There’s a quiet tension running through many charity boardrooms at the moment. Organisational budgets are stretched, engagement and policy change is getting more difficult to realise, and the conversation inevitably turns to fundraising ‘because we just need more income’. The fundraising director is asked for projections, pipelines, sometimes miracles.
But beneath those familiar questions about income, there’s a more important conversation most boards aren’t having, and it’s one that could decide the organisation’s future.
Because fundraising isn’t just about performance. It’s about culture. It’s about how organisations understand, value, and resource the people who make every pound possible.
So if you’re sitting on a charity board in 2025, here are the questions you should be asking, not just to hold your fundraising director to account, but to support them in leading the change your charity needs.
1. Are we making fundraising leadership possible, or impossible?
Too often, fundraising directors are asked to lead without being allowed to lead. They’re handed impossible targets, late investment, and decision-making processes that exclude them until it’s too late to matter.
Boards should be asking:
Do we truly empower our fundraising leader to shape strategy — or do we just expect them to deliver one they didn’t design?
Real leadership in fundraising means giving space, trust, and voice. It means bringing your fundraising director into the earliest strategic conversations, not the clean-up meetings once budgets are set.
2. What story are we asking our fundraisers to tell?
Fundraising is storytelling, but too many charities forget that stories start inside the building.
Ask:
Is our mission clear and compelling enough that fundraisers can tell it with confidence? Or are they constantly rewriting it to fill gaps left by our strategy, our governance, or our indecision?
When fundraisers have to reinvent the story every quarter, you don’t have a fundraising problem, you have a leadership problem. Boards should help define and protect that narrative so fundraisers can use it consistently and powerfully.
3. What are we doing to understand the donor experience, not just the income line?
Income tells you what happened. Donor experience tells you why it happened. Boards often scrutinise numbers but not relationships. Yet the most successful fundraising organisations are those that obsess over the donor journey… the emotional connection, the sense of belonging, the clarity of purpose.
Ask:
How do we listen to donors? or, When was the last time anyone on this board read a thank-you letter or donor email?
Because if you want loyal supporters, you need to model loyalty yourself.
4. Do we have the right conditions for fundraising success?
The best fundraising strategies fail in the wrong environments.
No amount of skill or creativity can survive a culture that treats fundraising as a necessary nuisance.
Boards should look beyond targets and ask:
Do we celebrate fundraising success as a collective achievement or do we treat it as someone else’s job? or, Do our systems, budgets, and leadership decisions enable good fundraising or obstruct it?
Fundraising thrives on clarity, collaboration, and confidence. It dies in confusion, competition, and control.
5. Are we investing in our fundraising future or just maintaining the present?
The UK charity sector has spent the last decade trying to do more with less. Many teams are now running on fumes and are stretched, under-trained, and reactive.
The next big question for boards is simple:
Where are we placing our bets?
Investment in fundraising isn’t a cost; it’s an act of belief in your own mission. That might mean funding better data systems, insight research, or staff development. It might mean giving your fundraising director permission to fail intelligently, to test, learn, and grow.
Whatever form it takes, investment is a signal. It says to your team ‘we believe in you, and we believe in fundraising.’
6. What does success look like... and does everyone agree?
In too many charities, “success” depends on who you ask. For finance, it’s surplus. For programmes, it’s reach. For fundraising, it’s income.
Boards should ask the question that unites all three:
What impact are we trying to make, and how does fundraising enable it?
When everyone sees fundraising as central to mission delivery, not just a means to an end, alignment happens naturally. Targets stop feeling like pressure and start feeling like purpose.
7. What do our fundraisers need from us right now?
Maybe the most important question of all.
Ask it honestly. Then stop talking and listen. You might hear about systems that don’t work, processes that stifle ideas, or opportunities that keep being missed because of approval bottlenecks.
You might hear fatigue. You might hear frustration.
But you’ll also hear ideas, energy, and hope if you make it safe to speak.
Because fundraisers don’t need sympathy, they need allies. They need boards who believe in them enough to ask better questions and act on the answers.
Fundraising isn’t just a line in your budget. It’s the heartbeat of your organisation’s future.
Every decision you make as a board – what you prioritise, what you reward, what you ignore – sends a message about how much you value that heartbeat.
So ask better questions.
Support your fundraising director like the leader they are.
Because the difference between surviving and thriving often begins not with a new campaign, but with a better conversation in the boardroom.