Transcript
WEBVTT
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wait, let's make it a little easier on the donor.
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Every time they think about us, maybe if they could just stop pulled out their phone and went right to our landing page and clicked on that give button and make their gift.
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I mean, come, that button is big and it's colorful and it sticks out and you can't miss it.
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It's there, it's so easy to see.
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We should be getting multiple gifts multiple times a day, right?
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Well, wouldn't that be great?
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Unfortunately, we know that's not reality.
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The real world is a little different.
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Asking someone to help you fundraise is just like asking for the gift.
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You have to ask them for their help.
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Welcome to the practice of nonprofit leadership.
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I'm Nathan Ruby.
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Well, I am flying solo today and that kind of makes me sad for two reasons.
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One is, you know, I miss my friend, I miss Tim, and we've been friends for a long, long time and we built this podcast together and we started it together, and part of the fun of this podcast, besides getting to engage with our listeners, is the time that we get to spend together.
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So when I'm uh, when I'm doing this solo, I always a little sad that I don't have Tim to to be looking at while we're recording this Um and second, the second reason I'm a little sad is because Tim is the brains of this operation and he's the one that always runs the backend of the recording and all of that and and it's it's hard work and it's a lot of stress and you know you got to push this button and then you got to do this, and then you got to do that and then at the end, if you don't hit the right buttons in the right order, the whole thing goes away and there's no show and we have to do it over again.
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So it's just it's a lot of stress and it's just way easier when it's way easier when Tim does that Well, at least it's way easier for me.
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So, all right, I am really excited about today's show and the topic we're going to be talking about, and our topic is helping you learn and be able to recruit, encourage your existing donors, volunteers, other stakeholders to help you fundraise and specifically to encourage them to put you in front of major gift prospects.
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Now a couple of things before we get started on this.
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And every once in a while I talk about the Mr Hackle effect and I'm um, and I think the Mr Mr Hackle effect is in play in this episode.
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And for those of you that haven't heard that, the Mr, mr Hackle, was my fifth grade math teacher.
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Um, he was also my sixth grade math teacher, my seventh grade and my eighth grade math teacher.
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Uh, he was also the superintendent of the school and he was also the principal of the school.
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I went to a small school at junior high and grade school, but Mr Hackle would be up on his math teacher and so he'd be up at the board and he'd be doing, I don't know, whatever we were learning, whatever math we learned in fifth grade and sixth grade long division, whatever it was, and it made perfect sense, perfect sense to me when he was doing it on the board and I thought, oh my gosh, finally I got it.
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I got it figured out.
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This is going to be awesome.
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And I would go home.
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I had opened my book on the days that I actually did my homework.
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I'd open my book and I would start.
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I had my little lined piece of paper and my pencil and I would do the first math problem and it was awesome.
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I would nail that thing.
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I was like bam done, got it On to the next one and I would typically get that one.
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It was a little, maybe a little harder, but I would get it, no worries.
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Number three this is getting a little harder and maybe I got it right, maybe I didn't.
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By number four, by the fourth problem, or if we were doing even numbers, it'd be two, four, six, whatever.
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By the fourth problem I'm done, it's changed.
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It's not what he did on the board.
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I have no clue what they're talking about.
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So it was whoop, close that book and outside to play If I could get out before my mom saw me going outside.
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So so, and I think that's a lot in, especially when it comes to fundraising.
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You know, we go to conferences, we go to training.
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Uh, of course, now there's just so much online you could, you could, you could go watch a fundraising training every day of the week, you know, twice a week if you wanted to.
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And we do these things and I'm not saying those aren't bad, because they are good and we do learn from that and I do them for sure but often it's not enough, because we see that we're introduced to something and unless you are a longtime fundraiser and do this as a living and it's your primary job, a lot of it just doesn't make sense when you start trying to apply it in your own situation.
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So, if the Mr Hackle effect is in play here and I think it is what I want you to do as we go through this and you listen to this and I listen to podcasts just like you do, and I've got my favorite ones that I listen to, and often I listen to them when I'm in the car, maybe when I'm walking the dog.
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Mostly I listen to it when I'm in the car, and so it's hard for me to write things down, to take notes and especially to engage with the podcast, to engage with the host, and I have to really force myself to do that.
