Fundraisers are leaving their organizations in record numbers, highlighting the costly impact of toxic workplace culture. Too many non-profits neglect or outright misuse their frontline fundraisers, even though they would probably agree that retaining hard-working, dedicated people is key to achieving any mission.

Why is this?

For many non-profits, they may have a culture that doesn’t understand fundraising, leadership that’s not supportive, or managers who were never trained on how to manage well. Whatever the reason, addressing a toxic workplace needs to be a priority for your organization is you’re going to overcome the impacts of the “Great Resignation.”

Read the Transcript:

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
fundraisers, donor, frontline, people, nonprofits, Veritus, managers, fundraising, mission, goal, organization, culture, work, area, create, develop, relationships

SPEAKERS
Jeff Schreifels, Karen Kendrick, Richard Perry, Recorded

Jeff Schreifels
There is a crisis happening in the nonprofit sector. And it shouldn’t be a surprise. For decades, nonprofits have neglected the important work of employee retention in training managers to be effective. So, it’s no wonder that frontline fundraisers are leaving every 15 to 18 months. What many leaders don’t realize is that this kind of turnover causes significant damage to our donor relationships, and, ultimately, your ability to make an impact on your mission. That’s why in this podcast, Richard and I are chatting with Karen Kendrick, our Senior Director of Learning, about how you can better retain your fundraisers.

Recorded
Welcome to the Nothing But Major Gifts podcast from Veritus Group, featuring Richard Perry and Jeff Schreifels. Twice a month, we bring you the latest and best thinking about major gift fundraising, so you can develop authentic relationships with your major donors. Here are your hosts, Richard and Jeff.

Jeff Schreifels
Welcome to the podcast today. I have Richard Perry and Karen Kendrick here with me. And we want to talk about the crisis of fundraiser attrition that is occurring right now in most nonprofits. And Richard, you and I have talked about this quite a bit.

Richard Perry
Oh, yes, we have. I mean, I’m telling you, it’s one of the most pressing problems facing fundraising in you know, in the last decade. I mean, it’s just a serious thing.

Jeff Schreifels
And here’s the thing, in my opinion, the managers of these frontline fundraisers, they’re taking advantage of people who are doing this work.

Richard Perry
Now, hang on a second, what do you mean by taking advantage?

Jeff Schreifels
Well, if you look at survey after survey of fundraisers, over 85% of them would say they have a higher motive than just getting a paycheck or advancing their careers. Yep, that’s right. That’s a huge percentage of people who see their work and fundraising as a personal mission of their own right. So in other words, these are people who are driven by work that fulfills their personal mission, and who find immense joy in it, and are much more likely to work harder, longer, accept lower compensation to do that work. But when you couple that with an industry where leadership believes overhead anywhere north of 10% is wasting their donors’ money, you have a problem. It’s kind of strange when you come to think about it, isn’t it?

Richard Perry
It really is, I mean, so okay, so let’s break this down. So what you’re saying is, the organization has two supposedly good organizational attributes, two of them, right. Mission-minded employees, which is what any CEO or Executive Director loves. I mean, anybody wants a mission-minded employee. Right? And, the second thing is an intention to be careful with how you steward the donors’ gifts. Now, those are really good things. But I think what you’re saying is that when you take them together, it creates an environment that’s hurting the frontline fundraisers.

Jeff Schreifels
That’s exactly right. And according to like every article, we read, especially in the last few months, this conflict is causing many good frontline fundraisers to leave their positions in fundraising, and at nonprofits altogether.

Richard Perry
Yeah, I know. I mean, it’s a pretty bad situation. And you know, I’m really glad that we have, you know, our own Karen Kendrick here on the team to give input on you know, what to do about this situation. So, Karen, you’ve heard Jeff and me talk about this. I mean, what’s your view on all of it?

Karen Kendrick
Yeah, thank you so much, guys. It is concerning. And it is sort of an interesting dichotomy of caring for those in our mission, but also caring for our people. So, you know, we know that people are our most important asset in our organization, especially when you think about fundraising and building those relationships, and they make carrying out the purpose of the organization possible. So it is ironic, you know, that the sector in our society that’s supposed to be doing good in the world is so often exploiting their own people, really not realizing it I think a lot of the time, who are trying to accomplish that good.

Richard Perry
Well, that’s weird.

Karen Kendrick
Well, you know, it’s, I think it’s something we really don’t talk about in our sector. So just recently, the Chronicle of Philanthropy shared a survey result that showed that 51% of fundraisers expect to leave their current job in the next two years. And not only that, Richard, on top of that, three out of 10 surveyed fundraisers expect to leave fundraising altogether in the next two years. So, you know, think about this, this could be catastrophic for our industry. And it really we need to figure out how to address this.

