What A Senior Vice President In Fundraising Consulting Wishes They Had Known Before Entering The Fundraising Industry
Polly's most valuable early career lesson, shared by a manager, was to embrace mistakes as inevitable and focus on "how you manage the mistakes and you communicate about them," a crucial skill in the dynamic world of fundraising where "it's not always a perfectly straight line" from A to Z. This realization shifted Polly's perspective, allowing for greater risk-taking and enjoyment of the inherent uncertainties in ambitious campaign work.
Communication, Problem-Solving, Resilience, Executive/Leadership, Overcoming Challenges
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Polly Breit
Senior Vice President
Fundraising Consulting Company
University of Wisconsin, Madison
N/A
Classics, Spanish Literature
Nonprofit, Foundations & Grantmaking
Consulting
Honors Student
Video Highlights
1. Don't be afraid to make mistakes; it's how you learn and grow. Focus on how you manage and communicate about them to avoid repeating the same errors.
2. The fundraising process isn't always linear; be prepared for unexpected turns and setbacks. View these as opportunities for growth and learning, not failures.
3. Building strong relationships with donors is crucial. Be comfortable making bold asks, even if they don't always result in the initial desired outcome. See the value in negotiation and compromise.
Transcript
Here's the cleaned transcript:
Whatever you learned about this role that you were told before you entered the industry.
Such a good question. What immediately comes to mind probably isn't unique to this industry. It's actually something that my boss at CCS said really early on.
I think I came to the work because clients were investing so much in CCS and I was so committed to delivering in every way for them. The unintentional consequence of that was I was often fearful of making mistakes. We were trying to create pretty big, ambitious designs and campaigns for clients with a lot of moving pieces, so mistakes were going to happen.
I think I've enjoyed the work so much more since I learned early on to be okay with mistakes happening. It's really about how you manage them, communicate about them, and ensure you don't make the same mistake twice. My manager at CCS shared that with me early on, and it gave me confidence and empowered me.
This has allowed me to take risks that have paid off. For example, making a big ask to a donor that's calculated. You know that you're going into the place where donors don't always say yes to exactly what you asked for. You might ask for a $10 million investment, and they don't do that, but they come back at $5 million.
It's about seeing the opportunity in that. It's not always a perfectly straight line. We often look at a campaign plan and it's from A to Z, but in reality, there are so many ups and downs and curves. There's really nothing linear about it.
That's because you're working with people and dynamic organizations. Once I viewed that as the excitement and the fun of it, and not as failure, it made my work that much more enjoyable.