Reflections on Productivity
This is sort of rambling...
So lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be productive as a fundraiser…
It started last month when three Columbia University administrators were placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into private text messages sent during a campus meeting about on-campus, pro-Palestinian protests. One of those administrators, Matthew Pataschnick, is a Columbia University fundraiser whose texts imagined that the University’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters would be a “huge fundraising opportunity”.
But I’m not here to talk about the texting habits of a now-fired university fundraiser and whether or not he should have been terminated. What I would like to do is to unpack why Mr. Pataschnick saw the situation at Columbia as having “huge fundraising potential”. Because I’ve spent a lot of time in university fundraising—over 20 years—mostly spent working on major and principal gift-sized donations. But I have never had a single external incident suddenly trigger anything “huge”…but then again, Mr. Patashnick’s comment got me wondering: have I been missing “huge potential” fundraising opportunities for my entire career?
And if so - how many?
But after about 8 minutes of really hard thinking followed by a not-so-healthy midday snack, I had an epiphany: For Mr. Pataschnick, fundraising is governed by the monetization of moments, where one or several exogenous variables “signal” that it’s the right time to ask for a donation and (similar to a high-speed trader), the fundraising apparatus rides that signal algorithm until it abates. The exogenous variable here (crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters) was the “opportunity” that Pataschnick describes, and that was his “signal” to start fundraising.
But I have another, perhaps more accurate view: That fundraising is a composite of endogenous variables entirely within the fundraisers control: quality donor cultivation activities, engagement and stewardship, bold but actionable institutional vision delivered by stable executive leadership, with some macroeconomic sensitivities and financial prudence drizzled on for good measure.
(note, good data on your donors helps, too)
But honestly, I am not here to talk about that either (though I might in a future post).
Instead, I am here to explore what it means to be productive… but probably not in the way Mr. Patashnick or many fundraising leaders imagine it to be: as an algorithmic input-output function. Instead, I have been thinking that fundraisers and fundraising leaders might consider measuring fundraising production as a mishmash of endogenous variables combined with the aggregate personal capacity of themselves or their staff.
In other words, a staff person’s actual, personal capacity for fundraising would measure (and may even predict) his/her/their overall fundraising product (if we want to call it that).
OK so if you’re lost, maybe I am too. So let’s start with the basics.
Working in nonprofit-land is a time/arbitrage function: we dedicate time, we earn a paycheck, and our organizations benefit. And because the fundraising profession is ethically prevented from earning commissions, the vast fraction of a fundraiser’s work product will benefit our organization. But in recent decades, as organizational budgets increasingly lean on fundraising outcomes to support basic operations, the employment contract (that time/arbitrage function I discussed earlier) has gotten seriously out of balance. And when fundraising goals increase, pressures on fundraisers increase, goals are met or not met, but still they are raised again, pressures increase…wash, rinse, repeat.
This is one theory as to why the fundraising profession has a talent problem. The pressure on “productivity” is unrelenting, even though the input (time) remains constant. This productivity squeeze increases even more when new leadership rolls in.
Let’s consider a real-world example, shall we?
Your organization hires a new Vice President (VP) of Advancement. Despite limited information about your organization’s history, it looks different from his/her previous organization, so he/she senses a “lack of productivity“ among the fundraising staff. This perception persists despite the team meeting or exceeding lofty and growing fundraising goals and donor activity in each of the previous four years.
Sound familiar? It’s OK if you just convulsed.
To support this perception, the new VP forms a “Productivity Task Force” to test his/her perception regarding the lack of productivity. The desired outcome of the Productivity Task Force will be a new set of performance metrics to track the activities of each team member and quantify activities that lead to fundraising productivity. Amazingly, the productivity task force’s findings confirm the new VP’s theory and are disseminated to the president and board. After the Board ratifies the new approach to evaluating their fundraising program (and when do they ever push back?), the new VP hosts an all-staff meeting and a pizza party to announce the organization’s new productivity measures and fundraising metrics.
But what if the modern, metricized approach to fundraising is inadequate, over-simplistic, or even wrong? Maybe there is another way?
OK, Imagine as a box whose volume (H x W x L) represents three vectors: Your Available Time (H), Your Expertise as a Fundraising Professional (W), and Your Capacity to Learn & Grow (L). The volume of these (H x W x L) is the full picture of your “productivity” or at least your potential productivity. Thinking this way about productivity means that a professional with an elderly relative at home, only four years in the profession, and limited time for professional development activities would represent a smaller “Volume” of potential productivity than the person who has more time, is experienced, and continually engaged in professional advancement. Those volumes are dynamic, and it doesn't mean that organizations should only hire one type over another.
What it does mean, however, is that when setting goals and measuring productivity, fundraising leaders may wish to consider the volumetric potential of each fundraiser and set goals accordingly. This creates a more precise picture of what is possible based on who’s doing the work (rather than trying to project what might be possible using arbitrary or imperfect inputs), and how much time they have to give. Could this be a better framework for productivity?
And what am I getting at, exactly?
What I am getting at is that two of the vectors (your experience in the profession, and your capacity for professional growth) are relatively constant. So when your organization, or your new VP, creates a new evaluation framework and/or sets unreasonable fundraising goals, what they’re actually saying is:
“I need you more of your time.”
And if you don’t have more time to give, or are being asked to take time away from something (or somebody) you value more, that’s a problem. Because you will not be compensated for this time. Sure you might raise another $50,000 for your organization, but in terms of time it costs you 5 more hours a week, every week, all year long. That extra 250 hours you worked may get you a nice 5% raise - or an extra $4,000 if you earn $80,000 a year.
What’s the problem with that? That’s $16 ($4,000/250) per extra hour worked. And that’s less than an hour of day care, elder care, after care…you get the idea.
Maybe it’s time for the fundraising profession to imagine productivity differently. Maybe instead we talk about our individual capacity to fundraise, based on our experience and capacity to learn and adapt. This could lead to a more fulfilling - and perhaps even more productive - profession.
What do you think?