Presentation Home Runs and Third Rails
Whether you give a straightforward talking-head presentation or one embellished with one or more of the approaches just discussed, there are a number of things you should strive to do—and a number of things you must strive at any cost to avoid—in making the oral presentation. These can be divided neatly into “home runs” (do it and you have scored) and “third rails” (touch it and you are dead).
Home Runs
1. Recalling that brevity truly is the soul of wit—for board presentations anyway. Comedians have an excellent rule that all program officers should memorize: leave while they're still laughing. It is good practice to take no more than the allotted time, but it is even better practice to take less time. The presentation should be brief, crisp, and delivered in plain English. Should it appear that the committee or board members are losing interest, it is time to wrap up the presentation immediately, no matter how much longer it might be scheduled to run. The greatest wisdom on this subject comes from the pen of Louis Nizer: “A speaker who does not strike oil in ten minutes should stop boring.”
2. Making the presentation a talk as opposed to a verbatim reading. A presentation of sorts can be made with eyes glued to the paper and voice firmly set on “monotone,” but it is not a performance likely to stir people's souls. You may speak from notes, but you must make eye contact, not just with some fixed point in the middle distance but with each and every person on the committee or board. After the presentation, a question-and-answer period is sure to follow, and it would be better for all concerned if that session were to be a conversation, as opposed to an interrogation. A conversational presentation, with each member of the committee or board feeling that you are talking directly to him or her, can help to set the scene for such a give-and-take session afterwards.
Unless you are a naturally gifted speaker, achieving a conversational presentation will require a good deal of rehearsal. Some grantmakers disdain rehearsals on the grounds that they are too busy or that it savors too much of show business. The benefits of an excellent conversational presentation, however, far outweigh the costs of the preparation.
3. Convincing through enthusiasm. During the presentation, you become the salesperson for the proposed project. Here, unfortunately, is where your stage fright can come into play. For some program officers, it is all they can manage to force themselves to do a workmanlike job of presenting while concealing their unease. Asking them to whip up some enthusiasm is asking a lot, indeed. Nonetheless, enthusiasm matters. If the salesperson for the project cannot demonstrate the great opportunity that the project offers, there are certainly other salespeople and other projects for the foundation to support. All of this is not to say that you must be a cheerleader during the presentation; it is to say that you should not project the gravitas of a Supreme Court justice. Enthusiasm truly is contagious, and when you are presenting a funding document, an epidemic of enthusiasm is a welcome affliction.
4. Using humor—but very sparingly. Foundations are all over the map when it comes to the atmosphere of the committee or board room. In some, the favored mood is one of hushed solemnity; in others, the preferred atmosphere is informal and light. Obviously, humor should be banned from presentations to mirthless committees or boards. Even in the less formal settings, you should use humor only with great care. One program officer remarked, “At my board meetings, seven people are allowed to be witty, but I ain't one of them.” In less colloquial terms, behavior that is considered appropriate for an officer or a trustee of the foundation may not be considered appropriate for a program officer. Humor is best used strategically, as a change of pace or a tension releaser. Whole categories of humor are off-limits, including anything in questionable taste, of course, but also ad hominem jibes. Never, never do you wish to give the impression that you are laughing at the question being asked or, especially, laughing at the questioner. Even the use of self-deprecating humor is a dicey proposition, for it might call into question your competence or credibility.
What, then, might you use to leaven the presentation? About the only safe type of humor concerns something that bears directly on the requested project. Often an anecdote from a site visit will provide the comic relief needed. For example, one program officer told of how he had been pressing corps members in a youth service program to tell about the program's drawbacks. After several attempts, one young woman finally said she had one to share. She stood, pointed at her pants, and said, “It's these uniforms! They are drop-dead ugly!” This anecdote not only is amusing but also reinforces the recommendation, for it tells the members that the youth being served are happy with the program—they must be, for their biggest complaint is sartorial, not programmatic. Even with “safe” humor, however, it is best to limit yourself to a single use per session, for the worst thing you can do is to project a frivolous or clowning image.
5. Anticipating questions. When preparing your presentation, ask yourself, “Were I a member of the committee, what questions would I have about this project?” Then be sure to include the answers to the two or three most important questions. For example, if the request is to make a grant to a new and small organization, trustees will surely have questions about the organization's ability to successfully administer the project. Or if a proposed grantee is controversial, you should address this issue up front. It is better for you to raise such issues, if for no other reason than to prove that you are aware of them and have considered them.
Third Rails
1. Going on too long. This is one of the most serious mistakes you can make. Unfortunately, writing a short talk is no easier than writing a short funding document. There is so much that you could say, and probably should say, that it is difficult indeed to pare it down. Yet pare it down you must, for the longer the presentation, the more restless becomes the audience. One grantmaker relates that when he presented his first funding document, his stage fright caused him to speak too rapidly and for longer than he had planned. After he finally finished, the first thing one of the officers of the foundation said was, “You should look into a new twelve-step program I recently heard about. It's called ‘Onandon-Anon.’”
2. Rehashing information found in the funding document. The most deadly of all mistakes is simply to read a passage of the document, verbatim, to the committee or board, each member of which has already read the material. Your doing so is very much like saying to members, ‘You cannot read, so I'll do it for you.” Use the presentation to give committee or board members project-related information not included in the funding document. Or the presentation can be topical: you can relate the request to a recent news report or journal article. The presentation is an opportunity to offer additional information in support of the requested project. If you use this opportunity to repeat old news, it is simply an opportunity lost.
3. Ignoring body language. It is ironic that in an oral presentation, the nonverbal communication often counts as much, if not more, than what is actually said. No matter how eloquent or sensible the words, if you deliver them with a scowl, or if your stance is closed and standoffish, the verbiage is not likely to be heard. You can project feelings of hostility, defensiveness, or unease through nonverbal cues just as easily as through verbal ones, and with the same disastrous results. Always remember to smile, open your stance, and physically relax whenever you are making a presentation.
4. Dropping names. Quoting experts to support a point is good practice when used in moderation, but when a parade of authorities, celebrities, and personages wend interminably through the presentation, name dropping ceases to be persuasive and starts to become annoying. Such as approach begins to say to the members of the committee or board, in effect, “People more intelligent, eminent, and important than you support this proposed project, so it would behoove you to do likewise.” Great names are like Great Danes: a couple are probably all that can be handled at one time.