the same fund-raising vision. In a sense, the best development chairperson is a leader whom a competent development director is able to lead. The development chairperson has clout within the community that the development director is unlikely to possess, while the latter has fund-raising knowledge that is probably outside of the development chairperson’s purview. The partnership between the development chairperson and the development director works best when the professional develops the ideas and then gains the agreement of the volunteer leader, who uses his or her clout to get cooperation from the board and other volunteer campaign leaders.