You'll recall from yesterday that it looked for all the world like Sir Mark was in a bit of trouble in the "Starlight Fantastic" with King Harold…
At the point we left off, we see that Sir Mark went out and spent considerable staff time developing the project. He went to the village designer and spent a lot of money on a snazzy brochure he called a “coffee table” brochure. He went to Philanthropy Solutions to get a video done about the project for presentation to his donor prospects. There was a lot of activity in Sir Mark’s tent, and people could see things were really happening at a furious pace.
But the preparations took Sir Mark and his staff all year to accomplish. One problem after another came up and had to be solved; an addition to the plan here, an addition there. The work became very intense. But good Sir Harold and the executive committee found itself at the end of the year looking at the budget, and still wondering where all the dollars were. One member of the committee said, “King Harold, if you’ll permit me, I thought we were going to plug that gap with new revenue. What happened? Did someone fall into the moat, or was Sir Mark consigned to the dungeon without your knowledge? We had a great plan, I see lots of activity. But where’s the million dollars we were short at the beginning of the year?”
What really happened was that Sir Mark never actually could bring himself to draw up a list of prospects; he never really visited with any prospects; he never actually made presentations and asked for money from any prospects. The brochure turned out wonderfully! The video was top notch, a very compelling dramatization of the project.
But by the end of the year there was no more money in King Harold’s treasury than was seen at the beginning of the year. And yet, when anyone looked back, it seemed that Sir Mark was always in a hurry, always pressed for time, continually had lots of things going on. He was carrying out a lot of activity all the time, but, in the end, there wasn’t much more to show for all that activity than there had been in years past. His projects were wonderful on paper, but they just didn’t result in more money.
The reason this happened was that Starlight Fantastic, through its executive director, had not developed any way to help Sir Mark be accountable for his actions on a day-to-day basis. And as a result of that, nobody became aware for a very long time that, Sir Mark, deep down in his internal mechanisms and make-up, just didn’t like people that much and was afraid of them; he was unable to bring himself to go directly to anybody and ask them for money. But this didn’t show up for several years, because he effectively covered this personal and professional failing up with beautiful plans and a lot of activity.
But one day, King Harold, as Sir Mark’s executive director, decided something had to be done, and asked Mark to list on a sheet of paper, at the end of each week, how many donor prospects he had called, and how many visits to donor prospects he had made, how many prospects he had asked for financial support, and what the responses were – yes, pledge, gift, or no.
This executive also took one more step. He took Sir Mark’s plan for raising money, and divided the fundraising goal of $1 million into 52 weeks of the year, and set a financial goal of $20,000 for each week or $85,000 each month of the year. He gave Sir Mark a 25% latitude each week and a 15% latitude each month. And, with great regularity, King Harold scheduled appointments with Sir Mark on Monday morning of each week to review the previous week’s accomplishments and the month’s anticipate new revenue goals. He took the time to coach Sir Mark and to praise him at every step of the way. He even included a performance bonus at the end of the year if the $1 million goal was reached.
The result was that in 6 months, Sir Mark had accomplished his $1 million goal, and everyone, including Sir Mark himself, was totally surprised. Starlight Fantastic began to climb out of its financial woes and went on to become a healthy, successful and highly esteemed charity within that community. King Harold was pleased as punch, and the Knights of the Funding Grail became the heroes of the kingdom!
Showing posts with label A story of Accountability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A story of Accountability. Show all posts
Friday, July 13, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
King Harold and the Starlight Fantastic – Part 1 of 2
Once, in a fabled and far off time, there was a knight who served a hardworking but relative poor king named Harold, who ruled a kingdom called “Starlight Fantastic.” The realm of “Starlight Fantastic” was a place where youth could go to sort things out, find recreation and receive counseling that would keep them interested in the crusades but also keep them from marauding friendly tribes while they were waiting to join the crusades.
This particular Knight, whose name was Sir Mark the Benign, was the leader of the Knights of the Funding Grail, a special group of knights bound by King Harold to devote their lives and fortunes to providing enough money for the kingdom to serve the needs of local youth. When King Harold and his minions were about to run out of money, which they did frequently, it was the responsibility of the Knights of the Funding Grail to provide whatever continuing support the King needed.
And that was, once again, the situation that had Sir Mark down in the dumps. He was perplexed and he was fast developing a bad attitude, and he thought he might have symptoms of the flu. But in reality, when he thought about it seriously, he knew he had a very difficult problem as he sought to serve his sovereign King Harold in the kingdom of Starlight Fantastic. But this was no usual kind of knightly difficulty. It didn’t have to do with his armor not being shiny or his sword not being sharp. It didn’t have to do with the knightly food served in the dining hall or the availability of fair damsels to woo.