Jeff Schreifels
Well, before we get into our recommendations about that, let’s just talk about why this is happening.

Richard Perry
Well, you know, Jeff, I really think that there’s probably two reasons, you know, for this, I mean, two things that kind of at the macro. First, these good people are being put under unreasonable pressure and unrealistic goals. I mean, that’s one big category. And leaders, and then secondly, leaders and managers are maintaining an environment and a culture that’s hostile or, you know, at the minimum, apathetic about fundraising. I mean, we’ve seen a lot of that.

Jeff Schreifels
Okay, so let’s talk about both of these points, starting with you, Richard, on the unreasonable pressure and the goals point.

Richard Perry
Well, we’ve been through this so much, I mean, we know the whole thing starts to go bad when the goals are set for frontline fundraisers. I mean, we know that every goal for every donor, you know, it could be mid-level, major, planned gifts, I mean, we know that every goal should be driven by donors’ passions and interests, right. As well as the history of the giving of the donor, the donor’s potential, the nature of the relationship to the fundraiser, I mean, these are the main things as to what drives the goal. Now, these four things must be the focus of a really engaged conversation between the manager and the frontline fundraiser. And discussion’s gotta involve, you know, reviewing the goal set for that donor, and then an agreement between management and NGO, you know, about the number.

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Richard Perry
And the thing is, is manager should not fall into the trap of just announcing that a fundraiser needs to raise, you know, 15 percent or some other number you’ve dreamed up, 50% more than last year. You know, Jeff, you and I know that it’s convenient and easy, but it’s not realistic or honoring to do that. Plus there’s not a logical basis for something like that.

Karen Kendrick
Boy, Richard, I know, when I was a fundraiser, I’d sometimes just be given a random number. I wouldn’t know how they came up with it, or how I was going to reach it.

Richard Perry
It’s crazy. Now, what if by coincidence, when the fundraiser adds up the goals for each donor that they’ve set, using the criteria I said earlier, that the average increase is 9%. Hmm, you know, what, what’s the math you’re gonna do? You’re gonna force the fundraiser, they’re like, Okay, we’re gonna squeeze that extra needed from some hapless donor. I mean, it just never works. And it won’t work. So those need to be donor-specific, specific and focused. Now, I mean, it is true, that there may be some energetic discussions between management and frontline fundraisers about what’s possible for selected donors. But you just go with that kind of high energy discussion, and you reach a compromise. But you know, a manager just cannot kick into the authority mode and just dictate stuff. That’s where it starts to go bad. I mean, you gotta gain agreement and consensus.

Jeff Schreifels
Well, here’s a related point too, is once the goal is agreed upon, when the fundraiser needs to develop, they really then need to develop a personalized plan for the donor that’s going to document the steps they’re going to take to secure the goal. Right?

Richard Perry
Exactly.

Jeff Schreifels
That plan has to have a number of touch points, stewardship, and solicitation into it. You got to have that. So let’s get to the second point on toxic environment. Karen, what can be done in this area?

Karen Kendrick
Yes, thank you, Jeff. And I know even for us at Veritus, we’re looking at this for our own team, you know, this is stuff we all need to grow and learn about. And I think it starts with like, how do we treat our people? Are we paying them well? Are we giving them ample time off, training them properly? Helping them advance? You know, are we looking at who we are advancing and not advancing in an organization? Are we providing flexibility? I mean, I’ve heard of folks just recently that you’re coming back to work in the office tomorrow. I mean, there’s not really a collaborative, flexibility conversation happening. So the combination of your people’s love of the mission, and your ability to provide them with a life-giving workplace. That’s powerful, and people want that and they desire to have meaning and that creates joy. So there’s so much possibility there.

Karen Kendrick
And then secondly, we’ve got to provide frontline fundraisers with clear expectations and structure. You were referring to this Richard, in which to do their work, like so many times, not only with goals and plans, but in all their work. They’re just trying to figure out like, what is my job? Exactly what am I supposed to be doing? What are the priorities? So the best thing you can do as a leader is make sure there are clear expectations and then provide them with the proper structure that’s set up to create those authentic donor relationships to know what’s expected, to know how they’re measured. So you set them up for success. Right.

