Nonprofit Board Fundraising: Fundraising with an Abundance Mindset

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

10am - 11:30am CST Zoom

Workshop: $50

About this Session: As a board member, one of your responsibilities is help make sure your organization has enough resources to meet its mission. As the ED or development person, you need the involvement of your board in fulfilling their role with fundraising.

How do you approach these efforts in a way that focuses on an abundance mindset and not one of scarcity? In this interactive session, we'll discuss strategies that emphasize building relationships that are transformational, not merely transactional, all while lifting up your ability (as a board member) and your strategies (as ED and staff to encourage the board’s involvement) to ask for what is needed to ensure your organization's success.

Learning Objectives:
1. Participants will leave the session with an outline for their own capacity campaign as it relates to fundraising.
2. Participants will understand the abundance mindset and how it can enhance their fundraising efforts.

Who Should Participate: Board chairs, executive directors and development staff

About the Presenter: Mary Morten, President of Morten Group

Mary Morten is the President of Morten Group (MG), a national consulting firm established in November 2001 to focus on clients in the nonprofit, for-profit, governmental, and foundation fields.

Mary is a bridge-builder and connector guiding disparate voices toward common goals and mutual accountability. She built Morten Group with an intentional focus on assembling a multiracial, cross-generational team of professionals that remains at the heart of the firm’s commitment to social justice while centering diversity, racial equity and inclusion, executive placements, and research in its work. Mary’s podcast “Gathering Ground,” covering topics on nonprofit management, foundations, and equity and inclusion, is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts.

Previous positions include Associate Director, Interim Executive Director, and Board President of Chicago Foundation for Women, the region’s largest women’s fund, and the past Director of the Office of Violence Prevention for the Chicago Department of Public Health. Before this position, Mary was an appointee for Mayor Richard M. Daley as a Director of the Chicago Commission on Human Relations.

Recently, in collaboration with Senior Consulting Director Geneva Porter, Mary contributed to “Leading Systems Change in Public Health: A Field Guide for Practitioners.” This new book from the de Beaumont Foundation and Springer Publishing offers readers a practice-based guide that examines systems change in public health. Their chapter, “Organizational Leadership: ‘We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For,’” focuses on fostering equitable organizational change through power transfer and a grounding in community and collaboration.

Many organizations have honored Mary, ranging from Women in Film to Equality Illinois, the YWCA of Evanston/Northshore to About Face Theater. In 2020, the Public Health Institute of Metropolitan Chicago established the Mary F. Morten Justice Award to recognize Mary’s long-term work as an activist, advocate, and champion of social justice.

Mary holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications with an emphasis in radio and television from Loyola University Chicago."