As a Baby Boomer who endured two career crises in under a decade, I know that hoping for the best means taking charge of the rest.   On 9/11 as I watched the collapse of the World Trade Center from a window in my corner office, I felt a compelling need to pursue a more noble purpose. A few months later, I left a successful high-paying marketing job and made a tough transition to the grueling field of nonprofit fundraising. In 2009, when I completed my MBA at New York University’s Stern School of Business, the Great Recession was in full swing, as was egregious ageism (I was 57).

The challenges of 2020 have reaffirmed that taking charge in midcareer requires planning, focus, creativity, realignment, tenacity, collaboration, and compassion – for yourself as well as for others.  Here are several ways that visionary, intelligent and motivated professionals can reframe, recharge, and resurge in midcareer – and for the long run.

1. After five years in the workforce, every professional should write a life plan.  Start with what you want to see when you look back on your life twenty or thirty years from now.  Emphasize outcomes you want to achieve, outputs to get you there, and hurdles blocking you now.  Break it down to the next 90 days, assessing what you really want and what you absolutely need, so you can anticipate, manage, and gain a measure of control over your life.  Consider multiple options for earning, investing, and retaining assets.

2. Tap into friends, family, and colleagues you trust, as well as cultivating mentors and sponsors.  Friends and family provide moral support, as well as boosting your sense of urgency, attention to deadlines, and overall accountability.  Mentors listen, advise, and comfort.  Sponsors are like elite advocates for your career, and they expect more from you.

3. Treat your resume as if it is an ad for what you most want to sell, targeting a particular customer. Software filters are the biggest obstacle to getting an interview, so include key buzzwords in a particular job description or the hiring company’s industry.

4. Quantify results. A midcareer professional’s resume must focus on quantitative accomplishments as well as job descriptions that demonstrate progressive advancement.  Detail the strategic, operational, or financial benefit you added, such as: “helped reduce costs by XX%;” or, “raised XXX$ for organization by doing A, B, C;’’ or, “generated 1, 2 ,3 outcomes that were key priorities of the organization.”

5. Be more strategic about networking online, to access, approach, and interview with hiring managers. Attend low-cost online events of professional groups and associations that represent your prospects’ industries.  Choose the associations you want to join, become active on pertinent committees, enhance your visibility, and reach out to people who can mentor, connect and sponsor you.

6. Adjust your targets for a role, company, industry, salary, or location. This will help you diversify your skills, gain exposure to more hiring managers, and deal with difficult interview questions about resume gaps, salary history, and the like. If the need for health benefits is causing you the most anxiety, then make that your top priority.

7. Maximize LinkedIn – here’s why: Almost every executive recruiter and corporate hiring manager checks LinkedIn before anywhere else. Update your profile often. Beyond your profile’s landing page, you can craft a portfolio of your expertise and experience – showcasing the work you want to do next.

8. Update your soft skills, especially how to sell. How to Become A Rainmaker, by Jeffrey J. Fox, is a short but powerful book on consultative selling.  Daniel H. Pink’s book, To Sell Is Human, will disavow you of the notion that you are “not in sales.” Courses in public speaking, improv, and creative writing, can enhance your ability to listen actively, answer tough questions, and remember key points.

9. You’re wonderful, you’re smart, you’re branded, but enough about you. A common mistake of midcareer job hunters is writing long cover letters that resemble their resumes. Cover letters should be only one page. In addition to referencing your transferable skills, they should indicate you have researched the company, its culture, and its industry.

10. Focusing on your strengths will help you prioritize career activities that will be most fulfilling in midcareer. StrengthsFinder 2.0, by Gallup guru Tom Rath, helps you identify your top five strengths and provides in-depth analysis and recommendations.

11. Participate in local philanthropic events where connectors, mentors, sponsors, and hiring managers congregate. You don’t have to have a lot of money to do this, but you must contribute – volunteering time or other intangibles – to receive something in return.

