Training Tools (and Toys) Help Nonprofit Group Retain Fund Raisers

On a February day last year, Eve M. Tai, a fund raiser at the Nature Conservancy of Washington, in Seattle, found herself coaching four blindfolded colleagues who were trying to build a house-like structure out of Tinkertoys. By describing what the finished product should look like and then guiding participants through the construction, Ms. Tai successfully led her group’s assembly of the wooden sticks and wheels.

“What was really a joy for me was seeing how delighted these four were when they took off their blindfolds,” she says. “It was very simple, but it really reminded me of the power of good leadership and how good people feel when they come together to make something happen.”

The Tinkertoy exercise was one of the more lighthearted parts of a leadership-training seminar started by the national headquarters of the Nature Conservancy, in Arlington, Va., to help it solve a serious problem: frequent turnover among top Nature Conservancy fund raisers across the country. In 1999, the charity’s human-resources department conducted a survey and found that only 9 of the 48 state development directors had been in their jobs for at least three years.

As a result, the department interviewed current and former staff members about what qualities they felt a good development director should have, and asked why they thought fund raisers were leaving the organization. One complaint was that fund raisers felt lost upon arriving at such a large organization — the Nature Conservancy has 3,500 staff members spread over all 50 states and 29 countries.

In response to the survey findings, the Nature Conservancy decided to look for more-organized ways to train its fund raisers, particularly those in top positions. Working with two consultants from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, the charity set up a 10-month leadership-training program, and created internal handbooks on hiring and retention strategies for directors of development as well as other tools.

Nine fund raisers from Nature Conservancy chapters completed the training program, which was intended to “build the internal bench,” says Jolie Sibert, associate director of the Nature Conservancy’s Development Learning Center, a division of the charity that assists fund raisers.

She says it takes time for new fund raisers to get up to speed with donors. “When directors of development would leave, we were looking for others to step into their place and we weren’t finding a lot of internal candidates,” Ms. Sibert says. The benefit of promoting someone from within is great, she adds, because those fund raisers already have established relationships with donors and they understand how the charity operates internally.

Ratings From Colleagues

While the leadership program was initially geared to mid-level fund raisers, several participants were coincidentally promoted to director of development either right before or during the training. Eight fund raisers who completed the program are still working at the charity; one left because of a spouse’s job transfer.

Participants first met for two days as a group in Austin, Tex., to assess and discuss their leadership abilities. Fund raisers arrived prepared to hear the results of surveys from colleagues detailing each person’s strengths and weaknesses as a leader.

Pat Bray, director of development at the Michigan chapter of the Nature Conservancy, in East Lansing, ranked lower than he predicted on a question about giving co-workers feedback on their jobs. As a result, after the Austin trip he shared the survey results with his seven staff members and started to have weekly half-hour meetings with each one, as well as a weekly half-hour troubleshooting meeting with the three major-gifts officers, all of whom were relatively new in their jobs.

After the meeting in Texas, seminar participants divided into two groups and were assigned to conduct research on fund-raising problems that had been identified by senior Nature Conservancy staff members as issues the organization needed to fix.

The first group examined ways to get trustees more involved in soliciting major gifts. They produced a “trustee manual” that explained what practices had succeeded in promoting trustee involvement, culled from interviews with fund raisers, trustees, and state directors at chapters around the country. The manual was eventually sent by e-mail to every chapter.

The second group studied how to better involve major-gifts fund raisers in seeking planned gifts. Currently, the charity’s fund raisers specialize in either major or planned gifts, but Nature Conservancy officials want to teach those who work on big gifts how to discuss basic planned-giving options with donors. The participants surveyed other large charities, such as the American Red Cross and World Vision, in Federal Way, Wash., to get advice on how they had dealt with the issue.

Most of the work was done over monthly conference calls, with Ms. Sibert and her supervisor, Jeanne Phillips, as well as two staff members from the group’s headquarters with expertise in planned gifts and trustee development, advising each group. Participants had to find time outside their regular jobs to complete the research. In October, the fund raisers met once more as a group before delivering presentations on their findings to the charity’s senior fund-raising and marketing staff members the following month.

Creating a Network

In addition to providing Nature Conservancy leaders with research results, the group became tightly knit, which is proving to be an important benefit of the leadership training. For example, when Ms. Tai returned to Seattle, she started a conversation with a prospective donor family who spent every summer in Maine. She called Alex McIntosh, director of development of the Maine chapter and a fellow participant in the leadership program, to discuss working together to solicit the potential donors.

“Previously I would not have thought of asking colleagues outside my office for advice or assistance,” says Ms. Tai. “I may not have naturally thought that we should ask for something that encompasses all the areas that these people are interested in. I may have just said, ‘Let’s just do Washington.’” Ms. Tai eventually asked the family for a gift, and she says the family is still deciding whether to give.

Officials at the Nature Conservancy say the strong response to the program so far means it will probably be repeated in the fall. The charity is also considering an additional training program for established directors of development.

‘Makes You Feel Good’

While the program was not created to build loyalty to the charity — participation did not depend on promising a certain amount of service afterward — it seems to have produced that result. “As an employee, to know that your organization is investing in you is heartening,” says David Kelley, director of corporation and foundation giving at the Nature Conservancy’s Illinois chapter, in Chicago. “It makes you feel good about where you are working.”

The leadership seminar builds on work the Nature Conservancy had already been doing to support its fund raisers. Four years ago, the charity formed the Development Learning Center, an in-house department dedicated to helping chapters and the national office improve their fund raising. When invited by local or international chapters or a department in the national office, Ms. Phillips, Ms. Sibert, or another center staff member acts as a management consultant, conducting a top-to-bottom review of fund-raising practices and offering suggestions and advice.

Center staff members also help chapters fill fund-raising vacancies and arrange large- and small-scale internal conferences on topics such as major-gifts fund raising. Through a link on the charity’s internal Web site, the center publishes fund-raising advice.

The support measures have already helped with retention: In 2001, an internal survey found that 13 of the 48 state development directors have been in their jobs for three or more years.

“We know that anything we do with training and skill building is appreciated by staff in every program,” says Ms. Sibert. “That has to help with job satisfaction, which also has to help with job retention.”