The Answer to Opportunity Overwhelm

About 15 years ago, I interviewed for a Development Manager job and asked the Director of Development what kept her up at night. She answered, “all the opportunity I don’t have the capacity to capitalize on.” Man, did I feel the weight of that reality a few years later when it was my turn to lead.

For some reason, it’s much easier from the consultant’s vantage point to see the answer clearly. Here are the three key components to offloading some of that mental load of “what if.”

1. Prioritize high-ROI activities. This might sound like a no-brainer but I often see organizations wanting to invest time and resources into initiatives that will pull focus from more lucrative ones (ahem, your major donor program).
   
2. Get used to being “good enough.” Many in the non-profit sector are high achieving. Of course, we are, we carry the weight of the world’s ills on our shoulders. But, not everything can get your 100%. It just can’t. There’s too much to do and not enough of you.
   
   An example of this is when a client wanted to do a lapsed donor campaign. Would it have been good to do? Sure. Did they have the staff capacity to do it WITHOUT sacrificing more important things like major donor relationships? Nope. My recommendation to them was to include lapsed donors in their (outsourced) acquisition campaign. They’d see a better return from acquisition than from an in-house letter (since they didn’t yet have capacity to tailor and personalize beyond current major donor letters). Was it an ideal approach? Again, no. But, it’s better than NOT mailing to their lapsed donors or NOT trying something new.
   
   Plan B is better than no plan at all.
   
3. Course corrections are an inevitable part of piloting a plane. You WILL sometimes look back and think “I should have done that differently.” The same way skills and experience are assets in a development leader, OTJ learnings are, too (especially since they have the particular relevance of context). Make sure you are contributing your professional gifts to an organization that values learning and transparency and relax a little knowing that your future choices will be informed by the learnings from your current ones.

So, what’s keeping you up at night?

Hi. I’m Jessica. I help organizations raise more money, clarify goals and priorities, and communicate more effectively. I help ED’s, CEO’s and DoD’s build cultures of philanthropy where everyone plays a role in fundraising. I also coach leaders who are looking to get unstuck and find their path to authentic, effective leadership. Reach out to me at jessicamitch@gmail.com and let me know what problems I can help you solve!