Karen Kendrick
And then there’s the critical piece about culture and thinking about, you know, does your culture create a place of support for everyone where trust and vulnerability are welcome for all people? Like can you have those, you know, honest, tough conversations and know your leadership has your back. Do your behaviors actually match your values in your organization? So it doesn’t matter how much you pay someone or pay your fundraisers, if the climate is toxic, or inauthentic, they will not stay at least the good ones won’t. So, you know, Jeff, there’s so many valuable areas, and I know one that you care a lot about is celebrating people. So talk a little bit about that.

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, I do. And we have spoken with scores of fundraisers who tell us, I mean, we get these emails all the time, that no one is telling them, they’re doing a good job. And we all want a pat on the back and recognition for a job well done. We all want that encouragement. And for our leaders and managers, managers to really acknowledge good work, and it’s amazing to us, that’s something so small, like telling your fundraisers how good they are at their work, can have such a huge impact on performance and well-being.

Richard Perry
Boy, that is, I mean, that kind of feedback is so important. This is a great discussion. But I want to add one more area that that can help create a safe and productive environment like Karen was talking about earlier for your frontline fundraisers. And it’s this whole area of performance evaluation. And this is a hard part, and it’s very labor intensive. You’ve got to meet weekly with every frontline fundraiser to review the progress against the plan that they wrote for the donor. You can’t just leave it to like, well, I’m going to check in once a month. You want to be sure that you’re you’re talking with the fundraiser and holding them accountable to execute the plan. This is really critical to their success. So one of the major reasons a fundraiser doesn’t achieve the goals that have been set is because management accountability is really not in place. So this is very important that this kind of checking in and walking with the fundraiser gives you the opportunity to know, to KNOW, in caps, what’s going on in time to correct it. And then provide encouragement and give advice and input. I mean, all of this done correctly, is really a positive experience. For all of our frontline fundraisers.

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, and I think all of this explains why so many frontline fundraisers are leaving, I mean, the fact that many nonprofit cultures are broken. And this brokenness is bruising employees to the point where they’re literally running away.

Richard Perry
Hmm.

Jeff Schreifels
And we have written extensively about this. And one really good resource is a white paper we’ve written on building a culture of philanthropy in your organization. And you can get it for free by going to veritusgroup.com and clicking on the Resource tab, and then on White Papers, and there you’ll find “Building a Culture of Philanthropy.” That’s veritusgroup.com, Resource tab, White Papers.

Karen Kendrick
Thank you, Jeff, that is a great white paper. And there’s also one other thing you can do. You can let us work with your frontline fundraisers and provide that support they need within the context of your leadership and management mandate.

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, that’s a great idea. We have a whole system of support with hundreds of nonprofits in the US, Canada, and Europe that have adopted and we work with you to co-manage your frontline fundraisers, where we actually sit down and like Richard said, we work every week, with your frontline fundraising staff, we help build that structure. And then we co-manage them to make sure that they actually are accountable, they’re focused, but that they get that pat on the back, they get someone to come alongside of them saying, Hey, here’s some ideas, you’re doing a great job. Let’s keep it going. And when we do that, they make their goals. And not only that, but they have real relationships developed with their donors. So, you know, we would just love for you to check that out. So to learn how that works, you can contact Amy Chapman at achapman@veritusgroup.com for more information. You will be surprised on how effective that program is.

Richard Perry
Well, and here’s the thing. All that’s true, but there’s another good thing that you didn’t mention is that the revenue actually goes up.

Jeff Schreifels
Well there is that too.

Richard Perry
I mean just last year, for the average increase in revenue last year during all this COVID stuff going on?

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Richard Perry
Revenue went up for all of our clients to about on average 23%. Yeah. And the frontline fundraisers are staying. I mean, so this whole system creates an environment that’s positive, that actually addresses all the issues that Jeff and Karen and myself have been talking about. I mean, you can’t beat that, there’s nothing better than creating an environment where everybody’s working on the same page. They’re excited, they’re happy, they’re fulfilled. They go home at night, feeling like they’ve done a great job. And the net revenue for your programs is going up. Nothing better than that. No.

Jeff Schreifels
Well, thanks for joining Karen, Richard and myself today. Remember, you can get the white paper “Building a Culture of Philanthropy” by going to veritusgroup.com, click on that Resources tab and look for White Papers. And if you’re interested in how Veritus can help you co-manage your mid, major, or planned giving staff, reach out to Amy Chapman at achapman@veritusgroup.com. And not only will we help you co-manage, but we’ll see your revenue skyrocket. I know Richard just said so. Thank you and we’ll see you next time.

Karen Kendrick
Thank you all.

Recorded
Thank you for joining us for the Nothing But Major Gifts podcast from Veritus Group. Richard and Jeff also write an ongoing blog that you can subscribe to for free at veritusgroup.com. Please join us again next time.