How many times has your organization pulled you into something that doesn’t directly relate to your job? This kind of scenario is all too common in the non-profit sector, and the results of it are usually negative: fundraisers lose their focus, have less impact, and solicit less giving.
What if fundraising leaders and management stopped distracting their mid-level and major gift officers with unnecessary organizational tasks, activity-oriented metrics, meetings that aren’t related to their donors, and community events? Well, the results for your organization would probably look a little better: increased revenue, higher donor retention rates, and less staff turnover.
In this podcast episode, Jeff, Karen, and Kendra share their top tips for how fundraising managers and leadership can let their teams do their jobs and find high-value success in their work.
Show Highlights: In this episode, you’ll learn about…
- The assumptions that leaders may subconsciously be making about their fundraisers
- How to create a culture of trust and accountability
- Our team’s top tips for keeping a fundraising team on task
Veritus Group is passionate about partnering with you and your organization throughout your fundraising journey. We believe that the key to transformative fundraising is a disciplined system and structure, trusted accountability, persistence, and a bit of fun. We specialize in mid-level fundraising, major gifts, and planned giving, helping our clients to develop compelling donor offers and to focus on strategic leadership and organizational development. You can learn more about how we can partner with you at www.veritusgroup.net.
Additional Resources:
- [Blog] The Startling Reality of What Little Time You Have to Work with Donors
- [White Paper] Removing Obstacles to Major Gift Fundraising
- [Certification Course] Fundraising Managers and Executives
Read the Full Transcript of This Podcast Episode Here:
Jeff Schreifels
In an ideal world, frontline fundraisers would spend every day reviewing their caseloads creating strategies for soliciting gifts and cultivating relationships with their donors. But too many times, nonprofit leaders keep standing in the way of their staff and prevent that fundamental work from happening. When fundraisers get diverted by tasks outside their primary roles, there can be serious consequences: reduced productivity, unhappy donors, and decreased contributions to your organization. Today, my colleagues Karen Kendrick and Kendra Loper are joining me to discuss why nonprofit leaders need to quit micromanaging and how to create an environment that supports fundraisers in accomplishing their jobs they’re inspired to do. Thanks for listening.
Recorded
Welcome to the Nothing But Major Gifts podcast from Veritus Group, featuring Richard Perry and Jeff Schreifels. Twice a month, we bring you the latest and best thinking about major gift fundraising so you can develop authentic relationships with your major donors. Here are your hosts, Richard and Jeff.
Jeff Schreifels
Welcome to the podcast today. I’m Jeff Schreifels, and today I’ve got my colleagues Karen Kendrick and Kendra Loper joining me to discuss something that really frustrates me. Over my career, I’ve seen so many amazing fundraisers have a hard time creating strong relationships with donors because they’re constantly getting pulled into things that are not their job. This takes their focus away, results in them having a lesser impact, and the ultimate impact is unhappy donors and lower giving to your organization. So today we’re going to talk about how we can let people do their jobs and be successful in their work, so that you can see that increased revenue, higher donor retention, and improve staff retention. But before we get started on this, let me give Karen and Kendra an opportunity to introduce themselves. Karen, let’s start with you.
Karen Kendrick
You’re going to have fun with this, Karen and Kendra, I can tell. Great to be here. This is going to be an interesting conversation, to talk about what frustrates you, Jeff. This will be engaging. (Laughter). Yeah it is tough for fundraisers and tough for leaders. So we’re really coming with compassion for everyone, and looking forward to just talking about what gets in the way. So I’m the Senior Director of Client engagement. I’ve been with Veritus 12 years, and I love the leadership, how do I really get myself out of the way? How do I create space for success? So this will be a great conversation.
Kendra Loper
Yeah, really looking forward to it. I’m Kendra Loper. I’m the Director of Client Services at Veritus, and you know, before joining Veritus, I served in a few different roles in non-profits, both frontline fundraising and also managing teams of fundraisers. So this is a topic I’m really familiar with, and also one, gosh, it’s so important, right? We’ve got to talk about it.
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah. All right, so thank you both for being here. But let’s start all the way at the beginning. Why does this dynamic exist in so many non-profits where we don’t, we can’t allow our fundraisers to just do their job?
Karen Kendrick
Wow. There’s so many things to unpack there, Jeff. I think just speaking to leaders to start out with, it’s interesting to even back up to, what do you believe about humanity and humans? I mean, do you believe fundamentally, because of how you grew up and your experiences, your previous bosses, do you fundamentally believe that people are going to do their best? That people are going to try to get one over on you? That people are hardworking and have great hearts or, that people are lazy, do the least they can? So, first, just check in with yourself as leaders. You know, where, what are my actual beliefs? Because our beliefs impact our behaviors, right?
