Leveraging Your Board's Connections

One of the responsibilities of every board member is to help provide for the financial stability of their nonprofit. Part of that responsibility is helping you make connections with funders.

Passing around lists of the trustees of prospective foundation funders to your board can help turn up connections that your board members might not know they have. Of course, some board members are better connected than others.

As a group, lawyers who specialize in trusts and estates (T&E lawyers, for short) often have the most connections. Part of their law practice involves helping clients set up trusts and foundations, and many of them serve as foundation trustees themselves. Additionally, through professional networking, they tend to know the other important T&E lawyers in a city, who sit on other foundation boards.

So when your nonprofit board is looking for new members, point them toward T&E lawyers and make your potential network of funders grow. Want to research T&E lawyers in your town?

Try the free directory at Martindale.com.