Regardless of the size of their organizations, people in our workshops always ask about the staff or volunteer time needed to implement the Benevon Model successfully. They fear that they will need to hire a full time person dedicated solely to this job or, worse, that taking on the model means loading a new job description onto an already overworked staff member.

"How many staff members does it take to be successful with this?" they ask. Initially, they seem incredulous when we tell them that nearly 100% of the groups we work with implement the model successfully the first year without hiring any additional staff. How can that be?

It Takes a Team:

Most teams that attend our workshops begin to realize that the roles and responsibilities for moving forward with the model can be doled out naturally amongst the team members. It is often the executive director who speaks up first, confessing enthusiastically, "This gives me a structure and a framework for what I am already doing!" Now, when they're out talking with people in the community, they ask themselves:

• Is this a One-on-One Point of Entry^®?
• How will we do the Follow-Up from this contact?
• Should I be inviting this person to a Point of Entry?
• Is this person a potential Table Captain or someone I should invite to sit at my table at the Ask Event^™?

We hear board members saying: "What a relief! I don't have to strong-arm my friends for money. I just have to invite them to a Point of Entry and trust in the process to engage them if they are interested in becoming more involved."

From staff we hear: "Finally! I don't feel so alone. Now we have a system that everyone has bought into. We all see that we can actually do this!"

In other words, once everyone on the team sees the value of the system, they begin to see how it can shape and actually streamline their work together. While there is no question that the overall volume of work increases in the first year, people begin to work smarter, not harder.

A classic example of this is the offloading of repetitive tasks onto capable volunteers eager to learn new skills. While staff may feel comfortable and secure with a familiar process such as the annual grant writing, this may be a natural job to give away to a volunteer. If you are fortunate enough to have professional development staff, why not save them for the leadership role in implementing the model?

Be warned: If your organization fully embraces the model, staff will be held to a high standard of accountability. The results will be measurable. Some staff may prefer to leave rather than to have their job descriptions altered. This is natural.

If you stick with the model, over time, you will have a steady base of unrestricted funding to pay for additional staff. And you will have the buy-in from your team to phase out some of the more labor-intensive activities that have consumed valuable time in the past. A new way of operating will have taken hold in your organization and you will be leaving the legacy of a system for sustainable funding for your organization's mission.

Choosing the Ideal Team Leader:

Whether the organization begins with a large, well-established staff, including a full development department, or no staff at all, there needs to be one person accountable as the Team Leader for the model—usually the development director or a key volunteer. This person should expect to dedicate about 20 hours per week, assuming there is a team of six others to share the work.

To find your Team Leader, look for the person who most wants the job! While most staff already have a full job description, most organizations are able to find one person who would prefer to work on developing a system of lifelong donors. Often, this is a person who has been with the organization for awhile, knows many of the volunteers and other key players, yet has been bogged down with other duties. Creatively shifting job responsibilities, including using volunteers in more direct fund-development roles, can be satisfying for everyone.

I have often told the story of the woman who came to a Point of Entry Event for our inner-city school and, in the Follow-Up Call, she asked if I might ever need any help with writing. In addition to her high-pressure, full-time job, she quickly became our star grant-writer, putting out as many as five grant requests a week, tracking all of the outstanding results, and designing a year-round grant application calendar which she left as a legacy. This experience became a door-opener for this woman into the nonprofit world, where she now serves as the executive director of a United Way.

Had that woman not come along, I would have had to write all those grant proposals, leaving me little or no time to focus on cultivating lifelong donors. Perhaps there is a "volunteer" like that in your midst.

Do not overlook your senior staff members who may already be out in the community interacting with donors and potential donors on a regular basis. We have seen many examples in our classes of executive directors who have elected to shift their focus to implementing the Benevon Model, turning over other operational responsibilities to others who were more than ready and capable of taking on something new.

Board members may also be good candidates for the job. We often see competent, passionate board members who come to our classes to be trained as part of their organization's team. By the end of the two-day workshop, they have often volunteered for the lead position.

Team Leader Job Description:

1. Accountable for the coordination and implementation of the organization's first-year Benevon plan and timeline
   
   
2. Keeps the group on task and on schedule
   
   
3. Ensures that all data is captured in database tracking system
   
   
4. Takes on personally or delegates all tasks needed to fulfill each element of the plan according to the agreed-upon timeline, including:
1. Point of Entry Events
2. Point of Entry Conversion Events
3. Follow-Up with Point of Entry guests
4. Cultivation
5. Ask Event
6. Follow-Up and Cultivation of Multiple-Year Giving Society^™ donors

Think of Your Tracking System as an Extra Team Member:

Most nonprofits relegate data tracking to a clerical person who is far removed from the fund development process. As a result, the data is not used on a daily basis by everyone on the team to track the real substance of the contacts—calls or meetings, e-mails, etc.—that make up the cultivation process.

A data tracking system that is user-friendly, accessible, tracks day-to-day contacts with volunteers and donors, and allows for entry of notes as well as gifts and pledges, is a huge, untapped resource.

Future Staffing:

Eventually, once you have implemented the model successfully and the multi-year pledges begin to come in, you will be able to justify adding more paid staff. At that point, you may be ready to assign each staff member to a group of donors. That person becomes the Donor Services Representative for these donors—the person responsible for shepherding them through the cultivation process and beyond.

Five to ten years down the line, your development department staffing and activities will probably look significantly different than they do today. For your entry and mid-level donors, you will have refined your events and mailings to a minimum. Someone will be in charge of writing grants to corporations and foundations. The rest of your development efforts will more closely resemble the major gifts staffing at larger universities and hospitals—where the emphasis is less on events and mailings and more on one-on-one cultivation by senior major gifts officers. There will likely be much fewer flurries of activity and many more results; you will finally be on the path to sustainable funding for your organization's mission.