The Missing $1,000

We came across two separate cases of missing money last week.

Actually, it wasn’t really missing money – it was a $1,000 donor that’d been overlooked.

Even worse.

In both cases, a harried end-of-year campaign with too few resources allocated to it (and who didn’t have too-few-resources allocated to development in the past year?)…a charismatic executive director who inspired confidence in potential contributors…and a turnover in development staff – all combined to create a scenario in which money came in but records were not kept as carefully as they ought to have been.

Ergo, a $1,000 donation that went unheralded.

And not just a donation that remained unseen, but a donor – who could potentially repeat their gift in years to come, possibly increase the amount, and maybe even bring in others at that level.

Oops.

In both cases, a new development director was meeting with Cause Effective to look over the organization’s individual donor base and cull out who might be asked to upgrade or to become an asker (a conversation we’ve been having often these days, with nonprofits re-assessing their private donor base with an eye toward growth).

But while we can usually find a number of leads through these brainstorming sessions, especially when board members are included in the conversation – we don’t usually find as dramatic a case of missing money as we did in these two cases.

The answer, in both instances, was to have the executive director and/or a board member give the forgotten donor a call, and, with a rueful tone, apologize and give a heartfelt thanks along with an update of what their contribution had made possible.

WITHOUT another ask – yet.

There’s some fence-mending to be done before they’ll be properly ready for the next ask...but better a fence to be mended than none at all!

Thinking Long Term

It’s August. Time slows down, people go out of town, and those of us left around may actually have time on our hands.

So that’s the time to think big picture, figure out what’s in the way, and develop a skeleton plan to move forward through those shoals.

In that vein, we’ve been talking about succession with a couple of groups these days – board chairs planning a year or two ahead, executive directors looking at retirement (or second careers), development directors thinking about how to leave the nest in good shape to take on the next challenge. All of these require lifting your head up beyond the day-to-day to think about how to arrange the bricks you’re going to leave behind, so that the next generation can proceed from a strong foundation to build the next castle.

Or something to that effect.

Sometimes board-building is best done by starting in the present and building out. But when you’re looking at leadership succession, sometimes you have to look outside, at the likely institutional challenges 5+ years down the road, and relationship-build your way to the board leadership that will best get you there. We see a lot of groups that lament that they just don’t see the next generation of board leaders on the current board. There are two possibilities when that’s the refrain:

1. It’s actually there, but the current leadership is so charismatic that potential new leaders don’t quite sense the space to assert themselves in. In that case the answer is to give a potential leader a stand-alone assignment, get out of the way, and see how they do.
2. It’s not there, in which case new board members may have to be recruited who are potential board leaders – and several of them – so if one or two turn out to be not suited for the job you’re not back at level zero again in another year.

Likewise, if the top staff leadership is thinking about leaving at some point in the next couple of years, the board’s job is to make sure it’s a strong enough body – with the right skills, talents, energy and equanimity – to take on the challenge of searching for, replacing, and breaking in a new person in that all-important position.
In any case, to come back to the theme we started with – August is a time to think, big-picture, about where the leadership of your organization is at, is going, and is positioned. And to make a plan to move all of those to the next level.

Board Service – The Importance of Humor

In these stressful days for nonprofits, it may seem odd to have the words board service and humor in close proximity.  But I was reminded of the importance of levity in board bonding at a retreat I facilitated last weekend.

The group worked hard all day, then went out for an early meal together.  I could see there was a method to how the board chair indicated seating around the table.  And then I watched a long-standing board member unwind and work his wit on one of the newest board members.

As I saw the newer board member throw back his head and laugh, I realized I’d been worried about the ability of the board culture, in a time when the board was facing tough decisions about cutting programs, to absorb this new recruit.  I was concerned that he wouldn’t stick it out – that times were too tough, it wasn’t fun.

Fun – now there’s a novel concept for nonprofit board service….

Humor is a great way for people to bridge the gap between their personal and professional selves; between the matters at hand and their life-experiences perspective; and to simply swallow the bitter medicine that is part of board service nowadays.

"If you’re going to tell people the truth, you’d better make them laugh. Otherwise, they’ll kill you."

- (variously attributed to George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, and others)

We may not be able to change the grim environment we’re forced to spend board meetings responding to – but the quality of the company we keep can make all the difference in how grim the process is of meeting today’s board challenges.