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And so in this case, in today, I want you and I really recommend that, if you think this will work for you, but you just you need some more help, or you don't quite understand it, or you need a little, uh, encouragement, or you need a little push in the right way Please, please, please, reach out to Tim and I, um, whenever you get to a place where you can, where you can look in the show notes, our emails are there.
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Email us, reach out to us and we will help you get started on this because I really truly believe that if you get good at doing this, you will go out and raise some of the biggest gifts you've ever secured that could transform or catapult your organization forward.
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Okay, all right, enough of the, enough of the intro, let's get into it, all right.
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So how do we encourage your constituents to help you fundraise, especially major gifts?
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By going and introducing you to other people, new people that will get excited about what you're doing.
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All right, number one you've got to build a strong relationship first.
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So, as we go through this, we're going to, we're going to say that you have an existing uh, should we make it a donor or should we make it a board member?
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Um, let's make it a, let's make it a board member.
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And, uh, so we'll use that as our example and we're going to name them.
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Uh, what going to name them?
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What?
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Bill, bill, I got to get my pen to work so I can write it down, or otherwise I'll forget.
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Bill and Sandy.
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Ok, there we go.
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So, bill and Sandy, to help you identify and get in front of other major gift prospects, you've got to ensure, make sure, that you have a strong connection with them.
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So what are some.
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What are some indicators?
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What would?
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What would a strong relationship look like?
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And this is not a.
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This is not the only list, but it's just just some examples of what that might look like.
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First of all is they.
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They have to like you personally, and so what does that look like?
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Well, can you joke with them?
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Can you tell a joke and not feel uncomfortable or feel like, oh, I don't know if I should say that or not.
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If you could joke with them, that's an indicator that you've got a pretty good relationship buildup.
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Have you spent time at their home or some other location together?
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Some of the best relationships that I've built over my 25 plus years of fundraising I have been those best relationships.
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I have spent time in their homes and a lot of those.
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My wife and I have spent time with them homes and a lot of those I have.
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Actually my wife and I have spent time with them and they have been at our house.
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Now, I'm not saying that's every donor, obviously that's that's not everyone, but the highest level, deepest relationships that I've built in this career.
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I have been either to their home or they've been to ours if they're local.
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So that would be an example.
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Another example is if you have a deep enough relationship is can you carry on a half hour conversation on a topic that is not the organization?
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So, whether it's sports or art, or their dog or their kids or your, or what's going on in current events, whatever, if you could carry on a sustained conversation with your board member, with your person outside of the organization, then that's an indicator that you've got a pretty good relationship and probably deep enough to actually do this All right.
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Next in the relationship versus the relationship with you, and that is probably the most important, second is a relationship with the organization, and this is this is this is very important too.
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Um, they need to feel deeply connected to your mission, vision and mission and to be deeply proud of being associated with your organization.
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So I think typically the donors board members that I've done this with that have helped me are all donors that have been at least three-year donors, because it takes time to build that relationship with your organization.
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They have to understand who your organization is and the impact that it makes in the community, and you don't learn that overnight.
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You have people that write checks that will give you a check and, even though they don't totally understand your output, what's your, the outcomes that you're doing, uh, but they, they will write a check anyway, and so it takes time to build that deep of a relationship.
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So they, they've read your newsletters.
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Probably not going to, probably not going to read all your newsletters, but they've.
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They've read.
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They've read some.
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Uh, they've been to an event or two.
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They've listened to stories from your end users, the people that are benefiting from the work that you do.
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They've received emails, they've talked to you.
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So they've got this deeper understanding of who you are as an organization, the impact that you make, and they have become personally connected with your organization and what you're doing.
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So, number one if you're going to ask a donor or board member in our case, bill and Sandy if you're going to ask them to help you introduce you to new donor prospects, they've got to have a deep, deep relationship with you first, and then with the organization second.
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All right, so strong relationships.
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That's number one.
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Number two is you have to make this very easy for your donor or your person.
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You have to make this very easy for Bill and Sandy to do this, and the reason for that is very, very, very few people are natural fundraisers.
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Now, fundraising is something that you can learn Anybody.
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Very, very few people are natural fundraisers.
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Now, fundraising is something that you can learn Anybody.
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Well, maybe not anybody, but vast majority of people can learn how to be an effective fundraiser.
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If you're listening to this podcast, I would almost guarantee you that you can learn how to be a fundraiser.
