Part of a series: The Role of Money, Position & Power in Major Gifts
I often get asked the “what should they pay me” question. And it immediately puts me into a conversation about the role of money in the work of major gifts.
In my introduction to this topic, I told you that I got caught stealing money when I was in 7th grade. Now I want to tell you why I did it and how it influenced my relationship to and thoughts about money.
My parents did not have much money, but I didn’t notice it until they sent me to a boarding school for first grade. The school had a mixture of kids from very wealthy families as well as kids like me at the bottom of the economic ladder. It didn’t take long for me to notice the difference.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the act of sending me off to a boarding school in another country started me down an emotional and psychological track of self-doubt and loathing. I felt horrible about myself. I was anxious all the time, and I was desperately seeking to discover my self-worth through my interactions with the kids around me.
While my story is way more complicated than I have time to develop here, the bottom line is that the confluence of low self-image and rich kids flaunting their wealth caused me a great deal of inner turmoil. So I decided to buy my way into love and acceptance. I started stealing money from the student council store. I did two things with the money: I used it for myself, and I gave large sums of it away to a group of friends I was “buying.”
This continued for some time until I got caught and got kicked out of school. This event began my interesting and dramatic journey with money that taught me several lessons:
- Money has nothing to do with one’s personal value. While I know this intellectually, to this day I still struggle with it emotionally. So I have an ongoing conversation with myself to remember that no matter how much or how little I have, I will be no less or no more valuable as a person. And I will be no happier, either way.
- Money will not help you find or maintain a relationship – any kind of relationship, business or personal. When you have money, like I did at that school and like I have had in my career, you can have quite a few people who are happy to be your “friends.” But if and when the money dries up, you will see most of them disappear quickly.
- Money in the workplace is first about providing service, then about making a living. This one is counterintuitive. We all need to make a living, so work is an important and necessary activity. But I have found that many employers and employees are confused about this dynamic. Over the years as an employer I have found that, with an employee, there is a direct correlation between the employee’s obsession with money and a lack of quality service to the organization. Conversely, those employees who are primarily focused on doing a good job and securing the agreed upon results in an effective and efficient way are the ones who consistently deliver quality services to the organization.
- The acquisition of money needs to be a result, not an objective. I learned this lesson two ways during my career. The first way was in changing jobs. Never in my career have I sought a job to get more money. So if you were to look at my job changes over the years, I always, every time I changed jobs, dropped in salary. Why? Because I wanted to go for the opportunity and I believed I could make a difference. Here is what my compensation pattern has looked like over the years:
Now, I’m not sharing this either to puff myself up or to show what a wonderful person I am. I am simply saying that when you approach a job with a motive to secure an opportunity and provide service, rather than just grab the money, something very magical happens in your heart and your employer’s head. And financial rewards will come to you in unexpected and generous ways. Why? Because a good and smart employer will see that he or she has an employee who is making things happen; an employee who is focused on getting things done; and an employee who puts the organization and his or her boss ahead of personal interest. This is very powerful. And in my case, the compensation trend line was up over the years to greater and greater financial rewards with some small little “pauses” when I changed jobs.
I know, you may have been burned on the compensation thing and now you are cynical and careful, saying: “If I don’t take care of me, no one will!” I know. But this “if I don’t take care of me” attitude, if not controlled and managed, has a way of putting negative energy in the relationship between you and your employer. Believe me, I know this from being an employer myself, and from having been an avid student of this topic over the last 25 years.
The second way I learned this lesson is in my work with clients over the years. While it is often said that profits and money come from providing a great product and great service, very few people actually believe this principle and put it into action. Instead, they are obsessed with grabbing the money. The result? They set a tone in their organization that is self-interested and self-focused, rather than others-oriented. This is a dreadful mistake – one that leads to failure.
When you lead an organization that is providing services to customers and you honestly believe you can take shortcuts, put yourself before them, manipulate and lie in order to get what you want, you will fail. It is just that simple, and it is just a matter of time before reality will catch up with you.
Conversely, if you serve your employees and your customers outrageously, with a heart and mind toward their interests, the financial rewards will follow. I have experienced this principle in the organizations I have owned and led in my career. And it works. It really does.
So what does all of this mean to you in your current major gifts job and/or your search for a new job? How should you think about money/compensation in your work? Here is what I think:
- Adopt a philosophy of service, rather than going for the money. Have a heart and a mind that is oriented toward giving, not getting. This means asking yourself why you are so obsessed with the money, if you are. You only need so much; why are you obsessed with wanting more? I am not saying here you shouldn’t want more or plan to get more. I am asking why the wanting is so central to your being? I have nothing against making money. It’s fine with me if you go for the $150,000 job or you have discovered a way to make millions. My question is about your heart and your motives. If your core motivation is the money, you will not have a good journey. If instead it is about good service to others, you will be successful.
- Do not let your drive to want more money force you into a job situation that won’t work. If you absolutely need (not want) to make $40,000 but the job pays $35,000, don’t maneuver yourself into a situation where you persuade the prospective employer to give you $40k. It will set the wrong tone and the wrong expectations. It will put pressure on you that you should not have. If what you need is $50,000 and the range of the job is $50 to $60k, why not start at the $50k and “win” the rest of it through good service? Why do you HAVE to have more to start? Simply put, do not make money the driving and central force in taking a job. Do not let yourself get beyond your need into wants. Let your service be the thing that brings you the money, not your manipulations.
- Be aware of and own the fact that your employer needs an economic payback from the money he or she is investing in you. We hardly ever think of this point – that the employer needs to get something from the deal as well. He or she not only needs to get work done – it somehow needs to be economically worth it. In major gifts, if you are just starting out, the payback may be as low as 1:2 or 3, meaning the organization gets back $2 or $3 for every dollar they spend. As the program matures, that ratio needs to improve substantially. If YOU own this and serve it, you will bring joy to your manager. And I know that when this kind of joy happens, financial rewards for you are just around the corner. That is how it works.
- Be willing to take a step backwards financially in order to secure a better place for yourself. Assuming you are taking care of your financial needs (not wants), when you are thinking about changing jobs or doing the same thing in another organization, think of the opportunity first, not the money. And if the opportunity is something that really matches your motivations and abilities, but the starting pay is below what you make now but above what you need, then strongly consider it. I promise that in this situation the money will take care of itself.
Remember this: focus on giving of yourself, rather than trying to acquire things. If you can do it, it will bring you real happiness. Then all you have to do is sit back and watch what happens.
Richard
Series details:
- Introduction
- How to Think about Money and Your Job
- Does Position Really Matter?
- How to Use Your Power Correctly
Probably one of the best articles on this subject I have ever read and applicable to pretty much any other profession such as football, MMA, Investment banking…the list goes on. This is a subject close to my heart and was nodding furiously all the way through!