About Friends of County Parks
The Friends of the County Parks, established in 1988, is a group of concerned citizens joining together to promote financial and community support to the Hillsborough County Parks, Recreation, and Conservation Department. They develop public awareness of recreation as an important part of day-to-day life.
Funds provided by The Friends of the County Parks are used as a supplement to the Parks, Recreation and Conservation Department budget and does not replace allocated tax dollars. These additional funds helps maintain, improve, and enhance services provided by the Parks, Recreation and Conservation Department. The Friends of the County Parks enjoys a 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit exemption status.
“I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my
friends, my goddamned friends, they’re the ones who keep me walking the floor at night!”
Woodrow Wilson
This paper will consider the use of affiliated entities — commonly referred to as friends
groups, associations, foundations or advisory councils — to provide financial support to
nonprofit and governmental organizations. Many nonprofit and governmental
organizations have relationships with tax-exempt organizations whose principal or, in
some cases, sole purpose (either directly or indirectly) is to provide financial support to
the principal organization. While these groups can be a vital fundraising resource for the
principal organization, in practice their effectiveness is often quite limited.
The relationship between friends groups and the organizations with which they are
affiliated is fraught with potential problems which, if not properly managed, can be
counterproductive and, in extreme cases, can even be harmful to the principal
organization. In this paper I will examine how friends groups are organized and the ways
in which they relate to the organizations which they are intended to support. Case studies
involving two historical society friends groups will be described and compared. I will
conclude by outlining some best practices for maximizing the effectiveness of fundraising
through friends groups. To be effective, friends groups must be structured and managed
in a way that allows them to establish and maintain effective partnerships with the
principal organization.
What Are Friends For?
Friends groups are a familiar part of many nonprofit organizations. Friends groups have a
long tradition as part of certain educational and cultural institutions, including private
colleges and universities, and museums. Harvard University, for example, has established
friends groups for each of its intercollegiate sports teams. The groups provide funding for
travel, recruiting and other specific needs of their affiliated team. Increasingly, friends
groups are also encountered in connection with governmental and quasi-governmental
organizations, including public universities, state historical organizations, park and
recreational management agencies, and libraries. Friends groups typically provide
financial and, in some cases, programmatic support (usually in the form of volunteers and
in connection with special events) to a single principal organization or its subsidiaries.
While both nonprofit and governmental organizations are increasingly relying on friends
groups for financial support, the motivation for entering into these relationships is quite
different. Private nonprofit organizations typically use friends groups as one method of
enhancing the organization’s ongoing development efforts. By creating opportunities for
greater participation and broader support from constituent groups, friends groups can be
an effective way to create opportunities for fundraising and for the cultivation of major
donors. For this reason, friends groups in private nonprofit organizations often have a
specific programmatic focus. For example, a museum friends group may host special
donor recognition events, raise money for specific purposes such as purchasing items for
the collection, subsidize a newsletter, organize exhibit previews, provide volunteers for
certain events and programs, or administer a museum shop. This support is provided in
exchange for a range of benefits — invitations to social events, private previews of
exhibitions, concessions, publication and other special events and activities. In some
cases, membership in a friends group is a perk derived from a certain level of giving to
the nonprofit organization. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, for example, does both — it
offers membership at a friends level, and also maintains a friends group which organizes
lectures and other programs.
In contrast to nonprofit friends groups, the use of friends groups by governmental and
quasi-governmental organizations is primarily structural. For these organizations, friends
groups provide a mechanism for overcoming some of the limitations faced by
governmental and quasi-governmental organizations. Faced with declining state and
federal support, governmental and quasi-governmental organizations in particular have
been forced to look to nontraditional sources of support. In “The Institutionally Related
Foundation” Royster C. Hedgepeth explains that public universities originally began
establishing affiliated nonprofit organizations for a variety of practical reasons, such as
being able to take advantage of marketplace opportunities without having to wait on the
state appropriations process, and to preserve the separation between state treasuries and
private gifts. For these organizations, using friends groups was a way to avoid
bureaucratic procedures and governmentally imposed restrictions.
