In recent weeks, we started a few strategic development consultancies. A couple of them are focused on the strategic planning to develop the whole organization, beyond the mere fundraising strategy that supports such development. Therefore: fundraising, of course, but also organizational analysis, internal structuring of staff and processes, communication and positioning, medium and long-term planning, consolidation, design and development of their governance.

Despite the diversity of the cases – by purposes, history, geographical location and positioning, structuring, composition of governance – there are some points that emerge as common factors (albeit declined in different ways in each of the cases) that characterize the work on development.

Enjoy the reading!

We often remember that the starting point for any development strategy of an organization is its governance – from the analysis of the current situation, objectives and goals, critical issues to the vision that it expresses.

Governance is also our main reference point when we start working with organizations we collaborate with. The very first meetings, therefore, take place with the Board of Directors and have a concrete character right from the start: the analysis is placed within a perspective that keeps a dimension of concreteness inside, keeps the discussion “on the ground” so as to make the whole conversation real and realistic.

 

The Directors are not always used to asking certain questions and they are not always convinced of the usefulness of an external intervention, but, in the vast majority of cases, even any initial skepticism disappears when they begin to enter concretely into the specific issues and topics. The desire to contribute is stronger than the tight handbrake that sometimes characterizes some Boards.

 

One area in particular is, in our experience, strategic for the purposes of directing and correctly setting up a development strategy: the construction of a meaningful perspective that starts from its story (and storytelling) and translates into the construction of a community of values that aggregates those who shares and support its vision.

Words, in this sense, have a central, crucial role.

Very often in the analysis of the way in which organizations “come out” the words are all the same, they do not allow us to grasp the peculiarities, the characteristic features of a certain organization, as a flattening that is often conceived as a need for formal correctness of the language but which, in practice, translates into “anonymity”. The attempt to communicate credibility and professionalism often turns into an uninteresting, flat story which usually rewards formal rigor but forgets a central item of any narrative: people. What, in our professional daily life, means the stories of the people who “make” the organization: governance, of course, but also the staff, volunteers, beneficiaries (or visitors, to mention a valid case for cultural institutions, or similar categories in other sectors) and their relatives, the donors themselves.

 

A storytelling that does not include the language that is made from the interaction between individual stories and builds the language of the organization sterilizes the ability to go beyond the physical and cultural walls and reach those who want to listen.

 

“Words are important” – we very often quote this sentence that the Italian director Nanni Moretti said in his famous movie “Palombella Rossa”. And, above all, words are rarely neutral or objective: building an “own” language means defining horizons, impacts, vision, proposing different scenarios and concrete practices to implement them. Reporting on the website or in the communication materials the same language used in the Statute of an organization, then, cuts the peculiar position that the organization itself stands for and brings it back to a dimension of “flat” and sterile correctness .

 

How, then, to bring out this concrete subjectivity and identify the words of the organization?

 

Here are some suggestions from our coaching developed with the Boards of the Directors and, in general, with the organizations we collaborate with: we let the people who “are” the organization speak, we often ask them to write down the answers to the questions we ask, we write down the expressions they use when describing or describing something – a project, an initiative, a “reason why…”, and we put together the unique puzzle of that organization. The set of expressions, even and above all those that came out immediately, starting from which we re-arrange the work on the identity, the mission, the setup of the relationship with the “rest of the world” that surrounds the organization and its cause.

It’s a cutting and sewing job, which we tailor every time when we start a new collaboration. We have developed a practical method that allows us to immediately get to the heart of the identity of the entity we are facing, starting from the hearts of the people we sit with during sessions of this type.

The flow that emerges – spontaneous, non-formal nor (initially) formalized – will form the nucleus for a repositioning, an identity focus which, once returned in the form of starting documents for the development strategy, almost always surprises (positively) those who were the protagonists of that narrative. Because they recognize each other, they identify with that language and that different but more authentic way of telling the cause and establish a direct connection with the ability to impersonate it when they have to “go out” – during an event, or a presentation or a meeting with a donor or any other similar situation.

 

Saying “The staff who are part of our team are specialized and trained in order to develop skills and sensitivity appropriate to the relationship with patients” is not exactly the same thing as “We like to define ourselves as people who accompany people. We were born with the intention of becoming a family for our patients and their families in a protected place where each patient can feel at the centre. A place where each patient and family member can find an integrated multidisciplinary team of professionals, welcoming, passionate (…)”.

 

It is sometimes a complex work, but one that we consider crucial in our approach to development consultancy.

And, above all, it is what makes us deeply grateful for the opportunity of entering into a profound connection with the stories of other people, sometimes distant for reasons of age, path, geography or other, and which allows us to establish that bond of trust mutual which is the basis for the work to be developed together. In addition to learning, deepening, discovering different ways of looking at the world.

 

The final suggestion, therefore, is this: build the language of your organization, every now and then do an internal check on the way you tell your story and relate to the cause you are pursuing from a semantic point of view to verify that it really tells who you are – even before what you do! Because it’s the only way to build meaningful relationships and, above all, give the shape you want to the mission you carry out as an organization.

“We have completely changed the way we look at ourselves and, as a consequence, the way we interact with our community.”

