There was once a charismatic and charming executive director named Gretchen who ran a large national coalition. Gretchen spent 90% of her time in meetings and conferences with donors and funders, other executive directors, other activists, and experts in the field. The coalition had only one other staff person, who was in charge of all administrative work as well as serving as Gretchen's assistant and taking on “other duties as assigned.” Both of them worked remotely. Gretchen's communication with her assistant consisted of terse texts: “Met with Ahmed. Send him strategic plan.” “GiveMore Foundation wants to see audit. E‐mail with note.” “Roberto and Xavier are in for $10,000. Send ty.” “Remind me who Maya's husband is. Seeing them in 20 minutes.” Upwards of a dozen of these texts would come every day. The administrator's time was mostly spent trying to do all the follow‐up coming out of Gretchen's prodigious ability to meet with people and get them to agree with her about what was needed. Because of the burdens of the job, no administrator could keep up with Gretchen as well as carry out all the other duties of the job. As a result, administrative staff people came and went, and in fact, Gretchen had never met the most recent administrator in person.
High turnover in staffing and far too much work meant that things fell through the cracks: data were not entered or were inadequate, proposals and funder reports were not sent on time, donors were not thanked, sometimes checks were not deposited for a week or more. Gretchen was finding herself spending too much time on damage control. Finally, a consultant she hired for help offered this advice: “Gretchen, you are a great front person. But fronts need a back.” With that insight, Gretchen hired an assistant just to work with her, and brought on a program director to keep up with all the other work of running a coalition. Although these staff additions greatly increased the coalition's budget, they exponentially increased its effectiveness. Later, Gretchen hired a coach to help her learn better ways of supervising people. Her current assistant has been with her for two years—15 months longer than any previous one. They also have never met in person.
Gretchen is not a typical executive director, and you may wish you had the problems of such a go‐getting executive! But she was illustrative of the management issues we too often ignore. This section starts with a discussion of infrastructure, including how to set priorities and manage your time. Good time management often separates talented fundraisers from successful ones. We then look at the information you need to maintain on your donors. These two chapters could be summarized in three words: focus, focus, focus. The section ends with a discussion about when and how to hire a development director and how to think about hiring outside help, such as a coach, a consultant, or a trainer.