I’ll begin by expressing my gratitude for all of the incredible feedback received after publishing my first blog post last month. So far, this blog has been a reflective look back on my professional journey and how it shaped my current philosophy around our work. This brings me to another area that deserves a deeper dive—how performance metrics are pulling us away from cultivating meaningful relationships.

Early in my fundraising career, I was not managed against a (rigid) set of metrics, nor did I have an assigned portfolio. Instead, I was responsible for building relationships with the constituents of the organizations I worked for, be it families, patrons, grateful patients, or alumni. The job was "simply" to renew and increase support from our constituents, and to bring new donors to the table. Easy, right? Well, not really.

Over the past 15 years, metrics have become commonplace. Most development programs have pages of guidelines and policies around the number of visits, and other outreach, that each development officer needs to achieve in a given fiscal year. Some go further to specify the percentage of portfolio engagement that should have taken place over the course of a year, the number or percentage of qualification visits, number of proposals solicited, and total dollars raised. Our profession has become much more sophisticated in our quantitative measurement of development officers.

My concern is that the focus has become the metrics, not the relationships that need to be built with individuals. While I am in full support of metrics and the role they now play in guiding and evaluating staff, our work cannot become transactional. I firmly believe that we need to continue to have thoughtful conversations about metrics, what we should measure and at what levels, and create stronger accountability in our organizations. However, based on my own experience—and conversations with colleagues—I worry that metrics have become the focus over relationships, and we aren’t holding our teams accountable to the metrics we have created.

It is my hope that we can balance the need for metrics with a continued focus on relationships. This will allow us to achieve and exceed our goals. It is rare that I look at my metrics on a monthly basis, yet I can assure you that my daily focus is on looking at my portfolio, thinking about who I might be in touch with, or who I need to follow-up with based on a variety of factors. We must focus our activity on the organizations we serve, and on the people who represent and support those organizations. This work will result in stronger and more engaged communities.

In the advancement landscape we live in today, there are thoughtful ways to achieve this goal:

• First, build strong portfolios—Be intentional about your assigned prospects. Too often I see development officers with a majority of activity outside their portfolio and little to no activity with assigned prospects. In order to build strong relationships, you must first build a strong portfolio.
• Second, focus activity on assigned prospects—Once you have a strong portfolio of prospects, focus your efforts. You should build a thoughtful plan and strategy for each person, with a focus on ways to create meaningful engagement on a continuous basis for each person.
• Finally, create a relationship with your donors and prospects—We should all have the list of our portfolio printed out and on our desk, and/or in the notes sections of our phone, and always thinking about how we can create an ongoing dialogue and conversation with each of them. The question should be “how can I strengthen this person’s relationship with the organization," not "have I seen this person recently (to check the box)?"

For those of you who are new to your organizations, or are in roles with less defined portfolios, or who may be responsible for pipeline development, all of this still holds true. Are you looking at the list of first-time donors, consecutive donors, highly rated prospects, those engaged with your organizations who haven’t yet become major donors? Are they hearing from you, or one of your colleagues, in a consistent and thoughtful manner (and not just to renew their gift)? And for those with established portfolios, we still must integrate into our work the need for continued pipeline development and prospect qualification, as appropriate.

I feel privileged to do this work; we all should. We are entrusted by the organizations we serve to build relationships with their most dedicated, loyal, and generous volunteers and donors. By not doing so, we aren’t just failing to do our job, we are failing the organizations and individuals we are supposed to be serving. I assure you if you turn your focus to building, deepening, and strengthening relationships, the metrics will take care of themselves.