Is This Actually Urgent, or Did Someone Above You Just Panic?

I saw a fantastic quote online this week that made me do one of those cartoon spit takes in the middle of my seventh coffee:

“Normalize asking managers: is this urgent, or did someone above you panic?”

And I immediately thought, "I cannot freaking WAIT to write about and share it with my fundraising friends, and also, this gives me a great idea for a cover photo to this blog that I will giggle at for hours, even if I am the only one who giggles at it."

So, let me describe a scene that has totally happened at your organization at least once this month.

Or probably this week.

Or possibly going to happen today.

A board member opens a financial statement. They see a number (or a color – “oh no! Red! That's bad, right?!") they don’t like. Maybe revenue is behind last year’s pace. Maybe expenses are up. Maybe the checking account balance looks thin because there’s a big payable due next week that’s already accounted for but nobody explained that to the board because nobody ever explains the nuance of cash flow to volunteer board members because you want them to not fall asleep in the first 8 minutes of the meeting.

Their stomach drops.

They immediately text the ED: “We need to talk about the budget ASAP.”

No context. No question. Just pure urgency and aggressive heat.

The ED, who was in the middle of something actually important, feels THEIR stomach drop. Because when a board member says “ASAP” with no context, your brain doesn’t think “I’m sure this is fine.” Your brain thinks “I’m about to get fired or worse yelled at and I haven’t had my second cup of coffee before my eyes well up with tears.”

So the ED immediately calls the development director: “We need to accelerate our fundraising. The board is concerned. Can you put together some projections by end of day?”

No explanation of what “concerned” means. No specifics. Just a vague sense of dread wrapped in a deadline that has no context with a tone that borders on “heading towards a mental breakdown.”

And the development director, who was literally about to make donor phone calls, doing the ACTUAL work that raises ACTUAL money, drops everything. Cancels the calls. Opens a spreadsheet. Starts building a report that nobody asked for, to answer a question that was never clearly stated, to solve a problem that might not even exist.

That’s not urgency. That’s a panic cascade.

And it just cost your organization three donor relationships, an afternoon of strategic work, and the mental health of at least two, possibly up to 12, people.

And so, I present to you, The Panic Cascade: A Love Story in Three Acts

Here’s how it works. Every time. Like clockwork.

Act 1: Someone with authority sees something they don’t fully understand. 

A board member reads a number without context. An ED compares this June to last June without accounting for a timing difference. A funder asks a question that sounds like a threat but is actually just curiosity. The trigger is almost always incomplete information plus positional authority.

Act 2: The anxiety rolls downhill with zero explanation. 

“We need to talk.” (Immediate PTSD) “The board is concerned.” “Can you get me numbers by Friday?” Notice what’s missing? The actual problem. The specific question. Any context whatsoever. Just urgency. Just temperature. Just some vibes. And not the good kind.

Act 3: The person closest to the work abandons the work to respond to the panic. 

The fundraiser stops fundraising. The grant writer stops writing. The development director stops developing. They pivot from strategic work to reactive work, not because the strategic work wasn’t important, but because panic always feels more urgent than strategy, even when it’s not.

End scene. Repeat weekly.

Sometimes daily.

The cruelest part? The thing the board member was panicking about usually resolves itself within 48 hours once someone actually looks at it with context. But by then, your development director has lost an entire day, three donor calls didn’t happen, and everyone’s stress level is elevated for no reason.

Why This Keeps Happening (and Why It’s Not Entirely Their Fault)

Before we blame the board member, and believe me, I love a good blaming of board members even though I myself am a board member, so maybe this is some Sigmund Fraud thing I have to resolve later...let’s be fair.

Most board members don’t panic because they wake up every day thinking of ways they can terrorize the leadership team. They panic because they care about the organization and they don’t have enough information to NOT panic.

If the only time a board member sees financial information is at a quarterly meeting, and the numbers look scary, and nobody is there to explain the context, what are they supposed to do? They’re volunteers. They’re not financial professionals. They don’t live inside your budget every day the way you do.

The panic isn’t the problem. The information gap is the problem.

And EDs? They cascade the panic because THEY don’t have the tools to filter it.

When a board chair sends a vague, urgent text, most EDs don’t feel empowered to say “can you tell me specifically what you’re concerned about?” They just absorb the anxiety and pass it along, usually with interest.

It’s anxiety arbitrage. (I mean, that’s a great word I’ve now stolen and used way more than I should thanks to one of my favorite writers Lonna Whiting!)

Everyone’s just trading panic back and forth, adding a little more each time, until the person at the bottom of the chain is drowning in urgency that started as one person’s confusion.

So What Do You Actually Do About It?

Here are three things you can do to break the panic cascade at your organization.

1.    Before You React, Ask the Magic Question

“Is this urgent, or is someone concerned?”

There’s a massive difference.

Urgent means: if we don’t act today, something bad happens tomorrow.

Concerned means: someone has a question that deserves a thoughtful answer, but not at the expense of everything else.

90% of the panic cascades I’ve seen in nonprofit organizations were concerns disguised as urgencies. And the moment someone stops and asks “wait, is this actually a fire, or does someone just want information?” the whole temperature drops.

If you’re the ED and a board member texts you with vague urgency, try this: “Thanks for flagging this. Can you tell me specifically what you’re seeing that concerns you so I can pull the right information?”

