Bear Market Believer: A 2023 resolution

Have you heard about inflation? Of course you have. Along with sunburn, tick checks, and children dedicated to discovering poison ivy, it dominated my summer. The bull market gravy train came to a screeching halt like when that little boy yanked the break chord on the Polar Express (which dominated my December). Tech company layoffs have also dominated the newscycle, but they are far from the only sector being beaten up by the bear: University endowments got crushed. 

While that typically means budgets get slashed, the good news is, alumni engagement/fundraising goals and employee performance expectations have all been relaxed….Wouldn’t THAT be nice? Of course the show must go on and you’re expected to do just as much as last year with less budget/people. While this situation can create considerable angst, it doesn’t have to. Instead, consider how this presents an opportunity to think creatively and consider new ways to get the job done.

A shrinking budget doesn’t need to mean less production. It poses a fork in the road where you can either take the road that features a scaled down version of everything you did in the prior year, or merge onto an expressway of new tools and ideas that deliver at least the same amount of production but at a lower overall cost. 

While this may all sound super hypothetical, there is precedent for making big changes as a result of real-world conditions. In a recent conversation with my esteemed industry peer and all-around great guy, Charlie Melichar, who reminded me we don’t have to work hard to imagine what it would be like to pivot like this...because we just did it during the pandemic.

“The pandemic freed people to focus on OUTCOMES versus their traditional business practices,” Charlie explained. “We had to get creative in a hurry, but unfortunately, while we adopted new strategies, most schools didn’t change job descriptions so now there’s a temptation to fall back into old strategies that may be less effective.”  

To Charlie’s point, outcomes are the key. What is it you’re really trying to achieve? Are you tasked with throwing a certain number of alumni events where the total number of parties planned is THE KPI? Or are you trying to achieve a certain level of alumni engagement and you’ve always assumed in-person parties are a time-tested way to offer experiential opportunities for alumni? And why does “engagement” even matter? Why do you care if someone shows up to hear a faculty member speak about their research? Because you have a multi-million dollar annual fund goal and you know if someone engages in an experience with their school they are significantly more likely to be a donor. You don’t NEED to throw parties, you NEED engagement because you NEED donors. 

Your events budget has been reduced and the stewardship budget has been slashed because, after all, the gift is already in and offering a proper thank you is a luxury you cannot afford… (*headshake) Pardon the sarcasm, I know these cuts are not done with evil intent, nor are they (usually) the product of bad strategy. The market is the market. We know we can’t change the situation but we can change our response. We can embrace that $12 gallon of milk as an opportunity to make the fanciest shakes our kids have ever enjoyed and the finest White Russians seen since Jeffrey Lebowski rolled his way into the semis. 

I coach 12U baseball. You have to really hate yourself to sign up for such a thing. But what I tell my team is that the season is a map. That map shows us where we are and where we’re trying to get to. In between are a host of uncharted obstacles. Desserts, rivers, maybe even…bears. There will be struggles and triumphs, successes and failures en route to the promised land. We can’t be afraid of that reality, we have to embrace it. How we do that is up to us. In a perfect world, how you get to your FY goals is up to you, too.

Of course we DON’T live in a perfect world. It’s much easier for me to implore you to chart a fiscally creative course to success than it is to execute such a journey. So maybe try just ONE thing. One thing that replaces something that, deep in your heart, you know won’t work well with a reduced budget. That’s assuming it REALLY worked before. This could be an opportunity to scrap that annoying project that has never played a significant role in moving you across your map. Like a young baseball team with a bad attention span, there will be failures. Don’t stomp out your own creativity and ambition out of a fear of failure. Michael Jordan famously said:

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Don’t you love people who throw out quotes like this as if we’re ALL Michael Jordan? We don’t need to be MJ to recognize the road to success is usually paved with failure. If you’re a manager, create a culture that encourages risk and embraces the lessons associated with failure. And who says you’ll fail? I’m betting you won’t. Be creative, be innovative, but also be calculative. See the end goal and hypothesize a new way to get there. Determine the data points you’ll measure so you can complete an honest, accurate evaluation and always refer to it as a “pilot.” That’s a universal term for “it might not work and you’re not allowed to get mad if it doesn’t.” 

The year is 2023. While we still don’t have flying cars, we are surrounded by tech that can aid our advancement strategies. There are cheaper, more efficient ways to not only get the job done, but set a higher standard for what the job can produce. It may feel like you’re being asked to do a lot with less, but turn the tables and embrace it as an opportunity to discover an uncharted path to success. Remember, most of you spent the past 2-3 years proving you could do it!

Make 2023 the year you take a game-winning shot…then keep shooting.

*Join me, Charlie Melichar, Christine Tempesta and Chris Marshall for a BrightCrowd LinkedIN LIVE on 1/25 at 2:00pm Eastern where these advancement pros will discuss more “Advancement Resolutions for 2023”