I recently had a conversation with an organizational Executive Director who was having their group round up its grassroots supporters to generate online votes to have the group selected to win a small grant. (Small means that in the organization’s context, it would at most be 1% of the organization’s budget if they received it).
What was odd to me is that the grant they were seeking was to do work that wasn’t part of their strategic plan. Indeed, it wasn’t even something that fit within the group’s core niche/role, so it’s not that it wasn’t part of the plan because it was low priority — it was off the map entirely.
When I asked the ED why they were nonetheless pursuing it, their response was that the dollars flowing in would be twice what it would actually cost to implement and it would get the group on the radar screen of a foundation.
I pondered this for a few minutes and my reaction was — that’s not right.
Chasing money off-plan fails to account for:
- Staff time necessary to first chase the money, then implement the small project, then possibly to report back on it.
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The opportunity cost — eg. what the staffers involved in drumming up “votes” for the proposal could have raised from spending that time meeting with individual donors.
- The dilution of the organizational brand, as grassroots supporters become confused about what the organization is all about. The same is perhaps doubly true with foundations — being on a foundation’s radar screen, but then perhaps being misidentified as something you’re not strikes me as a negative, not a positive.
Bottom line: chasing money can be hazardous to organizational health.
Look for more on this in a future edition of my article: Why Organizations Go Off Course.