Services
Services Management and Staff Development—an Integrated Perspective
Learning how to manage begins with managing oneself, then perhaps one other person. Then a small team. Then a larger team, or multiple teams and a program or programs and ultimately, the entire advancement organization. The focus, self-awareness, self-evaluation and personal productivity serve as the core competencies of working with others to achieve a shared objective.
We work with management to design systematic approaches to recruiting, on-boarding, training, rewarding and advancing the organization’s staff. The stronger this strategy and implementation, the greater the differentiation between this organization and others competing for talented individuals.
Performance-based Training
When we work with management and their staff to improve performance, we identify the essential skills necessary to do their job successfully. We then design an approach for skills acquisition which allows for practicing that skill set in real situations with ongoing coaching, and ending with managers fully “certifying” that the individual or the entire development team has truly acquired the requisite core competencies necessary to be successful contributors.
Program Development
Whether you are looking to create or significantly improve your Annual Fund, Special Gifts, Reunion Giving, Major Gifts, Planned Gifts, or other fundraising programs, we will work with you and your team to design creative approaches to better address your untapped opportunities.
Campaigns
We work with clients on the specifics of the overall program execution, including pre-campaign readiness assessment, pre-campaign planning, lead-donor engagement, silent phase development, campaign launch, operations, celebrations and post-campaign planning.
Prospect Interview and Qualification System (PIQS©)
PIQS significantly increases the number of prospective donors added to a prospect management pipeline, ultimately resulting in more and better qualified, engaged and understood prospective donors.
The need to continually find, engage, understand and invite new prospective donors is common among all nonprofit organizations. Staff turnover can mask this need because new staff come aboard and “pick up where the other person left off”. But sooner or later, especially in campaigns, the need for new prospects becomes important, if not urgent.
PIQS © is a systematic approach which has proven successful for many organizations. By understanding the needs of the individual major gifts officer, prospect research professionals, and management, we have been able to create tools, metrics and reporting vehicles that can dovetail into an existing prospect management process, or can help create one if it does not already exist.
Benchmarking and Best Practices
How good is our program? How could we make it better? Where do we stand with respect to our peers? How large a campaign might we consider? How confident can we be in a particular campaign goal? What are the gaps in knowledge, understanding and engagement among our various constituents as it relates to the funding viability of certain potential campaign priorities? Do we have the right staff in right places? How productive are we relative to our potential and relative to our peers? How robust are our management practices and how might they be improved? What metrics are right for our organization at this point in time?
We have had considerable experience in addressing these and other questions related to assessment and feasibility.
Board and Volunteer Development
The role of the volunteer continues to evolve as the competition for an individual’s personal time increases. We have worked with an organization’s staff and management to strengthen the engagement of their volunteers and to help them envision new ways of involving more volunteers in advancing their organization. We have helped structure the systematic identification, engagement and recruitment of volunteers and board members.
Strategy and Competition
All nonprofits face competition, be it from other organizations doing similar work, from demands placed upon volunteers and donors, or from job opportunities offered to those talented employees who can really drive an organization.
We help advancement managers and executives and their respective teams understand the nature of that competition for their organization, and how to position their advancement activities to be successful. Our strategy assistance ranges from macro discussions linking strategic aspirations to institutional differentiation to how to understand, engage and invite a particular prospective donor.
Executive Search
Our executive search business grew from client requests. In practically every business engagement we have had, we have been asked to suggest the names of qualified people who might be interested in moving to that client’s organization. We have successfully placed individuals in fundraising and admissions positions, ranging from the annual fund, major gifts, the dean’s office and the Vice President for Advancement office.
Consistent with our philosophy of first understanding what is important to the other person; we work very hard to identify the employer’s educational, functional and cultural requirements for each position. When working with prospective job applicants, we seek to understand what they care about in order to create the best fit possible between employee and employer. The emphasis is on which core competencies and what creative talent the executive candidate brings with them to the workplace partnership. |