Kendra Loper
Yeah.
Karen Kendrick
And so that’s a great, great thing to think about as you start. It’s like, from any way you believe, like, if I believe that everybody’s going to do their best and work hard, then I’ve got to also be prepared for people who don’t, right, as a leader. So no matter what it is, fundamentally, it’s good to realize that, and then realize where your blind spots might be.
Karen Kendrick
I think too, just to start with the fact that leaders, you’re under a lot of pressure. You’re getting a lot of pressure from leaders above you to deliver. You’ve got a lot of plates spinning, and so it’s so easy to go into fear mode and like, “Oh my gosh. What are they doing? I don’t really know what’s happening. What is that fundraiser doing? They seem to be just lollygogging around. I don’t know what’s happening.” So you go into all this fear mode and then start to act out of that mode, which can be high control, micromanaging, all kinds of things. So we’re going to break some of that down. So just think about that as we’re talking. What do you believe about humans? And then, what kind of pressures are you in that may make you go into a stress mode? And when you go into stress mode, what do you do? Do you run and hide? Do you take over? Do you micromanage? What are some thoughts you all have about all that?
Kendra Loper
Oh, that fear piece is big, right? You know, it’s depending on where you are in your leadership journey and trying to, you know, hold that position with responsibility and also recognize and be transparent about, you know, we can’t know everything right? No leader can and how can we really be vulnerable and allow that to be a piece that it works for us when we’re working with our teams.
Jeff Schreifels
I mean, I just recently… this whole pressure from the top of the, you know, the CEO and the board coming down on managers, and then it relaying down all the way to the fundraiser, has just happened to me with one of the clients that I’ve heard about, where all of a sudden, you know, they’ve been working really well, doing The Veritus Way thing, not focusing on all these activity-based things, you know, KPIs, and then all of a sudden, in the last few months, there’s been all this pressure from the DoD on all the fundraisers: “You’ve got to make your metrics.” And I’m like, and then all this, and it’s putting all this pressure. And everyone’s like, why is this happening?
Jeff Schreifels
So I call them up and I just say, “What’s going on here? What? What’s happening with… are you getting pressure from your boss? Because all of a sudden, we’re acting different.” And then it comes out that, yeah, the senior leadership all of a sudden thinks that we need to have all these large gifts come in, even though they’ve been growing year over year over year, they’re not happy that there’s not million-dollar gifts coming in the door right away.
Jeff Schreifels
And so, you’re right. There’s all this pressure coming from leadership, their leadership onto management, and then it trickles down. And it’s just toxic for everyone. So that’s just been really interesting of what’s going on, and it feels like it’s also connected to the economy and people feeling like we’re just not getting the revenue that we budgeted for. And, you know, it just leads everyone to doing bad things.
Karen Kendrick
Yeah, so it’s interesting. How do I as a leader not pass that pressure and fear on to my people? How do I pause, for example, the million dollar gifts, pause and say, hey, you know, leadership’s pointed out we haven’t really had many of those. Let’s talk about what it would take to have that happen down the road. Let’s talk about the timing that would take. I mean, it is a great thing to point out. I mean, that’s valid, missing opportunities there, but that’s like a two-year process of working with folks and being really focused on that. So, yeah, how to take it as a gift, but not pass the negative pieces on?
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah. Okay, so when a leader is operating from this place of fear or distrust, what does that end up looking like in practice? Kendra?
Kendra Loper
Oh, Jeff, I mean, you described it well in the scenario you were painting, but we see it all the time, right, with leaders. I myself made this mistake as a leader in a non-profit, right? Really thinking through, man, I’ve gotta put all of these activity-based metrics in place. I’ve gotta know what my fundraiser is doing. It’s like gripping that control tighter and tighter, and it really, to the fundraiser, and I’ve been in this seat too, it feels like a lack of trust, right? All of a sudden, like I’m having to report on number of calls and all these things that really don’t move the needle and it feels very transactional.
Kendra Loper
And so again, how do we pivot? Right? How do we pivot to not just the number of things we’re doing and how, you know, how we’re interacting with donors, but how meaningful are those engagements? What are we learning about the donor in that process? And you know, it can happen naturally, because leaders are wearing so many hats. Karen, you talked about this. And you know, sometimes we begin to pass off those things to our fundraisers, who really should be focused on their caseloads, and, you know, getting to know their donors. But we begin to pass off those tasks. You know, can you serve on this committee? Can you help with this event?
