Aspiring Not To Lead - The Glory and the Guts

As a boy I was in Boy Scouts. And since then Ive spent a good part of my life in the program once in a professional capacity then later when my son joined our local pack, then troop. I still volunteer today. Like me, Ill bet that you know a number of Eagle Scouts. Even if you dont think so, Im sure you do. Theyre all over, and I think Ive met more in fundraising than in the average profession. Eagle Scouts worked hard to get to the pinnacle of the Boy Scouting program. They did the badges, the leadership and a major project and were recognized for a great achievement. Excellent work, and if you know one, shake his hand.

But what about all those other kids in Scouting? After all, only three percent of all Boy Scouts make Eagle, that leaves 97 percent of all the other boys in Scouting not having achieved the highest rank. (The Girl Scout Gold Award is just as rigorous with only five percent achieving the rank.) So would you go to one of these boys, now men, and say ha-ha you didnt make it! No, not only would that be rude, but it simply would not be true. These guys got what they wanted from Scouting they climbed mountains and swam for miles, worked on projects that helped their community and had a whole lot of fun, but it just didnt include the Eagle (or Gold) rank.

So it is in development careers. Are you going to be a chief development officer? Maybe, maybe not. Is that the peak of the professionals experience? For some, clearly yes. For others, clearly and thankfully, no. Should someone come up to you and say ha-ha you didnt make it? No way. They are much more valuable doing what they do best raising money.

So, what are the advantages to aspiring NOT to lead?

The first and biggest is focus. If you are growing in your work, then continuing to grow in a specialty can be great for your career. Think of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. When he started repeating days over and over again it was dull and terrible. When he committed himself to change and growth, the experience gave him new life.

Increased donor contact. Turning down the CDO job may keep you in the very place that brought you into fundraising increased donor contact. Theres an interesting paradox in fundraising: the top people get the biggest prospects, but due to the duties that come with being the head of the office, have the least time to work with them! Pick your poison what kind of stress? Yes, stress comes in many forms. You need to ask yourself do you handle the stress of seeing people and making goals better or worse than the stress of managing people and entire programs.

Whats the down side of turning down the top job?

Lower pay. This is the biggest trade off, and why so many top fundraisers get caught in leadership jobs that ultimately dont like or cant handle. If you move up to leadership, there is typically better pay. Why is that? Traditionally in our society, higher pay comes with responsibility (read: supervisory and management responsibilities). We try to justify this in fundraising by coupling the top jobs with the best prospects (see the paradox, above). Yet if we allowed a high income producer to stay where he or she is producing income, were better off than distracting that person with management work. The for-profit world solves this through commissions. The best producers get paid commissions on their sales, so they may actually make more than their managers. But thats okay because the whole business grows. Clearly this is a problem in fundraising (and NO, I am NOT making a case for commissions in fundraising.)

Less prestige. Fortune and fame were linked long before charitable gifts came along, and so the reality is that for many people, if you arent reaching for the top job, somethings wrong with you or rumors will fly that you must have made a mistake somewhere in your career. Its hard not to be guilty of this faulty assumption sometime in your life I know that in younger, nave days I made this mistake more than once.

The answer, as I see it, is to raise the bar of prestige and yes, pay, for people who are wiling to become top experts in their chosen slice of the fundraising pie. Our colleagues in planned giving are well on their way in this, and my sense is that the research community is too. But what is essential to this in all of fundraising is a change in our management style and organizational culture. The persons I see who have been most hurt by our current views are our annual fund colleagues, especially those in higher education.

As a profession, is fundraising ready for this? Intellectually, yes. We can all see the advantages, and many nonprofits pride themselves in egalitarianism and adopting social norms before the rest of the world. But nonprofit or not, this is money were talking about here to raise and to make. Until we have internalized this as an operating method, a lot of excellent fundraisers will be bumped up to mediocrity to the eventual disappointment of their organization and for the long term detriment of their career. Dont let it be you.

Matt Hugg developed The Campaign for You career management system to use his 20 years in charitable organizations to help non-profit leaders, and those who aspire to be non-profit leaders, find the jobs they want at the organizations they love. He can be contacted at mhugg@TheCampaignForYou.com or 610-831-5544.

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