Being willing to be uncomfortable

December 22, 2025

Filed under: Board Development,Fundraising,Leadership,Volunteers — Tags: , — jonathanpoisner @ 3:03 pm

This is a follow-up to an article I wrote more than a decade ago entitled: “Step Out of your Comfort Zone.”

I was recently talking to a board member for a nonprofit and they used the exact phrase I wrote about then. “I’m not comfortable approaching my friends to ask for donations.”

To which I asked, with some attempt at diplomacy, “I hear you, but are you not willing to be somewhat uncomfortable if that means the organization can better help people?”

Here’s my paraphrase of what the board member really was saying:

“Our mission is vitally important to the community. Which is why I’m unwilling to make myself uncomfortable to support it.”

Of course, the board member would clearly balk if phrased that way. Yet, this is the disconnect we often hear.

Great passion. Only willing to do things that are emotionally easy.

Now if someone is uncomfortable with a request because they have ethical or legal qualms, that’s a different story. But if it’s emotional discomfort, people need to recognize that change in our world rarely happens only by people being comfortable.

Organizations that fail to create a culture where its leaders get past this disconnect are likely to putter along doing some work, but they are unlikely to thrive.

Why does this disconnect between belief in the cause and unwillingness to be uncomfortable?

What are the consequences of this disconnect?

And how can a nonprofit overcome it?

Why the disconnect?

The level of discomfort people expect to feel when talking to a friend or acquaintance about supporting an organization is based on two cultural taboos:

  • A taboo against talking about money
  • A taboo against pressuring people

It’s not that people aren’t sincere about their belief in the cause. It’s that taboos are strong, especially when combined with fear of the unknown.

Both taboos are cultural. Young children don’t have them. They’re constantly asking their parents for money. And have no qualms about using pressure tactics.

Our parents and others teach us not to talk about money or use pressure tactics and most of us (though not all) absorb those lessons by the time we are adults. For example, we learn that it’s rude to ask someone how much money they make.  Or to be viewed by others as someone who is “pushy.”

What are the consequences of the disconnect?

You may be thinking, so what?

Almost always, the consequence is the organization winds up on a lower trajectory with less ability to accomplish its mission.

A focus on comfort is a recipe for complacency, inaction, and inertia. Any organization seeking change (whether global, national, or local in scope), is rarely likely to succeed without people routinely stepping outside their comfort zone.

The biggest practical impact: fewer resources (both money and volunteer time).

Many people may be aware of and even like the organization from afar, but few wind up in a relationship with the organization in ways that make a difference.

Foundation grants may give the appearance of organizational health for a while.

But the long run prospects are rarely good.

How do you overcome this disconnect?

There is no silver bullet you can produce that instantly will make this disconnect go away. But there are some strategies that work over time.  Here are four you may wish to try.

  1. Name the taboo.

Often times, the first step towards getting past a fear of being uncomfortable is to name the taboo behind it. Talk about it. Recognize it for being the cultural artifact that it is. A cultural taboo that is learned can be unlearned.

With regard to the concern about being perceived as pushy, do an exercise where you name all the more positive synonyms for pushy (e.g. assertive, dynamic, persistent, strong-willed). These are characteristics of strong leaders who are most likely to generate followers to a cause.

  1. Recognize the difference between imagined discomfort and actual discomfort.

Many times the discomfort people expect to experience dwarfs the actual discomfort they will feel when doing it.

Indeed, for the vast majority of board and staff who I’ve worked with as fundraisers, their expectation of discomfort turns into the opposite: a positive experience both for the asker and donor. The asker feels validated. The donor is happy to invest in an organization that will accomplish things in the community the donor values.

“Try it, you may like it” isn’t just a phrase for parents trying to get their kids to taste something new.

  1. Find a cheerleader.

Cheerleading works. Find someone who’s “been there, done that” and who can talk about their fears of doing something uncomfortable and how when they tried it the experience was positive. Nothing is more likely to get board members willing to fundraise than hearing one of their peers talk about how they overcame their own reticence and now recognize that effective fundraising can be a powerful way to strengthen relationships.

If nobody within your own organization fits the bill, find someone else in the community. In any community there are organizations thriving. Get to know them and who is driving them forward. Ask them to provide a pep talk about what’s possible.

