How to track and measure for results
This is the first of a series of short articles about how to tell if your major gift officers are productive. How can you tell? How much time for somebody new to carry their weight? How can we manage with out driving out people who need time to develop?
These are all great questions. I'm not sure I have all of the answers but I have learned a lot over the years managing my own staff, seeing my clients manage theirs, and in talking with directors of major giving who supervise 2 to 80 people.
The one thing we have learned is to be patient. While you want everyone to be a star, that's not reasonable. And, if you give people time, training, coaching, and mentoring they can develop over 2 to 3 years to be highly productive fundraisers.
As we go through this series, pleasae give me comments about questions you have, who you've been treated (well or poorly), tips you have learned over the years, and accountability pressure you feel from your supervisor and your volunteers.
I get this question of major gift officer productivity frequently. A client asked recently how long to give somebody to be productive. Nothing's happening, so how much time should be given somebody who may not work out. Another major gift officer asked what expectations he should have for his job. His dean doesn't know and he's getting no guidance. I recently facilitated a panel of hospital CEOs for the AHP Pacific Regional conference. In asking them what questions they had about philanthropic fundraising the major issue for all three panelists was how to figure out productivity. Hospital administrators love to measure everything in their world. But they can't figure out this fundraising thing.
The article below is part of a series on major gift officers, please see below for additional series posts:
- Major Gift Officer Dollar Expectations (Part 2 of series)
- Major Gift Officer Month & Yearly Tracking (Part 3 of series)
Permanent Link: Major Gift Officer Productivity (Part 1 of a Series)
http://majorgiftsguru.com/2008/07/major-gift-officer-productivity.html
1 comments:
Interesting post and discussion. Ok, here are my thoughts. If we don't want our donors to feel like ATM machines then we need to take the time to build "real" relationships with them. We need to engage then and appreciate them. And all of this takes time. I've heard 18 months from cultivation to donation. That said, having spent most of my fundraising career in single person development offices the challenge is helping management understand the concept of raising major gifts "takes time". They want (and most often times need) results TODAY. So not do you have to spend your time with your donor prospects but you also have to educate management and often times the board. Maybe instead of "only" financial goals, maybe management needs to establish "friendraising goals". That is setting a goal for one-on-one and other friendraising activities. Management needs to be realistic and be open to learning about what makes a successful sustainable fundraising program. Then maybe they can get beyond the $$$$$.
Thanks for letting me ramble.
-Jfundraiser.
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