Episode 266: Being the CPO, The Chief Political Officer: Moving Fundraising Forward Internally
It's a beautiful day for this edition, and on this edition of Around with Randall. Interesting conversation I had recently with someone who's I now can see this. My gray hair gives me away a little younger, but more energetic looking to rise in the ranks and frankly, a phenomenal professional. It's going to be a real credit to leadership in the nonprofit space, but was really asking because she had not been in this position about being actually philanthropy officer.
And what we talked about led me to today's conversation around, really, what is a chief philanthropy officer? Might be chief development officer. I like CPO because I'm going to juxtaposition this in a second. Our chief philanthropy officers really doesn't make a difference if it's health care, education, social service, arts and culture in some ways. And what I've tried to explain to this person that maybe I'm an unofficial mentor is that it's mislabeled.
And you don't understand that unless you've sat in, as I call it, the chair. And I don't mean to make it Captain Kirk or Captain Picard, but when you sit as a chief philanthropy officer, which I did three separate times in my career, and in fact, when I started my career, I was the chief philanthropy officer at 25, which I look back at and have said many times publicly and privately, oh my goodness, what was somebody thinking?
One of my mentors, Tom petty, Father Percy, gave me that opportunity. And I think I don't think there's any question. I made more mistakes and I actually did successes until you sat in the chair. You don't realize this. And what is this that I'm referring to and working around in the mislabeling of our chief philanthropy officers? In many ways, you're the chief political officer.
Today's episode, we want to take this part and talk about what it means to be the ultimate responsibility. Maybe this is affirmation for you as you sit in a chair, your chair, as the leader of philanthropy. Maybe you aspire to be in the chair somewhere, your organization, somewhere else. You're wondering what it means. Maybe you're thinking, I'm not sure I want to do that, but I'm not sure what that means.
Any which way of the three. I'm hoping today we'll clarify some things based upon my experiences and my thoughts around what it actually means. So let's talk about this from about three different perspectives before we get into the tactical. The first is how we got here. Why is this a problem? Why am I even bringing this up? Because what we find is, is that many of our leaders, ultimate leaders, organizational wide leaders, even our boards don't have a full understanding about what really be is.
And I write about this in my book, Vibrant vulnerability that I wrote for CEOs, particularly in health care. But it applies to almost all of them, is they came up through what I call the ranks of that industry. If you're in health care, you probably came up through some kind of medical connection. Or if you're in finance, this would apply to all of them in a financial situation or financial experience.
Education traditionally has been more on the faculty side, although in my book I talk about the new wave of people being hired as CEOs, presidents, chancellors that don't come from a faculty perspective because of the demands of the job. Certainly, if you're in social service or arts and culture, you're more likely to have come up through the ranks of being if you're in a zoo, some type of veterinarian or organizational leader in animal science, where if you're a museum, it's probably about having an understanding of art and culture.
If you're a social service like food insecurity or housing insecurity, you came up through the ranks of that. And so that's not bad. But what that means is, is that all of a sudden, and I experienced this firsthand, that they become the CEO. And maybe if it's their new and to that particular role, you walk in the door as the head of philanthropy, say, hey, I now report to you or hopefully report to you, but report into this line, and you're now my boss.
And here's what we're going to talk about. And they go, I don't know anything about what you do. So, we get to the point where philanthropy is different than many of the other parts of the organization that they've gotten accustomed to, that they are good at. It doesn't mean they shouldn't be CEO. It just means they may not have the same experiences we do.
What we find is, is that they lack the understanding of the relationship building process and what it takes that that the life cycles or the cycles of what we do in terms of outcomes are usually longer than they want, that there's an intangible process until the gift closes that revenue streams are unpredictable because it's not our money. There can be finance, hopefully with good financial leadership has great idea of projecting whether it's health care patients or a zoo, you know, patrons or attendants, the arts, let's say music, they can kind of know based upon previous performances, what people were willing to pay and do.
But philanthropy has this added component of like, we're asking for $1 million, and there's somebody on the other side of the conversation that actually gets to make the decision. This results in a disconnect. And we've all heard these things on the philanthropic side that become frustrating. But we hear things like, what is it you do all day or what your team does all day?
