Elliott* emailed a coworker about a report the new boss wanted and remarked on her unrealistic, demanding ways.  The coworker sent the final report attached to a long chain of emails, which mistakenly included his comment, copied to the boss.

Elliott knew that his coworker didn’t intend to send this (his coworker had sent him similar remarks about her via email), but accident or not, the damage had been done, and his supervisor immediately reprimanded him for his poor attitude and “not being a team player.”

Although Elliott was apologetic, staff meetings seemed stressful after that, and he felt that in her eyes, he either couldn’t do anything right, or was just barely tolerated.  A couple of months later, his annual review reflected that feeling as well.

Elliott didn’t believe that his manager had been on board long enough (less than half a year) to give him an annual review, but he reported to her, and that was company policy.  He got “average” or “below average” in each category – a far cry below his previous year’s review.

Shortly after that, the company fell on difficult times, and when layoffs came around, he was in the round of people let go.  While most of the staff affected were those employed with the company less than two years, Elliott had nearly five years with the company, but was told that his position would be “redundant with the restructuring planned.”

In addition to regular job searching techniques that I provide clients, I worked with Elliott on how we could Fix It! at his new position, to help him avoid making the same mistakes again, or getting caught in a similar trap.  In the end, the quality of his work mattered very little, once he had been viewed negatively by his manager.

The first thing I advised Elliott to do was to upgrade his phone to a smart phone, so that he could entirely separate his personal communications from his work communications – phone calls and emails.  With a smart phone, there would be no reason for him ever to make any personal calls or emails using company equipment (which can be – and often is – monitored).  I also advised him to limit the amount of time spent during work hours on any personal communications, including social media channels, such as Facebook.

Second, I googled Elliott via several different searches, including combinations of his name, nickname(s), past employers, clubs, schools, associations, emails, etc. and showed him what results I got.  He was surprised at the results when I included the photo sites as well.  This was an eye opener to Elliott about the power of the web and social media in general, and the need for discretion online.  When I explained that many employers ask for permission to check credit sites and other protected information, so they will learn much more than I was able to find, this became even more of a wake-up call.

Obviously, Elliott didn’t need to be told not to put any disparaging comments in writing in the future.  Not only did he recently suffer the consequences, but there have been several examples in the press of foolish postings online.  However, I did mention the need for good etiquette in the workplace and how far networking can help down the line.  A recent study showed that basic courtesy appears to be sadly lacking, in most people’s opinions, which makes it that much more appreciated when displayed.

It took Elliott much longer to find his next position, due to his not having a strong reference from his previous job, as well as being let go, but once he got hired, he made a point to display a positive outlook and demeanor, and keep his private life – and communications – separate from his work life as much as possible.

He has been complimented for his professionalism on more than one occasion, and plans on keeping it that way.

Faye* had been in her position for nearly a year, when she felt blindsided with the news that she was being let go from her position.  The reasons that she was given were all totally unfounded, she felt.  She even considered consulting an attorney, but decided to start with her direct supervisor, since the news came from top management.

For example, she was told that she failed to reach her stated goals, and this was completely untrue.  She hoped that her director would advocate for her, since he knew her work better than upper management.

It would take a couple of days for Faye to pull together all of her necessary figures and have everything completely and accurately prepared.  She asked for a meeting with the necessary parties at the end of the week, which would give her enough time to have an adequate rebuttal, she believed.

The day before her meeting, Faye learned that not only had upper management decided to remove her, but her director had been given a termination notice as well.  Apparently, the nonprofit organization’s budget was suffering so terribly, the board had decided to make drastic reductions.

Faye heard talk of a possible audit, as well as chatter of how she wasn’t the first person in her position to be removed in under a year for an ambiguous “failure to perform,” reason, and she felt betrayed . . . and a bit naïve.  She also wondered about the overall health of the organization.

Rather than consult an attorney and try to fight for a job with an organization that might not even be able to pay her if she won, Faye decided to consult me on how to seek a job with a healthier organization overall.

I coached her that certainly part of due diligence is to search a nonprofit’s 990, but that is only the beginning.  More research must be done.  Particularly with the news that many nonprofits may have fraudulently filed their paperwork in order to meet recent deadlines.

