Year: 2010

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Capital Campaigns #6: Structuring The “Basic” Campaign

The “basic” campaign is active for a very short period of time, with relatively few donors. It is often said that if you have a $1 million goal, find someone with $1 million get them to give it to you … and your campaign is over !!

Since that doesn’t happen too often, there should be a group of prospective major donors … able to make gifts equal to and larger than one-percent of the campaign goal. This group should be large enough to ensure reaching the goal and small enough that the goal can be reached in the shortest period of time. #

If you do decide on the “basic,” no frills approach … and only involve those few major donors whose commitments will assure reaching your goal, you will be, in essence, dipping into your major gifts program. ##

The keys to a successful “basic” campaign are in knowing which of your potential major donors are “ready” to make their commitments, and knowing what amounts they are likely to commit. You can only know this if there is a relationship between the prospect and your organization, and if you have been cultivating them for long enough to know that they are ready to say, “Yes.” ###

In addition, you must know if the project for which you will ask their support is something that they feel strongly enough about to want to support it; and, those potential donors must also know that they will get the satisfaction and the recognition they want/need by supporting the campaign/project.

For the “basic” campaign, there need not be a formal campaign structure with a campaign chair and/or other designated leaders. On the other hand, if you select a chair who is well known, who is committed to the organization’s mission, strongly supports the project the campaign will fund, and who has the skills and willingness to actually solicit the other members of the small group, you will have a volunteer leader who will make-it-happen !!

Recognition for that volunteer leader, and for that small group of donors can take many forms, but all leaders/donors must be recognized individually in a way that is significant for him/her. More on “Donor Recognition” in future postings.

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#(See: Constructing The Gift Table
##(See: What is a Major Gift ?? and, Who Is A Major Gifts Prospect ??
###(See: Cultivating Major Donors

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Have a comment or a question about starting or expanding your basic fundraising program, your major gifts fundraising program or a capital campaign? 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 likely be able to answer your questions.

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Influencing Your Boss

Employee having a discussion with his boss

sell ideas to boss“How can I sell this idea to my boss?”

That’s a question I often hear as a career coach. It usually comes from someone seeking to lead from the middle.

Influencing up to obtain additional resources, or to impact a staffing decision, or to extend a deadline, or whatever requires both a business rationale and an artful pitch.

Here are four steps for influencing your boss and convincing him that it makes good sense to consider your idea or request:

1. See the world as your boss sees it.

It’s impossible to sell an idea without understanding your audience’s perspective. What matters to your boss and to your boss’s boss? If they are under the gun to cut costs, then frame your idea in terms of reducing expenses. If customer satisfaction is a hot issue, then frame your idea as a means to improve customer satisfaction. Remember the focus of your “pitch” depends upon the boss’s priorities, not yours.

2. Tune into your boss’s communication style.

Think about how your boss likes to receive information. Does he want to hear a narrative of the idea or does he prefer to see the numbers first? Develop a presentation that plays to his needs. Also be aware of what are good times and bad times to make your “pitch”. Be attuned to his schedule, his demands and how much is on his plate.

3. Make it real and relevant for your boss.

There is nothing more powerful than taking your boss to the heart of the action. If you want to improve customer service, invite her to a customer focus group to hear the need first hand. If you are pushing to purchase new equipment, bring him to the factory and show how it can cut waste.

4. Be the messenger they believe not kill!

If you want to lead up, you must be perceived as competent, capable and connected. So, how are you perceived by your boss, your boss’s boss and even your peers? Are you considered a rising or falling star? What can you do right now to increase or enhance your personal credibility?

Do you have a great idea that you want to “pitch” to your boss or to a key decision maker? Test it out on this blog and get my feedback.

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?

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Executive Onboarding

Colleagues listening to executive at meeting in office boardroom

Hiring External Leaders

There appears to be a trend in companies increasingly looking outside the organization for new leadership. Some studies estimate that more than thirty percent of Fortune 1000 Companies are led by chief executives who were recruited externally. Sessa and Taylor (2000) found a growing bias toward external executive hires, noting that when corporate selection committees were open to both internal and external candidates, an external candidate was chosen 75% of the time. It is clear that externally hired executives are often favored because new perspectives are considered valuable, specific leadership competencies are desired, and a belief exists that an externally hired leader will be unabashed about implementing change.

