Fundraising is NOT sales, and sales is NOT fundraising. Do you ever feel like your organization focuses only on metrics and money and forgets that PEOPLE are the key ingredient to all aspects of our work?
As a Chief Development Officer, and now, more recently, as a fractional interim nonprofit executive, I see this all too often. Taking a page from our for-profit brethren, NGOs often lead their efforts with data and metrics, which guide their most important decisions. Their focus is largely, or even solely, on generating the best numbers.
Please don’t misunderstand, I am 100% all in on data-driven decision-making and fundraising. But I am also convinced that if we push the human piece aside, we will not have numbers to report.
We also suffer through a lot of noise in our industry about what we “should” be measuring and why and how this tool or that tool will help us measure what we should be measuring more effectively.
Can I tell you how frustrated I get when people selling into our industry play advice giver without actually being in practice? (Insert head explosion emoji here!)
It’s disingenuous to claim you’re an expert when you’ve been in the seat for only a job or two, or in some cases, never at all. That’s selling, that’s not fundraising or partnership. If you aren’t currently dealing with the realities of what it means to do this work. If you get too focused on the metrics without understanding the nuances of the work, you’ll lose sight of what you’re doing and it becomes a transaction. Philanthropy is defined as love of mankind—it is people helping people, this industry was built on relationships, not on transactions.
Engagement, building community, and rebuilding the sense of belonging in the organization ARE the purpose of nonprofit innovation.
When we focus on engagement, building community, and rebuilding the sense of belonging in the organization, coupled with metrics, that is when the resources will come. In a healthy balance, they should complement each other, not lead one another.
That’s exactly why I’m committed to functioning as a player-coach. I vow to practice what I preach, no matter what. Real-world, “I’ve seen it all” experience is paramount to achieving this balance. This is the Attain Partners difference.
We need to assess how we are using data in order to teach our teams the bigger picture of why the data is important. The analysis should be there to support their work, not to sanitize or overanalyze and be less than human. Our goal should always be to support and encourage our teams. Let’s help them remember why they do what they do and give them the tools to do it!
When in doubt, keep the balance.
Originally posted on Attain Partners blog.