For decades, the old style capital campaign firms have insisted that all feasibility study interviews must be confidential.
The usual explanation for the need for “confidentiality” of the interview process was the assumption that interviewees would be more comfortable, more likely to express themselves fully and honestly if they knew that their comments (especially negative comments about others) would not be attributed to them in the “Report” to the non-profit organization!!
That might sound reasonable/logical if, at the same time, it wasn’t so unlikely that a non-profit organization would engage a firm to work with them on their campaign that was not the firm that did the Study.
Why would a non-profit organization want to hire a firm that didn’t have all that “confidential” information !!??
And, the corollary, why would the firm that did the study want to give all that “confidential” information to the non-profit !!?? In fact, why would all those capital campaign-counselling firms want to do “non-confidential” interviews??
I believe that “non-confidential” interviews are more honest and more comfortable. Many of my colleagues have discovered, not to our surprise, that even when we tell interviewees that we’ll be passing on their comments to the non-profit organization, they are still willing to be quite open and candid.
And, by the way, many major gift prospects have been major donors to, board members of and/or have been involved in the “study” process for other organizations. They know what’s happening. They know the purpose of the study, and how the information will be eventually be used. If you tell these sophisticated individuals about the “confidentiality” of the process, the only one you’re kidding is yourself.
Many capital campaign consultants still conduct “confidential interviews,” simply because “that’s they way it’s always been done.” Some, of course, still believe that that’s the way to lock the client in to a relationship.
The question that’s not being asked often enough: “What would be best for the non-profit organization?” What do you think?
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Have a question about starting or expanding your fundraising program? Email me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com. With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, we’ll do our best to answer your question.
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
One of the ironies of the recent oil spill debacle in the Gulf of Mexico is that it is the oil industry that is most often credited with devising and putting to use a strategicplanning tool meant to anticipate major changes in the environment – from disaster to depression – and to enable organizations with plans for immediate strategic response. The tool is called scenario planning.
Cleanup during BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
Scenarios are “alternative futures” that cannot be predicted due to uncertainty. The term is borrowed from the world of drama, since each alternative future is described in the terms of a “story” or scenario. Scenario planners identify clusters of events that could happen, and imagine how things would be impacted should these events actually occur. The story is then shared as the beginning of a long range planning exercise.
In order to respond to undesired happenings such as the collapse of credit markets or the recent oil spill, strategic leaders must devise and develop flexible, adaptive, nimble organizations ready to change and respond as circumstances dictate. Noted economist and strategic thinker James Bryan Quinn said that “The essence of strategy – whether military, diplomatic, business, sports [or] political – is to build a posture that is so strong (and potentially flexible) in selective ways that the organization can achieve its goals despite the unforeseeable ways external forces may actually interact when the time comes.”
Scenario planning as we know it today got its start in the 1970s. Though oil prices had remained stable since World War II, leaders at Royal Dutch Shell worried that disruptive change could happen with severe adverse effects on their business. Among the disruptive events they feared was a sudden increase in the price of oil sparked by the rise of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
The price increases did happen in October of 1973. Many oil companies struggled with the effects of the new competitive dynamics. Shell thrived. They had prepared a plan – a scenario plan – for what they would do as these circumstances unfolded, and they implemented their plan while others were just gathering to deliberate on next actions.
Today Americans are deeply concerned with another sort of oil crisis — the disastrous and seemingly unstoppable gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. Many are outraged that BP had no apparent contingency plan for dealing with the crisis. Though the oil industry is known for thinking out plans for dealing with price changes or the introduction of alternative sources of energy meant to challenge dependence on oil and gas, it is now apparent that the hunt for oil at increasingly remote or deep places led to risk-taking without appropriate contingency plans.
Eventually, the unexpected is going to happen. That, we can expect.
Cleaning wildlife affected by the oil spill
Scenario planning has been the topic of numerous books over the past twenty years. Numerous companies have been touted for their use of the technique – Novo Nordisk, Electrolux, AT&T, BellSouth, Nissan, American Express, IBM, Cisco, Ford, and on and on. One survey indicated that as many as 50% of Fortune 500 companies have incorporated scenario planning into their broader strategic planning efforts. The extent to which these companies have heeded their scenario planning process is likely somewhat less than so many authors would have us believe, but examining possible scenarios as alternate futures is invaluable as one seeks to build strategic flexibility.
Before beginning scenario planning, remember that it is often the planning process per se, rather than the resulting articulated plans, that matter most. Dwight Eisenhower, as general in charge of the D-Day planning process, said “in preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” By involving a broad swath of people in the planning process, the intent of the plans will be etched in their hearts and minds, allowing people the flexibility to make wise and well-reasoned decisions once a crisis occurs.
The basic steps of scenario planning include:
Identify the uncertainties that could affect your company. Uncertainties can come from the worlds of politics, technology, economics, government & regulation, societal, as well as the cataclysmic or climatic changes that can happen in the natural world.
