May 18 is coming faster than you know! How are you doing on your 100 day commitment?
I don’t know about you but I’m finding it incredibly easy to fill my time with minutia. You know…cleaning the desk, moving the computer moniter, grabbing a coffee.
At times like this, I find Stephen Covey’s concept of Q2 time management very helpful. Here’s some of what’s on Wikipedia.com.
In the book, Covey describes a framework for prioritizing work that is aimed at long-term goals, at the expense of tasks that appear to be urgent, but are in fact less important. This is his 2×2 matrix: classifying tasks as urgent and non-urgent on one axis, and important or non-important on the other axis. His Quadrant II has the items that are non-urgent and are important. These are the ones he believes we are likely to neglect; but, should focus on to achieve effectiveness.
Q1 is where a crisis lives: things with deadlines, urgencies, fires that need to be put out. Q1 will always be with us.
Q4 is a total waste of time and we know we shouldn’t be doing it.
Q3 is where we can make real changes. These are urgent but not important things: the person standing at your door, the mail on your desk, etc. Their presence makes them urgent, but their issues aren’t truly important. It’s the old “lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”
Covey says the goal is to move our time from Q3 activities to Q2. For example, as we do the non-urgent but important tasks, we are preventing Q1 crises. We’re putting out fires before they happen.
Determining your 33 top prospects is definitely Q2. Do you know who yours are? If not, why not block out the rest of the day to determining them?
I just don’t get this. Why wouldn’t you report being an officer in a family run philanthropy?
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and two other Democratic Congressional leaders failed to report their positions as officers in family charities as required by Congressional disclosure rules, reports USA Today.
Feel free to leave a comment to this. Please don’t make it partisan or party bashing. That’s not the point of this post. I’m really intrigued by what people may thinking they’re hiding.
Jeff Brooks at Donor Power Blog has a great example of what I was talking about earlier this week in Where You Start Matters.
Check out this post which shows an actual letter Jeff got from a nonprofit he doesn’t give to. It’s scary to think they talk about themselves 3 times more than they talk about the donor.
It’s even scarier is that for most of us this could be any of our letters!
Give it a read and consider changing your approach.
Goodman says most presenters start with the question “What do I want to say?” And starting here is fatal.
You may craft an incredible message but it will be totally ineffective and fall on deaf ears. People have enough going on already. They aren’t concerned with what you have to say.
Sorry if that’s hard.
But think of yourself. When you go to a seminar, do you want to hear what they speaker is saying? Or are you more interested in fixing a problem you have? It may seem a slight difference but the impact this can have on our story telling is incredible.
Goodman recommends that when you give a presentation, picture yourself taking the audience on a journey from where they ARE to where you want them to be. Taking them from point A to point B.
A is what they are thinking and feeling when the enter the room. B is what you want them to think, feel, and do when they leave.
The key is starting where THEY are, not where you are.
This takes discipline. For example, in fundraising, it’s far easier to start where you are. You’re committed to the cause and you know the financial need. It’s the center of your universe. If you simply tell your story from this mindset, you create ad campaigns that beat up on “them” for not being generous to your cause. Sort of like mugging a prospect, isn’t it?
When was the last time you gave money to a cause because you were beat up on by the development staff?
So when you tell your stories, present your case, make the ask, start where they are. If you’re not sure, ask them. Go to where they are. Get out of your office. Get on the phone. Engage in emails. Survey. Whatever it takes to find out where they are at.
The Fundraising Coach, Creating Donor Evangelists, PYITS, Ask Without Fear!, MagnetGoals, "Put Yourself In Their Shoes," "Fundraising is an extreme sport," "Fearless Asking," "Do It Yourself Fundraising," "Life's short. Live passionately.", "faux-philanthropy," and Extreme Fundraising are trademarks of The Pitman Group.
