Professional Advancement Development (PAD)

The Napa Group and Plus Delta Partners
announce strategic alliance

Professional Advancement Development (PAD), the first program of its kind, leverages The Napa Group’s experience in institutional advancement and fundraising and Plus Delta Partners’ results-oriented approach to organizational growth and personal achievement. It incorporates successful techniques from the private sector into a unique professional development program for university fundraisers that increases yields, reduces costs, and shortens gift solicitation cycle times.

Unlike traditional fundraising methods, PAD engages participants in thought-provoking skill-building exercises drawn from real-world scenarios and then expands their capacity to use these new skills consistently to generate measurable results.

The program’s central theme -- that advancement organizations will benefit from fundraisers focusing their efforts on the right tasks with the right donors -- is pervasive throughout the training. Through individual coaching and a series of classroom sessions and experiential exercises customized to each organization’s fundraising practices, participants learn to more efficiently discover, qualify, cultivate, and solicit. PAD’s disciplined approach equips fundraisers with the knowledge and the tools to effectively spend more time with the right prospects executing a strategic approach to solicitation.

Overview

PAD is a structured approach directed at three core measurable outcomes -- increased yields, reduced costs, and shorter gift solicitation cycle times. When mapped to the institution’s unique practices and efforts, PAD ensures fundraising outcomes that are highly focused on agreed-upon objectives and targets.

The program is not a quick-fix, one-time training, or “silver bullet” for overnight success. Nor is it merely a motivational, “feel-good” seminar. Instead, we partner with our clients to develop and enable their professionals with the following critical foundational tools:


PAD not only drives fundraisers to work on more focused tasks with the right donors, but also to close more gifts sooner. Individuals completing the program can expect positive results within 90 days and sustainable results within 180 days.

Workshops

Participants will step through a series of modules in a small group setting – Foundation Building, Advancement Process and Discipline, and Strategic Fundraising. Each module reinforces and builds upon the previous one. Guiding principles include reinforcement, role playing, practical application, and real-time support. This process ensures that the concepts and tools demonstrated in workshops are applied in a real-world context.

Coaching

Building on the workshop interactions, individual coaching is provided throughout the engagement in the skills of self-awareness, mental discipline, and definition of and adherence to process. This coaching surrounds and compliments the individual work plans and objectives that are driven by the institutional advancement strategies and fundraising goals. Our focus is on performance.

Strategic themes
All of our engagements are custom-tailored to the client situation and need. We partner with you to leverage existing efforts and internal management processes and practices and incorporate your goals and objectives into the benchmarks of program success.

 

Related Article

Is there a cost of doing nothing?

Part of our up-front process with every client is to ensure that engaging in the Professional Advancement Development (PAD) program produces meaningful and measurable results. Our premise is that there is a cost to doing nothing. When determining the potential value of implementing a PAD program, we evaluate two areas: Resource Costs and Foregone Gifts. The following illustrations provide the basic framework and a sample format for the front-end assessment and analysis that occur with each client prior to launching the PAD modules.

Resource Costs – These are operating costs (salaries and benefits) calculated based on a Director of Development’s (DoD) time spent working on the wrong tasks with the wrong prospects.

Assumptions:
1. DoDs spend 7.5hours a week (90 minutes per day, ~20% 0f their time) on the wrong tasks:
2. Estimated DoD’s salary = $120,000/year, or $60 per hour

a. Assuming an average DoD salary of $85,000/yr and adding in a typical loaded cost for benefits of 40% (this will vary by institution, seniority, and role) make the annual loaded cost of that DoD ($85,000x1.4) = $120,000/yr.
b. $120,000 divided by 2,080 working hours per year = $60 per hour.

3. DoD staff of 10 professionals

The operating cost of “wasted” time needs to be calculated and factored into any assessment of individual and group effectiveness:

7.5 hrs/wk x $60/hr = $450/wk, $1800/month, $21,000/yr per DoD.

Thus, the annual cost of misspent time in salaries, wages and benefits (OR potential savings gained) across a team of this size = $210,000/yr

Foregone Gifts
– These are gifts that can be closed if DoDs are focused on the right things, execute their process rigorously and consistently, and avoid getting caught up in their own assumptions and expectations. Gift aspects that can be affected include the average size per gift and the number of gifts closed in a given period of time.

Assumptions:

1. DoDs will have different average gift sizes depending on their focus, the institution’s goals, and its strategic plan.
2. The target is 25% improvement in gift size and the number of gifts by type.
3. The average number of gifts by type based on sample data from mid-size higher educational institution:

DoD FocusAverage GiftAverage # of gifts closed/yrAnnual gift totals
% Improve-
ment
Potential
Effect
Incremental Financial
Impact
Annual
$409,000$360,00025%Average gift increases to $50 and # of gifts increases to 11,250$202,500
Major
$12,50035$450,00025%Average gift increases to $15,500 and # of gifts increases to 44$230,000
Principal
$1,750,0006$10 million25% Average gift increases to $2,200,000 and
# of gifts increases to 8
$7.6 million
Corporation & Foundation$500,0006$3 million25%Average gift increases to $625,000 and # of gifts increases to 8$2 million

Thus, the potential annual benefit from increased yield based on these assumptions is $10 million.

1. Potential annual savings $210,000
2. Potential additional annual yield $10,000,000

Total potential annual benefit: $10,210,000

If we focus on the impact of a 20%-25% improvement in individual and overall group performance, we can affect significantly higher yields and greater effectiveness. Doing nothing clearly has a cost.

Guy Hart, Plus Delta Partners, and RJ Valentino, The Napa Group
March 2006