  1. Keep the cause front and center.

Sometimes organizational meetings are so stuck in the weeds of finances, programs, and action plans that those involved can become disconnected from what motivated them to get involved in the first place.

They’re unwilling to be uncomfortable in part because they’ve lost passion for the mission. If you fear this is happening, set aside 10 minutes at every board meeting for a round-robin where everyone shares one thought about why they are passionate about the work being done. This may seem like a waste of 10 minutes, but when I’ve used this technique it makes a palpable difference in the quality of the remaining meeting time.

When it comes time to get out of the comfort zone, remind people about their passion for the cause.

So for those of you reading this prior to New Years, recognize that the last few days of the year are the very best days to ask people to make donations to your nonprofit, so challenge yourself to step beyond your comfort and make at least one bold ask!

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Scary Nonprofit Quotes 2025

October 31, 2025

Filed under: Board Development,Human Resources,Leadership,Strategic Planning — jonathanpoisner @ 11:34 am

October 31, 2025

For the last few years (with one exception), I’ve taken time to compile some of the scariest nonprofit quotes I’ve heard in the last year and sharing these spooky statements with my audience.

Past editions:

Here’s the 2025 edition:

  1. “A few of our board members feel like we should save the money and have one of them facilitate our strategic planning process.”  Then, after prodding: “No, none of them have experience playing that role for a nonprofit.”

  2. “We’re shutting our doors because our funding model is broken,” after ignoring all sorts of opportunities to properly build an individual donor program or alerting the organization’s hundreds of volunteers that this was a possibility to determine if there was another path forward.

  3. “I know that’s what the grant says it’s for.  But I figure I can still use the funds to hire NAME to do what she’s already doing.  It’s in the ballpark of what the grant says.”

  4. “I know I was supposed to take care of this task months ago and it’s been weighing on me [since others on staff were counting on it].  But I haven’t known where to start.”  Said by somebody who didn’t ask for help once over several months since they became stuck.

  5. “My wife should be allowed to come to a board meeting.,” said by a board member even though the board meetings aren’t open to the public and confidential information is often discussed.

  6. “We realized we could use some help at our upcoming planning retreat.  Are you available to facilitate?” Asked 1 week before the retreat in question.

  7. “If we don’t rehire for this role [upon the departure of someone highly effective], we’ll just cobble together the work with volunteers.” 

  8. “Our Executive Director has to be spoon fed information for him to make decisions.”

  9. “The board determined that the Executive Director role could be done in 10 hours per week.”

  10. “The Executive Director [of a nonprofit co-located with a for-profit entity that the Exec Director owns], gets a consignment fee for every item sold,” [even as the nonprofit is promoting the for-profit entity.

Please take a minute and vote for your scariest!

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A Donor Prospect Identification Exercise

May 27, 2025

Filed under: Board Development,Fundraising — jonathanpoisner @ 3:32 pm

A common refrain I hear when talking to nonprofit boards (and often staff) is that “I/we don’t know anybody who could be a major donor.”

Now if their definition of a major donor is too ambitious, this might be true. The universe of $100,000+ donors is small.

At the same time, the universe of donors who can and will give at the $10,000 level is larger than most people realize. And that’s true and then some with regard to donors at the $1,000+ level. At least for most my clients, anybody giving $1,000+ is a “major” donor.

Yet, even then, the complaint continues: “I don’t know anybody who can give $1,000.”

While this is sometimes true, it’s more often true that they can’t recall off the top of their head the people they know who can give at that level.

Working with various clients, I’ve found that running board and staff through an exercise focused on prospect identification often surfaces new, legitimate prospects to pursue.

Some context — the A, B, C test

Your major donor list should start with existing donors, board members who left on good standing, volunteers, etc.

In thinking about potential donors who don’t fit any of those categories, I was taught the A, B, C test.

  • A = Ability – do they have the income or assets that would allow them to make a donation at the designated level?
  • B = Belief – do they believe in the organization or, the more general “cause” or “impact” that the organization is working to advance via its mission?
  • C = Connection (or Contact) – does somebody in the organization know them at least at the level of acquaintance?

