Fundraising Directors - Are some conversations just too difficult?

So, you are the Fundraising Director or Head of a Department.  Tomorrow is your monthly one to one with your boss.  Time to do a quick search through your notebook for the actions you agreed to and either do them or at least get a few balls rolling.  And then there is the 10-minute preparation:

• Email your team to check on the latest numbers, how are we doing against target?
• Gently massage the pipeline probabilities (weightings) just enough to stop the “let’s discuss the hell out of this, but don’t expect any help or insight, it’s a rant only from me (I have a lot of people to blame), please for the love of God get the money in somehow” conversation. Ironically, when you started this job you moaned like hell about your predecessor’s “fantasy pipeline”, it all looked so much better than the reality you discovered.  Now you’ve walked in their shoes, you wish you were not so quick to judge….
• Print out your report, this is your own spreadsheet or word document you created for yourself. The finance reports are OK, but they don’t cut it for you personally, they don’t allow you to interpret what you really need to know.  There’s also the pipeline/excel spreadsheet you share with finance but somehow that’s become massive.  And there is the database, you have not got around to setting up that dashboard thing, but then the staff are not consistent about entering the data anyway.  At least the pipeline spreadsheet everyone is on top of (which is more than you can say about the individual donor plans) and bonus - finance are finally happy they can continuously monitor everything.
• As you look through the various reports, emails start coming back from the team confirming numbers, you can see on their desktops they have their own spreadsheets too. You update/check your report and print off two copies for tomorrow.  Your boss does not usually see this in advance, usually your boss leaves one meeting comes into your one to one, you put the paper in front of them and start talking.  But then again, you have weekly Senior Management team meetings where you go through all this anyway.
• The Board report is due next week so you expect you will need to confirm what you are going to put in it, the finance committee will also need their report, as will the risk and audit committee. You are going to have another go at trying to get out of some of these meetings or at least just turning up for your brief slot, rather than sit for hours through the whole thing.
• But despite all the reports and all the meetings above, you do not share your real concerns. Real concerns you only discuss with your line reports (well, except one). You do not share your real concerns with the leadership because God forbid if you did it would be another thing for them to monitor, another reason why the glass is half empty and why you should add in more activities rather than stay focused.  It is going to fall to you and your team to sort out anyway so why make another rod for your own back.
• There were a couple of Trustees, who initially were all gung-ho about helping, opening networks and loved the idea of fundraising. Until, the charity sent them the usual 3-inch Board pack to read six times a year, followed by six three hours meetings - which go on for four.  One poor unsuspecting bugger agreed to sit on the Finance Committee too, which is another colossal pack and another four meetings.  The charity then invited them to a full strategy day sandwiched between preparation and follow up.  Which pretty much killed off the gung and massacred the ho. They said they couldn’t spare (endure) anymore time, so were unable to help with fundraising and now they hardly show up for meetings. 

So, what are you keeping to yourself?

• One of the Fundraisers is under performing and you and their manager are pretty convinced they are bullshitting. But how do you look someone in the eye and say I think you are lying?? It’s tough but the manager is now monitoring their work closely and keeping you in the loop.  The real problem is you don’t think they can perform at the level you have employed them at. 
• One of your line reports is micro-managing the hell out of her team. You have tried to address this, but then heard via the “pub talk” it made matters worse. That whole team is miserable, but they are delivering (which you are really banking on).  This is a tough one, you don’t have the greatest relationship with Mrs Micro Manager to start with and don’t really know what to do (Google, YouTube nor Amazon have not helped either). But you are worried about it, and you know damn well by not talking to her - people are talking about her.
• Your other line reports thank God are self-sufficient and you can pretty much let them get on with it. They know if they need you, they can talk to you, and you do have a very honest and open relationship with them.

Copious internal meetings, hours of talks, pages of reports and yet you feel alone.  The tools that are supposed to help you have either become the things you now hide behind, or weapons you hand to others to attack you with.  Despite all this talking and reporting everyone is collectively protecting the unsaid.

Your charity my friend has overly invested in “command and control” monitoring and under invested in getting the job done – at your and your staff’s development expense.

All the “human” has been squeezed out of your planning, systems and processes.  BUT “personal” just keeps on gate crashing your professional space.  You never formally incorporated “the human factor” into your planning and yet here it is anyway - running amok around your office.

Take the above monitoring process.  The sole focus is on the tools which allows information to flow.  The humans are serving the tools.  The tools can keep the information flowing but they cannot provide accountability.  Accountability is human.  Take the human out of your planning and accountability hits the cutting room floor along with belief, trust, honesty, compassion, development – the list goes on.

Accountability is often misunderstood.  So, this article is going to fight its corner and argue you may as well let that “personal thing” running around your office BE “accountability”. 

What is accountability?  Accountability is doing what you said you would do, when you said you would do it – it’s keeping your promises (usually to other humans).

Why is accountability misunderstood?  It is seen as the stuff you “have to do”, the opposite of freedom.  As humans we reject accountability (at least when we don’t understand it) and embrace freedom.  As a child you were probably told to brush your teeth and eat your greens, you never asked for this, your parents “made” you do it.  They made you do it for your own benefit.  What if you never brushed your teeth and ate crap for your entire childhood, that would be complete freedom, but not a great result.  Accountability gets you results, because you stick to your plans to succeed and improve.  Accountability is an investment in you dear human – you.

The problem is we love comfort over discomfort and pushing yourself to improve is not necessarily comfortable, so we often value our excuses more than our promises.  See there’s that human thing again.  Where in your fundraising plan is “what are we going to do when we just can’t be arsed”? Seriously, because when you just can’t be arsed, the diary is full of internal meetings and endless reports – thank you universe you just served up the “busy” excuse on a plate. And better still – it’s booked in as reoccurring!

