Find the Balance Between Managing Your Portfolio and Your Staff

Fundraising is an incredibly challenging activity. The complexity and stress associated with this process is profound. Only professionals who have immersed themselves in this profession for a time can understand what elements must be utilized for continuous success. Because nonprofit fundraising is a numbers game, organizations demand greater financial success each year. The amount of funds raised depends on the number of prospects, number of contacts made and completed positive solicitations. The process of successful fundraising takes time. 

Excel at Managing Your Portfolio First

Not all fundraising professionals understand how to totally manage a fundraising portfolio. As a career nonprofit development professional, I was responsible for securing thousands of dollars annually through use of the donor cycle to build and maintain my fundraising portfolio over time before I learned to manage others.

I used the donor cycle strategy of identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, close and stewardship process for each prospect and donor in my personal fundraising portfolio. Each year, I had to determine how I was going to retain, modify and upgrade my donor base while using different techniques and strategies. 

Additionally, it’s crucial to determine your ultimate portfolio size — likely 50 to 75 quality prospects. Constantly evaluate the health of your portfolio and use technology and data to drive results. 

Related story: Nonprofit Team Management the Ted Lasso Way

Managing my personal portfolio took a great deal of time and effort. I had to determine a financial goal for each portfolio prospect. I also evaluated each member of my portfolio for their linkage, ability and inclination (LAI). By becoming an expert in managing my portfolio, I was in a unique position to determine the size and quality of my fundraising portfolio. 

I realized that I had to master my portfolio before I could oversee staff portfolios. This information was important, as my management responsibilities increased and portfolio size changed. 

Become an Effective Manager While Managing Your Portfolio

An important way to manage your portfolio while managing staff starts with determining how to balance your portfolio with increasing staff responsibilities. The more effectively you understand how to manage your staff, the more time will be available to experiment with your portfolio. 

1. Hire the Right Fundraisers and Understand Their Fundraising Capabilities

It is important to hire the right people, and then train and develop your staff.

If you fully understand the fundraising capabilities of your staff, you will realize their ability to manage portfolio size. This will help you determine the type of portfolio needed by all on an ongoing basis. You must monitor your portfolio while evaluating all other portfolios. 

3. Develop Your Leadership Skills

To manage others, you need to be committed to developing your leadership skills. You must be able to communicate with others, delegate tasks, identify workflows, create defined goals, issue honest feedback, resolve conflicts and check in with team members to evaluate their progress. 

4. Master Time Management

It is very important that you master time management at work to determine how much time you can effectively work with your portfolio. You must allow at least 25% of your time for fundraising and portfolio attention, but that percentage may need to be adjusted depending on  the number of prospects and donors in your portfolio.  

You must determine if you can meet deadlines and prioritize your tasks. Know how you are spending your time by creating a daily routine and prioritizing activities. Establish a to-do list, but master your most difficult tasks first. Set reasonable time limits and avoid multitasking. 

If you have clear goals, plan effectively and learn to say no, you can boost productivity, reduce stress and control time management. By following time management principles, you will be in a better position to enhance your work productivity by generating more contacts and subsequently raising more money for your nonprofit. 

The Importance of Succeeding as Both a Manager and a Fundraiser

In my career, I have witnessed fundraising professionals with large portfolios (150 prospects or more) elevate to senior-level development positions. Because of new and expanded management responsibilities, their fundraising suffered. They had little time to properly work a large fundraising portfolio. It was also difficult for them to determine their ultimate portfolio size. 

Not all fundraising professionals are good managers, and not all good managers are excellent fundraising professionals. It takes a professional with the skill set to balance simultaneous acts of fundraising and management. 

Effective fundraising managers cannot forget to be fundraising professionals. If you manage staff, and have a personal fundraising portfolio, emphasize individual portfolio development while making your staff do the same. With your nonprofit’s overall goals in mind, use strategic approaches, such as segmenting prospects and donors by gift capacity, constantly cultivating relationships and utilizing prospect research to its fullest capacity. 

Managing a portfolio while managing a staff is a delicate art. This assignment will improve over time with practice and experience. You must do both well over time to produce the greatest results. 

The preceding post was provided by an individual unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of NonProfit PRO.