Leyna on Nonprofit Leadership

Most of the time, I think of the executive director role as the hardest job on the planet. Running a close second, or maybe even neck and neck, has got to be development director. Both jobs require leaders who can communicate a vision with passion, build and maintain relationships with many types of people, be highly organized and also highly adaptable, focus on the big picture but sweat the details, and remain optimistic in challenging times.  Let us pause a moment to give thanks to all the (slightly crazy) men and women who choose these two roles in their professional lives. Amen.

When the partnership between an executive director and development director works, it is a beautiful thing. When it doesn’t, both can come down with a serious case of what I call the “resentment flu”. I call it the flu because it is contagious — they keep catching it from one another, each feeling the other isn’t pulling her weight.

Working in our sector is hard enough. Why make it worse by failing to build the relationships you need to truly succeed? Here are three keys to developing and stewarding a strong and fruitful relationship with your development director:

Set Clear, Agreed Upon Expectations. Develop an annual performance plan together, based on your fundraising plan. In order to ensure success, you both need to agree on what success looks like, how you’re going to get there, what part you’ll each play in achieving success, and what metrics you’ll use to gauge progress along the way.

Share the Spotlight. Provide opportunities for your development director to engage with donors, work with the board, and represent the organization in the community. Don’t hog all the major donors to yourself (or hoard all the easy ones). Look for opportunities to give credit and praise to your development director, and let him know how much you appreciate not just his results, but his efforts as well. If your development director prefers to operate behind the scenes, find less public ways to acknowledge his importance to the organization.

Break Down the Development Silo. Find opportunities to engage your development director in high level conversations, strategic decision making, and programmatic discussions. Make sure that the development director and his team are well-integrated into the programmatic and operational life of your agency.  Work with your development director to build a culture of fundraising through-out the organization, so that everyone has a stake in your fund development success.

I can’t guarantee that, by doing these things, you’ll build a beautiful and lasting relationship with your development director. But with the average development staff tenure still hovering below 24 months, isn’t it worth a try?

The last time I wrote, I told you that the secret to hiring success is to hire happy people. Easier said than done, I realize. I can’t say I have a perfect track record, but I do have some ideas on how to screen for what we might call the “contentedness factor”.

Making the right hire (finding a good fit for the job and your organization) has a lot to do with expectations. You want to find someone whose expectations fit what you can offer. I learned this years ago when I was the VP of Human Resources for Smith & Hawken (may it RIP.)

Prospective S & H employees used to come crawling on their knees as though toward Mecca, out of a desire to work for such an environmentally correct company. I had to convince candidates that the company’s green mission wouldn’t matter for long if they hated data entry.

Here are some things to consider in determining whether a candidate is looking for more than you can offer (i.e. happiness or meaning in life), or worse, looking for a place to spread the misery around.

Do the reasons the candidate left prior jobs make sense, and seem unrelated to performance or professional relationships? Does she make any negative references to former employers? Does your job seem like the next logical step for this candidate? If not, what does your gut tell you about their reasons for being interested?

Determine through resume, interviews, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. what kind of life this person has outside of their profession. Got friends? Family? Other passions and ways of blowing off steam? All good indicators. (Yes, you should Google candidates and read their Facebook pages and LinkedIn profiles.)

Last, references are just as important as interviews. You can ask a reference: Is Jane a happy person? You can ask how Jane got along with colleagues. You can ask if Jane was a mentor and support to others. You can even ask if Jane was fun to be around. (I promise, these questions are not illegal.)

Of course, you need to hire someone with the skills and experience to do the job. But I’d pick a happy person who needs a bit of training over a miserable yet highly skilled person any day.

I’ve been hiring line staff, managers and executives for my own team and for clients for the past 25 years. I’ve overseen human resources for two national companies, and taught classes on recruiting and hiring. All my years of experience and wisdom about how to “get the right people on the bus” can be boiled down to three words: Hire happy people.

I’m serious. I don’t care how talented, experienced or educated a candidate is, if she is unhappy with her life she will be a bad hire. We’ve all experienced this scenario: A single employee or board member impacts your entire organization through negative behaviors. A person who feels the need to build himself up through putting others down, or who sees every glass as half empty, or who constantly expects the worst of people, can wreak havoc upon your organization. And because this person may be very competent at doing his job, it is often hard to get rid of him (or “free up his future” as I like to say.)

Hence my advice: Hire happy people. So what do I really mean? I’m not talking about screening for bubbly, ever-smiling, “power of positive thinking” types. What I mean is that you need to discern whether someone genuinely likes herself — is comfortable in her own skin. You want to hire someone who has a life outside of work; a life rich with activities that provide enjoyment and meaning. Because a job with your organization, no matter how fabulous and meaningful your mission, cannot provide your employees with their life’s meaning. Trust me on this one.

Hire people who have healthy, nurturing relationships with close friends, a partner, kids or a spiritual community (or all of the above!) Hire people who have a passion for beekeeping, salsa dancing, dachshund racing, or something else entirely unrelated to their day job. Hire people who speak well of former employers, take personal responsibility for past career mishaps, and who will be okay whether or not they get offered your job.