12. Be extremely kind, responsible, and accountable to your colleagues, direct reports, and any service professionals you encounter. Midcareer managers experiencing difficulties with their personal lives or current jobs sometimes neglect or disrespect the staff that reports to them, as well as vendors, industry peers, neighbors, and service professionals they encounter. Those professionals could complain to your most important client, or to your boss, or to a prospective employer.

13. Become inspired by this short list of visionaries who turned their midlife crises into life-enhancing opportunities. Jean Nidetch was 40 when she launched Weight Watchers. Liz Claiborne (work clothing), Ruth Chris (steakhouse founder), and Mary Kay Ash (cosmetics maven) launched after enormous setbacks. Ray Kroc (McDonald’s), and Harlan Sanders (KFC) were well into middle age when they launched. Steve Jobs was 52 when he launched the iPhone.

14. Be sure to dedicate enough time to relaxation, exercise, healthful meals, and pursuing entertaining ways to deal with challenges. Walking and swimming are extremely therapeutic, as are meditation and journaling. The importance of adequate sleep has spawned entire industries. Try Laughing Yoga, Zumba, listening to different kinds of music, or binge-watching comedies to divert from the constant litany of alarming news.

My 9/11 epiphany – to pursue a more noble purpose – was spot on.  Despite humbling experiences, I went on to raise millions for worthy causes.  After earning my MBA, I became a strategic planning consultant for nonprofits, and an author and educator teaching college students ages 18-55 how to navigate the business world.

I know it’s not easy to stay motivated, focus on the positives, learn new things, meet new people, and engage in our communities in meaningful ways that enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion.  Yet we must – not only for ourselves and our families, but to support the thousands of essential workers who help the world to cope. They are excellent role models for us, as we all hope for the best, and bravely take charge of the rest.

Liz DiMarco Weinmann is a strategic growth specialist, nonprofit leader,  business educator and author. For a free guide on career reinvention, including additional tips, insights, and a reading list, email: lizweinmann@gmail.com. More at:  www.thedareforce.com and www.beam-impact.com.   

 © Liz DiMarco Weinmann, 2/15/21

The current online edition of the Chronicle of Philanthropy features a thoughtful advice article https://www.philanthropy.com/article/what-to-know-about-3-charity-monitoring-groups summarizing the key strategic and operational assets the top three charity-monitoring groups look for when evaluating nonprofits.  They include, in varying terms: governance, financing, fundraising, and effectiveness.  An excellent reference tool, the article is also an impetus for strategic planning.  After all, few would argue that a fully operational strategic plan encompasses the assets that smart funders – like those on the popular CNBC series, “Shark Tank” – look for in deciding whether to support an organization.

As a former private-sector marketing executive who transitioned to nonprofit fundraising after the events of 9/11, I know it’s almost impossible to secure adequate funding from major donors and foundations without a fully operational strategic plan.  [More at: www.beam-impact.com.]  A strategic plan needn’t comprise dozens of pages. In fact, some of the best strategic plans I’ve produced are under five pages, and one of the first grants I ever secured for over $1million was presented in a one-page proposal.  It was to a corporate foundation whose previous gifts to my client’s organization had topped out at $100,000. The proposal reflected my client organization’s strategic plan, which I had recently revised.

If developed and written well, a nonprofit’s strategic plan indeed can be distilled to a single page or graphic that also can be used to secure internal engagement of staff, board members, and other volunteers.  Which brings us back to Shark Tank.

[To book a 15-minute pro bono session with me on how to jump-start your strategic planning process, please send me an email – lizweinmann@gmail.com – and we’ll make it happen.]      