According to Hedgepeth, the roles of friends groups in governmental and quasi-
governmental organizations have changed dramatically. “In many cases, the
institutionally related foundation has become analogous to the private university’s
development office.” While there is no prohibition against making charitable donations to
public institutions, friends groups allow publicly supported organizations two principal
advantages — they allow public institutions to segregate funds which would otherwise end
up in general treasury accounts, and they make it possible to apply for grants and take
advantage of other opportunities offered only to charitable organizations.
Today many governmental and quasi-governmental organizations have established friends
groups. Most public colleges and universities have friends groups. Most state-run historical
organizations have instituted friends groups. Some of these groups support state historical
functions on a statewide level, while others help to facilitate support for particular state-
owned museums and historical sites. The Friends of Libraries U.S.A. provides resources
for establishing public library friends groups. The Library of Congress alone has seven
friends groups, each aligned with a separate division.
A growing number of federal and state parks and recreation organizations have also
instituted programs to encourage the development of friends groups. The U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service has established a program which encourages the creation of friends
groups. The USFWS describes a “Refuge Support (Friends) Group” as “a grassroots
organization formed by citizens who have a shared vision to support their local National
Wildlife Refuge or other Service facility.” These groups are diverse, with each focusing on
the needs of their local refuge or other Service site. According to the USFWS, these
groups “join with Service personnel in a partnership that seeks to accomplish mutually
defined goals.” The National Park Service has established a similar program. According to
the NPS website, “during the past twenty years more than one hundred Park Friends
Groups have been created to assist parks in supporting needed park programs and
projects that have been beyond the reach of appropriated dollars.” NPS Park Friends
Groups support a wide range of park activities through fundraising, membership
programs, “friend raising” and advocacy. The NPS website contains information on setting
up a friends group, as well as information on maintaining effective relationships between
NPS parks and friends groups.
Whether established as an extension of a nonprofit organization’s fundraising and
development efforts, or by a governmental or quasi-governmental organization as an
externalized development office, managing friends groups presents a unique set of
management challenges. These challenges may be the greatest in the governmental and
quasigovernmental organization, where friends groups represent a conflict between
nonprofit and governmental cultures and where concerns about bureaucratic control are
most prevalent.
The Trouble with Friends
The relationship between primary organizations and associated friends groups is often
contentious. The problems encountered by organizations with their friends groups fall into
two main categories — those which involve organizational structure, and those which
involve personal relationships.
The role that a given friends group plays vis-à-vis the principal organization and the
effectiveness of that role has a lot to do with the organizational structure of the two
entities and how they interrelate. Often this structure is the result of historical accident. In
governmental and quasi-governmental organizations in particular, the organizational
structure may reflect the history of the organization and the way in which the friends
groups are expected to meet the financial needs of the principal organization. In some
cases, this organizational structure and the relationships it creates may actually make it
more difficult or even impossible for the friends group to function as an effective
development arm for the principal organization.
Hedgepeth has identified three elements which need to be examined to understand the
structural relationship of a friends group to its principal organization: the range of
development-related functions for which the friends group is responsible; the scope of the
friends group’s service within the organization; and the degree of integration in the
priorities of the friends group and the principal organization.
The range represents the degree of autonomy of the friends group — ranging from
extreme control to complete independence. Friends groups which operate with a high
degree of oversight from their principal organization may be more integrated into the
principal organization’s development process, but this integration comes at the cost of
autonomy. At this extreme, the friends group may function simply as a repository for an
organization’s funds, with no active role in generating those funds. While this may seem
satisfactory to the principal organization, it can seriously limit the friends group’s
effectiveness. A high degree of oversight and control can affect the friends group’s ability
to attract quality board members, prevent friends board members from exercising their
fiduciary duties to the friends group, and even jeopardize the friends group’s tax-exempt
status. On the other hand, a high degree of independence may result in the friends group
pursuing a mission unrelated to that of the principal organization. Too much independence
can result in animosity, distrust and a lack of communication between the friends group
and the principal organization. At either extreme in the range, the relationship between
principal organizations and their friends groups risks becoming dysfunctional.
