Your Chief Development Officer: Finding and Keeping the Best — Part Two

In the previous article we looked at why good fundraisers are sometimes hard to find.  This article will focus on what you can do to both find and keep a good chief development officer.

Now that we’ve touched on some of the themes of why hiring and retaining is often difficult, let’s discover what your organization can do to attract and retain a great CDO with staying power.  Below are a few ideas:

• -Know what you want and what you need in a CDO before you launch a search.  Do you want someone who raises the money?  Leads a program?  Writes grants?  Grows a volunteer base of fundraisers?  If you don’t know what you want then you’ll take anything you can get.  Clearly define what skills you need and what “fit” you want.  Don’t start with the faults of the past CDO either — it’ll focus you in exactly the wrong area.
• -Make setting and reaching goals “winnable”.    Remember, your top fundraising staff is the “CDO” not the “ATM”.  They can’t produce cash out of thin air simply because the organization needs it.    Backing into an unattainable goal is among the biggest disappointments of any fundraising program and its leadership.  Challenge your CDO but don’t make it impossible to win.  Setting goals has to be as methodical as producing good art – you’d never ask your opera to “improvise” the last 20 minutes of a production, would you?  Good fundraising includes just as much orchestration, so treat it with the same care and respect.
• -Establish, implement and communicate a clear and relevant mission for the organization and then make sure that the fundraising objectives are properly aligned.  It’s difficult to have a strong fund development program if the organization is weak or isn’t living up to its mission potential  As my long-time friend and colleague Paul Hogle (Atlanta Symphony Development “Czar”) often says, “An Annual Campaign doesn’t create an institution’s mission, values, and vision; it reveals them.”  His observation is insightfully correct and development leaders of merit understand that a healthy, visionary and focused organization is critical to successful fundraising.
• -Don’t cheap out.  No, it’s not all about compensation, but if you expect to attract and retain high-quality leadership, then you will have to pay for it.  Take care not to measure “fair” pay using what others within your organization are paid because it’s somewhat irrelevant.  Your measuring stick is your “outside competition”, not your internal organizational payment structure.  But remember, the pay might attract them, but it won’t keep them – compensation is therefore only one small piece to the overall retention game plan.
• -Be personally involved in the fundraising.  Good CDOs need good leadership partners.  Whatever your role – CEO, board chair, development chair, etc. – your best demonstration of leadership is to be engaged in the fundraising process.  Participate.  Help develop volunteer leadership.  Let the CDO develop the structure, plans and tools, but ready yourself to be continually active.  The CDO wants to lead but needs your commitment to be successful.

Finding and keeping quality development leadership isn’t easy, but it is possible.  Your job is to change the “possible” into the “probable” so that you have consistent staff, consistent leadership and consistent fund development growth for many years. 

Bob Swaney is a successful 20+ year veteran of fundraising for the arts and is the founder of Robert Swaney Consulting, Inc.  For more information, you can email Bob at rsc@rrsconsult.net or visit www.rrsconsult.net You can also become a Facebook fan by searching under “Robert Swaney Consulting”.