Kendra Loper
And you know, events are tricky too, because if you’re anticipating your donors to attend, there is this like, I want to be a part of that. I want to have some control and say and how that’s going to look and so we can take our eye off the ball real quickly onto things that matter but that don’t really move the needle in terms of the caseload work that we’re really trying to focus on, especially in major gifts.
Kendra Loper
So, you know, I think Karen, you also talked a little bit about this, but leaders can often get promoted without any training, right? Like they just get, you know, they’ve been there the longest, they’ve been really successful in their role. They should be a great leader, right? And maybe they’re a great fundraiser, but they don’t have any management skills, and they haven’t had any time to build those skills and any opportunity to build those skills, and so we don’t provide that training for them. Either we don’t have it in the budget, or we just don’t prioritize that training, and then we end up with leaders who start trying to coach a team, and they don’t know how to have those difficult conversations with underperforming team members. They don’t know how to even move beyond… that feels uncomfortable, right? To have hard conversations. How do you move beyond that discomfort? They don’t know how to do that.
Kendra Loper
You know, as you mentioned, Karen, they don’t always know how to assume the best and really lean in and try to learn what’s going on before they build this scenario, worst case scenario, right? Like, “Oh, well, if I had all this time on my hands, that fundraiser is probably not doing what they need to do, unless I know exactly, you know, the number of activities they are completing in each week.” I begin to build this narrative. And again, what gets lost? There is trust. There’s no trust in the relationship internally to say, here’s where we’re headed, right? Here’s how we do this work. What are your roadblocks? What are your challenges? How do I get help? You remove those so that you can do your most important best work and get to know these donors and really partner them with the work of our organization that really makes their heart light up, right? Like that’s the true honor in that.
Kendra Loper
And, you know, there’s so many pieces to that. You know, as a new leader, I remember I didn’t know how to prioritize and manage my own schedule with everything I had on my plate, in addition to managing a team, right? So it was like, “How do I do all that?” I still had a caseload of donors myself, and what does that look like? So there’s just so many plates spinning, and it’s hard, right? I mean, management of people, people are hard. We all are flawed. We all have things going on, and so how do we focus them on their most important work, and really prioritize that caseload focus? You know, we talked about this the other day in a meeting we had, but you know, you gotta have these hard conversations early and often, right? So what does it look like? What do I expect of you if I’m your leader? What does it look like at the end of this quarter? What does it look like at the end of this, you know, six months, or at the end of this fiscal year, where do I hope that we’ll be? And what will it take to get us there?
Kendra Loper
And if we don’t have those conversations early and often, we wait till it gets to that frustration point, right? And we’re wondering, there’s a lack of information about what the fundraiser is doing. So again, we start to build that narrative around I need to control the environment. And sometimes that can really damage that relationship. Sometimes beyond repair, right? You get to a point where there’s such a lack of trust that, you know, it feels like there’s not a way to redeem it. So.
Karen Kendrick
So many thoughts coming to mind. I think a really powerful piece is what narrative, what story are you making up in your head? Because if you don’t really know what the fundraiser is doing, as far as having clear expectations and checking in on how things are progressing and how, what kind of meaningful conversations are they having, what’s growing, it’s very easy to create a narrative that they’re not doing their job, right? That, you know, it’s not work, you see, right?
Karen Kendrick
It’s like in the olden days when they used to all be in an office and have typewriters and you just acted like you were busy when the boss walked by. So, you know, we have a different way now in the way we work even to see what busy and doing things looks like. So I think as a manager, first checking what’s my narrative and getting clear, “Okay, I’m in a fear narrative that may be true, may not be true, but how do I sit down with someone and approach this in a really curious, open way, and bring it to them with an opportunity for us to figure out a way forward, versus me just sort of clamping down and trying to make it happen through some kind of high control move. So you’re going to do less in the high control mood. But also fundraisers, you need to be communicating to your managers what you’re doing and how you’re progressing and what’s happening as well. So there’s responsibility there too, because they need to feel confident that you are really making plans, managing your work, and making that happen with donors on a regular basis.
Kendra Loper
You bet.