Or why does this take so long? My all time favorite may this it's act or some variation. Why can't we just ask? Or well, they should just give us the money. And this causes this disconnect where philanthropy doesn't feel concrete, the revenue streams, the process, the fact that there are others in this decision making process, as they've been trained and learned, is operational metrics, dashboards or outcomes that are more aligned with what the organization does on a daily basis.
What we end up with is a sense of fear, power and control dynamics. And thus we have the chief political officer. Now, I'm not advocating that we aren't responsible for fundraising results or that we shouldn't have a chief philanthropy officer. A portfolio of the top ten, 15, 20, 25 people or potential supporters. I'm not advocating that we run from the actual fundraising elements.
In fact, I would say you need to lean into it. But what I want to do is help people understand what you deal with on most days. What I learned the hard way. The bigger the organization, the more political it gets. And it's about power. It's about people trying to assert their view of what should happen. And so if they don't, I mean, they meaning other leaders in the organization don't have a full understanding of philanthropy.
They realize that there's loss of control. They don't control those external relationships. They're many times not involved in the conversations, which is why in several podcasts I've mentioned, sometimes it's good to take an executive leader on a visit with you. So they begin to realize, oh, it's not our money. We have to work for it. Build a relationship, find out what's important to them, match what we do to what's important to them to maximize transformational giving.
You've heard me say these things cancel and that there isn't a there are conversations are discussions regarding donor engagement or the opportunity for us to raise money or around this concept of discussion that is outside of formal understanding of what they're used to. Donors have opinions. This leads to power dynamics. Whose donors are they? Why aren't they giving?
Who speaks for the organization? Are you talking about? I've got a client right now where part of our conversation is there's such a power dynamic around control that the chief operating officer of a very large nonprofit is telling the philanthropy office, you can't go talk about certain things until we have basically all the money. And the philanthropy office is pushing back, saying, but we need to go vet these things 18 months before.
And we're talking multimillion dollar issues, multimillion dollar issues. So there's the executive wondering, why aren't we getting money? And but the control is in this one person who doesn't want what we don't want community know this. It's like you can't have it both ways. So there are common symptoms that arise. You may find these may sound familiar.
Things like really excessive approvals. Just what I was talking about in that one circumstance, second guessing donor strategy. Why aren't you giving money to what we want them to give it to? Undermining gift officers where you gift officer and or maybe more particular chief officers building relationships. You bring in someone and they come crossways across amongst the room in terms of what's been discussed before, that undercuts the credibility and last minute interference, where we're ready to ask.
We kind of think we have everything lined up. There's actual alignment. No, no, you know, we're not ready yet. Wait, we've been working on this for a year. Multimillion dollar conversation. We need to find a way to reframe all of this without malice, without trying to look like we're running the place. We're not trying to have uncertainty, of who's actually in charge.
We are not. But this is all about alignment. And this is why the political nature of our job is so important. When you're the chief philanthropy officer. We need to. And now we're going to start pivoting into that tactical. We need to reframe the role that the chief philanthropy officer has. We are a translator when we're doing this.
Well between worlds. I love the word diplomat. We're diplomat, which means we're building consensus cohesion amongst different things and that we're building trust in doing that diplomacy internally and externally. Now you also have to have someone on the other side who's willing to accept that trust, engender it and build upon it. But that's our job. The relationships we have internally should be at the same level.
If you are the chief philanthropy officer working with an executive team or a leadership team, an administrative team should be of the same level of importance you have with your most critical donors. When that doesn't happen, this is when the disconnect occurs and when we have problems. And so I want you to understand the politics and chief political officer isn't dirty.
It's not meant to be a negative. It's about navigation. It's about relationships. It's about communication and it's about trust. But also advocate that influence is more important than title. Where my successes came in philanthropy and really they weren't my successes, they were the donor successes. They don't escape the money. But where there was success in mirroring philanthropy with the mission of the organization came when the CEO in different titles figured out I didn't want their job be I didn't want to be in charge.
See, I really didn't care who got the credit and the I only look good when they look good. I'm glad to blend into the background. Nobody gives a damn who Randall Hallett is, and I'm okay with that. That's politics. So let's jump into the total tactical ways in which we can do this. Seven things that you need to consider when you are thinking about or being the chief willing to be officer of the politics.