The scope of the friends group has to do with its relationship within the larger
organization. In some organizations, the friends group serves the entire organization,
while in other cases the friends group may only serve a component part of the
organization. Friends groups which serve the entire organization can achieve economies of
scale but may lack the ability to understand and respond to the specific needs of
particular departments within the organization. In organizations with multiple friends
groups, there may be a danger of provincialism — individual friends groups may compete
for resources and work at cross-purposes. Where an organization has multiple friends
groups, balancing the interests and needs of component parts of the organization with the
greater needs of the organization as a whole can be difficult.
Integration involves the degree to which the missions of the principal organization and the
friends group are aligned. Friends groups with a high degree of autonomy risk becoming
disconnected from the principal organization’s mission and programming. However, a high
degree of control by the principal organization over the operations of the friends group
does not necessarily mean that the missions of the two organizations are integrated.
Integration requires a mutually shared strategic vision. Friends groups that are well
integrated are more successful at pursuing the principal organization’s development
agenda. The effectiveness of a friends group in providing financial support to a principal
organization depends upon balancing autonomy and control, coordination of efforts, and a
clear understanding of and support for the principal organization’s mission.
Organizational structure is at the heart of most difficulties with friends groups. The biggest
problems often arise from the isolation of the development function assigned to the
friends group from the principal organization’s programmatic and administrative role.
Friends groups are often expected to exercise development functions while being routinely
excluded from involvement in programming and organizational management. As a result,
they are often unable to fulfill their development function and to exercise the level of
stewardship that Hank Rosso has indicated is essential to effective fundraising. Friends
groups are also sometimes inappropriately used as ways to “off-load” the principal
organization’s systemic problems. In some situations, the isolation of the development
function in friends groups is the result of the principal organization’s board’s unwillingness
to face their own fundraising obligations. Even in benign situations, the presence of a
friends group may reduce incentives for a principal organization’s board to actively engage
in fundraising themselves.
Maintaining positive personal relationships is central to the success of friends groups. The
importance of both internal and external relationships cannot be understated. Friends
groups are usually volunteer organizations while the principal organization is likely
managed by professional staff. Particularly in governmental and quasi-governmental
organizations, the cultural differences between the people who make up the principal
organization and the friends group can be substantial. Paid staff must understand and
appreciate the motivations of volunteers. A lack of appreciation for nonprofit board
fiduciary obligations and the motivations of volunteer board members can damage the
relationship between friends groups and their principal organizations.
Friends groups are often representatives of the community in which the principal
organization works. The members of friends groups often have special relationships in the
philanthropic community. While these relationships can be valuable to the principal
organization, care must be taken not to place excessive demands on those relationships
or the principal organization will risk damaging its relationship with the members of
friends groups.
Tom Costello, a principal of the consulting firm Cultural Resource Management Group, has
been involved with a variety of friends groups through the years including the Kennedy
Center’s Camelot Circle, the St. Louis Art Museum Foundation, and the Friends of Historic
Springfield Massachusetts. Costello explains that the problems that arise between
organizations and their friends groups are not unlike those encountered by an
organization’s executive director in dealing with his or her board. He says he has heard
many executive directors say that “it would be a lot easier if I did not have to work with a
board.” Such wishful thinking ignores the positive role that boards and friends groups can
play in an organization’s development. “There will always be politics of various kinds,”
says Costello. “The key is to give a lot of leeway but set up constraints.” Successful
relationships between organizations and their friends groups involve “working together,
not working at odds,” according to Costello. It helps if the two organizations respect each
other’s independent organizational needs but share a common mission and vision.
