Insights & Events

The Professional Development Environment Leaders Create

Advancement leaders can create 3 professional development environments for those in their care.  These professional development environments can encourage team members to: Learn More Skills – develop the technical skills related to their work; Receive More Instruction – learn from others about how they have enhanced their work; Think More

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Performance-Based vs. Responsibility-Based Metrics

The concept of “performance-based metrics,” is well known in our advancement work. But, saying something is well known does not mean that it is well understood.  In fact, in the case of “performance-based metrics,” I would suggest the concept is very poorly understood. What “performance” are we talking about? Does

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Compared To What?

If we want the most helpful evaluative process for our development program, an important first question to answer is, “what are we using as our comparison?” For example, we might make the following evaluations, “Overall, our fundraising results haven’t been very productive.”  Or, “We are making great progress with our

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More Data, More Ideas, and More Results

We don’t need more data.  We have so much of it we don’t know how to use or store it all. We don’t need more ideas.  We have more of them at our fingertips than we can possibly implement. More advancement results typically don’t come from more data or more

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The Real World

Listening as higher education presidents or nonprofit CEOs stand before their faculty, employees, volunteers and state that what they do isn’t “the real world,” is a sad statement. I don’t find these types of statements sad because I happen to disagree with them. I find them sad because the statements

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“I Wouldn’t Respond To That”

The personalized letter from the president that invites people to join the President’s Circle by giving at least $1,000 is not for everyone. The purpose of any call to action is not to get everyone to respond. It’s to understand the profile of the core audience, identify those who fit

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The Professional Development Environment Leaders Create

Advancement leaders can create 3 professional development environments for those in their care.  These professional development environments can encourage team members to: Learn More Skills – develop the technical skills related to their work; Receive More Instruction – learn from others about how they have enhanced their work; Think More – reflect on what our work means and become more

Details »

Performance-Based vs. Responsibility-Based Metrics

The concept of “performance-based metrics,” is well known in our advancement work. But, saying something is well known does not mean that it is well understood.  In fact, in the case of “performance-based metrics,” I would suggest the concept is very poorly understood. What “performance” are we talking about? Does “performance” equate to outputs?  Like dollars raised?  Or, commitments received? 

Details »

Compared To What?

If we want the most helpful evaluative process for our development program, an important first question to answer is, “what are we using as our comparison?” For example, we might make the following evaluations, “Overall, our fundraising results haven’t been very productive.”  Or, “We are making great progress with our fundraising.” But, neither of those evaluations is especially helpful until

Details »

More Data, More Ideas, and More Results

We don’t need more data.  We have so much of it we don’t know how to use or store it all. We don’t need more ideas.  We have more of them at our fingertips than we can possibly implement. More advancement results typically don’t come from more data or more ideas. More advancement results typically come when we strengthen messy

Details »

The Real World

Listening as higher education presidents or nonprofit CEOs stand before their faculty, employees, volunteers and state that what they do isn’t “the real world,” is a sad statement. I don’t find these types of statements sad because I happen to disagree with them. I find them sad because the statements themselves show a deep lack of understanding regarding the fundamental

Details »

“I Wouldn’t Respond To That”

The personalized letter from the president that invites people to join the President’s Circle by giving at least $1,000 is not for everyone. The purpose of any call to action is not to get everyone to respond. It’s to understand the profile of the core audience, identify those who fit that profile, and how someone they respect invite them to

Details »