Sir Mark’s difficulty also didn’t stem from lack of enthusiasm for the work with young people at Starlight Fantastic. In fact, he was very enthusiastic about his work; he got along well with the young people especially those young boys who were all full of young knightly desire to launch themselves into the next crusade and win both honor and the hands of fair damsels. His difficulty didn’t stem from an inability to plan fundraising programs to obtain support for King Harold’s programs either. In fact Sir Mark had great ability when it came to conceiving and planning wonderful and inspiring programs for winning new support for Starlight .Fantastic.
Sir Mark’s trouble came because the people around him, including Sir Harold and his executive committee, his board, his program minions, were unable to figure out just how it was that Sir Mark was helping the Starlight Fantastic raise any money. Time and again Sir Mark put forth prodigious effort to create the most exquisitely crafted fundraising plans. He had a great imagination, he was a stickler for detail, and he polished each plan to perfection. But each time King Harold reviewed the Starlight Fantastic budget, there didn’t seem to be very much more money than there had been in the previous year.
For example, one day Sir Mark came to King Harold and his executive committee with a plan to raise $1 million. That was the amount that King Harold said was needed to make the budget balance for the year, and the exec committee was just then meeting to find a way to care for this considerable shortfall.
Sir Mark’s plan was elegant, well-crafted, simple in design and straightforward of application. He would take the Damsels In Distress program at Starlight Fantastic, and lift it up for special funding; he would then find 25 princes of the realm to make major designated gifts to the Fair Damsels Project, and that would, in turn, free other funds for more general use, thus making King Harold and his executive committee look like geniuses. Everybody immediately saw the wisdom of this and thought Sir Mark was certainly the best of fundraisers.
We'll continue with this story tomorrow and see if those fellows really did pull this thing out.
This particular Knight, whose name was Sir Mark the Benign, was the leader of the Knights of the Funding Grail, a special group of knights bound by King Harold to devote their lives and fortunes to providing enough money for the kingdom to serve the needs of local youth. When King Harold and his minions were about to run out of money, which they did frequently, it was the responsibility of the Knights of the Funding Grail to provide whatever continuing support the King needed.
And that was, once again, the situation that had Sir Mark down in the dumps. He was perplexed and he was fast developing a bad attitude, and he thought he might have symptoms of the flu. But in reality, when he thought about it seriously, he knew he had a very difficult problem as he sought to serve his sovereign King Harold in the kingdom of Starlight Fantastic. But this was no usual kind of knightly difficulty. It didn’t have to do with his armor not being shiny or his sword not being sharp. It didn’t have to do with the knightly food served in the dining hall or the availability of fair damsels to woo.
Sir Mark’s difficulty also didn’t stem from lack of enthusiasm for the work with young people at Starlight Fantastic. In fact, he was very enthusiastic about his work; he got along well with the young people especially those young boys who were all full of young knightly desire to launch themselves into the next crusade and win both honor and the hands of fair damsels. His difficulty didn’t stem from an inability to plan fundraising programs to obtain support for King Harold’s programs either. In fact Sir Mark had great ability when it came to conceiving and planning wonderful and inspiring programs for winning new support for Starlight .Fantastic.
Sir Mark’s trouble came because the people around him, including Sir Harold and his executive committee, his board, his program minions, were unable to figure out just how it was that Sir Mark was helping the Starlight Fantastic raise any money. Time and again Sir Mark put forth prodigious effort to create the most exquisitely crafted fundraising plans. He had a great imagination, he was a stickler for detail, and he polished each plan to perfection. But each time King Harold reviewed the Starlight Fantastic budget, there didn’t seem to be very much more money than there had been in the previous year.
For example, one day Sir Mark came to King Harold and his executive committee with a plan to raise $1 million. That was the amount that King Harold said was needed to make the budget balance for the year, and the exec committee was just then meeting to find a way to care for this considerable shortfall.
Sir Mark’s plan was elegant, well-crafted, simple in design and straightforward of application. He would take the Damsels In Distress program at Starlight Fantastic, and lift it up for special funding; he would then find 25 princes of the realm to make major designated gifts to the Fair Damsels Project, and that would, in turn, free other funds for more general use, thus making King Harold and his executive committee look like geniuses. Everybody immediately saw the wisdom of this and thought Sir Mark was certainly the best of fundraisers.