Now, am I saying that you don’t have to screen for the right skills, experience, aptitude and cultural fit? Of course not. But no matter how skilled, qualified and mission-driven an applicant is, don’t hire her if she is unhappy. I promise you — unhappy people bring their unhappiness to work with them , and spread it around like a bad cold. You have enough work to do without having to worry about preventing an unhappy virus from infecting your staff.

So how do you screen and interview for the “happiness” factor? That’s another blog…

Most of us in the nonprofit community are familiar with the statistics about the short tenure of senior development staff. Is this rapid turn-over the result of all development folk being restless climbers? I don’t think so.

The reason development directors move around has more to do with unrealistic expectations, and the short length of their “honeymoon” period, than with the draw of greener pastures. Of course, sometimes the fit just isn’t right, or an offer no development professional could refuse comes along.

Here’s my list of hiring mistakes you do have some control over:

1. Hiring a Development Director when what you really need is a development coordinator/administrative assistant. You can’t hire a professional fundraiser with a track record of success and then expect her to do her own data entry. Too many nonprofits go from zero development staff to advertising for a director level person, without considering the support and tools a seasoned fundraiser requires.

2. Assuming that salary and benefits are what a Development Director will cost you. One of the most prepared candidates I’ve worked with provided the prospective employer with a list of the expenses she anticipated — in addition to her salary and benefits — during her first year of employment. These expenses included the costs of membership in professional associations, the cost of an outside consultant to do grant research, the cost of laptop to allow her to work remotely, the cost of attendance at AFP’s annual conference, and so on. You get the picture?

3. Not budgeting enough for fundraising expenses. It costs money to raise money. It really does.

4. Expecting the DD to raise her own salary in the first year. Even the most seasoned professional has a learning curve. If your programs are complex, or your new hire hasn’t worked in your field, she’ll need time to be able to effectively engage funders and donors. Be realistic about the foundation upon which your new DD has to build. If you’ve never raised major gifts from indivduals, it is going to take time for your DD to help grow that capacity.

5. Assuming that “Development Directors” is a generic term. Don’t expect your new DD to be all things to all people — she is going to be fiercely talented in some areas, and not so strong in others. To make a good hire, you need to know where you are going as an organization, the strategies you are employing to get you there, and what areas of fundraising you want to strengthen and grow.

6. Thinking that once you hire a DD, you can wash your hands of fundraising. If you hire an effective development professional, you should expect to be more engaged in fundraising, not less. The difference is in how your time will be spent. You should find yourself spending much less time on details, and much more making direct asks for large amounts of money.

7. Not including your board in the hiring process. I don’t know of a single nonprofit that can rely solely on grant funding in today’s economy. Raising money from individuals requires your board’s active involvement, and therefore your board needs to be engaged in the hiring process. If you hire a DD who doesn’t work well with your board chair or your development committee members, you’ve just hired the wrong person for your organization.

Some relationships aren’t meant to last, and that’s just fine. In hindsight, my rebound relationship after my divorce was just what I needed, even though I got my heart broken. I needed a breather in between serious relationships, and I learned a few things and had a lot of fun with my salsa-dancing beau. By the time my husband Brian came along, I was ready for him.

Which leads me to what I want you to think about: the value of interim management staff.  In addition to the obvious advantage of covering critical responsibilities while you conduct a search, an interim manager can provide you with unexpected dividends. A good interim will offer you invaluable (and honest) insight and advice — the kind that only an objective perspective can yield.

I’ve heard directly from some very happy boards and executive directors who hit the jackpot with an interim. I connected Sonoma Land Trust to interim Development Director Theresa Nelson (www.theresanelson.com) while conducting their search for a new Development Director. She provided Executive Director Ralph Benson and the development staff with advice about structuring the department, implementing new donor management software, and kept the ball rolling until Beverly Scottland was hired.

Similarly, Nancy Salamy at Crisis Support Services of Alameda County sang the praises of interim Development Director Duff Axsom (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/4/a16/b79). Same story with the board of Pacific Center in Berkeley. They hired Corey Pohley through CompassPoint’s (www.compasspoint.org) Interim Executive placement service — run by the stellar J.R. Yeager — and she helped with some critical operational issues before Leslie Ewing took on the permanent position. By hiring an interim, smaller nonprofits can tap into the experience and expertise of very seasoned professionals — people whom they couldn’t hire full time, but who make a major contribution filling an interim role.

There’s a great article about the value of Interim development staff in the January/February issue of Advancing Philanthropy – the magazine of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Written by D.A. Hickman, “Interim Help Wanted — and Needed” (http://www.afpnet.org/ka/ka-3.cfm?content_item_id=24783&folder_id=902)  makes the case for a stint with someone who is not afraid to give you the unvarnished truth.

The Bay Area is full of highly experienced, talented professionals who make some or all of their living by serving in interim management roles for nonprofits. Drop me a line or give me a call if you’d like some referrals. I won’t guarantee that you’ll get a salsa dancer, but you never know.