Faye and I spent time reviewing certain warning signs about certain types of organizations and/or job listings that will indicate she should Forget It! and not bother applying, because they may well be a very transient organization.  This included questions to include during interviews for organizations, to ensure that they plan on being around several years from now.  (Are they preparing for the future, or are they scarcely catching up to yesterday in a desperate attempt?)

She also found useful the LinkedIn organizational listings of employees, which showed their longevity with the organizations, indicating their general health.  Also, simply whether or not an organization bothered to have its own LinkedIn listing was an indicator of how seriously it took itself in the world of social media, for one thing.

While older, larger organizations tend to be viewed as more stable, Faye didn’t limit herself only to these, and she ended up working at a mid-sized nonprofit that was less than twenty years old.  It has a well-rounded combination of new and veteran employees, and she feels more secure than she has in a while.

If you’ve been laid off, what signs of stability or other factors do you strive for with your next employer?

Do you have a Fix It or Forget It? story to share?  Send it to me, and it might help others.  Identifying features will be altered prior to publishing.

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Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
—  Rita Mae Brown

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Wanda* and Yvette* progress from interviews to offers

Whitney*, Yolanda* and Zelda* grapple with employers taking advantage of the recession

Edward* and Gabrielle* strive for recognition from their bosses

The 3 basic types of nonprofit workers: Mission Driven – actually hopes to be put out of work, since a cure will be discovered.  Transitory – a new grad or changing jobs.  He won’t stay long, but wants experience, so he’ll work hard while there.

Then there’s the Fixture.  Fixtures are those who either can’t or won’t step up to the plate and perform.  In fact, they barely maintain, so they spend a great deal of time disguising their lack of skill and/or enthusiasm by becoming bottlenecks to progress.  These are the people who love to cite rules, policies and procedure as reasons why something hasn’t gotten done yet.

Many organizations have Fixtures, and sometimes more than one.  They can be at any level in the organization, unfortunately.  The higher up the ladder the Fixture is, the more debilitated the organization becomes at ever accomplishing anything more than “what we’ve done in the past” – if that.  It can also become a demonstrated management style for others to follow.

If the Fixtures take control, most Mission Driven people will leave and go to other organizations that are interested in action and change, the Transitory employees will continue to come and go, and the organization will become so heavily weighted with Fixtures it guarantees that progress will drop to a slow crawl.

When people ask for my career counseling – either with their current job, or with assessing a potential employer during interviewing (“Will I like it there?”) – I ask them to first assess themselves and what motivates them at the office.  What gets you through the day?  In other words, who do you work for?

•      Your boss?
•      The organization/mission?
•      Yourself?
•      Your family, simply to pay the bills?

Depending on the answer, your reaction to an organization filled with Mission Driven people will vary.  (“Yes, I know this is great news, but I’d really like to see my family this week . . . “)  If you’re comfortable earning a paycheck and working 9 to 5 regardless, then the fact that Fixtures have delayed delivery for the third time this month might not bother you too much – as long as you don’t get the blame. On the other hand, if you really have a need to make a difference or an impact, you don’t want to accept a position at a place that reeks of micromanagement.

Tess* considered herself to be several years away from retirement age when her organization was forced to downsize, due to the economy, and she found herself laid off.  She definitely wanted to keep earning a full time living using her very marketable skills, but still wanted time to spend with her grandchildren after hours and on weekends.  She no longer considered her career to be her “life’s work” and wasn’t interested in doing it night and day.

We were able to Fix It! by focusing Tess’ job search on positions that stayed to a regular schedule, rather than working erratic hours, such as events, and found her a job working on gift entry and database analysis.  She could produce reports according to a fixed calendar, and emergencies were rare.  This gave her time with her family, and she is hopeful it will see her through to retirement.  Although there are certainly bottlenecks within her organization, Tess has clearly laid out her schedule and what she requires from various departments and staff members, so that if someone fails to deliver, the paper trail is obvious about who dropped the ball.

Vern* is a worker who is passionate about what he does, and had been working at his organization for over a year without much success at getting increased responsibilities.  Neither during the monthly staff meetings nor at his semi-annual review did he feel that any of his ideas were seriously considered.