We'll continue with this story tomorrow and see if those fellows really did pull this thing out.
Friday, February 9, 2007
King Harold and the Starlight Fantastic – Part 2 of 2
You'll recall from yesterday that it looked for all the world like Sir Mark was in a bit of trouble in the "Starlight Fantastic" with King Harold…
At the point we left off, we see that Sir Mark went out and spent considerable staff time developing the project. He went to the village designer and spent a lot of money on a snazzy brochure he called a “coffee table” brochure. He went to Philanthropy Solutions to get a video done about the project for presentation to his donor prospects. There was a lot of activity in Sir Mark’s tent, and people could see things were really happening at a furious pace.
But the preparations took Sir Mark and his staff all year to accomplish. One problem after another came up and had to be solved; an addition to the plan here, a revision and re-do there. The work became very intense. But good Sir Harold and the executive committee found itself at the end of the year looking at the budget, and still wondering where all the dollars were. One member of the committee said, “King Harold, if you’ll permit me, I thought we were going to plug that gap with new revenue. What happened? Did someone fall into the moat, or was Sir Mark consigned to the dungeon without your knowledge? We had a great plan, I see lots of activity. But where’s the million dollars we were short at the beginning of the year?”
What really happened was that Sir Mark never actually could bring himself to draw up a list of prospects; he never really visited with any prospects; he never actually made any presentations or asked for money from any prospects. The brochure turned out wonderfully! The video was top notch, a very compelling dramatization of the project. But no money!
By the end of the year there was no more money in King Harold’s treasury than was seen at the beginning of the year. And yet, when anyone looked back, it seemed that Sir Mark was always in a hurry, always pressed for time, continually had lots of things going on. He was carrying out a lot of activity all the time, but, in the end, there wasn’t much more to show for all that activity than there had been in years past. His projects were wonderful on paper, but they just didn’t result in more money.
The reason this happened was that Starlight Fantastic, through its executive director, had not developed any way to help Sir Mark be accountable for his actions on a day-to-day basis. And as a result of that, nobody became aware for a very long time that, Sir Mark, deep down in his internal mechanisms and make-up, just didn’t like people that much and was afraid of them; he was unable to bring himself to go directly to anybody and ask them for money. But this didn’t show up for several years, because he effectively covered this personal and professional problem up with beautiful plans, a lot of activity and many good things to look at.
But the other side of it was that King Harold had never set any standards of performance for Sir Mark, and had never put together an evaluation process by which those standards of performance would be enforced. He really didn't know what Sir Mark was doing on a day-to-day basis, and he had never taken the time or even given substantive thought to how he might help Sir Mark achieve his financial goals the way he was achieving other productivity goals.
So one day, King Harold, as Sir Mark’s executive director, decided something had to be done. He picked up the phone and called Philanthropy Solutions and asked John Fike what he needed to do to get better performance from Sir Mark. After a half hour's conversation and having received some pertinent exhibits from that trusted source, King Harold knew exactly what to do. He first asked Mark to list on a sheet of paper, at the end of each week, how many donor prospects he had called, and how many visits to donor prospects he had made, how many prospects he had asked for financial support, and what the responses were – yes, pledge, gift, or no.
Next, he took Sir Mark’s plan for raising money, and divided the fundraising goal of $1 million into 52 weeks of the year, and set a financial goal of $20,000 for each week or $85,000 each month of the year. He gave Sir Mark a 25% factor for "slippage" each week and 15% each month.
Finally, with great regularity, King Harold scheduled appointments with Sir Mark on Monday morning of each week to review the previous week’s accomplishments and the month’s anticipated new revenue goals. He took the time to coach Sir Mark and to praise him at every step of the way. He even included a performance bonus at the end of the year IF, but ONLY IF, the $1 million goal was reached.
The result was that in 6 months, Sir Mark had accomplished his $1 million goal, and everyone, including Sir Mark himself, was totally surprised! Starlight Fantastic began to climb out of its financial woes and went on to become a healthy, successful and highly esteemed charity within that community. King Harold was pleased as punch, and the Knights of the Funding Grail became the heroes of the kingdom!
At the point we left off, we see that Sir Mark went out and spent considerable staff time developing the project. He went to the village designer and spent a lot of money on a snazzy brochure he called a “coffee table” brochure. He went to Philanthropy Solutions to get a video done about the project for presentation to his donor prospects. There was a lot of activity in Sir Mark’s tent, and people could see things were really happening at a furious pace.
