By Barry McLeish
Do you remember how Stephen Covey in his best-selling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People used the phrase “
emotional bank account
” to describe the amount of trust individuals can build up in relationships?
When nonprofit agencies – or their development or marketing officers – are in a panic for quick funds, or are hurried in their approach to fund development, they often seek to withdraw more relationally than has been built up through their urgent appeals for funds. I have learned the hard way that relationships require a regular and constant deposit in the form of relational building activities if they are ever going to survive and prosper.
The good news is that the relationships you and your organization make with individuals can have a transformative effect upon them, upon you, the attitudes you have towards each other, and the way you involve yourselves with each other. The bad news is that it takes more time to build these relationships than most of us ever believe it will. Because most marketing and development directors inherit their strategies from previous administrations, if the previous administration did not spend much time building relationships on behalf of the organization, or simply did not budget the necessary time to accomplish this task, you and your organization are going to be hurt tactically and relationally.
You and I live in a world of urgency and immediacy. This cultural fact mitigates against building long-term relationships. And yet, long-term relationships allow nonprofit agencies to not only survive in downturns and times of economic instability, they also allow organizations to thrive and grow. The “emotional bank account” you build with long-term friends allows your agency a type of latitude that short term relationships do not have. These friends stay involved longer, give more than others, tell their friends about your organization, and stay involved during times of crisis and abundance. They simply are invaluable.
Making the tactical decision to build these types of relationships alters the way you work strategically. Allowing these friendships with their intrinsic values to mature over time provides an organization with durability and a better future by allowing donors and friends to build a legacy with the organization, create an impact, and do something that is truly substantive. Frederick Reichheld author of The Loyalty Effect suggests, “The growth of any organization is simply the accumulated growth of the individual relationships that constitute it.”
Today in our lives there is a habitual tendency towards the short term. Reverse this trend in your organization and you will create a relationship reservoir that will continue in the life of your organization long after you are gone.
