Tell Me The Worst

This is a companion to last week’s piece, about the importance of trust in board-staff relations to fundraising success – and it’s about laying your cards down on the table.

Board members don’t like surprises. That’s a truism, but as a board member, staff leader and consultant to board members and staff leaders, I understand why it matters. The reasoning is akin to how, as a mother of teenagers, I find myself begging them: “Tell me the worst, whatever it is – but just don’t lie to me.”

What you know, can be dealt with.

What you don’t know, sneaks up and ambushes you.

We’re often called in, these days, on emergency fundraising campaigns. Those “If we don’t raise $100,000 by November we’re out of business” kind of appeals.

When you make that kind of last-ditch plea, people who care about your organization’s work may indeed come forward…but they’ll lose faith fast if it turns out you need that amount and then “Oh, I forgot, I also need $3,200 for the water bill” and “Our insurance is going to get cancelled if I don’t pay the overdue invoice” and “The IRS really does mean it this time, I guess.”

Tell me the worst – and let me, as a board member, be your partner in figuring it out.

Don’t cushion the bad news by parceling it out in drips and drabs.

You may think you’re protecting me by holding the worst back. But it’s going to come out anyway, and nobody…but nobody…likes Chinese water torture.