Identify possible futures that would present change from the status quo. Ask “What events, whose outcomes are uncertain, could have significant effects on the implementation of our strategic plans?” Drilling down (please excuse the phrase) you may ask “do we know what we’d do if the economy enters a recession or depression?” “Do we know what we would do if a natural disaster destroys our headquarters?” Are we prepared for changes in the market should a competitor introduce a new and highly desirable product?”
Formulate plans for dealing with each scenario. Identify key departments and resources throughout your organization who must know ahead of time what would be expected of them.
Craft overall strategic plans that will allow your company to stand prepared in case each of the scenarios comes to fruition.
Monitor the environment and watch for carefully identified trigger points that will tell you when a given scenario has arrived. In the classic case of Royal Dutch Shell anticipating the manipulations of the market by OPEC, trigger points were based on the price per barrel of oil. Obviously, quantitative triggers are easiest to monitor and recognize, but not all scenarios come with neat and apparent warning signals. Rather, strategic leaders must have thought about each scenario before its arrival, and must learn to observe clues of its arrival.
As scenarios become more plausible with time, increase investment and preparation for the scenarios that are becoming more likely. Embed scenario planning into organizational development and corporate education programs.
Continue to assess what you do and don’t know about what will happen in the future, and shape strategic plans accordingly.
Mark Rhodes. Ph.D. consults on strategic planning and decision making. He has facilitated dozens of scenario planning exercises for clients in a variety of industries. See his website, Strategic Thinking.
Cast a wide net. No, not fishing advice, or an Internet command. If you feel you have exhausted your outreach to conventional reporters, editors, producers and assignment desk people, despair not in your quest for coverage. Consider the freelance writer or producer. They’re out there, and they are more in demand now than ever before as media companies trudge through the recession with less staff. Of course, there are more freelancers now than ever before, too, but that’s another story.
Said companies often will backfill with a little help from the brave and noble freelancer (and these days, that can often be a former staffer who was cut or opted out). I can’t think of a section of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, for example, that doesn’t rely on one or two freelance bylines every day of the week. Knowing who they are and what they cover can be a good way to pitch your story if you’re not working with a PR agency or consultant.
Advantages to Working with Freelancers
1) Freelance writers and producers usually have tight connections to editors, upon whom they rely for work — and vice versa. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship, usually grown over time that proves its worth with every publication or piece that makes its way into your local newspaper, on to a radio or TV broadcast, and into a magazine.
2) With the economy, or recovery, or whatever you want to call it taking its sweet time to make the nation whole again, it’s likely that this trend will become more commonplace. Magazines have always used an abundance of ‘lancers to fill their pages because it’s a business model that works. Newsprint and to some extent, broadcast are now embracing it.
3) Freelancers are hungry for work. Speaking from personal experience, the nonaligned scribe either is hustling to make ends meet and/or working a part time job so they can do what they love more, write or produce. If you feed them a good story, chances are they will come back to you when their own story ideas run out, or perhaps offer you as source in another piece — thus achieving one of the goals in PR: to make media aware of you enough so that they call you as source rather than your PR person. It happens. All the time.
4) Freelancers generally abide by the same rules and professional conduct of those in full time positions so there’s no need to feel that these individuals are somehow second-rate or are not to be trusted or won’t do a good job. I know a handful of freelancers that write and produce circles around their peers and I often pitch them as regularly as I do the folks “inside.” And they usually have more time to hear your pitch.
5) Freelancers can turn into staff employees overnight. When hiring freezes go away, job offers sometimes go to these individuals first. Having a good relationship with a freelancer in that case just become a huge plus for your or your organization.
Do your homework and see who’s freelancing articles in the media you need to reach. Given the many means of finding contact information on many social networking sites, or by just calling the media company where that person is contributing work, can usually get you the information you need to make the connection.
Martin Keller runs Media Savant Communications Co., a Public Relations and Media Communications consulting company based in the Twin Cities. Keller has helped move client stories to media that includes The New York Times, Larry King, The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, plus many other magazines, newspapers, trade journals and other media outlets. Contact him at mkeller@mediasavantcom.com, or 612-729-8585.
It’s one thing to believe in the Divine and it’s another thing to believe in the guidance that the Divine is giving you. According to the authors of the book A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America, almost everyone who was interviewed believed in a higher power or God. However, when it came to feeling the presence of that higher power or God at work about half felt it and the other half didn’t.
When we can tap into the Divine that constantly surrounds us is when we can really experience a greater sense of meaning, purpose and joy in all we do. One book that really opened my eyes, hears, heart and soul around this concept is the book Divine Guidance: How to Have a Dialogue with God and Your Guardian Angels by Doreen Virtue.
According to Virtue, “How you receive guidance from God and your guardian angels isn’t important. What matters is that you notice them, can verify their Divine source and act on it. God always answers the questions, requests and prayers we hold in our hearts. Since God knows everything about us; we might as well be completely candid when requesting Divine guidance.”
