As I read the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s, Desperately seeking fundraisers, I found myself shaking my head in agreement and thinking this is why I have a job today:
89% of organizations don’t have enough people to raise money successfully.
“Every fundraiser I know is stressed, understaffed, and cannot fill open positions, struggling with unrealistic fundraising goals. It is unfortunate because many great fundraisers I know are leaving the profession.”
A survey participant from Wisconsin wrote
I have overwhelmingly heard the challenges with the job market, recruiting, pay and chronic understaffing from clients. I also experienced many of these same challenges while recruiting for fundraisers during the pandemic.
Fundraisers were prone to burnout and quick job turnover long before the pandemic with the average tenure being approximately 18 months. Past surveys by the Association of Fundraising Professionals found 75 percent were considering quitting in any given year. The pandemic encouraged some to be more conservative, with just 50 percent of fundraisers saying they had thoughts of quitting last year.
Moreover, there has always been insufficient supply and overwhelming demand for proficient fundraisers. The pandemic, the current job market, and an exodus of women and boomers retiring is exacerbating all these problems. Without good fundraisers, organizations are unable to raise the needed funds to fulfill their mission, donor relationships are in jeopardy, and money is left on the table!
“Fundraisers and recruiters say a key to keeping good fundraisers is to ensure their first weeks and months on the job include all the information and coaching they need to succeed.”
I couldn’t agree more. What does a good onboarding plan look like for a new fund raiser in your organization?
- Immersion in the organization’s mission.
Carve out time for new hires to volunteer and serve with key programs so they can begin to cultivate their own awareness, stories to share, and methods of cultivating donors based on experiences within your organization.
- Key staff and board member introductions and visits.
Ensure that your new teammates understand and cultivate key relationships with peers, superiors and volunteer board members. Make those key introductions and setup new teammates for success.
- Shadowing donor phone calls, visits and tours for your top performers.
Give your new hires a role model to follow. New team members learn by doing. Shadowing will shorten their onboarding time to get them to feel confident in front of donors by emulating your top performers. Be sure to ask your donors for permission, many of them are honored to feel included in this process, and it has a dual benefit of building up your current fundraising team to take on this responsibility.
- Clear 30-, 60- and 90-day goals including making their first calls at the mid-point, around 45 days.
It is reasonable to set an expectation that proficient fundraisers begin making their first donor calls by the 30-day mark. At 60 days, your next top performer will already have their sights set on their top 10 potential donors to cultivate, solicit and upgrade. By 90 days, new fundraisers should have clarity around their portfolio, be able to identify which third are in active cultivation towards solicitation and be able to target their first set of proposals.
- Success indicators and expectations for number of visits, proposals and dollars raised.
What does success look like for a new fundraiser? It should be incremental and early success will breed more success. Weekly goals for number of calls and visits should be the focus early on, and by the conclusion of their first quarter, first proposals will be in the pipeline. By mid-year, proposals should already be submitted and on their way to closing. A proficient fundraiser can manage 100 donors their first year, handle 3-4 times as many donor outreach calls, and 200 visits. Be clear about organizational expectations for visits, calls, number of proposals and dollars raised (both team and individual) and communicate early, often and ongoing about meeting those expectations.
How do you set up a fundraiser to fail? Too many internal meetings, administrative tasks, and lack of clarity around how to structure their own time, process, and focus.
“91% of the respondents in the Chronicle’s survey said: ‘There should be more time to focus on meeting with donors.’”
Protect your fundraisers time to meet with donors! Reserve a specific time each day for uninterrupted donor outreach with no meetings. Protect 1-2 days each week with no internal meetings, so cultivating and meeting donors is the sole focus.
If you are a CEO, a director of development or a front-line fundraiser, carve out the time, reserve it on your calendar, and ensure you are making at least two major donor moves every day. For many in this role, there is simply no discipline or time reserved to do so. I hear the familiar excuses that I’ve used myself creep in, like: I don’t have the time; this latest crisis happened; or I had a board meeting.
If you don’t have the time, then who will at your organization? It must be an urgent and important priority of the day. Do it first thing or do it last thing of the day. Make your calls to donors during your commute time in the car. Block out 30-minutes on your calendar and make 2-3 calls. If you don’t spend the time cultivating your donors, someone else will, and you will lose the opportunity to connect them to your mission and raise larger gifts.
As organizations desperately seek their next top performing fundraiser, taking the time to onboard new fundraisers well and protecting their time to actually spend with major donors is key to success!
