Is Your Back Office Staff Supporting or Undercutting Major Gift Fundraising?
Is everybody on your staff supporting major gift fundraising?
Let me tell you a story: Back when I was a hard-working fundraiser, I had a dollar goal that was so big, it was scary.
Like you probably have.
My job required me to be out of the office a lot.
I was out in front of people as much as possible – whether they were volunteers, donors and prospects.
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That was the only way I could move high-dollar prospects forward so they would eventually make major gifts.
Spending time in the office at my desk almost felt wasted, because I wasn’t making “moves” with my prospects.
But the strangest thing would happen when I left the office for a visit with a major gift prospect.
The back office staffers would start muttering under their breath.
They would roll their eyes.
Snide comments from the fundraising back office staff.
This group of women who had desk jobs would grump and make snide comments to each other that I could hear.
Stuff in a certain tone of voice, like:
“Oh, yeah, right, what were YOU doing at lunch?
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Or
“That sure was a long visit you just had.”
Their attitude was: How dare this co-worker of theirs (ME) get away with spending so much time away from my desk?
Yuck. How did it make me feel?
Offices with a team spirit raise LOTS more money!
It was debilitating and demoralizing to the entire major gifts effort.
This sniping behind my back was nothing but COLD WATER on my motivation and my energy.
Fundraisers need support, not cuts and critiques from other women in the office. (and yes, it always came from women.)
Have you ever felt that not everyone in your office cares if you make your goal or not?
And YOU may not realize how this dark backwater of office crap is sucking you dry.
It’s hard enough to be an outside fundraiser, calling on people all the time. Lots of people find it completely scary.
It takes lots of cheerful aggressiveness and motivation.
You need all the support you can get.
I realized this was a bigger issue in my next job in fundraising, when I found that the SAME THING was happening all over again.
That was when I realized that this phenomenon was in LOTS OF OFFICES.
It’s undermining fundraising efforts in many organizations.
These days, I am all over the country – and the world – presenting workshops and speeches about fundraising.
I’m starting to comment about this particular issue to my audiences.
Don’t let this happen to you or your colleagues. Office politics can suck you dry!
You know what happens? Half of the entire room of fundraisers will nod their heads and say YES, this is happening to me too.
OMG!
This is more pervasive than we realize.
You don’t need to feel alone. Fundraising has got to be a team sport if you are going to be successful.
(That’s one of the reasons I write this blog – to support you and fundraisers just like you!)
How do you make it stop?
1. Go to your boss.
You can go to your boss and say “this has got to stop.”
But this strategy might backfire and you’ll have alienated your colleagues forever.
2. Educate your boss.
You can go to your boss and make sure he or she understands that if you are going to close major gifts, you need to be encouraged to get out of the office.
(Let’s hope your boss understands that it is your job to be out of the office.
If not, you DO have a serious problem!)
3. Build a team.
You can put on your “teambuilding” hat and try to pull people together cheerfully in your office.
Maybe stage some social time together.
4. Acknowledge your colleagues.
You can acknowledge the back office staff for their contributions to fundraising success.
Maybe stage a fun award ceremony and give funny awards to people for their contributions.
5. Share your activity goals.
In a staff meeting, you can tell everyone that your goal for the month is xx number of outside visits and you’d appreciate it if they would shoo you out of the office.
That way they understand that there’s a serious goal you have to meet.
6. Educate everyone.
You can help everyone in the office understand the various jobs of each person on the team, and how they do what they do.
You could ask them all what YOU could do to support them. (!)
BOTTOM LINE: Get everyone on staff supporting major gift fundraising.
This stuff is happening everywhere. How do YOU deal with it?
What’s YOUR experience?
How about leaving a comment and let’s get a discussion going:
Hmm, I’ve not experienced this. I’d recommend not lumping a bunch of your colleagues together and calling them “back office” staff though. Is it program staff? Or maybe operations staff? Also, the number one solution here is, I think, to create a culture of philanthropy throughout your organization. Maybe make tattling to your boss the last resource. ;)
Hi Samantha, great point, and thanks. Back then, we had real live receptionists and secretaries, also administrative assistants and people who processed gifts. And I was in a big university office, where there were no program staff.
And you are right – the culture of philanthropy means that everybody in your organization supports fundraising and honors donors. That’s the goal, isn’t it!
I loved number 6: Educate everybody. This reminded me of Ivan Schiere, a visionary in the development of organized volunteer management, suggesting (way before anyone understood in the 40’s and early 50’s) the motivation for volunteering. He suggested that volunteers could be located for most any position if they understood why that position was important…and how their volunteer work could make a difference. This concept is what you described for paid staff. Gail, thanks for sharing your experience with office politics. This was/is an important and enabling message.