Leadership Derailment

While it is hard to assail the logic of considering external candidates for openings in key organizational roles – it is easier to question the limited amount of time, energy, and resources that many organizations devote to helping these executives transition into their new positions. It is especially surprising that organizations will take the risk of an unsuccessful transition when, as Krista Peterson mentioned in her blog entry on November 2, there are certain factors that have been proven to contribute significantly to derailment. And here are numerous studies that demonstrate that — without a well developed transitional strategy — external hires are significantly more likely to fail than leaders promoted internally.

Onboarding Strategies

Fortunately, numerous companies are availing themselves of the research on derailment factors, and are employing onboarding strategies to mitigate these factors and assist external leaders in making successful transitions. But it is clear that for these efforts to be successful, onboarding cannot simply take the shape of a glorified employee orientation process. In my opinion, one of the most important factors of transitional success is for the incoming executive, and those assisting with his or her transition, to have an advanced level or understanding of three things:

  • Unique aspects of the organizational culture
  • Dynamics of the teams the executive is entering (whether as a leader or colleague)
  • Personality, knowledge and leadership skills of the incoming executive

The first two factors require some level of awareness and/or assessment of the culture and team dynamics. The third requires an individual assessment that can then be used to guide the design of an onboarding strategy that effectively navigates the transition of the external leader into the organization. and onto the teams. This of course is a distinct oversimplification of factors related to onboarding – and it would be great to hear what others have found to work.

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Steve Wolinski provides leadership development, organizational change and talent management services to numerous public, private and non-profit organizations. Website, Email.

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The Risks of E- Training and Computer-Based Learning

A-person-watching-a-trainng-program-with-her-computer.

It may be a bit old fashioned that the view that face-to-face training is more effective than any other kind of training such as E- Training and Computer-Based Learning—with the right trainer or training team, that is.

Why not use all the tools we have? Let students pace themselves and repeat what’s necessary to facilitate learning. This kind of training makes sense, at least financially and it fills the training need. Or, does it? Does it really do the job in the long run? Do students come away motivated and filled with new, usable information? They certainly filled the square.

We’ve all seen training departments reduced in size, their missions diminished, and budgets slashed—especially when it comes to personal training. It’s so much easier to rely on the electronic tools of the Internet, webinars when live seminars won’t do, and videoconferencing calls. We can do training, demonstrations, sales pitches, brainstorming, facilitation via Windows Live, AOL Messenger, or Skype or any of a multitude of similar software communication applications. Really. We can see and hear others; we can even view presentations and videos. But it’s not really the same as face-to-face training, is it? Or, like hands-on training via demonstration? Those activities all take a guiding hand.

I’m sure you have taken online courses or training to fulfill this or that requirement. Did you really care about learning the material or did you just go through the motions to get the certification? That’s the major difference.

A person in front of you can help you care about what it is you are learning and have an impact on how you remember it. It must be important; or why are you having a person actually present the information and try to motivate me to remember it? You can ask questions—even dumb ones and get the personal touch. You also send the message: I care about you, the employee. When the employee gets that message, loyalty goes up along with productivity. Who can deny we will work hardest for someone who cares about us?

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

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Develop a PR Plan

Businessman thinking while making a note

How to get Your Name in the News

Do you think Lady Gaga, marketing genius, achieved the distinction of being the most-searched woman on Google without a PR plan? According to ReadWriteWeb.com, “Lady Gaga was ranked 3rd overall in news coverage, in magazine websites and music blogs, with 4,326 articles.”

Most businesses barely have a marketing plan, much less a written, strategically developed PR Plan. Yet it could be the very thing that helps you save advertising dollars AND gain an edge over your competition.