At first, he had been hopeful, because he was always assured that they would be “passed on,” or told, “We’ll think about it,” but now that he was into his second year, he was beginning to understand that the organization lingo simply didn’t have a word for “no,” and this was their way of saying, “It’s going to die in committee and you’ll never hear from us again.”

Vern was dismayed to think that he’d wasted a year simply figuring out this odd way of communicating in a strange land, and decided to Forget It! and start looking for a new job . . . but, he told me, he didn’t want to make the same mistake again and fail to pick up on signals wherever he landed.

We searched for the jobs he wanted and rehearsed with mock interviews.  That way, he could not only better assess the types of people he desired as supervisors and co-workers, but also how he could best project himself, so that the organizations would clearly understand who and what he was as a worker.  With this approach, neither party would be unpleasantly surprised.

Vern’s job search was lengthy, but in the end, we found him a much better fit, and he is a great deal happier where he is now.

Do you have a Fix It or Forget It? story to share?  Send it to me, and it might help others.  Identifying features will be altered prior to publishing.

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Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.

—  Rita Mae Brown

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Here’s some Monopoly, er . . . Facebook Money.  Don’t Mention It.

I’ve written before about how important it is that non profits stick to promoting their mission above all else when raising funds, promoting awareness, educating constituents, and so forth.  A knowledgeable, supportive donor base is built from cultivation, not sensational tactics or quick fixes.

Social media has a wonderful, essential place at the table in achieving this:  Never before have we been able to converse with our supporters in so many ways, receive feedback so immediately, and respond so quickly to the feedback, the market and current events in general.  These are truly fabulous tools to have at our disposal!

With every new device, though, we also inevitably see more people looking to scheme, connive, deceive and generally get something for nothing – or at least minimal effort on their part.  For example, aside from the online ads that users see, people are creating such things as quizzes, apps, posts and tweets to target others en masse.  These are today’s spammers, and they can be seen trolling such places as freelance job sites, looking for workers.  I’d classify Facebook Credits in the wanting something for nothing category.  (The non profit does all of the heavy lifting, while Facebook takes their standard 30% cut of the donation.)

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Virtual Reality

Because Facebook is announcing a new way to purchase their credits (via a gift card at Target), they are also promoting their generosity in waiving their typical fee with all donated credits going to Stand Up For Cancer, as is plainly stated on their Facebook page.  However, this publicity stunt can be seen for what it is, when Nothing But Nets is profiled by Facebook Credits the previous month . . . and no such statement can be seen about 100% of their gifts going to the organization.

All fund raisers have a limited amount of time, energy and budgets.  Among the X amount of contacts I will make with a donor, I’ll ask for a gift during Y percentage of those times.  While there are good examples of combining social media and solicitations, I’m not going to spend one of those Y asks on software points!  Spend virtual money instead of real money?!?!  I don’t think so!

Credits normally redeem at a $0.10 to 1 credit rate, but certain payment methods sometimes extract a larger fee that reduces what users get.  This is reminiscent of when people were asked to collect the tops off of soda cans to buy ____, instead of donating money to buy the item!  Which would you rather collect?

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I’ll Take One of Everything

Consider another avenue of solicitation for a moment: Direct Mail.  Many organizations have purchased or swapped lists from list brokers or other organizations.  What’s the best way to do this?  There are certainly thousands or millions of names and addresses to be purchased – easily, in fact.  Emails, too – and phone numbers.  Adding to your list simply to have a large list is pointless, however.

If you are able to find a list of like-minded individuals with a tendency and/or history of supporting similar organizations, you’ve made a good buy (or swap).  Otherwise, you’ve merely cluttered your database with data.  You can also further refine and target your database with such tools as wealth screening before and careful tracking after.  The same principles apply to social media.

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Who Wants To Play A Game?

Of course, Facebook Credits were born out of the popularity of their online games, and the idea that people could “donate” some of these credits just sitting in their “virtual banks.”  If the circumstances are right, the right corporate sponsor can be beneficial, certainly, and it’s clear that the gaming industry has a much wider market penetration than ever imagined previously.  However, Facebook has never shown itself to be philanthropic.

In August 2009, it was announced that Facebook Credits would be offered to four non profit test partners: World Wildlife Fund, Kiva, Project Red and Tom’s Shoes, trumpeting the news that this would open the doors for non profits to expand into this realm.

