Are your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) rational and sustainable? Do they appear to enhance productivity while actually raiding the cupboard of future potential?
Do they appear to improve organizational performance while actually depleting the potential and morale of those performing them?
What does it take to meet your KPIs? How many extra hours in the day? How many evenings and weekends? How many late-night calls? How many sleepless nights do they induce, as you toss and turn with, “How on earth am I supposed to do this?”
How many prospects do you have in your portfolio? The more you have, the less justice you will do to each, and the less likely you will focus your energy on those most likely to give the most.
How many calls are you expected to make each week? The more you have, the more the quality of each will degrade, not only with each passing day but each passing week.
How many visits are you expected to make? The higher the expectation, the more you will gravitate towards those who will grant the visit, rather than those who might make the most significant contributions. Most fundraisers will spend most of their time in the new year trying to get the most onerous metric off their backs.
How many dollars (or euros or whatever denomination) are you expected to raise this year? How likely is it that you will meet that goal or try to by calling the question on too many prospects too soon? Are you chasing gifts at the expense of building philanthropic partnerships?
The sad truth about many metrics is that their consequences have been poorly thought through, whether in terms of future productivity, giving levels, donor attrition, or fundraiser turnover.
David Whyte, in his essay on burnout, says, “The foundation from which we transform the experience of burnout is the realization that we have been measuring all of the wrong things in the wrong ways and that we have mis-measured our sense of self in the same way; that we have allowed the shallow rewards of false gods or false people to mesmerize, bedazzle and entrain us; to hide from us an ancient and abiding human dynamic – that we belong to something greater and even better for us than the realm of the measured.”
May you find that realization, and may a larger part of organizational and advancement leaders come to their senses.
Jim Langley is the president of Langley Innovations. Langley Innovations provides a range of services to its clients to help them understand the cultural underpinnings of philanthropy and the psychology of donors and, with that knowledge, to develop the most effective strategies and tactics to build broader and more lasting communities of support. Jim has authored numerous books, including his most recent book, The Future of Fundraising: Adapting to New Philanthropic Realities, published by Academic Impressions in 2020.