I would even suggest taking a staff member with you when appropriate. I don’t have experience with this (quite honestly – I need to work on getting out of the office MORE) but if it feels right, I would consider taking a staff member, maybe volunteer services or program services, with me on a call (if the donor has agreed to this). That way the donor could get a better feel for how the organization functions. Gail, I would love to hear your thoughts!
This is sad but true in many cases. I have rarely see this negative behavior displayed when the fundraising person has been a man. (Just as I’ve seen when there’s been a marketing person on staff who doesn’t make any effort to work as a team with the development/fundraising person).
Since the Executive Director sets the tone and direction (culture) for the organization, he has got to put a stop to any negative staff talk as soon as he learns of it. As much as the fundraising person can make an effort to educate the team, if the E.D. is not supporting her role and verbalizing this support to the staff, the hurtful, snide remarks will continue and will just create a demoralizing, ineffective situation for the fundraising or development person. A really good Executive Director would nip this in the bud immediately and help to create a culture of philanthropy so that all of the staff (bottom/up or top/down) understand that they all play a role in fundraising and must help create a productive environment for organizational fundraising success.
Gail, thanks for all you do to enlighten us, motivate us and encourage us. I so enjoy reading your blog. You are awesome.
PS: I just posted comments to your blog post titled “How (Bad) Marketing and Branding can Kill Your Fundraising.” Wish I had seen this one sooner.
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Any of your suggestions would be great. Actually our all-volunteer board prevents the Fundraising co-chairs from having any contact with our individual donors. We’re not even allowed to send them a newsletter. We have access to our group/organization donors but not individuals. Does anyone have any words that might help us help them understand how crazy this is? Both of us are founding members otherwise we would just walk away but we are no longer on the board. We’ve been in existence for about 10 years. Thanks!!!!!!!
This happens everywhere – I agree! I think there is such a difference between what development directors do and what office staff do that it’s hard for both sides to truly understand what the other is doing. It has helped me that my first position was an office position. I got a first hand view of the immense job that the office staff do each and every day to support the development effort. And, it was easy to misunderstand why development was never in the office, or didn’t fill out paperwork correctly, or didn’t have time to answer e-mails immediately. Of course, now that I’m in development I know how difficult it is to get everything done AND meet with donors as much as possible. I think this is a good issue to discuss, Gail, I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
Echoing Jessie below: As available, bring bring operations and program staff with you on donor visits. Let then have the experience of meeting with donors and learning why it’s so important. They’ll also understand why meeting prep is so essential, and why their role in supporting that preparation is also essential.
I had an ED in the past that was part of this problem. He simply did not understand that you need to meet with donors face-to-face on a regular basis to secure annual major gifts. Past fundraising staff had been only grant writers and they did their job at their desk and I was expected to run a brand new major gifts program chained to my desk. I ended up walking away from the organization in frustration.
Thanks Kelly! I agree that the ED needs to come out loud and clear about the importance of fundraising. The ED needs to clarify to everyone WHY this is important. THX much for your comment!
Jennifer, I have heard from many a fundraiser about this same issue. The research is clear: if your ED does not understand fundraising strategy and/or does not support fundraising, then the organization will have poor $ results than when an ED IS supportive. Alas. More education needed!
HI Andy! Love love the idea of bringing program staff along on donor visits. It’s perfect for “touching” major gifts prospects and bringing them closer to the mission. So important!
Yup Donna, I think nonprofits clearly don’t spend enough time on Staff Development. That means team building activities, cross education about who does what and why they do it that way. I also think that the admin/back office staff need to be recognized as the vital contributors they are to the effort. Maybe it seems that the front line fundraisers get all the glamour and recognition, not sure!
Wow are you in the twilight zone or what! Somehow your board has gotten taken over by people who are afraid of fundraising. What is going on? Can you do an intervention? Or bring in new board members who understand the ball game??
Jessie, your gut instinct is perfecto! Terrific way to make your donor happy AND introduce program folks to fundraising.
Thanks Betty – it’s tough when you feel like your co-workers are not supportive. Office politics can erode fundraising just as fast as misspelling a donor’s name!
Sorry for the delay…couldn’t quite figure out how to get back to you!! There are 9 on the board and the majority want it that way. We’ve tried a few things and slowly they’ve seen how they need to “let loose” but not a budge when it comes to individual donors.They recently did change things and the offices are held for 2 years like before but now some are staying on another year so 1/2 of the board will be on their second year and 1/2 on their first year. so hopefully we’ll be able to have this ruling changed…but it won’t happen overnight. We’re trying to be innovative and not even hold a fundraising event. We look for grants and for Churches to hold collection drives. Our 9th member is an adviser and he appears to be neutral in this discussion. Do you have any phrases…words that might shed some light for them? We give bundles of baby items for hospitals to give to the at-risk patients who just had a baby.
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