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If you're not doing it all, or if you're doing it and you just don't feel like you're doing the best at it, you can learn to be effective doing this.
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The people that can't do this probably would never be listening to this podcast period.
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So the fact that you're here listening means that you've self-selected and you could do this.
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Listening means that you've self-selected and you could.
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You could do this.
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Now, are there, are?
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Are there some people that were born to to be really good fundraisers?
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Yes, absolutely.
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They are out there, but I'll tell you that's pretty rare.
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Most people, for sure Most people did not, at eight years old, say you know what, I am going to grow up and I'm going to be a.
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That doesn't happen.
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Most people end up in the fundraising role by some oddball pathway.
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They became executive director or they fell into a position somehow, or maybe they were part of program and then they ended up being on the event team and then they ended up doing grant writing because they didn't have anybody else to do it.
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And now all of a sudden, you're doing it.
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Most people get into fundraising on a, on a, on a an odd path.
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That's not.
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I grow up, I went to high school, I went to college, I got a degree in fundraising and now I'm fundraising professionally.
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I think maybe in the future more of that will happen, but typically in the past, and I think even today, that's pretty rare.
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So you are asking someone, you're going to be asking someone to fundraise for you or to help you fundraise, and so you're asking someone to do something that goes against their personality and is outside of their comfort zone.
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So, right off the bat, I mean, nobody likes to do things outside of their comfort zone.
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You know that's why they call it a comfort zone.
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You know I'm I am not a big uh accounting finance person.
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So if you were going to ask me to sit down for an entire day and look at spreadsheets, that would be outside of my comfort zone.
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I don't want to do it.
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So so you're asking someone to do something that is outside of what they would normally do.
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So if you're going to do that, then you have to make it really really simple to make it easier for them to say yes.
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So what does that look like?
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What?
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What do you do?
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You need to make it simple, all right.
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Here's a few things.
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One is I think you really need to have clear and compelling materials about your organization's impact.
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Now, I'm not saying go out and spend $7,000 or $5,000, making a whole bunch of brochures and infographics and stuff like that.
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All you need is something simple.
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If you don't have a marketing budget, just you could do it on one page and just talk about vision and mission and then tell a story about how your organization impacts people's lives and is working towards that vision and mission.
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That's all it has to be.
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It could be one piece of paper Maybe it's one piece of paper on both sides but you need to have something for them that can communicate pretty compellingly and clearly what your organization does and how it impacts the community.
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So that's one.
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Second is you need to make sure that they understand exactly what you want them to do.
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So is that a?
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Are you asking them to set up a one-on-one visit with a prospect?
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Are you asking them to do a small gathering at their house?
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Are you asking them to introduce you to a prospect via email or phone call?
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You need to have very clear in your mind what it is that you want them to do.
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Then you need to make sure that you give them how to do it with a step-by-step guide.
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To do it with a step-by-step guide.
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So I'm going to, let's say, with Bill and Sandy, let's say that they you know that Bill and Sandy's next door neighbor is a, you know, one of the, one of the largest philanthropists it's easy for me to say philanthropists in the in town, and your organization doesn't know them and you want them to introduce you to them.
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Okay, so now how are we going to?
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How do you want them to do that?
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Well, you may or may not know clearly how you want them to do that, and it would make sense for you to ask them to go to Bill and Sandy and say listen, bill and Sandy, you know I I'd really like to meet your neighbors across the street.
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Uh, I'm not sure how to go about that.
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Could you help me to do that?
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Okay, so, and then you talk through what what that might look like together, but ultimately, whenever you decide what they just whatever they would decide that they want to do, we'll invite them over for cocktails, or we'll invite them over for dinner and have you come, or whatever it is that you're going to do Once you decide what it is that you're going to do, then you need to help walk them through exactly how you want them to do this, and I think I'm going to say it again like I said at the beginning of the show, there's a lot of people, a lot of executive directors, get to this part and they say, okay, I've got a donor, I've got a board member, I've got Bill and Sandy.
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I think they'll help me do this, but I have no idea myself what this would look like or how this would work.
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So how am I supposed to tell Bill and Sandy how to do this when I don't even know how to do this?
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All right, if that's you, then as soon as this is over, or even if you want to do it right now, stop the show, find our email in the show notes and email Tim and I and get on a phone call with us and we will.