A Tale of Two Friends
In most states, historical functions are administered through quasi-governmental
organizations. These organizations typically rely on friends groups to provide financial and
volunteer support. In some states, friends groups are organized at specific state-run sites
or museums. In others, one or more friends groups provide support for the historical
organization at a statewide level. The following two case studies involving state historical
organizations and their affiliated friends groups illustrate some of the difficulties
encountered with friends groups. These two case studies provide contrasting approaches
to these problems. In Pennsylvania, the state historical organization has imposed a
“command and control” approach to the relationship with their historic site friends groups.
In Michigan, the statewide friends group has taken steps to “decouple” itself from the
Michigan History Center and to assert its own independent identity.
The Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission The Pennsylvania Historical and
Museum Commission (PHMC) is an independent state commission which oversees the
Commonwealth’s principal state historical functions, including a state archives, historic
preservation office, and managing a state museum and twenty-four historical sites
throughout the state.
PHMC has had a long tradition of collaboration with nonprofit organizations and with
friends groups. PHMC has a centralized statewide nonprofit affiliate — the Pennsylvania
Heritage Society — which offers memberships, publishes a history magazine, and operates
a bookstore. In addition, beginning in 1985 the PHMC established formal friends groups
(called “Associates”) at each of its museums and historical sites. Previously ad hoc groups
were affiliated with certain individual sites. According to Donna Williams, head of PHMC’s
Bureau of Museums and Sites until 2007, some of those ad hoc groups competed with
each other and with the PHMC for resources.
Today each friends group is organized as a separate 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable
organization and is affiliated with a particular historical site managed by the PHMC. The
board of each friends group is composed of volunteer members of the community. The
site director of the historic site is designated as an ex officio member of the friends’ group
board. The relationship between the PHMC and each friends group is governed by a formal
licensing agreement and through budgetary and programmatic oversight imposed by the
PHMC. The relationship between PHMC and its friends groups reflects a high degree of
control by the PHMC. Although a Council of Friends was in existence for a time, there is
currently little coordination between the historic site friends groups themselves or
between those groups as a whole and the PHMC’s statewide support group, the Heritage
Society. In practice, the site director at each museum and historical site exerts a large
degree of authority over management of the friends group at that site.
The organizational structure of the PHMC’s historic site friends groups and the relationship
between the friends group and PHMC site management create a number of problems
which hamper the effectiveness of these groups as supporting organizations. For example,
the site director’s involvement in the friends group as an ex officio member of the board
creates a potential conflict of interest. In one situation the author is familiar with, the site
director refused to provide information pertaining to the licensing agreement between the
friends group and the PHMC which was in the process of being renegotiated at that time.
This prevented members of the friends’ group board, including the author, from fully
exercising their fiduciary duties to the board. The site director’s involvement in decision-
making for the friends group, particularly in relation to development efforts, is also
problematic. The author is familiar with several situations in which the site director made
unilateral decisions about which grants to pursue and how to increase memberships, in
some cases overruling decisions made by the friends group board.
The friends group’s role in employment at the historic site is another concern. At some
PHMC sites, the friends group employs part- or full-time staff. In one case the author is
familiar with, the friends group employed a full time development officer. However, as a
practical matter the development officer reported not to the board but to the site manager
and was in effect the site manager’s office assistant. Although attempts were made to
change this, the political reality was that because the site director exerted day-to-day
management authority at the site, he was viewed as the director for both PHMC and
friends group employees. Similarly, while PHMC friends groups are legally responsible for
volunteers at the site, as a practical matter management of these volunteers is handled
by the PHMC’s site educator. PHMC friends groups also typically hire independent
contractors to provide interpretive programming at the site, but have little say in how
their activities are managed.