The biggest hang up for many people is when it comes to Ability — they believe only a tiny fraction of Americans donate at the $1,000 level. In reality, I’ve seen estimates showing that more than half of American families donate to charity in any given year and 10% of those say they’ve donated more than $1,000. So that’s 1 in 20 overall.

This may seem like a small percentage, but given that the average person knows hundreds of people, that leaves a sizeable number (on average) that you’re likely to know. Most people know at least one.

This obviously will vary by geography, age, economic situation, and other factors, but bottom line: most people underestimate the level of generosity that their friends (and acquaintances) display.

An exercise

The compounding factor is that many organizations ask “who do you know who could be a major donor” as an abstract question that asks people to rack their brains.

Instead, an exercise is warranted.

  • Provide people a short 10 minute overview of charitable giving.
  • Ask them to take 10-30 minutes on their own scanning through their email address book, their social media account friends/followers, their cell phone contact list, and any old-fashioned rolodex.
  • If this is a collective exercise, as they identify somebody, have them shout out the name. On more than one occasion, I’ve experienced somebody else in the group immediately both recognizing the name AND having that prompt some other name to come to their mind.
  • Don’t call it done when people have scanned their lists. They may have passed over names in haste or more likely there are people they know not included.
  • Ask them a series of questions:

Who in their family (extended) may have the ability and belief?

Are they part of a religious institution and do they know others through that with the likely ability and belief?

Are they a member of any club or regular activity and who from those would have the likely ability and belief? — I once had this exercise cause somebody to remember some people in their book club that they had neglected to consider.

Do they know people through participation in sports (active or as spectators/watchers) who would have the ability and belief? – I once had somebody remember somebody from their fantasy football league when prompted in this way.

Who do they know via employment, such as co-workers (current or former) or via professional networks – I once had somebody remember that a former co-worker had retired with some degree of wealth and had spoken with passion of the cause the organization addressed.

Getting people to ask

Of course, creating a strong prospect list is only valuable if people are willing to network with, cultivate where necessary, and make asks. That’s worthy of a different article. For now, recognize that your team almost certainly knows more potential donors than you realize if you’re prepared to be systematic in working with the team.

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What makes a high functioning board?

March 12, 2025

Filed under: Board Development — Tags: — jonathanpoisner @ 2:53 pm

Not every one of my client engagements involves work with a board of directors, but enough do that I can safely say I’ve worked with several dozen boards and that’s allowed me to reach some conclusions regarding what separates those that truly lift up their organizations from those that drag them down.

Unfortunately, it could also take a book to spell out all these differences, along with recommendations for how to improve boards.

Nonetheless, someone challenged me to identify the most important attributes of a high-functioning board so they could know where to begin for improving their own board.

So without further ado, here’s my best effort.

Effective boards do five things particularly well:

  1. They’re efficient
  2. They’re responsible
  3. They’re financially supportive
  4. They are connected to the cause
  5. They are continually improving

Efficient means they hold well-run board meetings that are actively facilitated and focus on essential topics, they use committees or task forces where appropriate between meetings, and board-staff relationships are managed in a way that doesn’t create additional, unnecessary time sinks.

Responsible means the board meets their legal, ethical and fiduciary responsibilities.  Plus, it also means they are accountable to each other and to the staff.  Put another way, they plan for the board and they ensure the organization has a culture of planning.  Plus, they do what they say they’ll do. 

Financially supportive means they donate themselves and they have some involvement in raising funds or securing revenue for the organization.  Not everyone needs to be an asker, but everyone needs to somehow engage as an ambassador, steward, cultivator, or some other way that either directly bring in dollars or helps someone else on the team bring in dollars.

They have some connection to the cause (that staff should help reinforce) so that their passion for the mission can help get past any inertia or fear that would otherwise block them from being effective board members.

Lastly, they are continually improving, meaning they are constantly asking relevant questions, such as: who else should be on the board?  And what could we be doing better?

There are, of course, many details underneath each of these.  Books worth of details.  And the process taking a mediocre board to high-functioning can take multiple years.

But if you’re beginning the process of building or improving a board, I think reviewing the above with the board and asking them: “how are we doing?” is a good place to start.