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You tell us the situation, what you think will work, what you think might be the case, and then Tim and I will walk you through what that looks like and how to do that.
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Okay, so you got to make it easy, got to make it easy for your donors to say yes.
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And remember if your donor, if Bill and Sandy are, if they have doubts, if they don't understand, if they don't have a clear understanding of what you're asking them to do and how they're going to do it, they will say no, going to do it.
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They will say no Because the last thing Bill and Sandy wants to do is to look silly or to look incompetent or to look badly in front of their neighbors or in front of people they know, in front of their friends.
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So you've got to be very clear, very compelling, and make sure that they understand what you want and what they're supposed to do and you will have a much higher percentage of people saying yes to helping you.
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All right.
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So first is relationship relationship with you, relationship with the organization.
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Second, make it easy for your donors.
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Third is you have to ask Now, life would be so much easier if donors just stopped what they're doing, got their checkbook out, wrote a check, found an envelope, put the check in the envelope, put a stamp on it and then dropped it into the mailbox every time they thought about our organizations.
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Or wait, wait, let's make it even easier on the donor.
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Let's say, every time they thought about us, they just stopped, pulled out their phone, went to our landing page on that great website that we have clicked on the give button and made a gift.
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I mean, come on, that button is big and it's colorful and it's at the top of the landing page and you can't miss that button.
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I mean we should be getting gifts multiple times a day, every day, right?
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Well, wouldn't that be great?
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But unfortunately, we live in the real world and we know that that's not how it actually works.
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In the real world, though, you have to ask someone for a gift, and, just like that, you have to ask someone.
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We're going to have to ask Bill and Sandy to help us fundraising, just like we would in asking for a gift.
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So how do we do that?
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And remember, we're asking a donor, or, in this case, bill and Sandy are board members we're asking them to help us identify, cultivate and ask another donor for a gift.
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That's a heavy lift, so we know that we're going to have to ask them to do that.
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They just, they simply will not volunteer on their own.
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I've been, I've been fundraising as a career up over 25 years now, and I will tell you, one time in my entire career I had one person, one.
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They weren't even a donor yet, they haven't even made their first gift yet, and they came and they said I would like to help your organization fundraise.
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This is how I'd like to do it, this is what my gift is going to be and this is what I'd like to do.
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And after my jaw, I had to pick my jaw up off the floor.
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Um, I said awesome, uh, and it, it, it worked out amazingly, but that was once, so that.
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So I'm not saying there's no chance at all that you won't have somebody come and help you do this without being asked, but I will say that's pretty rare, pretty rare to have somebody do that.
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So, all right.
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So if we know that we have to ask someone to help us do this, let's put the odds in our favor.
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So how do we do that?
00:22:29.450 --> 00:22:33.615
Well, I want you to think in terms of one.
00:22:33.615 --> 00:22:39.813
I want you to find one existing relationship that you have.
00:22:39.813 --> 00:22:42.357
So in our case, here we have Bill and Sandy.
00:22:42.357 --> 00:22:45.253
Bill and Sandy was our relationship.
00:22:45.253 --> 00:22:46.980
They could be anybody.
00:22:46.980 --> 00:22:52.406
It could be your board president, it could be a passport member, it could be a donor, it could be a volunteer, it could be anyone.
00:22:52.406 --> 00:22:58.459
It doesn't have to be anybody in particular, just somebody that you have a deep relationship with.
00:22:58.746 --> 00:23:04.510
So think back up into number one when we were talking about what does it look like to have a deep relationship with a donor?
00:23:04.510 --> 00:23:16.508
All right, and you take that person, in this case Bill and Sandy, and you go to them and you tell them what you want to do and ask them to make a contact for you.
00:23:16.508 --> 00:23:23.507
Now we're going to make it simple, we're going to make it easy, uh, so that they understand exactly what you're asking them to do.
00:23:23.507 --> 00:23:42.651
And I think, um, you could be I don't know if I want to use the word aggressive, because that's not really the right word but I think you could be a little more assertive than you might otherwise be on this, and you do that.
00:23:42.651 --> 00:23:49.263
You be assertive by saying, bill and Sandy, I'm trying this new strategy.
00:23:49.263 --> 00:23:51.511
I think this is going to work.
