The Fractional Staff that Changed Everything
A fractional team is ready in an instant and adjusts to your needs as they evolve.
You need a hand, or many hands, so you’re looking to recruit, but your experience with hiring has been, well, frustrating, exhausting and expensive, and hasn’t always resulted in especially good hires. In the meantime, current staff members are becoming disenchanted, burned out, and in some cases, gone.
Is there a better way? Have you thought about fractional staffing?
Whether it’s a short-term fix or a long-term investment, fractional staffing enables you to build a team with the exact expertise you need, for as long as you need it. It is flexible, efficient and budget-friendly, and the best part is, you don’t have to invest time and energy to develop positions descriptions, market them, or interview dozens of candidates. The initial filtering is done for you.
But actions often speak louder than words. Here are some of the benefits and positive outcomes clients have experienced through their fractional teams:
A project team that executes. What happens when you put a strong development writer, a social media manager, and a content coordinator together? You build a marketing team to compliment a nonprofit’s CEO or solo marketing director, allowing for fundraising growth and enhanced visibility. “We had the tools, but no one to use them – effectively. Once we brought on the fractional marketing team to execute, our reach broadened, and our annual donations increased.” Newsletter delivery, social media posts, website updates, written collateral can all be developed through the integration of fractional staff into your team.
Expertise that moves you to new heights. You’ve got the donors. They are inspired. But you have no idea how to take those peer-to-peer annual gifts and convert them into a $10M capital campaign. “Once we realized that we needed a deep development team, but could not afford to hire one, fractional staffing became a welcomed solution.” A senior major gifts officer, coupled with a development associate to complete prospect research, build donor profiles and deliver follow-up materials was all the support this nonprofit organization’s leadership needed to begin to secure six- and seven-figure gifts.
A CEO who does what the founders can’t. Founders possess the heart of the nonprofit. Through their tireless efforts, the organization is born and begins to take life. But often, founders have limited nonprofit expertise, so growing the organization or reaching a sustainable level is often delayed – for years. “As a founder, it was tough to let go of the reins, but I was more comfortable sharing a partnership with our new CEO, a fractional hire, than I would have been with a full time executive – plus, we could have never afforded such a position. This will allow us to grow into one.” Now, through the partnership, the CEO is sharing professional expertise and experience with the leadership, while focusing the founder on what she can do best. It’s a win-win!
Technology is the key to unlocking superpowers. We find that nonprofits either have accumulated a number of technical tools they are unable to use fully and that don’t integrate with one another – or – the organization has steered clear of technology because a volunteer is lending their time to keep the books, in paper record books! “We’ve invested a lot of time and energy into securing and onboarding technology to manage our constituents and prepare for electronic mail and have been frustrated by the time spent manually adding and editing records. Securing a data/fiscal fractional team who could identify what technology we needed, integrate the systems, clean the data, and create reports we can actually use have changed all of our lives!” A fractional team of tech savvy professionals can make a world of difference.
Shaping the future. Organizations often scale slowly, usually because they have little professional assistance. Or they can scale through the support of a fractional team that can grow with them. “We are all volunteers coming from an industry unlike the nonprofit sector. We started with two very part-time fractional staff members, and have grown the organization to a national level with a presence in all fifty states. Our team of now 12 fractional professionals includes an executive director, a fundraising team, communications and marketing, programs development, and tech support, along with sufficient administrative support to make the organization hum. We could not have built the organization we have today without fractional staffing.” Having a fractional team of nonprofit professionals who can expertly execute the strategic vision of the nonprofit will allow more organizations to grow their footprint and reach their goals, whatever they may be.
So many – too many! – nonprofits are struggling so hard to survive, relying on outdated systems and a staff and volunteers on the verge of burnout. It doesn’t have to be this way. A fractional team can strengthen your organization at its very core, providing the underpinnings for growth. Best of all, your fractional team is flexible, able to adapt to your organization’s needs as they evolve. Instead of being locked into a staffing model, you can engage the expertise you need for exactly the amount of time you need it.
Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Click here to find out how fractional staffing can support your organization’s vision for the future.
The More Than Giving Co. can help you build a fractional team for your organization.
Schedule a call today to learn how we can help.