Margin Time

As Cause Effective drafts its FY 13 budget, I started thinking about the importance of margin-space – those places in the budget that can be shrunk (or expanded) as needed to help maintain equilibrium.  For example, consultant fees…staff lunches…office spruce-ups…etc.  Those “soft costs” that make the machine move ahead more smoothly, but that can be cut back in hard times without sacrificing essential service.

I started wondering about applying this concept to core workload…and in particular, to the development workload.

We have the hard costs – the development deadlines that are essential to the big buckets of income that carry us. And then there are the soft costs – the cultivation of potential major donors, taking board members out for breakfast, updating the data base, doing the extra research. The stuff that leads somewhere – if we have the time to put into it.

Let alone the thinking time.

Is there a formula for how much “soft time” to leave in the schedule?  And a consequence for not doing so (besides stress and lack of sleep)?

The fact is, the “hard time” tasks get done.  That’s what’s meant by “not dropping balls” in a development job description.

But making sure that opportunities appear and can be seized upon – that’s “soft time.”

Yet so often, that’s the space that’s transformational.