This sentence comes at the end of a consultancy with an organization that we have collaborated with, since the beginning of 2021, on the development of the fundraising strategy, starting from the analysis and engagement of the Board of Directors and ending with the recruitment of two fundraisers for the (brand new) Development Office of the organization.

This is, of course, the synthetic version of the whole story, with some practical suggestions: enjoy the reading!

With the organization we are writing about, we literally started from the scratch, from a phone call with one of their Board members and the Administration manager who, right after the mutual introductions, told us about their concerns related to how to make their cultural and social initiatives sustainable; their attempts to fundraise and the discouraging results they obtained. And also, that these efforts had determined an internal break between those who argued that their development should not (also) have passed through giving and philanthropy and those who, on the other hand, were convinced of it. The Board was part of this break and, in addition, there was no internal staff with fundraising and communication skills.

It was a long phone call, made up of questions, requests for feedback, numbers and sharing of critical issues and first impressions.

This was followed by our collaboration proposal (you will find all the information on our consultancy packs here) detailed and concrete, articulated in terms of contents, timeline, objectives and expected outcomes. And a starting date made of a 3-day full immersion – focused of analysis, discussions, training, identification of short and long-term objectives and much more – with the Board in the headquarters of the organization, a place full of history and stories. We were aware, then, about the a formally cooperative Board but, just below the surface, rather conflicting on the issue of development, starting from the meaning to be given to the word “development” and ending with the ways to carry it out.

 

Suggestion nr. 1: each time you start a job – whether it is with your “historical” organization or with a new one – immersing yourself in the world of the organization is the first step to gain elements and insights connected to its mindset, as well as practical information. To do this, it is necessary to exercise the listening skills (it’s one of our mantras: the listening abilities are among the crucial skills for fundraisers) and curiosity. What you will receive in return are engaging stories, pieces of someone else’s lives that, in some way, also become ours. And it is one of the gifts that our work gives us, every day.

 

The full immersion with the Board provided clearer ideas, aware and, although not all of them agreed with the idea of development, at least they were convinced to give a structured fundraising strategy a chance. This first meeting was followed by a second one with the group of people identified by the organization itself: a dozen young people who for some time collaborated, albeit sporadically, in the activities, together with two people of the administrative staff, the manager of one of their branches, two Board members – all them received a short and customized training on fundraising.

The working group, a part of those attended the training, then began to work with us on the operational activities that were developed in the following months.

 

Suggestion nr. 2: the adversity by the Council on investing to hire a professional fundraiser led us to a “plan B”, that is to say engaging a number of trained volunteers to cooperate to the start-up of the fundraising strategy. This choice didn’t imply volunteers as a “second choice”; more precisely, in that case the proposal was an alternative opportunity possible in light of a request that came from a group of young people close to the organization who have long been asking the Board for more structured involvement. The call developed and addressed to the volunteers required certain requirements for the application, a certain type of availability especially in terms of continuity, an interest in a possible continuation in terms of professional development. This allowed us to know that the people identified were really motivated and, on the side of the volunteers, to do something concrete, structured and not sporadic, which really met their desire to “do something” for the cause.

Volunteers are a precious resource: to enhance and gratify them you need to have clear ideas about the role, define an open discussion and, above all, not consider them as a substitute for a paid staff. By setting things up in this way, and sharing the approach with the organization, it is possible to set growth and development paths in the long term.

 

After 1 year of work with the organization, the result is:

• a Board fully involved in the development strategy, with an active role in the donors seeking process and as ambassadors of the mission;
• the set up of the Development office, provided with a staff initially made up of 4 volunteers and a Board member who received ad hoc training on fundraising and which will soon see the hiring of 2 of these volunteers with regular employment contracts;
• the definition of a communication plan dedicated to fundraising;
• the first two successful fundraising campaigns;
• the development of targeted and segmented mailing lists (the starting point for the future CRM);
• the launch of the first major donors campaign which shows encouraging results.

All these activities have been aimed both to the Italian and international audience, in particular (but not only) North American, in relation to the positioning of the organization.

 

Was it all easy or straightforward? Not at all: the initial planning has been revised, the organization’s tone of voice has been focused, and internal tasks and flows have been redefined several times. The Board was solicited using different levers, in order to find the ones that “resonated” best and that led to genuine involvement. It was not easy to involve the rest of the organization in something perceived as sporadic, eventual, somehow unrelated to the organization – and in this the presence of the Board (not all, initially) made the difference.

Change is rarely “linear” – like almost everything in life, on the other hand. But it can be done.

It can be made concrete by having a clear direction of travel and by adjusting the course every time the non-linearity causes skids.

 

This is what we do with organizations: we accompany them in the change, in the analysis and structuring of the internal organizational structure, in the design or re-design of the Board of Directors, in the identification and implementation of fundraising campaigns or even with the use of vehicles. philanthropists who are not traditional fundraising but, in some cases, are better suited to the type of organization.

And looking at how change takes shape, listening to feedback like the one we started with this blogpost… as we often say, the impact we produce lies in the ability of organizations to walk straight and forward, on their own legs, once the work is done together.