Perhaps the most serious problem with PHMC friends groups is that while they are
ultimately responsible for many of the liabilities of running the museum site, they do not
have a direct role in management of the site. The site director, who makes management
decisions at the site, does not report to the friends group board but to the PHMC. Thus the
historic site friends group boards are given most of the liabilities but none of the authority
needed to manage the site.
This problem is driven home by the precarious financial position imposed on PHMC friends
groups. Under the terms of their licensing agreements, with certain exceptions for
particular sites, these groups are not allowed to carry forward budget surpluses from year
to year. In addition, pursuant to the terms of their licensing agreements, these friends
groups may be shut down by the PHMC at any time. Due to the seasonal nature of many
PHMC historic sites, friends groups typically run deficits during slow periods and routinely
use lines of credit to manage cash flow. This practice keeps the friends group from being
able to make independent financial decisions, and exposes friends’ board members to
serious personal financial risk because as board members they are individually liable for
the debts of the friends group.
The lack of autonomy also raises questions about the validity of tax-exempt status of the
PHMC friends groups. Despite interviewing PHMC’s legal counsel and others, the author
has not been able to determine that any legal analysis of the impact of the licensing
agreements and organizational structure of these friends groups on the validity of their
501(c)(3) tax-exempt status has been undertaken. It is no surprise, then, that community
members are hesitant to provide volunteer or financial support to many of the PHMC’s
friends groups.
Although the relationship between the PHMC and its friends groups has not been without
controversy, they are viewed by the PHMC as an important alternative source of revenue
in the face of diminishing state funding. According to Donna Williams, head of the PHMC’s
Bureau of Museums and Sites until 2007, “These support groups (associates or friends)
have become an essential component of our program, and overall, they generate about
30% of our operating budget.” However, the importance of friends groups as a source of
revenue may be overstated. A large portion of the income generated by the PHMC’s
friends groups is derived from site-specific admissions revenue which would otherwise go
into a designated fund administered by the state treasurer. With regard to admissions
revenue, it is the author’s understanding that the PHMC’s friends groups do not actually
generate additional revenue — in reality PHMC’s friends groups simply allow the PHMC to
redirect revenues to which it is already entitled. In addition to admissions revenue, PHMC
friends groups generate revenues through the operation of museum stores, special events
and, at some sites, through facilities rentals and the sale of goods created on site. While
these activities are a potential source of additional revenues, the income they currently
generate is typically modest at best, and is largely offset by expenses, including expenses
which are not fully accounted for, such as staff and volunteer hours.
Friends of Michigan History
The Michigan History Center was the result of a governmental reorganization and
consolidation effort in 2001-2002 in which the state’s principal historical functions were
brought together in one centralized location. The Michigan History Center houses six state
agencies which administer various aspects of Michigan’s public history programs, including
the state’s historic preservation office, archives, and thirteen state-run museums as well
as the State Museum in Lansing.
The Michigan History Center has two friends groups — the Michigan History Center
Foundation and the Friends of Michigan History. The organization and culture of these two
associated support groups could not be more different. The Michigan History Center
Foundation was established by the Michigan History Center to raise private funds and
foster private and public support for the Michigan Historical Center’s state museum,
archival, archeological, historic preservation, publication, and heritage education
programs. These funds typically come from larger contributors, including corporations,
foundations and wealthy individuals, and from an annual fundraising gala. The Michigan
History Center Foundation is governed by a board of directors which includes the head of
the state’s Department of History, Arts and Libraries, the Director of the Michigan History
Center, and the head of the State Board of Education, among others. The Michigan History
Center Foundation has a paid Executive Director and two paid support staff.
The Friends of Michigan History was originally formed in 1991 to provide support for the
Michigan Historical Center programs and state-run museums. The Friends financial
support comes through memberships, smaller individual donations, and several
fundraising events held throughout the year. The Friends of Michigan History is governed
by an independent volunteer board and has no paid staff.
Maintaining positive relationships between these three groups has been a challenge.