A year later, not one of these four has Facebook Credits available on their Facebook pages.

Nothing But Nets, which is currently paying the 30% rate, actually does have an online game – but it’s available on their site, instead of their Facebook Page.  It would seem that once organizations give Facebook’s various donation apps a try, they wisely conclude that control of their messaging – and driving traffic to their site is most successful.

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Fans For Sale, Cheap

With Facebook in particular, we half a billion users are bought and sold again and again in more ways than most people realize.

Since I work in a marketing field, I anticipated this somewhat, refusing to give Facebook much demographic information at all, and actually tried to mislead them whenever possible.  I entered my grandmother’s birthday when DOB was required: 1903.  Facebook responded, “Enter your real birthday.”  Hmph.  Well, I yielded on that, but not much else.

Whenever I go to a friend’s wall to wish them a happy birthday, Facebook already knows why I am there and defaults with a larger “wall window,” offering me a plethora of items I can purchase, to go along with my birthday message.  (No thanks.)

Friends of mine – women in particular – lament that their ads are irritatingly stereotypical.  If they are single, they are bombarded with various dating service ads.  Engaged?  Wedding planners and bridal boutiques.  Married?  Clearly, you’re trying to get pregnant, then.  And on it goes.  One thing is consistent for all women, however:  You desperately need to lose weight!

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What Message Do You Want To Send?

When your organization allows most transactions to take place on another site such as Facebook, not only are you giving up contact information and the ability to further cultivate that relationship, but you are also relinquishing all control over the messaging about why someone should contribute, what happens to the gift, and so on.

Mark Zuckerberg has stated outright on several occasions that he doesn’t really see the need for privacy any longer.  The platform that your constituents spend the most time on wields the impression that will stay with them the longest when they think of you.

Social media can be a powerful means, but your message about your mission should be the end.

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Keep the base of the pyramid strong

Let’s say we’re friends.  We do one another favors: perhaps help each other move, lend money, housesit, babysit, drive one another to work when the car’s in the shop, and so on.  Even good friends realize that there’s a limit to how often one can impose, though.  This currency must be spent wisely, not frivolously.

This is not very different from the relationship an organization has with its constituents.  Indeed, in social media, followers are often referred to as “friends.”  Lately, however, non profits have been spending way too much of their friends’ currency than is warranted, asking for multiple favors that are scarcely related to the organization or its mission.

Reaching multiple audiences (e.g., mail, web, phone, social media, etc.) is part of an excellent plan, but you should ultimately drive your constituents back to your organization’s website and your organization’s mission.

Social media campaigns keep coming up, sponsored by various corporations, that award grants and prizes to non profits whose followers will promote, tweet or otherwise publicly endorse some company, and/or vote for X non profit in the [Company] contest.

What inevitably follows is dozens – or hundreds, thousands – of non profits dedicating a great deal of time to asking their constituents to promote [Company] contest…rather than supporting their mission.  As the prize money gets larger, this can lead to subsequent rounds of voting (“Please vote again!”), as well as animosity between competing non profit organizations, vying for the funds.  There have also been accusations of misconduct, both toward participants and those running the contests.

And how does this make the supporters of the organizations themselves feel?  Disillusioned?  Unlikely to participate in anything the next time they’re asked?  Probably so.

Contests such as these are really no different than asking a non profit to hawk doughnuts, magazines, pizza, or put an Amazon button on their website for people to click through…and when supporters buy, the non profit gets a small portion of the proceeds.  The problem is, unless your mission is related to fast food or periodicals, etc., why are you doing the work for these other companies?  And essentially handing over your carefully cultivated donor list to boot?

Surely you have more important things to do with staff time – and your donors with theirs.

In these tough economic times, it can be tempting to go this route – particularly for smaller, strapped non profits.  The most successful organizations, though, have a broader vision for what makes them more prosperous in the long run.  Two excellent books outline some of these best practices: Forces For Good and The Networked Nonprofit.

So, friend to friend, I’m offering this advice:

•     Don’t badger your constituents incessantly – make requests occasional and relevant to your mission
•     Provide them with useful information in between requests
•     Thank them for being so supportive over the years
•     Repeat!

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Keep the base of the pyramid strong