10 questions for the small development shop
July 14th, 2005
“Never volunteer to be inundated,” advises author Jeff Davidson in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Managing Your Time. His advice may come too late if you’ve signed up to run a small development shop, like most people working in fundraising. A survey of my local professional association showed that over 50% of the members have three or fewer development staff at their organizations.
So when it comes to working effectively without much help, you probably
already have some expertise. Rather than swamp you with tips for making
marginal improvements to your already busy days, I invite you to stop
and think about the agonies and opportunities of your situation. I’m
going to suggest 10 questions to consider, gleaned from my own
experience and conversations with small-shop leaders. I hope they will
help you face some common challenges and avoid some common pitfalls.
1. Where do I fall on the continuum from big picture to details?
As a one-person shop, or member of a very small team, you need to be
able to move fluidly between big concepts and little details without
getting stuck at either extreme. Think about where on the continuum you
feel most comfortable working, then challenge yourself to also work
outside your comfort zone.
For example, drudge work can be misleadingly satisfying. It feels good
to stamp the mail or enter 20 names in a database. As a solo worker,
you need to protect at least a small amount of time each day for your
creative, big-picture time. It may be spent staring out a window,
wandering in a bookstore, or in a park. Don’t feel guilty reserving
this time; in all likelihood it’s when your breakthrough thinking will
occur and elegantly simple solutions will come from deep inside you.
2. Am I best utilizing people who’ve offered to help me?
Think about all the things other people can do for you. Think on all
levels, from big picture tasks like strategic planning, to details like
emptying the recycling bins once a week. Then think about which tasks
would be worth your time to manage, given the level of supervision each
might require. Evaluate how volunteers can really help you.
As a solo practitioner, volunteers can be an awesome resource. They can
also make more (and different) work for you. You become a delegator,
supervisor, and facilitator. You place your trust in people who may not
do things the way you would. If you grow your volunteer team, this can
be a big change for someone who is used to working alone, so get help
with the transition. Talk to your peers in development who have been
through the experience.
3. Who are my advisors and supporters?
Because you don’t have other development staff in your office, you need
to stay in special contact with other small-shop practitioners. You can
find them through professional associations, online listservs, and
through one-one-one calls and visits.
Family and friends are important to your job, too, giving you a fresh
outsider’s response to drafts and ideas, or reacquainting you with that
strange and wonderful world outside your office walls. When your job is
difficult, ask yourself who provides your support system. And who can
you support to return the favor?
4. Are my work systems simple?
Getting organized in your office, in a way that makes sense to you, is
critical. But solo practitioners warn: don’t let organizing itself
become a crutch, or a delaying tactic that keeps you from requesting
donations or completing other central tasks. When you create or revise
a new form or procedure, ask yourself, Is this the simplest way this
task can be done?
5. Do I do too many things at once?
You may have simple work systems, but still do too many things
simultaneously. In the Idiot’s Guide, Davidson calls multitasking “the
false economy of attempting to do two things at once.” He urges readers
to slow down and give their full attention to one thing at a time. This
can be very difficult for the heroically overworked. Davidson advises
practicing by giving short bursts of your full attention to a single
task for 10 to 15 minutes. By full attention, he means no radio or TV,
no automatic email notification, no phone ringer, no lunch at your
desk, not even a coffee in hand.
It may be part of your job to be available to the public, but every job
has some room for focused time spent working alone. If you are worried
about missing calls or contacts, consider instituting open “office
hours” that take up no more than half of each day.
6. What is making me feel bad because I’m not getting to it?
As the grants director at a large nonprofit, I once had a vast reading
pile that I always meant to get to. By the time I left that job, I’d
raised more than $2 million and had hardly read half that pile. It
turned out reading everything wasn’t critical. In fact, the worst
result was I wasted a lot of time suffering and worrying about how I
should be reading.
Reconsider your “shoulds” if they seem to be getting the best of you.
Maybe by not completing something, you’re telling yourself it’s not
important. On the other hand, you could find you are avoiding something
very important and you need to ask for help or recommit to a stalled
project.
7. What tools do I have to help me, and am I fully utilizing them?
Take an informal inventory of the aids you have at your disposal,
including computer software, such as word processor and spreadsheet
programs. Are there functions – such as distribution list dialing on
your fax, merging in Word, or querying your donor database – that you
don’t fully know how to use? Invest some time learning how everything
works, so you can use your tools to speed rote tasks.
8. What time marks the end of my work day?
Since both big picture work and detail work can seem infinite, you can
feel guilty and incomplete no matter how late you stay at the office.
But if you set (and stick to) a quitting time, you can direct yourself
and have more productive days – even if they are shorter. Try it for a
certain period – perhaps a week or month – to feel the profound
difference it can make in your life and energy.
9. How do I know how I’m doing?
In a one-person shop, doing “a good job” can quickly become abstract in
the absence of anyone who might notice. So it is critical to set up
measurable goals and evaluate yourself based on those goals at regular
intervals. Setting a realistic yet challenging financial goal is the
least you can do for yourself. You should also set nonfinancial goals,
to provide a sense of progress and satisfaction while you wait long
months for results to specific asks.
10. What would I miss out on by taking an entire day’s retreat?
In a workshop on burnout, I once saw a woman break down in tears,
claiming she could not take a single day to get off her hamster wheel
and rethink her work life. She felt too busy to invest the time to
renew her motivation and energy. She believed if she left her job for
even a day, the organization she headed would… I guess, she thought it
would disappear! But her organization was likely stronger than she
realized, and it would have benefited most from her being centered and
effective.
What would you miss by taking a whole day to evaluate your personal
mission and how your work habits help you achieve it? A day during
which you do not enter your office, pick up a single call, or do a
single errand? If you’re like most people, you might miss several dozen
spam and listserv emails, a batch of mail, and several voice mail
messages – all of which you can answer the very next day! Invest some
time in getting grounded and renewed. It will pay off big time. Take a
day, protect it, and use it to think about what you do, and why and how
you do it.
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