Jeff Schreifels
That’s a key, because this is not just all on the managers’ part and leaders. But also, the fundraiser has a responsibility to be proactive and talk about what’s happening with her strategic plan. How are they doing? And being able to let leadership know, you know, as things progress, what’s going on. That gives leaders comfort that, “Oh, okay, I know what’s happening there and what they’re struggling with and what they’re doing great at.” You know? So, yeah, there’s a responsibility on both sides to make this thing work. What do you all think about how leaders should focus on to help shift that dynamic so that they can create an environment where people can be successful in their work? What do they need to do? How does it work? How does it start?
Kendra Loper
You know, I think it all starts… first, Karen mentioned the mindset, right? What is your mindset? But next, what’s your hiring process? Right? What are you looking for? Do you know what skills are most important and what type of employee would best fit your organizational structure? What should that employee know? Right? Or prospective employee know about your organization and their structure and how they can be successful in your environment? Those are key pieces of information to know up front before someone ever joins your team.
Kendra Loper
And then here’s one that, unfortunately is all too common, right? We can all think of individuals, organizations where we’ve been a part, where we’re looking for that rock star. We want someone who is tested and knows what they’re doing with major gifts to come into our organization and really bring a quick fix, right? Or maybe we’re behind in our revenue for the year. We’re not making the progress we want with those transformational donors, and we’re really looking for someone to just come in and bring a miracle, right? And that really sets that fundraiser up for failure right out of the gate, right? Because nothing happens quickly. In fundraising, there are no quick fixes.
Kendra Loper
Relationships, you know, just think about the friendships and relationships that you have. You don’t start that relationship by making an ask of that person, right? You get to know them. What are our common, you know, interests and how do we match those together? And that takes time. And organizations who are already feeling a bit of stress in terms of revenue, that can be very difficult, right? There’s a lot of pressure from the board, from the, you know, leadership: we’ve got to move this needle, right? Because at the end of the day, they want to see their missions be achieved, right? It’s coming from a good place of like, we’ve got to do this great work. But you know, as we know, a fundraiser who comes right in the door and tries to get those gifts right out of the gate, they might get a gift or two, but they won’t build those deep relationships that really lead to that long term sustainability and support and really move to that transformational giving. So they’ve got to have time, right?
Kendra Loper
You’ve got to set those clear expectations, as we talked about, up front. No one likes to be surprised with, “Oh, I didn’t know you expected that of me, right?” Like, how many times does that happen to you and you’re like, “Oh, okay.” You know, you can’t anticipate everything, right? You’ve gotta have a little bit of flexibility. But if there’s a major expectation that you didn’t set from the outset, you know that’s again, really sets everyone up for failure.
Kendra Loper
We talked about time and deepening relationships with donors. Again, you know, if you’re expecting someone to come in right away and start like bringing those gifts, that feels very transactional, right? It feels like it’s all about the dollars. And while that is an outcome, the true goal is to deepen their relationship with those donors; really get to know what they care passionately about, and matching that with the good work that’s happening in your organization. That is where the magic happens. And so really, there’s nothing that can bring that other than time and those meaningful connections.
Karen Kendrick
Yeah it’s like, moving into a neighborhood Kendra, and you go over to your new neighbor and you’re like, “Hey, I’m going on vacation next week. Would you keep my four children, my three cats, my two dogs, and water my plants and clean my house before I return?” That’s what we expect these fundraisers to come in and ask for these big guests with no relationship. It’s crazy.
Kendra Loper
I know it really is.
Jeff Schreifels
That’s a good analogy, but that’s and you would never do anything like that, but we do it all the time, right?
Kendra Loper
Yeah.
Jeff Schreifels
Karen, what do you see are some of the specific things we can do to alleviate this and allow those fundraisers to do their thing, for the managers to be able to do their thing properly, not get in the way, but also provide that clarity? What are some specific things that our listeners can hear today, know, “Okay, from this podcast, here’s what I’m going to commit to do.”
Karen Kendrick
First thing that comes to mind is, us as leaders, spend time building relationships with your people. And even if you’ve been there a while, if you haven’t done that, then stop and do that now. And that might look like, just take someone to lunch. “Hey, I’d love to hear more about your history and your work and what you’ve done, what you really love, and what motivates you, and why you’re here with this mission.” And so there’s, you have to build a foundation of trust so that when you get to the bumps, they fundamentally believe you have good intentions. So that’s going to be really important along the way.
Karen Kendrick
And then, as Kendra was saying, have a clear system and structure. So you want to know how to do that for mid-level or major gifts. Veritus has all of that for you laid out in our white papers and our courses and all of that. And that’s being clear about how they can build a structure to be relational, and how they’ll be measured. And like Kendra said, what are we looking for in three months? Four months, six months?