Here are just a few reasons why a few episodes of Shark Tank – perhaps binged early in the day with a triple espresso (oh, just me?) – could serve as a master class for the importance of a strategic plan when meeting with demanding funders:

1. With increased competition for funding, and fewer resources to accomplish goals, there is more intense pressure to demonstrate how and when your organization’s strategy and operations will create measurable positive impact. In times of crisis, a strategic plan becomes much more than a road map.  The plan should drive – i.e., operate – the organization, so that leaders look forward and move ahead, while also dealing with short-term priorities.
2. The intensity of the Shark Tank “plot structure” is how fundraising meetings often play out, i.e., it’s not just for TV. The principles and scenarios of Shark Tank apply in real life.  As one who has faced discerning and demanding funders (and aren’t they all?), I know having a strategic plan to reference is crucial.
3. Nonprofits seeking funds today are expected to commit to memory myriad facts and figures about their organization. A strategic plan provides a framework for that data to be presented with the precision, clarity, and confidence that convinces donors to give.
4. Venture capitalists and private equity investors (such as those that appear on Shark Tank), often stipulate that a firm’s pitch for funding be summarized in an oral introduction of no more than five minutes, and that written summaries be limited to a single page. Impossible for a nonprofit? Not for someone who has done it a thousand times, with a high success rate.

If you’re a current or aspiring nonprofit leader or board member who has an upcoming meeting with a demanding major donor or foundation,  then here’s what you should watch for on Shark Tank to prep for your meeting:

1. Watch to see if the private-sector entrepreneurs present a concise case to scrupulous venture capitalists, about how their product is a solution, or enhancement, or completely different, than anything currently on the market.
2. Watch to see how succinct and precise contestants are about their entire business plans when hoping to secure funds, whether for thousands or millions.
3. Watch to see how they deal with the most scrutinizing questions and objections when a “Shark” requests more of a profit share than the entrepreneur thinks is fair.
4. Watch to see how the word “profit” can become an analogy for your organization’s stated theory of change, or projected outcomes, or desired societal impact, and what a major donor or foundation might expect.

Now imagine your toughest donors, and the nonprofit monitoring groups they consult, will behave like those “Sharks.” As we all know, they often do.   While there is much defensiveness and protest about whether nonprofits should face the same – and sometimes higher – expectations of transparency and accountability than the private sector, it is no longer a question of “should”.  The reality is that the expectations are already there, and they are mounting – with every grant proposal you write, every business cycle you evaluate, every quarterly report you distribute, and every 990 you file. For those reasons alone, a fully operational strategic plan is no longer a “should” proposition, or a “someday” option.  It is a must, and that day is now.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 800,000 women left the workforce as of September 2020, and that number is probably underestimating the women who have home businesses they have put on hold.  It is a dire trend that will reverberate for at least one generation, if not more.

Many of the women affected are professionals in their prime, ages 38-53, spanning Gen-X, which is already hard-hit from the squeeze of more nimble, less encumbered Millennials and baby-boomers who also need to stay in the workforce.  These prime professionals are lawyers, accountants, surgeons, professors, and other high-intensity achievement-oriented women.  Many of them will lose promotions, face reductions in salary, and deal with a drastic diminution of their retirement funds.

As they go, so do the women who help them run their homes and their careers – the childcare workers, household helpers, classroom aides, bus drivers, and numerous others.   Generation X, indeed.

A few rays of hope:  many notable women in the 20th century did not come into their own until after great adversity – founding valuable businesses, nonprofits, and social movements after the age of 40.  These include: Juliette Gordon Low, who founded Girl Scouts of USA at age 57; Jean Nidetch, who founded Weight Watchers at age 41; Ethel Percy Andrus, who founded AARP when she was 74; and Rachel Carson, biologist and author of the landmark book about dangerous pesticides, “Silent Spring”. At age 55, suffering from stage 4 breast cancer, Carson testified before Congress about what she called “biocides” – chemicals that harm humans as well as animals.  She died just 18 months after “Silent Spring” was published, but she is often credited with the launch of the Environmental Protection Agency.

While not many of us can aspire to Rachel Carson’s greatness, perhaps we can be  optimistic about pondering the many miles to go before we sleep, to paraphrase Robert Frost.  Here’s hoping we all get to have many more miles, days, night, weeks, months, and years, to, as Eleanor Roosevelt put it, “…do the thing you think you cannot do.”