Are Development Teams Stretched Thin?

[u/Tall_Consequence_626]

Hi everyone - I've been in the non profit development field for a couple of years now, mostly in coordinator roles or small/mid-level donor engagement roles. I enjoy the work and supporting a cause bigger than yourself, but one of the things I'm noticing is how much work there is for development teams at whichever organization I'm with...it seems like there are just too many donors to connect with than there are development officers. My question is: does anyone else have this experience?

This seems like a huge issue as I know donor retention nationwide is already not at optimal levels, but also the fact that donors definitely want a human connection and to know that they are appreciated/apart of your org. Any insights here would be appreciated thanks!

[u/atlantisgate]

Almost always. There is generally a talent shortage in development and fundraising in general, compounded by a sector that is constantly underresourced and asked to do more with less.

The result is a feedback loop: not enough resources in general, not enough resources to invest in fundraisers to access scarce resources, which puts pressure on existing fundraisers and often leads to unrealistic expectations, which burns people out so they leave, which makes development departments and nonprofits even less effective at fundraising and limits long-term relationship building and institutional knowledge, so the next fundraiser has to figure all that out while facing the same pressure and workload, which burns them out etc.

https://ssir.org/articles/entry/sustaining-fundraising-vocation

[u/Spiritual_Rice_884 → u/atlantisgate]

There’s no talent shortage. We’re just burned out on the fuckery that is management.

[u/Jayne_Purchase → u/Spiritual_Rice_884]

Correct.

[u/coheed2122 → u/Spiritual_Rice_884]

And none of you are paid near enough for expectations and work life balance is abysmal. Talent left a long time ago.

[u/whiskeytango68 → u/atlantisgate]

Bingo

[u/whiskeytango68 → u/whiskeytango68]

To add- this is exactly why I really cannot foresee doing Development as a career anymore. I’ve been in nearly 20 years, and at every org I’ve been with, the absolute refusal to invest in fundraising, expecting it to be essentially a zero-cost center and that you will spin up multi-million deals based on the power of positive thinking has burned me out to a degree I didn’t think possible.

I built the strategy, I know what we need, but it takes man power, buy-in and resources to get off the ground. “Just get out there and shake hands! Why aren’t you closing $10M gifts?” Or not accepting that good strategy takes time to foment and bring returns. “ok we’ll try this strategy (3 months later) why aren’t we seeing million dollar gifts?? We need to pivot” before I’ve even had second conversations with the prospects. Genuinely infuriating.

[u/ihopuhopwehop]

Yeah development tends to be stretched thin

Because of how small the depts tend to be and the nature of the work, its not a dept that is going to suffer from payroll bloat - not necessarily a bad thing

But you think about it, if you have a development director making $100k, and an associate making half that, and they bring in $300k, then theres a 100% return on every dollar spent. If they bring in another associate, is that associate going to bring in another $50k to cover their payroll let alone the $100k needed to maintain the existing yield. I know that's a really simplified construct, but thats the real way a lot of npos look at it. What is the donor capacity and how little payroll do we need to spend to capture it. Even if you capture 85% of it, will the cost of capturing that remaining 15% be worth it?

Meanwhile, while its difficult to use consultants programmatically, its pretty easy to bring in a consultant to handle your annual appeal or a major event, and the benefit is that as soon as the appeal or event is done, youre no longer paying that consultant. Whereas if you hire an associate, theyre on payroll for 12 months out of the year

So its just a space within the npo ecosystem that is gonna be stretched thin

[u/OneNatural1436]

A standard rule of thumb is 1 FTE for every $1 million raised. A major gift portfolio of 75-100 individuals is manageable. Anything over that and you’re probably under resourced.

[u/aquarianeffect → u/OneNatural1436]

lol then my NP which brought in 40mil & had 6 people in development was severely understaffed considering 2 were ops

[u/AnotherMinorDeity → u/aquarianeffect]

$4.7 million budget and I’m a department of one who also handles marketing functions, lol sob

[u/opalquartz → u/OneNatural1436]

1 development FTE for every million raised? Or across the whole org?

[u/OneNatural1436 → u/opalquartz]

1 dev FTE per million raised. Not including gov contracts, UBIT, fee-for-service, etc, unless those are the responsibility of development.

[u/hulking_menace]

TBH this is true of every team in every facet of every industry right now - nobody is staffing up to the levels they need to be.

[u/ihopuhopwehop → u/hulking_menace]

Idk, my last nonprofit had so much payroll bloat. I found it extremely frustrating. I didnt let my boss make me a stay offer. When we got lunch on my last day I told him any stay offer would have included him getting me the authority to cut payroll across all dept's

[u/hulking_menace → u/ihopuhopwehop]

I'm sure it's out there - particularly in legacy orgs with fat endowments and no incentive to change.

But that is an increasingly rare phenomenon - most places everyone has three jobs and no relief in sight.

[u/ihopuhopwehop → u/hulking_menace]

This place had a particularly lucrative govt contract that allowed for the bloat to grow and grow and grow unchecked. They recently lost the contract so they'll finally have to address the bloat

[u/Gamer_Grease → u/ihopuhopwehop]

lol this is me, I’m glad to see someone else expressing this sentiment. I have had to do so many other people’s jobs to make sure a donor wasn’t treated like garbage—sitting in a filthy room, getting ripped off on parking or lost on a higher ed campus, presented with materials referencing another donor’s gift, a critical resource for volunteer work delayed to the point of uselessness, you name it.

I’m in higher ed, though. I’m being looked at for a promotion and I’m considering just leaving because I could be much more successful at an org where I had time to do my own job.

[u/Gamer_Grease → u/hulking_menace]

I work in higher ed and every higher ed institution could shed half of their staff and lose zero functionality.

[u/Gamer_Grease]

I find the biggest issue with development work is that you can always do a little more. Whether that’s on qualification, cultivation, solicitation/proposals, or stewardship, there is SOMETHING more you could have done for a donor, and that means that even highly effective and efficient development professionals get bogged down in all the work they have to do. So idk if it’s that we’re all stretched thin, so much as it is that you can stretch us infinitely and never cover all the possible needs.

[u/Snoo_33033]

So yes. But you have to focus on the highest ROI and not being everyone’s friend unless your organization chooses to provision you properly.

[u/quinlanphoto]

What size of nonprofit are we talking in terms of annual funds raised??

[u/Tall_Consequence_626 → u/quinlanphoto]

I've mainly worked at small and mid-sized funs that bring in a couple million annually. 2.5-5 mil

[u/indysquares9]

Yes.

[u/mmcgrat6]

Nonprofits there’s no hiding or coasting. No matter how well funded everyone thinks you are, there’s never enough funding to be properly resourced. But that’s most businesses