There are four methods or channels to receive divine guidance. We each have the ability to receive guidance through all of these methods. Most of us have one or two channels that tend to be stronger. As I share the methods and examples of how I’ve used this channel for guidance in my work, I want you to think of your own examples at work.
Clairvoyance(clear seeing) – guidance comes as still pictures/images or moves in your mind’s eye. Examples include dreams, mental pictures, mental movies, seeing colors/auras, visual signs from heaven, and symbols. My example: Before I wrote created my You’re IT Tribute Book in honor of my mom, I saw her opening up this book in which each page was from someone whose life she touched telling a story of how my mom has made a difference in their lives.
Clairaudience (clear hearing) – hearing from the outside or inside your head – still, small voice within; auditory messages. My example:I was guided to write my first book The Little Girl Who Found IT: A Story of Heart and Hope by a small voice within that told me to write a poem, which many years later turned into my book.
Clairsentience(clear feeling) – receiving guidance as an emotion or physical sensation such as a smell, tightened muscle or a touch; feeling or hunches. My example: When I was meeting for the first time with the team for a training design project that I’ve been hired for a wonderful integrative health and healing program called Renewing Life, I got chills over my body, which is a clear signal for me that I’m being guided by a heavenly purpose.
Claircognizance(clear knowing) – suddenly knowing something or ideas for a fact, without knowing how you know. My example: This is a calmness I have inside that I know something will manifest when the time is right. This came true for me at a professional development meeting for the University of Minnesota as I’m adjunct faculty in the College of Continuing Education department. I just knew that it would be just a matter of time before I would be the one presenting to the other instructors some of the techniques I’ve been implementing in my classes.
Janae Bower is an inspirational speaker, award-winning author and training consultant. She founded Finding IT, a company that specializes in personal and professional development getting to the heart of what matters most.
Lost Bag Reported to the Baggage Service Office in Kansas City
Have you ever arrived at your airline destination – only to find out that your bag didn’t make it? That’s what happened to me at about 4pm yesterday in Kansas City.
We woke up this morning in a tiny town two hours outside of KC. We’re here for our family reunion, and I’m without fresh clothing and (horrors!) makeup.
Mina’s Customer Service Exceeds Southwest Airline’s Marketing Claims
I’m experiencing a classic example of how a company does it RIGHT. I applaud Mina (Southwest was not allowed to give me her last name) in KC’s Baggage Service Office. She delivered excellence – authentic, personable, empathic, and truly conscientious communication at every turn.
As it turned out, my bag was mistakenly picked up at baggage claim by someone helping two ladies in wheelchairs – who then drove my bag to Branson, Missouri. Mina called them and constantly stayed on top of the situation to coordinate my bag’s return to the airport. She communicated with me honestly, updating me as to the logistics and timing of getting my bag back.
Marketing Meets Operations
It’s 11am now, and according to the Baggage Service Office, the courier should arrive with my bag at any moment.
The real takeaway for business marketers is this:
WHEN OPERATIONS DELIVERS WHAT MARKETING MEASSAGES CLAIM, COMPANIES WIN.
Marketers need to stay in close contact with Customer Service and customers’ communications. It is the only true barometer of a company’s success with customers. When feedback is consistently negative, and the marketing message doesn’t match the customers’ experience, operations must take note and make changes.
Even though it’s been inconvenient (hey, nothing’s perfect), thanks to Mina, I feel great about Southwest Airlines.
Wow – As I write this, the bag just arrived – as prominsed!
Have you experienced examples of marketing messages NOT matching customer service? How about exceeding customer service?
ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman: With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com
In a previous ASK HR post, I addressed the question of fully completing the employment application. A recent article in Wall Street Journal discussed eight blunders made by job seekers. The list included:
1. Entitlement syndrome- asking for things such as free lunch at the conclusion of the interview
2. Behaving rudely- examples included bringing a child to the interview or opening a sandwich during the interview
3. Acting arrogantly-accepting a call during the interview
4. Lies, lies, lies- a candidate falsely claimed a referral from a company employee
5. Dressing down- wearing jeans or attire that doesn’t fit to an interview
6. Over sharing- sharing personal information
7. Saying thanks with gifts- sending gifts instead of a simple note to thank the interviewer
8. Sporting a mom-and-dad complex- having mom or dad contact the interviewer
For those you who recruit regularly, you are can probably relate to this list and can most likely share your own horror stories of things candidates have done in the interview process. My list of recruiting blunders seems to be a little more common than the WSJ list, but still equally as damaging and many applicants seem to be oblivious to the fact that they ruin their chances of being hired.
Sending in a resume with the changes marked (track changes function in word still showing)
Not completing the application
Submitting an application full of grammatical, spelling or typographical errors
Not following the application directions
Lies or fabrications on the resume or application (although these will be found in the background checks, many candidates seem to forget their own lies and admit the falsehoods in the interview or show the inconsistencies between the resume and the application)
Arriving late to the interview without an explanation or apology
Knowing absolutely nothing about the company or the position
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