If you are involved in facilitating an advancement-related advisory group for your organization, the following 5 questions are critical to getting the most out of their engagement:
- What is the topic on which you are seeking their advice, perspective, feedback? Having a specific topic-focused theme for each advisory group meeting is an essential starting point. A specific, but broad-enough topic – such as, “Engaging our community,” or “Marketing our programs,” offers a framework for the meeting and the ways in which the advisory group can help.
- What is the context for this topic? One of the reasons advisory group members tell us they enjoy serving is that the advisory group gives them the opportunity to learn about topics they don’t encounter in their normal, professional or everyday lives. Inviting an expert (either on staff or from the outside) to share what is occurring with “community engagement,” or “program marketing” beyond your organization is educational for advisory group members and also helps provide context to the questions you will want to ask them.
- What is the problem or the opportunity? For the topic or theme of the meeting, define for the advisory group what the specific issues, concerns, or opportunities your organization is experiencing. For example, you might say, “Our community and business leaders are not as involved with our special events as we would like.”
- What is our plan? Sharing with your advisory group what you are currently doing and plan to do to address the concerns, the problems, the issues, and/or opportunities you identified helps them understand your current strategy and thinking.
- What should we consider as we implement our plan? Having precise, specific questions you pose to your advisory group is another critical element to the success of each meeting. A general question such as, “What should we do?” is not nearly as helpful as a more focused question, such as, “Reflecting on the broader themes mentioned during the earlier presentation and understanding our current strategies, what are opportunities you see that we are not yet pursuing?”
Advisory groups can be helpful not only because smart, successful people can have perspectives on important topics we may not have considered. Additionally, though, the engagement process for advisory groups can educate them, involve them, and share with them a sense of ownership for our organization’s success.
When we do that advancement work well, more talented, capable, and influential people come to view supporting our mission as a priority for their own lives.
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