Review Last Year’s PR

If you received PR coverage, review it for its content. Compare it to last year’s plan. What got the media’s attention and what didn’t? Which editors gave you positive coverage and which gave you negative coverage? Can you tell why? Consider calling them to discuss it.

Search online for all results that include the name of your business. Now do the same thing for your closest competitors. Why did they get the coverage? Were their stories particularly interesting in some way? Did they target media that you didn’t target? Make a list of these angles and media targets to add to your list of PR objectives.

Articulate Your PR Objectives

When you take a vacation, you choose the destination first, right? So start by putting your PR objectives in writing. It can be simple – even a bullet-pointed list will suffice. Topics to cover will depend upon the type of business, your customers, your competition, and your target media.

Example objectives might include:

  • New product or service launch coverage
  • Company events announced
  • Employee promotions or additions spotlighted

PR Tactics and Tools

With your written PR objectives in front of you, brainstorm activities that will help you plan and execute effective and consistent PR tactics. Consistency is the key, so get out a calendar or create a timeline as an integral part of your plan.

Try these additional PR tactics:

  • Create a comprehensive PR contact list, with their preferred method of being contacted (ex: email or fax?)
  • For each media, list their deadlines. If they come up short for content at the last minute, your press release just might fill that need.
  • Schedule time on YOUR calendar for PR activities. Make an appointment with yourself!
  • Call the media contacts and introduce yourself. Offer yourself as a subject matter expert. Sooner or later, they’ll likely call you when they need a quote on a story ion your field.
  • Don’t forget about blogs and social media. These days, PR online might even eclipse PR offline.

What PR tactics have worked for your company? What should others avoid?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, How to Make Money Online With Social Media: A Step-by-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs will be available very soon. 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

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Impress Funders with Your Grant Proposal: Target Your Outcomes

a-donor-impressed-with-an-excellent-grants-proposal.

Back in the early days of my career – when high tech meant you had a fax machine – one of my proposals to the National Endowment for the Humanities for an elementary school enrichment project was rejected, and we wanted to find out if it made sense to reapply.

I traveled from New York to Washington to meet with our program officer. He said we lost it on the evaluation, noting that our pre-test/post-test model required too much testing. So I asked him what he considered a good evaluation design.

His response was that if the children looked like they were having a good time; it would be considered a good program. We rewrote it following that advice, and it was funded and renewed several times.

That would never happen today. Funders have become consumed with the notion of outcomes assessment. Proposals must be clear about what will be accomplished with the money granted by the funder. They must clearly distinguish between goals and objectives. Goals are a general statement of intent. In the example I gave, providing an enrichment experience to a group of fourth graders would be a goal. But the outcomes need to be much more targeted.

They must detail the exact result the program will achieve for a specified number of participants, within a limited period of time. The objectives also need to presage the mechanism through which the program will be evaluated.

So the objective in our example might be “As a result of this program, 50 fourth-grade students will increase their understanding of local history by being able to attain a grade of 80% on the XYZ Standardized test of historical understanding.” That’s a long way from our program officer’s response. By the way, that’s how we wrote the proposal the first time, but it was more than 30 years ago.

Success in getting funded depends very much on knowing exactly what the grant project will accomplish. That should be one of the first questions one asks oneself. “What will be different as a result of this program?”

Funders not only want their grants to make a difference; they want to know exactly what that difference will be.

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Have a comment or a question about starting or expanding your grants program? Email me at Andrew@GrantServices.com..

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Changing Seasons, Slowing Down

Tree With Maple Leaves reflecting changing seasons
Fall Colors

This is my favorite time of year. The trees look spectacular here in the Appalachian Mountains and everything is ablaze with color. Fall always gets me thinking about what needs changing, what needs to be dropped, and what needs to go dormant for a while.

It’s a good time to take an inventory of your busy schedule and see what needs to be changed, dropped, or let lie for a while.

  • Are there tasks you’ve taken on that you really need to let go of?
  • What commitments do you need to finish so you can rest more during the darker winter months?
  • What about your office- is it cluttered with stacks of papers that need to be filed or sorted?
  • Are you squirreling away things that you don’t need to save?
  • How can you make a change with your desk or office so that you make some more space in your life?

