09/03/2026
Every person you put on your nonprofit's board is supposed to either give money themselves or go raise it from people they know.
That's what “give-get” means, and it's a normal part of sitting on a board in this sector.
The problem is that a lot of founders don't know that when they're starting out, so they put a few friends on the board, and nobody ever says the money part out loud.
Then a year in they've got a board that comes to meetings and votes on things but has never brought in a dollar.
If someone can't write a check themselves, that's fine, plenty of good board members can't. But then you ask them to raise it instead, from their own network.
What you can't do is let people join without knowing that's the deal, because for a small nonprofit that money is a huge part of how you survive.