But the preparations took Sir Mark and his staff all year to accomplish. One problem after another came up and had to be solved; an addition to the plan here, a revision and re-do there. The work became very intense. But good Sir Harold and the executive committee found itself at the end of the year looking at the budget, and still wondering where all the dollars were. One member of the committee said, “King Harold, if you’ll permit me, I thought we were going to plug that gap with new revenue. What happened? Did someone fall into the moat, or was Sir Mark consigned to the dungeon without your knowledge? We had a great plan, I see lots of activity. But where’s the million dollars we were short at the beginning of the year?”
What really happened was that Sir Mark never actually could bring himself to draw up a list of prospects; he never really visited with any prospects; he never actually made any presentations or asked for money from any prospects. The brochure turned out wonderfully! The video was top notch, a very compelling dramatization of the project. But no money!
By the end of the year there was no more money in King Harold’s treasury than was seen at the beginning of the year. And yet, when anyone looked back, it seemed that Sir Mark was always in a hurry, always pressed for time, continually had lots of things going on. He was carrying out a lot of activity all the time, but, in the end, there wasn’t much more to show for all that activity than there had been in years past. His projects were wonderful on paper, but they just didn’t result in more money.
The reason this happened was that Starlight Fantastic, through its executive director, had not developed any way to help Sir Mark be accountable for his actions on a day-to-day basis. And as a result of that, nobody became aware for a very long time that, Sir Mark, deep down in his internal mechanisms and make-up, just didn’t like people that much and was afraid of them; he was unable to bring himself to go directly to anybody and ask them for money. But this didn’t show up for several years, because he effectively covered this personal and professional problem up with beautiful plans, a lot of activity and many good things to look at.
But the other side of it was that King Harold had never set any standards of performance for Sir Mark, and had never put together an evaluation process by which those standards of performance would be enforced. He really didn't know what Sir Mark was doing on a day-to-day basis, and he had never taken the time or even given substantive thought to how he might help Sir Mark achieve his financial goals the way he was achieving other productivity goals.
So one day, King Harold, as Sir Mark’s executive director, decided something had to be done. He picked up the phone and called Philanthropy Solutions and asked John Fike what he needed to do to get better performance from Sir Mark. After a half hour's conversation and having received some pertinent exhibits from that trusted source, King Harold knew exactly what to do. He first asked Mark to list on a sheet of paper, at the end of each week, how many donor prospects he had called, and how many visits to donor prospects he had made, how many prospects he had asked for financial support, and what the responses were – yes, pledge, gift, or no.
Next, he took Sir Mark’s plan for raising money, and divided the fundraising goal of $1 million into 52 weeks of the year, and set a financial goal of $20,000 for each week or $85,000 each month of the year. He gave Sir Mark a 25% factor for "slippage" each week and 15% each month.
Finally, with great regularity, King Harold scheduled appointments with Sir Mark on Monday morning of each week to review the previous week’s accomplishments and the month’s anticipated new revenue goals. He took the time to coach Sir Mark and to praise him at every step of the way. He even included a performance bonus at the end of the year IF, but ONLY IF, the $1 million goal was reached.
The result was that in 6 months, Sir Mark had accomplished his $1 million goal, and everyone, including Sir Mark himself, was totally surprised! Starlight Fantastic began to climb out of its financial woes and went on to become a healthy, successful and highly esteemed charity within that community. King Harold was pleased as punch, and the Knights of the Funding Grail became the heroes of the kingdom!
Thursday, February 8, 2007
King Harold and the Starlight Fantastic – Part 1 of 2
Once, in a fabled and far off time, there was a knight who served a hardworking but relatively poor king named Harold, who ruled a kingdom called “Starlight Fantastic.” The realm of “Starlight Fantastic” was a place where youth could go to sort things out, find recreation and receive counseling that would keep them interested in the crusades but also keep them from marauding friendly tribes while they were waiting to join the crusades.
This particular Knight, whose name was Sir Mark the Benign, was the leader of the Knights of the Funding Grail, a special group of knights bound by King Harold to devote their lives and fortunes to providing enough money for the kingdom to serve the needs of local youth. When King Harold and his minions were about to run out of money, which they did frequently, it was the responsibility of the Knights of the Funding Grail to provide whatever continuing support the King needed.
And that was, once again, the situation that had Sir Mark down in the dumps. He was perplexed and he was fast developing a bad attitude, and he thought he might have symptoms of the flu. But in reality, when he thought about it seriously, he knew he had a very difficult problem as he sought to serve his sovereign King Harold in the kingdom of Starlight Fantastic. But this was no usual kind of knightly difficulty. It didn’t have to do with his armor not being shiny or his sword not being sharp. It didn’t have to do with the knightly food served in the dining hall or the availability of fair damsels to woo.