The squirrels are busy collecting their nuts and people are busy preparing for holiday feasts. Same activity, different species.

Being a mammal you are more connected to the sun and seasons than you may realize. Your body may need more sleep or you may need more stillness through the winter hibernating months. This is a great time for you to figure out how busy you want to be as the holidays loom on the horizon. If you find this a stressful and hectic time, be intentional to do things differently, slow your pace and welcome the hibernation.

  • Choose one thing you want to do differently this fall to prepare for winter.
  • Choose one thing you want to drop to simplify your holidays.
  • Choose one thing you want to go dormant for a few months.

The Celtic tradition of Samhain marks the cross-quarter holiday between the Fall Equinox and the Winter Soltice, often celebrated with bonfires to light the dark sky. Believed to be a time when the veil between the living and the dead was thinnest, people wore costumes to commemorate the dead along with the dying of the trees, and to honor their ancestors and celebrate the end of the fall harvest. The tradition has been carried into America as All-Saints Day on Nov. 1st and Halloween (all hallow’s eve) on Oct. 31st.

As you look towards the winter holiday season, the darkness calls forward your inner light to glow brighter. What warmth can you bring to your co-workers? What will help you remember your inner light in the midst of the busy-ness of your squirrel activities?

Here are a few quick suggestions as you prepare for winter:

1. Take time to walk and enjoy the fall colors

2. Light a candle each night and reflect on who helped you get through your day- thank the electrician who wired your office, the grocery store clerk who stacked your food, the truck driver who brought the gas to your local station

3. Cook a simple meal of locally grown vegetables or make a soup of the fall vegetables to celebrate the end of the fall harvest

4. Check on someone you haven’t talked to in a while to see how they are doing.

In this life we cannot always do great things, but we can do all things with great love.

Mother Teresa

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Linda is an author, speaker, coach, and consultant. Go to her website www.lindajferguson.com to read more about her work, view video clips of her talks, and find out more about her book “Path for Greatness: Spirituality at Work” available on Amazon.

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Qantas Neglects Twitter in Crisis

Twitter signage

Airline ignores opportunity to communicate and connect via social media

You don’t have to look hard to see the prominent role Twitter is playing in major crises. When engine problems forced a Qantas Airbus A380 to make an emergency landing in Singapore last week, passengers were tweeting pictures of the damage as their plane sat on the tarmac.

In the hours after, Qantas was in a scramble, trying to combat inaccurate media reports on several fronts, including several that claimed the plane had actually crashed, and being made to look somewhat foolish as they denied any wreckage being found on a nearby island while a photo from that very island showing locals holding a large piece of debris circulated around Twitter with the hashtag #QF32.

With the story already on its way to exploding on Twitter, one would think Qantas would go to where its stakeholders were discussing things, but instead its main account, @QantasUSA, remained strangely silent on the issue, and visitors seeking information saw only earlier messages, including one that became somewhat inappropriate given the situation. Image from Tnooz.com:

Finally, late on September 4th, the airline managed to get a link to its initial statement posted on the Twitter feed. The following day, though, Qantas suffered yet another engine scare, this time with a Boeing 747, and for three days now the page has stood without a posting as the rest of Twitter is abuzz with rumor and assumption about the two incidents.

While Qantas did an excellent job ensuring the safety of its customers, its communication was sub-par at best. With such a large company, especially as a member of an industry known to hold inherent dangers, there is no excuse to not have at least one person assigned to handle Twitter postings and replies around the clock.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. , an international crisis management consultancy, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]

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Passionate Communication – the Key to Effective Presenting and Training