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Preparing for a Likely Recession

February 27, 2025

Filed under: Board Development,Fundraising,Strategic Planning — jonathanpoisner @ 1:45 pm

February 2025

Preparing for a Likely Recession

No, I’m not an economist (although I do have a B.S. in Economics). 

A lot of smart people – including economists — thought there’d be a recession 2 years go and there wasn’t.

And the same thing the year before that.   And a few years before that.

You get the gist.   In any given year, somebody is predicting a recession.

Of course, this year, between the federal chaos/layoffs, tariffs, and general economic uncertainty created by businesses unwilling to invest under a unpredictable regime, it’s hard not to believe that the long overdue recession will finally come.

It doesn’t mean the end of your nonprofit.  Indeed, you may actually thrive during the recession.

I managed the Oregon League of Conservation Voters through the 2001-2002 recession and the first half of the 2008-2010 “great” recession. 

Having managed a nonprofit through these, what do I wish I’d done differently in the 6 months prior to them?

Here are six ideas of what to do and one of what not to do.  Some of these lessons are directly based on my experience at OLCV and others are based on my knowledge as a consultant.

  1. Pay attention to your cash reserve.  If you haven’t already, have a conversation with your board up-front about what level they are willing to let that reserve drop to during a recession.  It’s okay – indeed, it’s appropriate — to have an annual loss during a recession if you began the year with a large enough reserve.  Have this conversation openly with your board rather than making decisions on the fly

  2. Be open with staff about your financial situation.  Are you in a really solid position?  Or somewhat precarious?  At OLCV, I wasn’t always open with my staff about how tight our finances were leading up to the 2001-2002 recession.  When a difficult decision was made by the Board Executive Committee (with my support), to freeze all staff salaries (e.g. no pay raises during the year, even COLAs), there was some staff frustration.  If I’d done more in the year prior to educate staff about how thin our reserve was, I would’ve saved heartache later on.

  3. Think about delaying “icing” expenditures.  Some of what you do is the cake.  It’s what you absolutely need to do to advance your mission.  Other things are nice, but if you don’t do them, nobody’s going to look at your nonprofit and say: you’re failing.  Take a hard pass through your budget/expenditures and ask: what can easily be deferred 6-12 months until we know more about our financial situation?  Ask staff their opinion about what to defer (or just cut).

  4. Don’t stop fundraising!  If anything, step it up.  Some people might say: “our donors are probably freaked out, so now’s not the time to ask.”  Don’t make that decision for them!  You never know their situation.  I once had a donor who I knew had been laid off make his largest ever gift to us.  (I learned later it was because he’d received an inheritance).   Even in bad recessions, plenty of people have jobs/situations that leave them doing well financially.  They are sometimes even happier to donate recognizing the need and their relative good fortune.

  5. In your fundraising, focus more of your energy on cultivating existing donors to deepen your relationships than adding first-time donors.  When individuals cut back their giving during a recession, they tend to stick with organizations they already support versus those that are new.

  6. Also in your fundraising: focus on your relationship with your top donors.  In most organization, there are 10-15 donors who make huge difference.  Be proactive in the next few months cultivating your relationships with them.  Let me know what you’re doing, how your reacting to the new lay of the land, and how their donations are making a difference.

  7. Lastly, a lesson of what to avoid: don’t choose a recession as the time to launch a business-focused fundraising effort.  Corporate fundraising yo-yos much further down during a recession historically, compared to individual giving or foundation philanthropy.  If you’ve laid the groundwork or you’re targeting businesses that are somewhat recession-proof, this might not apply to you.  But think hard about making a new, business-focused campaign an important part of our 2025-2026 strategy.

Do you have lessons of your own to share? Please leave them as a comment!

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14 Tips for Board Minutes

February 26, 2025

Filed under: Board Development — jonathanpoisner @ 3:20 pm

These tips range from the hyper-specific to general.  I’ve encountered more than a handful of organizations for which board minutes are done slapdash without any real attention to meeting either the need to be legally accurate memorials of what happened or documentation of use to those unable to attend.

  1. The minutes should state when the meeting convened and when it adjourned.

  2. The minutes should state the location (if in-person) or state that the meeting was conducted virtually.

  3. The minutes should indicate who was in attendance (both board members and others).  (And if people arrive/leave part-way via the minutes, the minutes should reflect that).