According to Francis R. “Bus” Spaniola, President of the Friends of Michigan History, the
two friends groups “have been at loggerheads from the beginning.” The tensions between
these two organizations arose from their overlapping missions and as a result of
expectations and demands placed on each other and by the state-run Michigan History
Center. Disagreement over the relationship between the Michigan History Center
Foundation and the Friends of Michigan History, how the Friends supports the Michigan
History Center, and their financial support for historical organizations other than the
Michigan History Center, has caused some “real arguments” between the three groups,
according to Spaniola. In part these disputes are procedural. For example, Spaniola says
Michigan History Center employees complain about having to provide documentation in
order to be reimbursed for conference travel expenses from the Friends.
However, the real tensions appear to be the result of disagreements about the mission of
the Friends of Michigan History, its assertions of independence from the Michigan History
Center, and its relationship to the Michigan History Center Foundation. In the President’s
Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2006/2007, Spaniola referred to these disputes, noting that
a “significant amount of energy was directed to the resolution of this problem, which
unfortunately diverted attention from our normal support operations.”
In an interview with the author, Spaniola explained that a change in leadership of the
Michigan History Center gave the parties the opportunity to hammer out a basic
understanding of the relationship and responsibilities of each of the parties. As a result,
the Friends of Michigan History revised its Articles and Bylaws to clarify that its mission is
to support not just the Michigan History Center but also to provide assistance to other
historical organizations throughout the state. In this way, the Friends have asserted their
independence from the Michigan History Center and positioned themselves to be a stand-
alone organization whose mission is to support historical organizations statewide. In
addition to addressing the fundamental dispute between the three organizations about
their relationship and role in supporting historical organizations in Michigan, the Friends of
Michigan History’s assertion of independence is also important from a tax perspective — it
affirms the Friends’ status as an independently run nonprofit organization in conformance
with IRS requirements.
While asserting its independence, the Friends of Michigan History has also found ways to
strengthen its relationship with both the Foundation and the History Center through
collaborative efforts. For example, they have structured an agreement with the Michigan
History Center Foundation by which the Foundation provides some bookkeeping services
to the Friends. In addition, whenever the Foundation receives a donation it purchases a
membership in the Friends, which in turn provides membership benefits to the donor,
including copies of their award-winning history magazine. The Friends continues to
support, often in partnership with the Foundation and with other funders, programs and
exhibits presented by the History Center. The annual Statehood Day is an example of how
the History Center and the Friends work together — the programming is put together by
museum staff while the Friends provide money for speakers and pay reception costs.
The Friends have also found ways to develop partnerships with other organizations. They
have entered into an agreement with a local credit union to extend credit union
membership benefits to Friends members. They are also developing an Affiliate program
by which individual museum friends groups can collaborate with the Friends of Michigan
History to share membership dues. In the end, the successful resolution of the Friends
dispute with the History Center and the Foundation lies in clearly defining the relationship
between the parties. This required both structural changes in the organization, including
clarifying the organizational mission, as well as forging good personal relationships
between the people who represent the competing organizations. The Friends now have a
strong sense of their individual identity. Their relationship with the History Center and the
Foundation is “arms-length” enough that the Friends do not feel pressured by museum
staff or by the Foundation board. By asserting their independence while maintaining
relationships, the Friends have managed to forge a true partnership with their principal
organization and its other affiliates
The Best of Friends
The preceding two case studies demonstrate the range of organizational structures
employed by principal organizations and their affiliated friends groups. The relationship
between principal organizations and their affiliated friends groups is the result of a
number of forces, including: the nature of the principal organization (nonprofit or
governmental); the history of that organization and the needs that are served by the
friends group; and the mutual give and take by the two entities. While each such
relationship is unique, certain best practices have been identified. These best practices
provide guidelines for establishing and maintaining effective relationships with friends
groups.