Go inside an organization. The first is educating without content, without condensation. Condensation. Excuse me, without condensation. Don't throw water on them either. You have to educate, which is got to be short. We spend years learning the move management process. The relationship building process, the politics of our donors and what they want input. And they our executive don't have time for that.
They don't they don't want to have that depth of conversation. I always talked about, in particular when I was at the Nebraska medical center, Nebraska medical center, that in particularly there, but it was also on the other two that I was an executive with a philanthropy expertise, not a philanthropy expert who served as an executive, which meant I needed to blend into their world, which meant the things I taught them were short and concise donor cycles, timing, the how much time it took relationships, and I had to get over my high horse that I was the expert.
Sometimes I needed to bring in an outside expert to say the same things I was. I find it frustrating as a consultant, which is ironic because that's how I make my money, is that I will say almost the exact same thing that many chief philanthropy officers will say. But it comes from an outside voice with a lot of experience and gray hair and all of a sudden it's genius.
And I'm like, but I know they were saying the same thing. So sometimes you have to pull back and say, it's not about me, it's about the process. But it's got to be short, tactical ways. And if you want to know why, I think I have great success with CEOs and executives, finance leaders, it's because I create messaging that's incredibly short.
It has to be or they won't listen. So the first thing is, is to educate, to tell stories, not use jargon and give outcomes as to why these things are important. Number two is, is to make the invisible visible that you want to share the progress, just not the end result. Part of what we do is a detriment, and I'm okay with that and with the sense of ROI.
But we tend to only talk about the money race, but we don't talk about the process to do so. So the number of visits completed, the number of asks to come, the number of relationships advanced, that we have barriers in these. And here they are. We need to do a better job of translating the activity, which would answer the question, what do you do all day?
Let me tell you, I loved that question because I would say, let me tell you what we're doing. I got these seven gift officers doing this and this and this, this and this. And they go, you're managing all of that. Well, I'm leading it. They're supposed to be autonomous and do their own work, and I check with them.
But there's a lot of moving pieces in what we do translate the activity so that it shows progress, shows work being done. Three invite the leaders in. Strategically bring them into meetings. I talked about it earlier. I loved bringing in an executive into a donor meeting because they for many times it was the first time the CMO, the chief academic officer, the dean, the chief financial officer, where particularly financial officer, where they have a view of that, hey, just we'll just get the money.
I'm like, good luck on that. I'll repair the relationship afterwards when the donor gets ticked off at you. I've enjoyed those processes because what it's done is created a sense of clarity about the nuances and the professionalism of our job. Not any more professional than their job. But I don't try to do finances job. I don't need them to do my job.
Sometimes they have to see and feel that. So bring them in to this process. Don't alienate them. Number four is kind of this pre wire before decision process. This is all about surprises. I learned very quickly that when there was a surprise to my boss, always the CEO and also then the finance money wasn't coming or that it wasn't going to support let's say a director in an area that it was incredibly, off-putting and challenging to my relationship with these people.
We need to talk about strategy and be honest as to where we are at an executive level with the relationships and the possibilities. I have a client. We're going through a campaign, and the organization has been through some issues that have nothing to do with philanthropy, but it's affected philanthropy and what I've continually advocated. And frankly, the CPO has done a brilliant job.
I'm not sure I deserve any credit, but thank you for some advice. Every once in a while of bringing the executive leaders along to say, your decisions over here, which we fully support, are affecting donations over here. And they were doing it from the front side. Like if you decide this, here's one potential consequences. That's incredibly helpful because that removes that surprise element and frames the decisions as shared wins or shared decisions, not just philanthropy.
Making excuses. Number five is aligning philanthropy with their priorities. Obviously, we spent not enough time talking about this because there is a time zone almost feels a stagnation of strategy around this. We need to do a better job of figuring out how to get strategy from our client or our executive leaders and our board at an economic time when there's maybe a lot of concern, so they aren't looking very far ahead.
We have to talk through the strategy before it reaches executive level and frame the conversations, discussions, decisions around their language. It can't be about what we say. It's about what's going to move the organization forward. Number six is build internal allies. I began, and this was more true in a much larger organization like the Inverse Rescue Medical Center, to realize there was a 3 or 4 of the eight executives that I had a lot more credibility with, and they would listen to me more because they were more open minded.