That one response does three things: it acknowledges their concern (so they don’t feel dismissed), it asks for specifics (so you’re not guessing), and it buys you time (so you’re not reacting in the dark).

If you’re the development director and your ED comes in hot, try: “I want to help with this. Before I shift gears, can you help me understand, is this something that needs to happen today, or can I build a solid answer by end of week?”

That’s not pushback, that’s being SUPER professional. And it protects the strategic work from getting bulldozed by someone else’s anxiety.

2.    Feed the Machine Before It Gets Hungry

The best way to prevent panic is to make sure the people above you are never surprised.

Board members panic when they’re surprised. EDs panic when they’re surprised.

Everyone panics when they see something they didn’t expect and can’t explain.

So, just stop surprising them. Seriously. It's so easy to do.

Send your board chair a twice-a-month-one-paragraph email: “Here’s where we are on fundraising. Here’s what’s coming. Here’s one thing I want you to know before the next meeting.”

Takes you 10 minutes. Saves you two days of panic response later.

Give your ED a weekly 5-minute verbal update. Not a report. A conversation. “Here’s what I’m working on. Here’s one thing going well. Here’s one thing I’m watching.” When the ED knows what’s happening, they don’t cascade panic. They cascade confidence. And doesn’t that sound better than working in and/or around an office dumpster fire?

The financial report that scared the board member? What if next to every number there was one sentence of context? “Revenue is behind last year’s pace by $8K. This is expected because our largest annual gift typically arrives in July. We’re on track.” That one sentence prevents a panic cascade that derails an entire week.

Information is the antidote to panic. Feed the machine before it gets hungry and it won’t eat your afternoon.

3.    Protect Your Strategic Time Like It’s Sacred (Because It Is)

Here’s the thing about panic cascades: they don’t just waste time. They steal it from the most important work you do.

Those three donor phone calls your development director was about to make? Each one had the potential to renew a $5,000 gift, deepen a relationship, or open a door to a new prospect. Total potential value: immeasurable. Total time needed: 45 minutes.

Instead, they spent four hours building a spreadsheet to answer a question that could have been resolved with one sentence of context on a financial report.

Panic is the enemy of strategy. And in a nonprofit where every hour matters, every panic-driven pivot has a cost, even if you can’t see it on a balance sheet.

Protect your strategic time.

Boy I wish there was a book called Fundraise Awesomer that had an entire process for this. Oh well. Someday someone will write it, I’m sure. HA!

Block your donor hours. Guard your parking lot building time. And when the panic comes, because it will, and ohhhhh boy it will - ask the question before you drop everything.

Is this actually urgent? Or did someone above me just panic?

If it’s urgent? Well then act. Immediately. That’s the job.

If it’s panic? Well then take a breath, ask for specifics, give a timeline for a thoughtful response, and go back to the work that actually moves the mission forward.

This Is Bigger Than One Bad Text from a Board Member

The panic cascade is a symptom of something deeper: a sector that confuses busyness with productivity and reactivity with responsiveness.

We celebrate the people who respond to every email within five minutes. (Guilty) We reward the EDs who are “always available.” (Ugh, Guilty) We promote the development directors who “drop everything” when the board chair calls.

But dropping everything is not a skill. It’s a trauma response dressed up as work ethic as if you were the first born turned into golden retriever worker bee that also becomes a high “I” on the DISC score that wraps their entire value in a company or relationships that require some immediate positive feedback on work or actions to make them feel as if they are worthy…not that I have any experience or concept of that description. I totally just read that in a book and totally have not spent years trying to un-do.

sigh

The most effective nonprofit leaders I know aren’t the fastest reactors. They’re the best filterers. They can tell the difference between a fire and someone’s anxiety. They respond to fires immediately and respond to anxiety thoughtfully.

And they protect their team’s strategic time like it’s the most valuable resource in the building.

Because it is.

Your donors don’t care how fast you responded to an internal panic. They care whether you called them. They care whether you remembered their name. They care whether you sent that note, made that introduction or had that conversation.

That’s the work.

Everything else is noise.

Ok! Your turn!

When’s the last time a panic cascade derailed your day? What was the “urgency” — and was it actually urgent?

I want the stories. The board member text at 9 PM on a Sunday. The “we need to talk” with no context. The afternoon you lost to a spreadsheet that answered a question nobody actually asked.

Send me your answer: patrick@dogoodbetterconsulting.com

And if you’re building the systems that prevent the panic in the first place - the dashboards, the board communication rhythms, the stewardship calendars, the strategic plans that keep everyone informed so nobody’s surprised - that’s what we build inside Do Good YOUniversity. Weekly AMAs, templates, daily nonprofit updates you need to know, an awesome community, and SO much more! Come build with us at www.DoGoodYOUniversity.com

Together, we’ve freaking got this.

-Patrick

P.S. If you’re a board member reading this, first of all, thank you for caring enough to read a fundraising blog. Second: before you send that “ASAP” text, try adding one sentence of context. Just one. “I was looking at the Q2 numbers and had a question about the revenue line.” That one sentence is the difference between a productive conversation and a panic cascade that costs your development director an entire day. You’re welcome. They’re welcome. Everyone’s welcome.