A-presenter-with-his-audience-looking-at-the-board

As a way of introducing myself to the Training and Development world, I’ve included the bio below. While a variety of skill sets take us in many directions, my strength has been as a passionate communicator. I apply my social psychology background and my verbal skills to my “day” job, focusing on crisis management and customer service. I will be retiring from that position and devoting my time to running my company, Acting Smarts, as well as writing, acting, speaking, coaching and related activities. Meanwhile, I am open to financial opportunities now that will allow me to depart from my current position when feasible, and grant me the means to apply my skills and talent in a broader sense. In general, effective communication is important, not only in achieving our interpersonal goals, but in influencing the world around us. Skillful and charismatic communication is critical in leading any business or organization, and essential to trainers, training developers, professional development staff, and managers. So, here’s my story:

Jack Shaw is a professional theatrical and film actor, voice-over artist, on-camera actor, performing in commercials, public service announcements, audio books, and training films. In addition to being the Training and Development Blog Host for the Free Management Library, he is the Performing Arts blogger for the Wilmington Examiner, as well as a reviewer for Stage Magazine. He shares his thoughts on theater and other communication topics at www.actingsmarts.wordpress.com.

Through his company, Acting Smarts, he focuses his efforts on practical approaches to acting and communicating. Although he coaches actors for commercials, narration and theatre environments, the bulk of his business is derived from other practical applications of the art–in coaching executives in charismatic public speaking and presenting. With graduate degrees in Performance Criticism and Social Psychology, combined with his years of acting and directing, he has a unique communication insight and a dynamic presentation style. He’s directed such plays as Harvey, Lovers and Other Strangers, Romantic Comedy, Blithe Spirit, and Creation of the World and Other Business; and acted in Regional theaters throughout the country. His professional theater experience includes roles as “Nathan” in Guys and Dolls, “Perchik” in Fiddler on the Roof, “Mordred” in Camelot, and “Ice” in West Side Story. He’s also appeared in numerous non-musical theatre productions.

He has been an on-air personality, commercial announcer, a news director and talk show host in radio as well as a public affairs producer, audio chief, and a staff announcer in television. As an Air Force public affairs officer, he was a public speaker and spokesperson for national and local media, taught English and speech at the USAF Academy, ran the tour program inside Cheyenne Mountain, and was Space Division’s community spokesperson for Los Angeles and Orange counties. While stationed in Panama, he trained other public affairs officers how to handle national and international media. As part of the Administration’s National Training Center, he trained State and Federal staff, developed and presented courses in leadership, management development, train-the-trainer, and customer service. From his diverse experience he sees communication as vital in establishing and maintaining credibility, whether it is as an actor, business executive, or other professional.

Jack received Bachelor of Arts degrees in both Psychology and English, and dual Master’s degrees (Speech/Dramatic Art and English) focusing on performance criticism from the University of Missouri in Columbia. He has yet another Master’s degree in Social Psychology. The Passionate Communicator offers coaching, consulting, training in public speaking, executive presenting, and acting. He applies acting coaching techniques to help professionals build exceptional oral communication and networking skills, and helps serious actors act. Contact Jack at (856) 979-2890.

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

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13 Tips to sleep more and raise productivity

A-man-sleeping-in-his-office

In our 24/7 world, time spent sleeping is in decline so it’s little wonder that some of us find it hard to wake up in the morning. It’s reported that we sleep at least one hour less each night than we did a half century ago.

You cant beat a good nights sleep!
You can’t beat a good nights sleep!

A recent American study found that during a two-week period, 40% of workers reported fatigue. Of those, 65% reported health-related lost productive time. According to the researchers, workers with fatigue cost US employers $136.4 billion annually in health-related lost productive time.

Two-thirds of adults report frequent sleep problems, however only one in eight says those problems have been diagnosed. The ‘sleep deprived’ are also more likely to suffer from obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular, psychiatric and gastrointestinal disease, and impaired immunity. So it’s not just the quantity of our sleep that matters but also the quality; snoring loudly, daytime dozing, trouble falling asleep or waking unrefreshed are just a few of the signs that a person could be ‘sleep deprived.’

“Sleep is sort of like food,” says Robert Stickgold, a cognitive neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School. He adds, there’s one important difference: “You can be quite starved and still alive. But many of us live on the edge of sleep starvation and just accept it.” Continue reading “13 Tips to sleep more and raise productivity”