  4. The minutes should follow the order of the agenda, so that it reflects what happened during the meeting in the order the events take place.

  5. Minutes should be in past tense. 

  6. While it should follow the order of the agenda, the minutes taker shouldn’t just take notes on the agenda it it’s using a shared platform, like googledocs.  You should retain a clean copy of the agenda that doesn’t contain notes of what happened during the meeting. (The minutes taker can always copy the agenda into a new document or cut & paste the agenda into a new document if they find having the agenda useful as an outline).

  7. Motions should be memorialized, with detail on what the motion is, who made the motion, who seconded.  If a voice vote is taken and there are no objections, it is sufficient to just indicate a sentence that the motion passed.  If a counted vote takes place, the tally of yays and nays should be detailed.  Motions are the one thing you absolutely most record in the minutes. 

  8. Minutes should be concise and direct.  They are not a way of reporting everything every person said, details from presentations, etc.  They should focus on the most essential things: actions taken by the board and commitments made by individual board members to take on tasks.  If there are documents shared during the meeting, it can be appropriate to link to those from the board minutes. 

  9. To the extent there is a desire for minutes to reflect informational items where no action is taken, it is sufficient to note the item and provide a very brief summary of the topic covered.  This should not be a transcript of the meeting.  

  10. The Secretary should take notes during the meeting.  And then within 48 hours edit them into draft minutes while their memory is fresh.  This is the time to double-check spelling, write out acronyms and jargon to make them understandable.  In the absence of a Secretary, somebody else on the board should step up and play this role.  Staff can offer to assist, but ultimately these are a fundamental board responsibility.

  11. Before being distributed, it’s appropriate (though not essential) for an Executive Director or Board President to provide suggested edits at this point, for the Secretary to then finalize. 

  12. Board minutes should be circulated as soon as ready, rather than waiting until just prior to the next board meeting.  At the next board meeting, the minutes from the prior meeting should be approved by a board vote (with any corrections identified), usually as the first item of business.

  13. The organization’s online file system should allow for minutes from past board meetings to be easily sought out if it proves necessary.  At a minimum, when new board members are oriented, they should be shown the minutes from the last 2-3 board meetings.

  14. Lastly, while the existence of this Tip Sheet suggests the importance of minutes, careful readers of Why Organizations Thrive will note that Executive Directors are separately encouraged to send an email to their boards within 48 hours of a board meeting summarizing the most significant things that happened.  This is an important way to maintain momentum with those board members unable to attend.
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Scary Nonprofit Quotes 2024

October 24, 2024

Filed under: Board Development,Communications,Fundraising,Human Resources,Leadership,Strategic Planning — jonathanpoisner @ 3:04 pm

Welcome to the 3rd not-quite annual edition of Scary Nonprofit Quotes.

I authored the original edition in 2021 as Halloween approached and a follow-up in 2022.  After a one-year hiatus, I’m back.

I’ve wracked my brain and reviewed notes from the year. So without further adieu, here are the scariest things I’ve heard uttered by nonprofit leaders during the last couple of years.  Some of these may seem made up, but they’re not!

If you have a scary quote of your own, please add them as comments!

Scary Quotes, 2024 Edition

  1. I knew 10 years ago our fundraising database was a mess and needed to be replaced, but it just never seemed like the right time.

  2. I know this is what most of the people we had you interview said, but I don’t think they get nonprofits.  (Note: the people interviewed actually had more nonprofit experience than the board chair who uttered this].

  3. I can’t continue to be board chair of this organization unless the organization starts paying me as a contractor.

  4. I don’t believe we should work with deadlines or agreed upon objectives. 

  5. I don’t use talking points or write up what I’m going to say at our fundraising events. I prefer to wing it.   I’m not sure I could tell you what I said after the fact. 

  6. I know it’s a headache, but I’ll just leave that to the next Executive Director to deal with [after I leave in about 2 years].

  7. I don’t care if our board minutes are accurate.  Nobody will ever read them.

  8. I like to just use general topics for meeting agendas rather than specific questions.  I prefer to just let the meeting unfold.

  9. High staff turnover is something we just have to accept given we’re a nonprofit and therefore don’t pay well.

  10. I think I should be able to bring my wife to the board meeting. [notwithstanding the confidential information/topics that will be covered].