People often have gym or running partners to keep each other accountable.  It is agreed up front we will do this together to keep each other committed, because otherwise we are prone to make excuses and end up in front of the TV eating custard creams.  They purposely have an accountability partner/s.  And they have consciously agreed to protect each other from their own excuses.

Athletes have coaches that help them reach a higher standard than they could reach on their own.  The coach is there to help them improve.  If their performance is under par it is not an uncomfortable or difficult conversation to say that is not good enough, you need to train harder and improve, because they are a team working towards the same goal and it is the coach’s job to help the athlete win.  The athletes’ ability and the win are very personal, but still it is an easy conversation as it is all about the investment in them which they get to own, keep and carry with them.

The monitoring process above would be very different if it was based on you being accountable and your boss helping/coaching you to be so.  If your boss was there to help you reach a higher standard than you could reach on your own.  Imagine, how that would change the dynamic of “being monitored”, or those so-called difficult conversations with the under- performing staff member, the micro-manager or the even “hands-off” boss.   Especially, the hand-off boss, the “let me give you complete freedom, come to me when you want me boss”.  The boss who we all love as they are so trusting is letting you not brush your teeth or eat your greens, what feels like freedom is not developing or challenging you to develop. Great in the short term, not in the longer term.

Young fundraisers, if you are sitting at your desk clocking up 18 months to 2 years for the sake of your resume, at which point you can exaggerate your way into a new job, better title and an increase in salary you are not developing.  Managers, managing this person you are not learning how to develop your team nor are you developing as a manager/leader.  You are both being cheated.  And by the way resume climber, if you can pull that off you have bags of potential – so pack it in and get busy. 

The film “Bohemian Rhapsody” follows the rise of Queen and its singer Freddie Mercury.  Freddie starts off singing with Queen in a pub, from there they go onto bigger venues, to venues around the World to finishing with their epic performance at Live Aid in front of millions at Wembley stadium.  Freddie did not go from the pub to the Stadium.  When he made rock history in 1986 people were watching years of experience, stage presence, material etc.  He didn’t fake his way up the ladder as it were and then nailed it at the top.  To nail it at the top of the ladder you need to draw upon years of lived and honed experience.  Sitting at your desk clocking up time and being good at interviews, being managed by managers who are either monitoring/controlling, or so hands off they are not there, is not going to help you at all.  You need to do a Freddie and experience and learn at each stage as you go up.

Look at your diary, what are the reoccurring appointments?  If it’s internal meetings and report deadlines, both are of these are busy work.  High productive work is working on your case of support or anything connected to interactions with donors or prospects.  How much time is scheduled/ring fenced in your diary for the latter?  Is there a reoccurring appointment for high productive work?  Working from home one day a week is often dedicated to this but that’s only 20% of the week (and often seen as a perk).  And how much of that is sabotaged by yet another internal report?

In short you consistently prioritise all the stuff you need to minimise and give it its own reoccurring schedule, you are also continuously distracted by the “over sharing” emails (don’t get me started on “reply all”).  Yet the actual stuff that is productive and will make the impact is practically being fitted in. 

To push out command and control and pull in accountability think more like this:

To be a good leader I need to be accountable and help my staff be accountable too.  We are going to consciously recognise we need to apply a consistent effort over an extend period to successfully fundraise.  To do so we are going to prioritise and schedule high productive work into our schedules.  A consistent effort requires a consistent schedule.  We are going to replace low productive/command and control time with coaching and accountability. Managers must help develop their staff and recognise they are there to help them grow through actively participating in a focused effort, to gain and hone lived experiences.  To be my team’s accountability partner first we must consciously establish trust, we cannot expect honesty and real coaching without a trusting and real relationship.  Being accountable serves our staff and our charity, in both the short and long term.  

I have developed a fundraising framework to help Fundraisers make “human friendly” fundraising plans.  In short, I think we need to put the human firmly back into our planning.  Let’s set goals people believe in, let’s set schedules people can consciously commit to – as much for themselves and their own development as the charity’s ability to fundraise.  After years of fundraising, for big, medium and small charities I have seen the same “bolt on” fundraising approach over and over.  Frustrated leadership that keep asking where the money is while creating the very internal spaghetti that keeps its fundraising bogged down.  But in recent years, something new started to happen, the internal spaghetti went digital, and the more digital it has become the more the human in our “planning” and conscious thinking has been squeezed out.  But as the plans are still implemented by humans for humans – our interactions with them just got messy and sometimes even nasty.  So, 20 years of fundraising with some high performing teams and Boards, a few dud ones and one so dysfunctional it gets its own category.  I have stepped back and created a framework that can help fundraisers plan their fundraising using all the advantages of digital but putting the humans firmly back in the driving seat.  But this time, lets also really pull in all our colleagues (Trustees, staff, donors, volunteers) and tools to genuinely bring everyone onto the fundraising bus with us and for us.  The framework is simple, zoom out to see the big picture, zoom in for the detail BUT make it human friendly first.  You are making plans for real people to interact with, understand (inside and outside the Development Dept) and breathe life into.

I am opening registration for my training webinars on 11^th June and closing it on 14^th June to limit the numbers. 

The webinars will be an hour a week for 5 weeks from 20^th June, all participants will be sent a recording of the live webinar (so don’t worry if you miss the live versions).   The webinars will be followed up by a one to one coaching telephone call with myself to help further tailor your plans (hence the limited numbers). 

You can JOIN THE COURSE HERE

 You don’t “have to” put the human into your plans – but register for the training and you “get to” 😉