Hedgepeth has identified three best practices for university foundation fundraising which
are equally applicable to other forms of friends groups. According to Hedgepeth, the
supporting organization should: 1) base its case for support on the principal organization’s
strategic agenda and in support of the principal organization’s mission; 2) provide a frame
of reference that keeps the principal organization focused on fundraising; and 3) maintain
the integrity of the philanthropic process by validating donors’ rights and ensuring
effective stewardship of donors’ gifts. The key to success is the careful balancing of each
entity’s role and obligations with respect to fundraising. This requires both an adequate
degree of independence for the supporting organization as well as a high level of
coordination with respect to the fundraising functions between the two entities. According
to Hedgepeth, the supporting organization’s “need for autonomy and organizational
independence should not diminish the reality that [it] exists to support and enhance the
institution’s mission.”
There have been a number of other efforts over the years to define best practices for
friends groups. The Center for Park Management completed a study entitled “Best
Practices in Friends Groups and National Parks” in 2005. The CPM study identified seven
key elements of successful partnerships between friends groups and the national parks.
These elements include: 1) a shared mission and goals; 2) trust; 3) mutual contributions;
4) clear communication; 5) commitment to a long-term relationship; 6) a culture of
sharing and collaboration; and 7) mutual respect. The National Park Service website
states “The difference between success and dysfunction in relationships between Parks
and Friends Groups is largely determined by clarity of need, leadership, alignment and
mutual respect and support. The Park staff and Friends Group Board need to be prepared
to invest in creating and sustaining a productive relationship.”
A number of other organizations and professional groups have adopted policies or
guidelines for establishing and working with friends groups. For example, the World
Federation of Friends of Museums has adopted a Code of Ethics for Museums Friends and
Volunteers. The Code of Ethics emphasizes the importance of collaboration between the
principal organization and its supporting friends groups. Other groups, such as the British
Association of Friends of Museums, have provided guidance on the relationship between
museums and friends groups. Individual institutions — most notably colleges and
universities — have also adopted policies for managing friends groups.
All of these studies, guidelines and policies emphasize that to be effective, friends groups
must be treated as equal partners with the organizations they support. They must be
involved at the highest levels of the principal organization. They must participate in
defining the organization’s mission and strategic vision. The mission and values of friends
groups must be clearly aligned with the organizations that they support. Friends groups
must be allowed to monitor and understand the decisions made by the organization, and
given the ability to participate in the decision-making process of the organization. There
must be clear paths of communication between the principal organization and its friends
groups. The mission, policies, and programs of the principal organization must be clearly
articulated to the friends group.
The friends group must understand and appreciate the activities and the culture of the
principal organization. Friends groups have a responsibility to clearly and accurately
communicate the organization’s mission, values and goals to the public. In addition to
articulating the principal organization’s mission, friends groups must also have
sufficient independence so that board members can exercise their fiduciary duties to their
own organization. Finally, friends groups must be able to exercise sufficient stewardship of
donors’ funds. To accomplish this, friends groups must be able to influence programmatic
and administrative management of the principal organization. Finally, friends groups need
to be able to access both the information and the tools necessary to accomplish their
supporting mission.
Conclusion
While nonprofits and governmental organizations increasingly rely on friends groups as
part of their fundraising efforts, the rationale for establishing these groups varies. It is
important for each organization to look carefully at the reasons for establishing friends
groups and the particular functions they serve. In some cases, friends groups may not be
an effective means for fundraising. In other cases, the relationship between the principal
organization and the friends group may need to be restructured to promote a more
effective partnership.
To be effective supporting organizations, friends groups must have sufficient autonomy to
manage their own affairs and exercise the obligations of an independent nonprofit
organization. They must also be sufficiently aligned with the mission of the principal
organization and have sufficient involvement in the principal organization be able to
exercise stewardship over donor funds. The relationship between a principal organization
and its friends group is like a marriage, according to Tom Costello. A high level of trust
and willingness to collaborate are essential to a successful partnership.