Jeff Schreifels
I mean, like from a manager perspective, if your fundraisers have a goal for their donors, have them tiered. Have a plan for every donor throughout the whole year. From a management perspective, that is the baseline for you to be able to handle all of this so you don’t have to micromanage. You don’t have to do all these crazy KPIs, because you have this plan that they’re working from, and they’ve all agreed to do it. They’re all bought into it, right? So that structure, as you said, is absolutely essential.
Karen Kendrick
Yeah, and we have good job descriptions where it is only focused on donors, and that’s what we really want you to look at is sit down and be clear about what your expectations for them are and that you’re going to work to protect them from the busy work of other things. However, two things need to happen. If they start being pulled in many directions, they need to come to you and say, “Okay, look, I’m doing X, Y and Z, and this is how much time it’s taking. I only have 10 hours a month to actually work with donors.” So, you know, set the expectation that fundraisers come to you, but there may be times as a leader as well.
Karen Kendrick
I tell you, as a fundraiser, it’s a lot easier to run around and plan events and do other things and be on committees than to do the work of building relationships that are meaningful. So you may have to check some of your folks at times to say, “Okay, I want you to, I want you to give me a thing of how much time you’re spending a month in all these different categories, and let’s realign so you can focus on donors.” So it can go both ways.
Karen Kendrick
And then managing those above you. So if, let’s say, the example of pressure for million dollar gifts, I understand you all are interested in that. That makes a lot of sense. Let me break down for you what that takes to do that. And you’ve met with your team, and you have a plan. Okay, we have identified key people we think have potential. These are the goals and plans. Actually, I’m going to bring those names to you, to see what connections and ideas you have. But this is a two, three-year process. But we have begun it, and this is where we’re headed. So if folks know you’re what you’re doing, and it makes sense and it’s logical, they can calm down and realize that we’re still reaching our goals, we’re still working our mission, and we have a plan to do some of the things that we need to do. What other thoughts come to mind for you all?
Kendra Loper
I was just going to add, you know, I think it’s important to share that with your leaders above you, but it’s also important to share across the organization. I can think of a couple of examples where, you know, as a major gift officer, I was, you know, supposed to be at all these internal meetings, and yet I had my responsibility to meet with donors and opportunities to meet with them. And so I was being pulled in a lot of different directions, and I finally just said to these other committees I served on, I will come when I can, but my priority is work with donors, and this is why that’s important for all of us, right? This means we can sustain this work, and just having that conversation proactively to help other people in the organization not feel bent out of shape if I didn’t show up for a meeting, right? They would understand she’s here if she can be but if she can’t, then she’s out with donors. And that’s good for all of us.
Jeff Schreifels
Exactly. You know what’s the beautiful thing? Because all three of us have seen, because we’ve worked with some amazing clients over the years that we’ve seen this be successful. We’ve seen it when a manager does all the stuff that we’ve been talking about, and the end result of it is an amazing thing to watch. Revenue is great for the organization. The fundraisers are happy because they get to do the job they wanted to do. Managers feel good because their people are doing the good work. And they feel like they’ve got a nice engine going that’s making this all happen. And it’s like if you could follow this roadmap that Karen and Kendra just kind of outlined here, we know it’ll be successful because we’ve seen it over and over again.
Karen Kendrick
Yes, what’s coming to mind for me, Jeff, is… so when you’re frustrated, when you feel that frustration, when you feel that pressure, it’s information; look at it as information versus a bad thing. It’s just information that something is not matching up and so and then be curious about, “Okay, where’s that coming from? What’s its purpose? What do I have to learn from it? How can I be curious and then utilize that in my leadership in a way that builds trust and builds capacity and possibility?”
Kendra Loper
That’s good. I love that.
Karen Kendrick
Easier said than done (laughter).
Kendra Loper
It’s good, right? Just to just think about that as information, and that’s a nugget I want to take with me today. Awesome.
Jeff Schreifels
Well, thank you for joining me, and we hope this has inspired you, our listeners, to get yourself out of the way and allow your team to be successful in their work. And if you’d like to hear more about how we support organizations in doing this through a comprehensive consulting approach, we’d love for you to connect with us. You can follow the links in the show notes or on our website to connect with my colleague, Amy, and learn more about our services. Thanks, and we’ll see you next time.
Recorded
Thank you for joining us for the Nothing but Major Gifts podcast from Veritus Group. Richard and Jeff also write an ongoing blog that you can subscribe to for free at veritusgroup.net. Please join us again next time.