00:23:51.511 --> 00:24:32.144
I think this is something that will really help the organization, it will really help our fundraising and I would like for you guys to introduce me and help me cultivate a new donor and maybe you have a donor that you already have in mind for them, or you could do the same thing, or you could say that same thing and say I really like for you, if you have people that you think would be a good fit for us, that have the same level of capacity that you do, would you introduce me and I think you could be assertive on that by saying we need to kickstart some additional fundraising.
00:24:32.144 --> 00:24:35.530
We don't have enough funding to meet the needs that we have.
00:24:35.530 --> 00:24:46.599
I really need to do this and you're my number one, you're my number one donor, you're my number one volunteer, you're my number one board member to help me do this.
00:24:46.599 --> 00:24:48.431
Would you help me do this?
00:24:49.071 --> 00:25:07.137
And when most donors especially if they're a little higher on the donor scale when you really tell them that you need their help and that they can make a difference, the chances of them saying yes goes off the chart.
00:25:07.137 --> 00:25:17.178
Donors love to write checks, because that's what donors do, but they also want to be able to help in other ways besides just writing a check.
00:25:17.178 --> 00:25:19.723
And so if you have a good relationship.
00:25:19.723 --> 00:25:28.798
If I have a good relationship with Bill and Sandy, they really understand the organization and I go to Bill and Sandy and say, listen, I need your help.
00:25:28.798 --> 00:25:31.030
This is what I'd like for you to do.
00:25:31.030 --> 00:25:34.059
Chances of them saying yes are very, very high.
00:25:34.059 --> 00:25:40.661
So we've got Bill and Sandy that's our one board member or one volunteer.
00:25:40.661 --> 00:25:47.321
You're going to ask them to help you introduce you to one donor, not two, not three, not five, not 10, just one.
00:25:47.321 --> 00:25:52.739
Stick to one and then take that donor all the way through the process.
00:25:52.739 --> 00:25:54.863
So you get introduced.
00:25:54.863 --> 00:25:56.794
However, you're going to get introduced to them.
00:25:56.794 --> 00:25:59.862
You build a relationship with the new donor.
00:25:59.862 --> 00:26:02.357
You introduce them to the organization.
00:26:02.357 --> 00:26:08.095
You share stories about all the great things that you're doing and all the impact that you're making in the community.
00:26:08.737 --> 00:26:17.837
And then it comes time to ask for the gift and a gift doesn't have to be huge, you know it's whatever a meaningful gift is for your organization.
00:26:17.837 --> 00:26:19.000
Maybe it's $100.
00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:20.342
Maybe it's $500.
00:26:20.342 --> 00:26:21.442
Maybe it's $1,000.
00:26:21.442 --> 00:26:23.384
Whatever is meaningful.
00:26:23.384 --> 00:26:32.195
Then, when it's time to ask, then you have Bill and Sandy.
00:26:32.195 --> 00:26:32.717
Part of that ask.
00:26:32.717 --> 00:26:34.942
You have them because they introduced the new donor or the new prospect.
00:26:34.942 --> 00:26:41.411
They were part of the cultivation process and now it is natural and normal for them to be part of that ask.
00:26:41.832 --> 00:27:02.531
So what I'm recommending you do is, again, you focus on one, bill and Sandy that's my one volunteer introducing me to one donor and then you're taking that donor all the way through the process and that could take maybe that takes a month, maybe it takes six months, maybe it takes a year, I don't know.
00:27:02.531 --> 00:27:06.380
It just depends on how quickly the donor wants to go.
00:27:06.380 --> 00:27:19.138
Then, once you get to the end and you've made an ask, then you come back to Bill and Sandy and say, oh my gosh, thank you so much that you guys did such a great job.
00:27:19.138 --> 00:27:21.202
That just made such a difference.
00:27:21.202 --> 00:27:23.036
Can we do it again?
00:27:23.036 --> 00:27:28.079
Can we pick out another prospect and start this whole process over again?
00:27:28.079 --> 00:27:35.942
And you do it again, and then, over time, bill and Sandy, maybe you've, over time, two or three people that they're working with.
00:27:35.942 --> 00:27:43.130
Then you could go to the next let's just say board member again, because it's the easiest to as an example.
00:27:43.130 --> 00:27:47.238
So then you go to your next board member and you say, Bill and Sandy, have you know?
