I actually read that article when it came out!

I don't know if it's a gender thing. I think maybe it's an age thing and she doesn't know my whole resume so she doesn't realize that I have quite a bit more expertise than she does.

In this instance there's not much to do. I've said that I'm unavailable to attend the workshop because of other commitments that I have that day, so that's my out right now. When I disagree with her in the future, I will simply state my case and say this is what I think on this matter. I know it's different than what you think. The client can decide what they want to do and if they decide to go with your plan, I won't be offended.

I just don't understand, if she was going to be so nosy about my work and trying to jump in my lane, so to speak, why didn't she just contract with them to do both jobs? I mean, I'm not at all unhappy to have this client. I'm very happy to have this steady work. It's an ongoing contract and so far they're happy with my work and now that I can submit my first invoice, I'm fairly pleased too. But I just don't understand that if she has so many opinions about this work, and so much experience, as she claims, then why is she only doing 11 hours a month as an administrator? Why didn't she work out with them a contract to do the fundraising too and contract for more hours per month? I don't think she has a whole lot of other clients.

I just feel like she is always trying to one-up me. And I am not in competition with her, so I don't understand why she's always trying to show me up. Like when she suggested the workshop, my response at first was, I've been to their workshops before and I've submitted these kinds of applications for years, I do not feel it's necessary to spend time driving a 3 hour round trip to go to this workshop. And her response was, well I have lots of experience doing this too, but I think we need to meet with the staff who give out the grants and build a relationship.

My response was simply, yes it's good to build relationships with staff (even though I disagreed - because the staff has no control over who gets a grant. THe grants are reviewed by a panel of experts and scored...you get money by scoring over a certain number, and the criteria is laid out so you can prepare an application that addresses all the criteria - if you know how to write the application properly, you can almost certainly secure a small amount of funding. I have taken numerous organizations through their first time applying for these types of funding and have never been rejected.) SO my response was, "yes, it's good to build relationships with staff. But unfortunately, I have a deadline for another client to the Sundance Institute (yes I threw out a big name, and it's true) on Wednesday and we're going to be down to the wire, so I am unavailable."

She replied that she would work with the board chair and artistic director to see who would go. THEN the board chair chimed in that he actually didn't think it was a good use of time either. (Which made me bust out laughing.) That's when the consultant emailed out a long story about how when she worked for the local regranting agency, which is like 20 times as large as we are, that she made it a point to get to know the staff and mingle with them and that's how she got them to spotlight them on their website, etc...and that's great....but it did not result in any additional funding for them. I know because my other organization was in competition with the local arts agency for funding and we scored higher and so got more money from the state. And I didn't do any of that mingling. I just wrote an excellent proposal and made sure all the criteria were hit. So it really does not affect your funding level. Can it possibly get some exposure? Sure, but will that exposure actually end up in additional audience members? Probably not. Most regular people don't subscribe to their state's cultural division's email newsletter. In fact, unless you're a grant seeker, you typically don't.

Is it worth it to call them and chat with them about what we're doing and get feedback, etc? Sure. And I will do that before our application is due because there are some issue that I need to resolve in the application. Is it necessary to spend 5 hours on going to their workshop when I could be better spending that time actually raising money? No. So if she wants to go to improve some kind of exposure to the organization, fine.

Do I need to say all this to her? Nah, I don't think so. I have an out at this point, so that's enough.

Seesaw