Let’s do a poll!  Please vote for your favorite Scary Quote of 2024.  I’ll be sure to post the results on Halloween. 

Please also comment if you have your own scary quotes you’d like to share!

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Why volunteers before how volunteers

September 25, 2024

Filed under: Advocacy,Board Development,Human Resources,Leadership,Strategic Planning,Uncategorized,Volunteers — jonathanpoisner @ 3:32 pm

With a few exceptions, the vast majority of nonprofits with which I’ve worked have viewed volunteers as both an important resource and strategy. 

Almost always, they immediately get to the question: how do we get volunteers?

In my experience, if you start by answering that question, you’re getting off on the wrong foot.

Instead, you should first ask the question: why volunteers?

How you go about getting volunteers will greatly impact what types of volunteers you secure.    You may recruit lots in raw numbers, but not meet your needs.

At the same time, understanding why you want volunteers will help you identify the right recruitment priorities.

So before designing the how, start with the why.

And to answer the why, I generally counsel asking two other questions in combination:

First, what do you most want out of your volunteers?

Second, what level of volunteer do you need?

Let’s take those questions in turn.

What do you most want out of your volunteers?

Here are five potential reasons I’ve experienced first-hand:

  1. To do the work staff just can’t get around to doing (either back-end administration/fundraising or programmatic).   The most recent statistic I found (from 2021) featured 60.7 million adults volunteering 4.1 billion hours.   A well-designed volunteer program should get more work done than could be done with the staff time necessary to recruit the volunteers.

  2. To be authentic voices.   Whether in fundraising or program, volunteers can speak authentically in ways that staff simply can’t. 

  3. To tap into their relationships.  Relationships drive fundraising, volunteer recruitment, advocacy, and other areas where nonprofits often focus.  Volunteers bring with them all of their relationships with friends, colleagues, etc. and can likely be heard by those people in ways that aren’t possible if the organization were to communicate with them directly. 

  4. As sources of local knowledge.  Particularly if your organization is trying to make a difference over a relatively large geography, volunteers are uniquely positioned to become your eyes and ears on the ground to help you make sure you deploy your resources in their geography in ways that will work.

  5. As sources of specialized expertise.  Whether it be graphic design, accounting, information technology, or a dozen other areas, organizations can sometimes meet their needs for technical expertise through high-level volunteers that save them money.

There is also a second question worth asking:  what level of volunteer do you need?

My very crude short-hand is there are three levels of volunteerism: participants, activity leaders, and organizational leaders.

Participants show up and do something for you.   Often just once, but sometimes repeatedly.   This is the bread and butter of many volunteer programs, particularly if they aim to generate lots of activity.  This looks wildly different based on the type of nonprofit.  A conservation nonprofit might have tree planting or cleanups.  An advocacy nonprofit (no matter the topic) might have phone banks or door-to-door canvassing. 

Activity leaders are the next level up: these volunteers are willing to lead all or part of some activity.  They may provide the training for participants, they may provide food for a fundraiser, they may take responsibility to recruit other volunteers, to cite just a few examples.

Organizational leaders take ownership for the long-term health of the group, overseeing either a series of activities or overall organizational health.  Board members are inherently organizational leaders if they’re doing their job.  But nonprofits shouldn’t assume that only board members will fulfill organizational leadership roles.  Other volunteers can be cultivated and given non-board authority in ways that allow them to take on organizational leadership as volunteers.

After answering these questions, it’s now appropriate to go back and set up a program that answers the how of volunteer recruitment.

If what you most need is local knowledge from people who’ll take organizational leadership, it argues for a very different volunteer recruitment strategy than if what you need most are activity participants who’ll do basic grunt work.

In a future blog entry or article, I’ll write more about effective volunteer recruitment programs.

But no matter your skill-set at recruitment, you’ll go further in setting up your program if you start by answering the question why.

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Nonprofit dashboards 101

May 30, 2024

Filed under: Board Development,Fundraising,Leadership,Strategic Planning — jonathanpoisner @ 11:41 am

The phrase “Nonprofit Dashboard” is not one I recall hearing in my first decade in the nonprofit sector (1994-2004).  Then, a few years into the new millennium, I started to hear the phrase occasionally.  By the early 2010s, I started to hear the phrase frequently.  

