Staffing Small: Staying Strategic Makes It Work

At Placer Community Foundation, our small staff of just 3.1 full-time employees means we need a staffing model that works incredibly well. We made a couple of decisions early on that really helped shape how we staff.

First, we decided to focus on bequests. We knew that the professional adviser network of attorneys, CPAs, and others was going to be the biggest bang for our buck in terms of cultivating gifts to the foundation. Secondly, we outsourced our back office and accounting functions. Finally, we wanted to make sure that whatever kind of money we had to give away also encouraged future giving. Brian Frederick from the Community Foundation of Lorain County in Ohio once told me, “If there’s one thing to remember, it’s that good grantmaking attracts assets.” Our grantmaking has really made the case for why donors should work through our community foundation.

It’s been a challenge in this economy to want to staff up. I’ve even had board members encouraging me to do it because they recognize our volume of work and wonder how such a small staff can carry out the work plans that we do. But it makes me nervous to think about spending money and not having the return on investment, so we keep our staff small.

When making hiring decisions for a smaller community foundation, my advice to colleagues is to look for people who:

• Understand that they’ll be working in an organization that changes constantly.
• Like being a jack-of-all-trades and are willing to wear multiple hats.
• Can be cross-trained to work with both donors and grantmaking, and to really understand asset development.
• Are incredibly committed to community.
• Read what’s on the e-mail distribution lists, attend the conferences, and get good ideas from colleagues and different support organizations.
• Have the confidence and maturity to work comfortably and effectively with board members.

One last tip: In a small community foundation, you really have to supplant the work of the staff with the board. We do that every day. I have board members writing thank you notes, engaging advisers, working with potential donors, introducing elected officials, and canvassing the community as ambassadors for the foundation!

I’ll be addressing these and other staffing practices during the Council’s “Sizing Up: Strategies for Staffing Emerging Community Foundations” webinar on June 20. Two colleagues from Fresno and Napa Valley will join me to talk about how emerging community foundations can staff at small scale for big results. We’ll also be presenting models and tools that can help your community foundation assess or enhance its staffing approach. Register today.

You can also register for an August 8 webinar, “On Board: Engaging the Full Potential of Community Foundation Directors,” which will address how a community foundation can fully engage its board members to boost progress. For a look at how community foundations can provide local leadership, download the recording of Learning to Lead, a previous webinar in the series. Finally, save the date for a preconference interactive workshop for emerging community foundations at the Council’s Fall Conference in New Orleans; more info on this event will be available soon.

Veronica Blake is CEO of Placer Community Foundation.