Efficiency

Photos: Shopify Partners and (insert) Sarah Pflug, on Burst

This area of the site was written for very experienced trust fundraisers.

What is efficiency?

Ask anyone who’s managed me closely and they’ll probably say that efficiency is one of my worst qualities. I’m more interested in how to do things very well and what are cool, useful ideas (as you’ll  probably guess from this website. It’s one reason I don’t let inexperienced people use it! SO, please take what follows with a pinch of salt.

However, based on a lot of relevant podcasts and articles in Harvard Business Review I’ve listened to, I think efficient working is composed of:

• Working clearly to a purpose and doing the minimum that doesn’t achieve that purpose. I remember when I took my present job over from my predecessor, who’d held it for seven years, steadily growing income. I asked her how she decided which new idea she’d take on and what she’d drop. She said the sole question she asked was: would she raise more money that way?  That doesn’t necessarily mean doing things in the shortest possible way (you’ll see from my accounts of high success as a Lottery fundraiser that I’ve often done precisely the opposite) but it can do.
• Having the most efficient systems in place. Particularly with smaller trusts, if you have to do things inefficiently a number of times, it adds up. that’s everything from admin systems to how you work with Services and Finance to internal communication.
• Having good time management.
• Delegation. It’s why we currently have three fundraising volunteers in the team.

Bullet journalling

This was a nice technique that Caroline Danks, trust fundraising consultant, was using to keep control of her day:

Stewardship for the Self, Bullet Journaling for Fundraisers – LarkOwl

I personally do something not unrelated:

• Start the day by writing briefly about one of two things:
  • What I’ve learnt in the last couple of days (you’ll be aware I value learning a lot, but it also helps with the stresses of the work, because you’re constantly reframing problems as learning experiences)
  • What I’ve succeeded at (I find that when I have more doubts about my abilities/potential, it leads to anxiety, avoidance/procrastination, less breadth of vision, less assertiveness, etc)
• I then look at my plan from the night before / for the month and journal for maybe 5-10 minutes about the day (depending on how focussed I feel). That helps clarify for me both intellectually and emotionally what I want out of the day.

Making reports more efficient for smaller trusts

• I’ve come across people roughing out some of the reports at the same time as thank yous. One of the problems with report writing is getting up to speed. So, if you start the report when you are still up to speed on the trust, you can write something that will be easier to fill out and add figures to later on.
• At some charities, the smaller trusts will nearly all be “gift givers”, making quick, intuitive decisions. In this case, giving less detail that you’ll need to report back on can help. if you need to save time, I’ve heard people argue in favour of 1 page proposals for trusts giving up to a couple or a few £k and 2-3 pages for trusts up to £10k.
• Suppose your proposal was for a small contribution to a multi-element service. the reports can be very complicated to put together. I’ve been advised by consultants to just choose one element of the work, which is easier to report on, agree that the money was designated for that, tell the funder that’s how we used the money, report on that (much easier) and give a general / bare minimum coverage of the rest (with the offer of more detail if required). It could actually make for a more interesting report for a regular funder, because rather than getting a reheated version of last year’s report they’d actually learn something new. However, I haven’t tried / seen anyone try this out, so it’s currently just an idea to me.

Resources

Alicia Grainger has an interesting blog with time saving tips on writing applications. My current team immediately made changes when they read it. A lot of trust fundraisers I’ve worked with have thought that the more standard materials you have to hand that you regularly reuse, the more efficient you are. However, not many people seem to actually make the time to get this right. It’s only an afternoon’s work to set up well.

https://www.aliciagrainger.co.uk/blog/how-to-save-time-writing-grant-applications

If you have more ideas for this page, they’d be especially appreciated! I think this is one of the least complete pages (reflecting my own failings as a fundraiser).