Dashboards have emerged as a tool for nonprofits because most organizations have far more data about their own performance than their counterparts two decades ago (or longer).  In addition, tools for graphically displaying data have become commonplace, embedded within programs we already use like Excel. 

But Dashboards aren’t something that are right for every nonprofit and doing them right requires serious thinking.

So what is a Nonprofit Dashboard? 

The term Dashboard is used because the tool is analogous to a car dashboard – a quick, comprehensive view of the overall status of the car.  In the organizational context, a Dashboard is usually a 1-3 page document, produced on a regular schedule, which uses a combination of tables, charts, and graphs to visually represent key metrics by which an organization is evaluating itself.  

While Dashboards can be focused solely on a specific program or other activity (e.g. fundraising), more often organizations develop Dashboards that are comprehensive with regards to their organization.

Why create a Dashboard? 

Do staff really need one more report on their to-do list?

Dashboards can serve many purposes, but the three most common benefits Dashboard proponents cite are: 

  • It generates strategic thinking about how the organization measures success.
  • It can help to identify on a timely basis where an organization is being successful and where things may be going off course.
  • It can provide a useful tool by which to focus the attention of the board on the most important things.

For really small organizations just struggling to hire their first few staff, a Dashboard is probably overkill.  But at some point Dashboards become worth the investment.

What should a Dashboard measure?  

There are many terms bandied about, but the one I like is Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).  “Key” because you have to pick and choose since there are many metrics that matter to an organization and the challenge is to pick out a reasonable subset of them that are most important.  “Performance Indicators” because you’re measuring something that’s an indicator of success.

How do you choose your KPIs? 

If at all possible, the search for KPIs should begin with an organizational strategic plan, which should already identify goals and measurements of success.  The challenge is to then pick which measurements are the most important to pay attention to in the next few years. 

If you don’t already have these, start with your programs and ask: Which are most important?  Some are more likely to be icing on the cake and others get at your core.  Focus on the core. 

For each program, what metrics are you already tracking (or can you reasonably track in the future) to evaluate your performance over time?   For some organizations these are straightforward.  A school may be tracking enrollment and learning (via test scores or grades).  A homeless shelter may track people served and homeless placed into permanent housing. 

For other organizations, particularly those engaged in advocacy, the search for meaningful program measurements can be more complex.  But every time I’ve engaged with an organization on this topic, we’ve come up with some outputs that are good indicators of progress, even if they don’t represent the ultimate outcomes being sought.

Leaving programs aside, nearly every Dashbaord I’ve seen also include multiple KPIs that focus on finances – mostly on the revenue side of the equation.  Here the challenge is to think through your revenue generating strategies and identify what matters most.  Overall revenue is obvious. Unrestricted funding is another good one. Or you may find it important to focus on fundraising metrics by major type of revenue (e.g. individuals, corporations, foundations, etc.).

With regard to fundraising from individuals, some metrics that may be important are: the number of individual donors (or members), retention rate for individual donors (how many who gave in the prior year, have given in this year), average gift levels, the percentage of donors who have upgraded in the last year, number of donors who’ve made a second gift, etc. 

Over several years, the list of which metrics you focus on may evolve – but at any given time you should look at your fundraising strategies and see what matters most. 

Sometimes no one metric seems right so you have to invent something that rolls up several data points into a new one.  For example, when I was Executive Director of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, we developed a long-term communications plan where progress could be measured in dozens of different ways, no two or three of which seemed most important. 

Yet, in the end, we knew that what we really wanted out of our communications was for our constituents to take action.  So we created a new metric which we called “Total Actions” taken in response to our communications.  Each quarter we added up all sorts of actions people took in response to our online communications, such as clicking on links, forwarding emails, donations, downloading documents, social media shares, etc.  As long as Total Actions was on a solid upward trajectory, we knew we were making progress.

Of course, having good fundraising and/or communications data for your Dashboard presumes you’re using a valid Constituent Relations Management (CRM) database to track donations, online communications, and other data necessary to produce the metrics.  If you’re still on Excel or hate your current database, getting past that hurdle should come before you create a Dashboard.

