On April 13, 1970, Apollo 13, four-fifths of the way to the moon, was crippled when a tank containing liquid oxygen burst. The astronauts managed to return safely to earth.
Your organization survives because there are fund raisers orbiting around connecting it to its supporters. So what happens when the board or staff member who is the keeper of the relationship with a top donor leaves?
I have seen awesome and disastrous staff transions.
Awesome: When I started working at The Wilderness Society, with a territory that covered the Midwest and Northern Rockies, I was spread too thin. My colleague in the Seattle office was underutilized working only in Washington and Oregon. We agreed to shrink my territory and expand hers. It was a delight to visit donors with her, to watch her take those relationships to new hieghts, and to advise her any time she wanted a sounding board.
Disastrous. A friend of mine was let go as a major gifts officer at a university. She was literally escorted out of the building after she was told the job was ending. Weeks after she left, she still did not know if she would be allowed to say goodbye to the donors, many of whom she had known for a dozen years.
