GuideStar The Fired-Up Board: Preparing Your Board Members for Fundraising

Guidestar is a great source for articles and tips on a wide variety of nonprofit topics. The most recent newsletter has great articles - The Fired-Up Board: Preparing Your Board Members for Fundraising. The main focus of the article is developing board fundraising skills and enthusiasm. The article also contains some good advice about your board meetings.

Focus the agenda on results. Decide what is needed most out of the meeting and tell your board members: "By the end of this meeting, we need to accomplish x, y, and z." That will get their attention.
Focus on problems, challenges, or ambiguous issues. This approach will activate your board members' various backgrounds and skills sets, not to mention their interest. It will allow you to draw upon a deeper reservoir of their talent and energy and will give them more interesting work.
Plan big. Bring big-picture strategic planning issues into regular board meetings. For example, work SWOT analysis (strategic planning focusing on organizational strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) into regular meeting agendas.
Look at your board meetings as cheerleading sessions designed to fire up your board members and put them into action."

I firmly endorse these tips. Town of Nags Head board meetings always opened with succes stories and recognition of successes in the organization. We also focused on our partnerships with the nonprofit community. This emphasis helped citizens see the town as more than just faceless bureaucracy, it gave us a face and a story. In the end it made us human and more approachable.