Likewise, the discussion about program metrics presumes that you have a means of tracking the outputs and outcomes from your programs and you put that data somewhere – whether in your fundraising CRM or in some separate data set. If you’re not pulling together data to evaluate individual programs, it will be hard to create a Dashboard.

The last question is: how do you display the data?

I’ve found that Excel is plenty powerful to take data and generate good charts and graphs for a good Dashboard.  Or sometimes, just putting the data into a Table and color coding rows as Green, Yellow, and Red based on whether you’re doing great, okay, or not well is sufficient.

If your own Excel skills are too limited, you probably can find a skilled volunteer who in just a few hours time can take data in a spreadsheet and display it in a useful manner in a way you can easily replicate every 3-6 months without ongoing assistance.

It’s worth investing some time/energy to get the Dashboard display right.  If you’ve done all the work to generate and select the data, you should absolutely make sure it’s presented to your board and senior staff in a format that aids comprehension.  

If you have an example of a Dashboard you’re willing to share with me, I’m always looking for more ideas for how to use them effectively.

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On the value of one-on-ones

April 30, 2024

Filed under: Board Development,Fundraising,Leadership — jonathanpoisner @ 10:37 am

I was recently talking to an Executive Director and it became clear they hardly ever met with anyone else one-on-one. They were doing so much writing, emailing, and group meetings that they were hardly ever talking to just one person.

When I pushed them on this, they responded that meeting with just one person is inefficient.

I believe that is short-sighted. Organizations thrive based on personal relationships and it’s very, very hard to forge such relationships other than in one-on-one (or one-on-two settings when you’re forging a relationship with a couple).

Something happens in a one-on-one conversation that doesn’t happen at events and certainly not via email/mail or even on the phone.

You can form a stronger personal relationship and you can ask people to take personal responsibility.

Let’s start talking about forming relationships.

It’s not rocket science to understand forming relationships is easier in person.  Legions of studies have demonstrated the role of body language and facial expressions in communications – neither of which works over the phone. 

And in one-on-one meetings, you can make the communication truly two-way – asking questions of a potential organizational supporter and not just talking to them.  This can help you understand what motivates them so you can calibrate any asks to match their needs. You can do this in an authentic and not a staged way.

Meeting with people one-on-one also allows you tap into personal responsibility and not just collective responsibility.

At an event, it’s about how all these people in the room can help.  One-on-one, it’s about how you can help. Yes, peer pressure can matter. And well run events tap into that collective power. But getting somebody to take real ownership and dig deep when giving almost almost always works better off outside of events.

Studies done in the 1970s and 1980s focused on personal versus collective responsibility in a different context.  Scientists had people fake epileptic seizures in public places to see who would help. Sometimes they did this when only one person was around. Other times they did this when several people were around. Which situation led to more help?

Interestingly (to me), the answer is you were more likely to get help during the seizure if just one person was around. This is contrary to what I would have thought.

But it rings true upon further reflection.  When something happens and other people are around, you tend to look around to see how they’re responding.  And in unusual situations, people are often slow to act. If everyone else is also just looking around, you may think: I guess it’s not my problem. 

But if there’s nobody to look at for social cues, you know it’s about you, and you alone.

When you’re invited to give and the invitation is clearly about you, that’s when people tend to step up and make larger donations. 

In these contexts, as you get to know people, you’re also in a better position to add in further opportunities for them to step up — will they champion the organization to their friends, will they volunteer, etc.

This helps explain why time and time again, organizations that invest their staff and board time in doing one-on-one donor meetings are quicker to transform themselves financially than those that bank on fundraising events. 

The same thing is true beyond fundraising. Time and again, I’ve seen organizations build far more effective coalitions and partnerships with allies by doing a series of one-on-one meetings rather than relying on group meetings with several organizations at once. One-on-one meetings are also the bread and butter for community organizing where you’re trying to build not just an episodic volunteer base, but one where the volunteers are willing to take on leadership.

So stop putting your time into the next great event and banking on social media revolutionizing your organization.  If you want to grow, and grow quickly — get out and meet with more people and invite them to take responsibility.  Of course, for many Executive Directors, that requires figuring out what you can jettison from your busy schedule, a topic I’ll discuss next month.

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