Giving Officer Motivation & Metrics

By Kristina M. Lentz

In this day and age of ever-shrinking resources, greater than ever expectations, and renewed competition for talent, Advancement Offices are often caught by the confluence of all of these competing priorities. How do I keep my major gifts staff motivated and invested, when I am limited by the University’s pay scale? How do I beat the average 18 month shelf-life of an MGO? As the old adage says, “money isn’t everything” and in some instances creative investments can go a lot further.

The Golden Rule: Treat Your Internal Staff as You Would Your External Prospects. When we develop and manage prospect relationships we are engaging in some simple best practice guidelines. We know these practices to result in lucrative and satisfying relationships with our donors. Consider treating your internal staff members according to the same guidelines. Taking time to connect, listen, respect and reach out to all staff will invest them in the team in which they work. As the saying goes, “people give to people.” I would extend that expression to include “people work for people.” Practice this and you will ensure your staff invests in you as their manager, as well as their teammates in your office.

Professional Development

Now more than ever before, there are multitudes of professional development opportunities for your major gift staff. As gift officers are often extroverted, extending them additional opportunities to connect with regional or national colleagues while learning new approaches and perspectives can provide a win-win. Many shops have limited professional development opportunities to “one a year,” or eliminated out-of-state travel. At Colby College in Waterville, Maine, we found a creative and deeply satisfying workaround to these limitations. Instead of setting a blanket policy, we set budgets for each major gift officer based on the average cost per visit multiplied by the visit goal. Gift Officers were then able to manage their budgets as they saw fit (within reason) which included professional development opportunities. If I wanted to stay at lower-cost hotels, clip coupons for rental cars, and consistently fly the red-eye back and forth across the country, I could channel those savings into additional or enriched professional development opportunities as long as I did not exceed my budget. These opportunities could also be combined with visits to prospects, further lowering the cost to the institution and promoting individual decision-making and professional development goals.

Communication

One of the more subtle tensions in major gift work lies in the typically extraverted nature of MGO’s, as contrasted with the solitary work of the road warrior. I observed that when I was on the road I talked to people all day and yet never had a conversation. Reconnecting to my team when I returned to the office was not only necessary (“What did I miss while I was away?”) but was also how I fed my spirit. For managers to keep gift officers feeling that connection – both when they are on the road as well as when they return – communication is vital. While email, conference calls, and the general connectivity of life in the 21st century ensures that data can be transmitted with a high level of efficiency, it is often the qualitative rather than the quantitative data that is critical. Everyone is busy, but taking the time to ensure your gift officers receive the agenda and minutes from a missed staff meeting rather than saying off-handedly “Oh, you didn’t miss much” is a wonderful way to communicate the importance of their presence on the staff. How many times does a hallway conversation yield a staff development opportunity? Make sure you delineate this for the traveling staff. Finally, consider creating ways for absent staff to participate virtually at office celebrations and gatherings instead of just hearing about the cakes or catering extras they are missing as they drive around lost in some distant city. These are just a few examples of ways to ensure your gift officers stay connected in a more personal way while they are away. When gift officers return, taking time to listen to their stories of their travels, experiences, and connections is critical both for professional as well as personal reasons. Ensuring your staff member feels fundamentally connected to his or her team, whether s/he is present or virtual is a free and critical component to staff dedication, loyalty, and commitment.

Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching is another investment you can offer to the emerging leaders in your development team to reward success and acknowledge an individual’s impact on the organization as a whole.

• As cited in a Fortune Magazine article, executive coaching services increased retention rates and stabilized a major pharmaceutical company’s executive selection and retention to 96%.
• Worldwide, companies spend about $1 billion each year on executive coaches.
• Eighty-nine percent of senior executives at a specialty chemicals and aggregates company reported a significant increase in cross-divisional cooperation as a result of executive education and coaching programs.
• As early as 2002, a survey of human resource professionals, found that nearly half had begun using executive coaches in the previous 18 months.

While these examples are based on corporate clients, the time has come to introduce Executive Coaching to the non-profit world of Advancement.

Any of us who have invested in the cost of a search know first-hand the impact the departure of a staff member has on the organization as a whole, as well as the bottom line in particular. Investing in our human capital has been proven time and again to be one of the greatest investments organizations can make. Executive Coaching helps identify future leaders, and helps individuals grow directly in their effectiveness and productivity within an organization.

How Does Coaching Work?

Typically a coaching engagement lasts a minimum of six months and coaching occurs on average 3-4 hours a month. Executive coaches contract with office leadership and/or through HR. This team, manager, coach, HR (if utilized), and coachee, then decides on goals and strategic outcomes. Executive coaching includes an assessment period using a variety of different personality and performance assessments (such as MBTI, DISC, LPI, and 360 Interviews). Based on assessment outcomes combined with strategic goals, the coach and coachee determine specific areas of concentration on which to focus over the life of the coaching engagement. Communication skills, leadership styles, management skills, time management, work-life balance are some examples. The list can include any of these and many more as required by the individual circumstance of the engagement.

Metrics

While whole articles and seminars are focused on this topic, investment in clear metrics for major gift officers is a critical component of staff retention and fundraising success. To consider this topic briefly, it is easiest to think of metrics as they fall into two categories: activity-based metrics and dollar-based metrics. It is always a good idea to have a healthy balance between the two. From the vantage point of the gift officer, an individual can control how hard they work (conducting visits, moves, contacts, etc.), but can’t always control when or if a gift will close. We all had gifts that were “a sure thing” when the economy crashed and many of us are still nurturing and rebuilding those relationships to get them back to where we were three years ago. Did we do anything wrong to prevent the gift from closing? No, but the gift still didn’t close, did it? Many of us have also walked into situations where we pick up a portfolio from a previous gift officer’s work, and a gift closes quickly and easily. Was it a case of our brilliance as an MGO? While probably a contributor, it was most likely the hard work of the gift officer(s) who nurtured and built that relationship for years prior to your arrival. In summary, remember to have a healthy balance of activity-based metrics (proposals submitted, asks made, referrals/new prospects identified) all of which can be controlled by the efforts of the gift officer, and allow for a margin of error in dollars raised on an annual basis. With these sides of the equation in balance, the health and well-being of your major gift staff will be significantly enhanced and greater success in funds raised will follow.

At the outset of this article we acknowledged this time as a difficult one for Advancement Offices. Staff investment and retention is part of the challenge for leadership in the non-profit world where salaries and budgets are oftentimes controlled by systems or external constituencies over which the non-profit does not have control. In order to deliver success from the significant investment of a comprehensive advancement program, human capital is one of the most critical areas in which to invest. Using creativity, relationship management “best practice” models such as we use externally, and the added incentive of professional development and coaching rewards, your human capital will be well-cared for and you and your organization will reap the rewards for years into the future.