Gossiping In The Office or Information Gathering?
When I started working, I liked to think of myself as a sponge. I sat outside my boss’s office and near my colleagues in the planned giving department’s section.
And I would listen.
I would listen to how they spoke to donors.
I would listen to how they explained the different gift planning vehicles.
I would listen to how they met with colleagues on the annual giving teams for how to approach a donor.
I would get up and walk over to someone in accounting, or HR, or IT for help with something.
As a self-described expert in gossip (An expert? I like to think so, considering I wrote my senior thesis in college on Elderly Gossip in Retirement Homes, which I then presented at an academic conference), I would pop over to my friends in other departments and ask if they had heard the latest workplace news.
I would observe who was meeting and the looks on their faces when they exited the conference room.
When going out for lunch, my friends and I would gasp when we saw other work colleagues eating together over sushi, curious about what they must be talking about.
But these were the pre-COVID times. Where nonprofit professionals would go into the office every day of the work week.
People met together. Face to face. In conference rooms. Huddle rooms. Individual offices.
And other people could observe who was meeting. Gossip about who was meeting. Track who was meeting. Pop over to ask a quick question.
We are no longer in that time.
The data is inconclusive and changing, but according to an article published a few weeks ago in USA Today, about 14% of all employed adults work from home 100% of the time.
And from the National Council of Nonprofits, who shared data from summer 2023 from jobs posted online from Idealist.org for the nonprofit industry, 43% of the job listings are exclusively onsite, 38% are hybrid and 19% are remote.
Does this surprise you or match what you’re seeing?
Regardless, this is the future. And we have to accommodate and build business processes that work and thrive in this current and changing workplace environment.
Some processes and critical information need to be written out and saved in an easy-to-find space (no one can just pop over to ask, and EVERYONE gets annoyed when you receive a Slack message asking for the file location, again).
Here are the top ten items your nonprofit staff needs easily accessible and not require gossip to obtain them.
Your Mailing Address
This may seem really really obvious, but perhaps your mailing address to receive donations is different from where your office is. And if everyone is remote, do people even know it? For new staff who may have never even gone into the office, make sure this information is accessible.
Your Tax ID Number
You’re at a nonprofit. Your organization receives charitable donations. Your donors need to confirm that your organization is legitimate and qualified to receive these types of contributions (especially when making gifts from a family foundation or a donor advised fund, where more and more dollars are going to first, before they go to a charitable entity).
Brokerage and Bank Information
Give donors options! They don’t just need to give via credit card or check. What about a wire transfer or an appreciated stock (which then allows the donor to avoid capital gains taxes!). The donor usually wants this information quickly so they can pass it on to their financial advisor. So have it at the ready to share.
Your Board of Directors
There should never be a question of who is CURRENTLY on a nonprofit’s board of directors (especially for the staff). Have an easy-to-find list with email addresses, when they joined the board, and when their current term expires. Even better, make sure you know who used to be on the board.
List of Acronyms
Pause for a moment. Look at your email inbox and peruse your emails from your colleagues. How many different acronyms do you use on a daily basis? Be kind to your new colleagues joining your team and have them written out somewhere. Again, we aren’t able to listen to other people’s conversations to receive some context, so make it easy!
Track Donor Information
I’m assuming that you already have a CRM database that tracks donor contact information, gift history, and maybe even event registration or email open rates. But do you have it written out anywhere what your process is to create a new contact? What about when someone passes away, what is the process to mark that person as deceased? If it’s not written out, I can almost guarantee each person updating information is doing it differently.
Gift Entry and Acknowledgment Process
So you’re now tracking how to create a new contact in your database and outlining what to do when someone passes away. Excellent. Now, do you have a specific person(s) who does the gift entry for your organization? Is there a backup? What happens when that person leaves? Or is sick? WRITE THIS DOWN. NOW. TODAY. You can thank me later.
Gift Acceptance Policy
I’ve shared some thoughts previously about how important gift acceptance policies are. I hope you’ve taken a moment to draft what types of gifts to accept, who has the right to accept, named fund limits, approval required, etc. Once this is documented, make sure the staff (and your board too) can access it and use it when questions arise (and questions will arise).
Restricted Giving Priorities
Are there specific programmatic initiatives your nonprofit organization is looking to launch, strengthen, or alter? Is there a need for additional funds for those projects? How much money is needed? Why is this project important? Do your gift officers and development staff members know about it so they can ask donors to support it?
Talking Points to Use With Donors and Case For Support
Why do you need money? Just for the sake of meeting budgetary and revenue goals? Or to go out and meet your mission. Your organization needs to clearly define what your organization does, who it helps, and why that matters. Because if your staff are not clear on this, then there is no way your donors will be. For some more help on this, check out this video and this blog post.
Look, you have a job to do. You have lives to save, people to educate, communities to strengthen, and global problems to solve. And it all takes money to happen. So why not make your professional lives a little easier and have these items accessible when you need them?