By the way, those all people became very successful CEOs, that I spent more time with as I went along, rather than the people who were the naysayers, identifying respected leaders who get it or are willing to at least learn about it is important. One example is this I wanted to build a donor centered, stewardship based concierge program, and there was high resistance.
But once I brought in these two or 3 or 4 leaders and actually took them on a trip to see another kind of another place that did something like this, I remember distinctly were at the airport coming home, and it was the CMO who looked at the group and says, we need to get off Randle's back. We don't understand what we don't understand.
Now, he was saying that to a bunch of other executives. Did I get more credibility by him saying it or me saying it? And there's no question it came. He was a much higher profile, more distinguished. Been there longer. Find your internal partners, leverage that credibility. Allow them to help speak for you and create kind of a centralized one trusted voice, three or 4 or 5 people all saying the same thing that can overcome the naysayers.
I pushed one time into a potential situation, which I thought would be very helpful and had no political backing. It was me. A lot of ambivalence and 2 or 3 naysayers and the naysayers. One because I didn't play the politics correctly, find those partners and build that communication and that alliance and that allegiance that works together to say this is going to help us get to where we want to go.
Finally, stay calm. I think the greatest failure early on in my career, particularly in health care, was, is that I did not control my emotions well enough. They could be read too easily, and I've learned over time how to do that. I'm a better poker player, but control often induces stress upon you. They're not letting me do this is my.
You got to pull back. It's not personal. It's about power. Now, at 55, I have a much greater ability for me to understand that, to see that, to deal with that than I did at 36, whatever I was when I started at the medical center as the CPO. But I took it personally. I think it took years off of my life and I wasn't as effective.
I do it much differently, but you have to stay controlled and you have to have the right responses and you have to pull back, and you have to realize when you got to kind of retreat a little bit to advance, you have to respond with clarity, with transparency, with patients. Remember the long term goal. It's not the individual battles, but the betterment of the relationships that you have with your donors and with your nonprofit does with community.
It's outcomes. And it's not a linear path. It's not always up. Sometimes it's down three steps to get five steps up. We need to do that in a more reasonable way and not take it so personally in that process. And by the way, I failed at that many times. I can think of too many examples to do here on a 20 minute podcast.
Seven things that you should do. Number one is educate. Number two is make the invisible visible. Share with the process that we go through. Number three is bring in leaders that are about strategic strategy and about what it means in terms of interaction. Number four is really get through the decisions kind of pre-wired decisions strategy before they get to the kind of formation stage.
Number five is aligns entropy with their priorities, the organization priorities as much as we can. Number six is build internal allies, people who are willing to partner with you and figure this out. And number seven, finally, stay calm. It's okay. It's not personal. Go home to your wife, husband, partner, dog home, walk, kids, whatever and realize values are set there.
This is a job and let's not take it so personally. And if we do those things, what we'll get is alignment and a lot better operational execution of being a chief political officer, as well as a successful chief philanthropy officer. Don't forget check out the blogs Hallett philanthropy.com two per week. Just things I see from articles from experiences.
Things for you to think about you can see right to your inbox and how it's linked. If you'd like to reach out to me, it's podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. I hope that as we work into 2026 or whenever you're listening to this, that you have an opportunity to realize the value that you deliver.
In terms of the daily work that goes on in the nonprofit philanthropic space, goes back to my old favorite saying Gaelic, one that I referenced last episode. Some people make things happen, some people watch things happen. Then there are those who wondered what happened. We are people who make things happen. For people in places that are wondering what happened at the end of the day, that's an incredibly powerful way to spend a career to build out a chance to make a difference.
I hope you feel that today and every day, at least in some small way. If you don't close your door or your cubicle, take a moment, look around and say, what have I done today, today, or yesterday that I'm proud of that helped us do what we do? And if you do that, you're going to have a great career every day and build something you can be proud of and make this world a little bit better.
Place a pretty cool way to think about a professional life and a life in general. I'll look forward to seeing you the next time right back here on the next edition of around with Randall. Don't forget. Make it a great day.