Fix Your Top 5 Bugga-boo’s in 2026

With the start of the New Year, it’s a good time to reevaluate, recalibrate, and level set where and how we spend our precious time — our most valuable asset.

Knowing yourself well enough to assess whether your time is being well spent is key to saving time. If you know that you’re good at one thing but not good at another, that information can keep you from frittering away your time and not having enough time for an otherwise useful pursuit.

I know enough to be dangerous at social media — or rather, implementing social media posts. I can fall down that rabbit hole if left to my own devices, and spend countless hours and get nowhere. I know and admit this about myself.

What do I do about it? I outsource the job. Rather than spending hours and hours doing something sub-par, I have found someone who knows his way around the tech and can turn out decent social posts for me in a fraction of the time it would take me.

Money well spent, in my estimation. I get time back to do something I am good at, like write these blogs. And if the blogs aren’t written, the whole machine grinds to a halt. So I prioritize keeping social media posting off my plate and instead keeping the pipeline full of blog articles.

You can probably identify something you’re damn good at, and something you can maybe do but are not the best at.

Are you not great at one of these Top 5 bugga-boo’s:

1. 1. Budgets?
   2. Prospect research?
   3. Logic models?
   4. Funder cultivation?
   5. Reports?

Knowing what you’re not the best at and knowing what you hate doing are two different things. Maybe you can slog through those tasks, but you dread it. Let’s look at the list again.

What do you just dislike:

1. 1. Budgets?
   2. Prospect research?
   3. Logic models?
   4. Cultivate funders?
   5. Reports?

I can do a decent job at reporting, but I hate doing it. That’s the difference. Having that mental block about reporting makes the task weightier and take longer. Is it worth my doing it, or would it be better to delegate it?

Identifying what you EITHER hate doing or are just not great at is worth examining in 2026. Because there are tools and tricks out there that may make you more productive, and the task more enjoyable for you.

Here’s some ideas:

1. 1. Budgets?
      • Make your budget building part of Program Design. Include all the elements that would cost your agency, even if you think you can “get it for free” (count those things as “in-kind donations,” and put their value in both Income and Expense).
      • Ask the experts! To make sure you’re including all the right items, the right amount of time taken, and the right staff to implement the program, ask the end-user (Program staff, HR, etc.). You don’t have to guess which widget is the right one for the job — ask the expert!
   2. Prospect research?
      • Use the research tool that you like best. There’s lots of choices out there. Shop around, and use the one that seems the most intuitive to you. I like Foundation Directory and GrantStation, but there’s also Instrumentl, and other search databases that can make the job less onerous and more like a treasure hunt.
      • Look at your org or program through a different lens. Think about who you serve, but then also who reaps residual benefits from what your org does. Do you serve the homeless population in your town? Then doesn’t City Services or EMS or the hospital system also benefit from the fact that there’s fewer at-risk people to look after?
   3. Logic models?
      • Building a logic model can be a huge win for your grant success. Once you understand the process, it can help you make your programs (and therefore apps) stronger, identify program costs, and see when and what to evaluate (which makes reporting easier). Check it all out in my blog, and the Ebook I developed that’s even more comprehensive.
      • Make model-building a team sport! Include all the minds in your org that are (or could/should be) invested in your program — I’m talking Program, Finance, HR, IT, Marketing — and work together to make sure your new program is being designed (or your existing program is being revamped) with all important elements accounted for.
   4. Cultivate funders?
      • Make it a ritual! Vetting new prospects, checking in with current funders, inquiring how to strengthen your next proposal with funders who rejected your last proposal — these are all tasks that should be elevated on your calendar as VERY IMPORTANT!
      • Make sure your org understands the importance of relationship-building. Get others on your team, or some of your board members involved in building and maintaining those relationships. Because having all that on just your shoulders is a heavy lift!
   5. Reports?
      • Get the right tool to stay organized and make sure it serves you! Grants management is a ball buster for me. But there’s lots of tools out there to help: ZoomGrants, Grant Holster, and Blackbaud, to name just a few. Even if you just use an Excel spreadsheet, make sure it is helping you and not costing you time and aggravation.
      • Make reporting part of program design. The logic model process shows you just where, when, and what to evaluate, so call out those measurables you will be collecting in the program description of your apps. Reporting time becomes turnkey!

See? There’s lots of possible workarounds. I’m sure this list of ideas can help brush away the cobwebs and get you to rethink what you can do to minimize the least lovely part of your day/week/month.

Let’s make this a New Year’s resolution. Find what you have to do that drags you down, and then find a way to make it uplifting instead. The rest of your 2026 will be a breeze if you take the worst thing you do and make it one of the best!

Happy 2026!