Sir Mark’s difficulty also didn’t stem from lack of enthusiasm for the work with young people at Starlight Fantastic. In fact, he was very enthusiastic about his work; he got along well with the young people especially those young boys who were all full of young knightly desire to launch themselves into the next crusade and win both honor and the hands of fair damsels. His difficulty didn’t stem from an inability to plan fundraising programs to obtain support for King Harold’s programs either. In fact Sir Mark had great ability when it came to conceiving and planning wonderful and inspiring programs for winning new support for Starlight .Fantastic.
Sir Mark’s trouble came because the people around him, including Sir Harold and his executive committee, his board, his program minions, were unable to figure out just how it was that Sir Mark was helping the Starlight Fantastic raise any money. Time and again Sir Mark put forth prodigious effort to create the most exquisitely crafted fundraising plans. He had a great imagination, he was a stickler for detail, and he polished each plan to perfection. But each time King Harold reviewed the Starlight Fantastic budget, there didn’t seem to be very much more money than there had been in the previous year.
For example, one day Sir Mark came to King Harold and his executive committee with a plan to raise $1 million. That was the amount that King Harold said was needed to make the budget balance for the year, and the exec committee was just then meeting to find a way to care for this considerable shortfall.
Sir Mark’s plan was elegant, well-crafted, simple in design and straightforward of application. He would take the Damsels In Distress program at Starlight Fantastic, and lift it up for special funding; he would then find 25 princes of the realm to make major designated gifts to the Fair Damsels Project, and that would, in turn, free other funds for more general use, thus making King Harold and his executive committee look like geniuses. Everybody immediately saw the wisdom of this and thought Sir Mark was certainly the best of fundraisers.
We'll continue with this story tomorrow and see if those fellows really did pull this thing out.
This particular Knight, whose name was Sir Mark the Benign, was the leader of the Knights of the Funding Grail, a special group of knights bound by King Harold to devote their lives and fortunes to providing enough money for the kingdom to serve the needs of local youth. When King Harold and his minions were about to run out of money, which they did frequently, it was the responsibility of the Knights of the Funding Grail to provide whatever continuing support the King needed.
And that was, once again, the situation that had Sir Mark down in the dumps. He was perplexed and he was fast developing a bad attitude, and he thought he might have symptoms of the flu. But in reality, when he thought about it seriously, he knew he had a very difficult problem as he sought to serve his sovereign King Harold in the kingdom of Starlight Fantastic. But this was no usual kind of knightly difficulty. It didn’t have to do with his armor not being shiny or his sword not being sharp. It didn’t have to do with the knightly food served in the dining hall or the availability of fair damsels to woo.
Sir Mark’s difficulty also didn’t stem from lack of enthusiasm for the work with young people at Starlight Fantastic. In fact, he was very enthusiastic about his work; he got along well with the young people especially those young boys who were all full of young knightly desire to launch themselves into the next crusade and win both honor and the hands of fair damsels. His difficulty didn’t stem from an inability to plan fundraising programs to obtain support for King Harold’s programs either. In fact Sir Mark had great ability when it came to conceiving and planning wonderful and inspiring programs for winning new support for Starlight .Fantastic.
Sir Mark’s trouble came because the people around him, including Sir Harold and his executive committee, his board, his program minions, were unable to figure out just how it was that Sir Mark was helping the Starlight Fantastic raise any money. Time and again Sir Mark put forth prodigious effort to create the most exquisitely crafted fundraising plans. He had a great imagination, he was a stickler for detail, and he polished each plan to perfection. But each time King Harold reviewed the Starlight Fantastic budget, there didn’t seem to be very much more money than there had been in the previous year.
For example, one day Sir Mark came to King Harold and his executive committee with a plan to raise $1 million. That was the amount that King Harold said was needed to make the budget balance for the year, and the exec committee was just then meeting to find a way to care for this considerable shortfall.
Sir Mark’s plan was elegant, well-crafted, simple in design and straightforward of application. He would take the Damsels In Distress program at Starlight Fantastic, and lift it up for special funding; he would then find 25 princes of the realm to make major designated gifts to the Fair Damsels Project, and that would, in turn, free other funds for more general use, thus making King Harold and his executive committee look like geniuses. Everybody immediately saw the wisdom of this and thought Sir Mark was certainly the best of fundraisers.
We'll continue with this story tomorrow and see if those fellows really did pull this thing out.
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