my job wants me to hit up everyone I know for money and other help

[ResidentialBusiness]

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I work for a small-ish (100 people) British nonprofit. The work we do is similar to helping disabled people find homes and jobs, coaching them in social and life skills. We have developed a network of connections with local businesses who help us make this all happen.

All good so far. I love my job, my coworkers and my boss. The work we do is valuable and I’m proud of it.

We have plans for growth in our city so we can help more people. Again all good. But … the CEO recently brought in a consultant to work on the growth project.

Next thing we know, that network of local connections is being expanded beyond businesses. All of us staff members are being asked to systematically share our own personal contacts. A series of meetings is planned over the next few weeks where small groups of us will each talk about where in the city we live and map out our connections. (It sounds like there will be some kind of actual map involved.)

For me, this would look like giving details of my book group and the cafe where we meet, my local church and related discussion group, my yoga classes, art group, and so on.

Then once all that information has been collected, we’re expected to go along to each location with a coworker and encourage our own private social contacts to get involved in the work we do, which might mean asking for money or seeking people with the skills we need to volunteer or work for us.

This sounds a lot like the equivalent of a MLM scheme. Also, my friends are my friends, and I don’t want to mix those boundaries with my paid employment.

But I’m much more introverted than most of my coworkers, and I’m hearing a lot of enthusiasm for this scheme from those who are more social. The level of fervor from the CEO and consultant in particular is beginning to sound almost cult-ish.

Although my work is well thought of, I’m concerned that refusing this madness will affect my prospects. My boss is away for a couple of weeks. I think he’ll be sympathetic but he’s two levels below the CEO (who is pretty autocratic). Any ideas on how to handle this? Maybe I just need to pretend I have no friends.

Yeah, one option is that it turns out that you’re a hermit! You don’t know many people locally — maybe most of your friends and family are long-distance — and perhaps that one group people know you’re involved with has an explicit rule against any sort of business solicitation among members.

That said, I’d be inclined instead to just decide that of course this request is not “open up your entire life to us to exploit,” but instead is “let us know of any parts of your network that you think would be amenable to this and which you would be comfortable approaching.” Take it as a given that that’s what’s being asked of you and proceed accordingly. That might mean your answer is, “There’s really no one in my local network who fits this, but I’ll keep thinking about it.” Feel free to add, “The groups I’m in have rules against any kind of solicitations.”

By the way, the idea that you’re supposed to physically show up in these places with a coworker is really odd. It would be one thing to say to you, “Hey, if you think people would be interested, could you mention us at your next art class?” But you’re supposed to show up at all these physical locations with a colleague who no one knows and just flagrantly go into business pitch mode? That’s super weird — so you also might be able to say, “They would react really poorly to that approach and we would definitely not succeed that way, so instead I will feel out their interest one-on-one.” (And then maybe “feel out their interest one-on-one” ends up meaning “in my head, after which I’ll conclude they’re not going to be interested.”)

However, the best option of all is to push back more honestly if you feel you safely can. It’s not unusual in nonprofit work for staff to be asked who in their networks might be interested in supporting the organization’s work, but pressuring people to feel like they have to turn over their personal contacts is not okay.

That said, it’s also possible this won’t turn out to be as high-pressure as you currently fear. Maybe when you sit down to do it, it will end up being more in the vein of “anyone who you’d be comfortable approaching, if anyone.” Which is another reason to go into it assuming that of course we’re all being reasonable about this … while simultaneously being prepared with a plan in case they’re not.

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