Monday, November 7, 2011

Report Cards

I spent most of Sunday with my "little," Tanna. She told me when I picked her up that she had all kinds of make up work to do, because report cards were coming out in another week, and would need to be home quickly. We ended up spending seven hours together, but her panic over her pending grades was a reminder to me of my own work review coming up - I just passed the three year mark with OC - and all that I mean to accomplish before then.

I set several goals for myself a year ago when I transitioned into the role of Development Associate (or Development Cowgirl, as I like to refer to myself). I don't remember them all off the top of my head, but I know they included bimonthly e-mail blasts, which I don't do, setting and reaching fundraising goals, which I've set, but not reached and having grant drafts together and ready for feedback two weeks prior to submission deadlines, which I also don't do.


On Thursday I worked until around 2 o'clock, at which time I hopped in "the rig" and headed to Bend for a day of hiking meetings with Katie. We have these meetings about twice a year, a chance to get outside, where we both think most clearly, and talk about our goals and accomplishments where Opal Creek is concerned. For this meeting she chose Tumalo Falls as our destination, an easy 7 mile round trip hike with the most spectacular view at the end. As we walked and reflected on our triumphs and (many) failures over the past year, I was able to think through and articulate my feelings about this past year. We've accomplished so much, really. We hired for a position that enabled me the time and flexibility to devote 100% of my efforts toward fundraising. We haven't brought in more money than the year previous, but we've both benefited from not being so over-burdened. We've established, repaired or maintained relationships with several key foundations in Oregon, we've formulated an impact statement, we've identified major fundraising drives that will make next year's development efforts more compelling, we've established a strong development committee, who, although they sometimes make me want to pitch a full on temper tantrum, are knowledgeable and helpful, if not a little hyper-critical, we've begun a quantitative review process by which to gage the effectiveness of our programs and we've worked out the kinks in the day to day work - I have learned how to create a budget, I know how to schedule a conference call, I know the standard procedure for contacting program officers at foundations, I've established a comprehensive, interactive calendar that helps me stay on task, and slowly . . . I'm inching my way closer to that goal of having polished drafts together 14 days from their due date. I'm even scheduling self-appointed due dates 14 days prior to foundation deadlines!

One thing that struck me when reading The Happiness Project was how the author, at the end of her year of actively working toward being happier, noted that the area from which she got the most satisfaction was in the tracking of her progress. She made herself charts, not unlike the chore charts I had when I was a kid, that had each day of the month on one axis, the specific goals on the other. A check mark in any given square meant that for that day, that task was completed to her satisfaction. An x meant the opposite. At the end of the month, she gaged her success by the number of checks versus x. I think that without some similar point of reference, I'll not know how well I'm doing. But I don't think the checks and x system is fluid enough. So, with Tanna as my inspiration, I'm going to begin grading myself. I've made a spreadsheet. Days of the month on one axis, the specific goals on the other, and for each day I will give myself a grade from a scale of 1 - 100. I need to keep in mind that C is passing, that A is above average and that Opal Creek cannot afford me to be failing. At all. I was always a straight A student, so this is oddly incentivized, although I have no one to pat me on the back once I do this for a month.
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Wrote this forever ago and never posted. I'll update on November soon! And then on to December!

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

November - Work It!


"Anything worth doing at all is worth doing well."

I am working from a coffee shop in Astoria right now. Bekah started her Wednesday shifts here a week ago and they put her up in a beautiful little hotel downtown on Tuesday nights. She asked me if I wanted to come along - of course! It's one of those rare, sunny, beautiful fall days here. I think in the three years I've lived in Oregon and the maybe dozen times I've visited this town it has NEVER been clear out. But today it's gorgeous. We'll call this my lunch break.

It's November 2nd, so my Happiness Project is officially in its second day. November I will focus on work.

The goal is not perfection. This is not the perfectionist project. This is about happiness. But I get a sincere thrill out of doing something well. Nothing is quite as satisfying. November also happens to be the busiest work month of the year for me. In November I put a grant pipeline together for the next fiscal (which for Opal Creek also happens to be calendar) year. I have several important grants to finish up before the end of the year. I get a newsletter put together and mailed to our member base. I craft and mail our a year-end appeal. I attend or contribute in some way to several board events. And this year I also happen to be in charge of the content and design for the newly recreated www.opalcreek.org AND our office just moved a week ago today. Phew! I'm honestly not overwhelmed . . . yet . . . but I definitely recognize the need to step up my game a little. I love my job and sincerely work hard with the organization's best interest in my heart. That said I sometimes allow myself to be so flummoxed at the sheer volume of work to be done that I find myself caught like a deer in headlights - completely inert and incapable of accomplishing anything. I just said I'm not overwhelmed, didn't I? Ha. I guess I lied. Maybe what I should've said is I'm not freaked out. I'm not in danger of losing my job. But overwhelmed. Yes, I'll admit that. It doesn't help that we've been in the new office space for a week and despite the fact we're paying out the nose for Ecotrust's IT services, our internet and server connections have yet to be established.

I'd so love to just rock this next month. It's been a tough year in the development world and grant money is down significantly right now. While this upsets me - I would've loved to bring in $100K in general operating money my first year on the job - I understand that the economy is beyond my control. I can only hold myself responsible for what is within my control. I saw a motivational slogan on Pinterest yesterday (one of the many poor workplace habits I've adopted - an uncanny addiction to Pinterest) that was geared toward physical fitness, but made sense in this light as well: You don't always get what you wish for, you get what you work for.

So my goals for November are:

1. utilize every minute of every work day.

I have a friend who recently graduated from law school and landed a job at a prestigious law firm downtown Portland. At a get together with some ladies this friend mentioned of her new job that her time was billed in 6 minute increments! This was a prick to my conscience. She has a computer system with a clock that times in 6 minute increments and her job performance reviews, salary increases and bonuses largely reflect her billable hours. I got to thinking: If I were to have to account for my time in this way, how embarrassed would I be? How much time, would I realize, do I waste?

I'm not going to break my day down into six minute increments. I am not a lawyer, I am an environmental non-profit grant writer and a certain amount of . . . hmmmm . . . laziness isn't the right word . . . is implicit in my world. We operate by tides and moons, not clocks. But that's not to say there isn't room for improvement. I think at the start of each work day I'll break my time into 90 minute increments, giving myself mini-deadlines and checking things off a list as I go.

2. initiate contact with other development professionals

At a recent Willamette Valley Development Officers meeting I sat next to a very friendly fellow development professional who has since pursued a professional development type friendship that I have neglected grossly. I have (and assume she does too) too much going on in my work day to carve out an hour in my week to get together to talk shop. But no one's stopping me from doing this on my own time. I find I've been stingy with the time I give my work in the past year. I made the mistake of figuring out my hourly wage and since we were able to hire a part time registrar a year ago and those responsibilities shifted from me to the person in this position, I've adopted a strict 9-5 schedule. Fine. But the only one who's suffering as a result is me. Overnight I went from working 9-10 frantic hours daily to just eight. With a lunch break. And a few minutes here or there to catch up with e-mail or Pinterest. Devoting a littel out of office time to work is only going to strengthen my credentials, improve my job performance, impress my boss and our governing board of directors. None of whom, I should mention, have the luxury of working just eight hour days.

3. efficiency, organization, pizzazz

And I think that'll do it for the work goals for now. I'll keep you posted on my progress. It seems important that I have some sort of grading rubric by which to assess my progress. This is still in the brain storming stage.