Dear [First Name],

I am so excited to announce that my new website, BrianSaber.com, is now live!

While all of you know about my work at Asking Matters, many don't know that I also offer a wide range of consulting, training, and speaking services for nonprofits.

I’m incredibly fortunate to have spent my career in the nonprofit world, a world with important values and strong community. I’ve worked with more than 150 individual organizations over the past 30 years, and have conducted more than 200 training sessions. I’ve also presented 600+ webinars for a range of online audiences. If you want to learn more about my services and how I may be able to help your organization, please visit BrianSaber.com and reach out to me!

This fall, would you like to:

• Be more strategic by setting up a basic individual cultivation and solicitation program?
• Increase your board’s personal giving and their involvement in fundraising?

We all have our own leadership style, and the Asking Styles can give you some clues as to your board chair’s style. Once you know their Style, you can better understand their leadership decisions and figure out the best way to support and complement their leadership style:

Rainmakers: Excel at keeping their eye on the prize and keeping the conversation high-level and strategic. However, they aren’t big on process and need help ensuring everyone around the table feels their views have been heard and validated.

Go-Getters: Good at finding creative solutions when the board is stuck, and win the day on enthusiasm and a sense of the greater vision. Can be challenged keeping order, ending discussion when appropriate, and keeping focused on the matter of the day.

Kindred Spirits: Make sure everyone feels heard and validated, and always bring focus back to the people being impacted. Their dislike of “confrontation” can interfere with their ability to move agendas ahead and keep board members from derailing conversations.

Mission Controllers: Bring order and detail to the role, and come to meetings uber-prepared and ready to run a tight ship. They can sometimes be too rigid in not allowing for the natural rhythm of discussions, and can be thrown when things veer off course.

Speaking with the graduate theater management students at the Yale School of Drama has become a highlight of the fall. Many thanks to Andy Hamingson for inviting me each year to discuss the Asking Styles and individual gift fundraising with these talented young theater professionals.

This past weekend I lead a staff retreat for The Drama League. As the only national organization 100% focused on supporting directors in their careers, they are of pivotal importance not only to the theatre world, but to film, advertising and more.

We used the Asking Styles as a prism through which to discuss how to work together collegially. How do we ask for the things we need to do our jobs ? What are our challenges in asking others for what we need? Many of the retreat attendees had recently seen their first live production in 18 months and it was so great swapping stories and sharing our relief that live theatre is back.

If you're interested in having me conduct a training at your organization, reach out to me at brian@askingmatters.com or learn more at BrianSaber.com!
 

Brian

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