Boy, do we need to do a better job on this front!  I know how hard it is having been in all the roles that work with a board on this: executive director, director of development, board chair, board member, and more.  But part of what makes it hard is how we’re going about it.  I encourage you to take a step back to look at the big, long-term picture.  Think of the impact your organization can make in 10 years if the board is more strategically involved in your fundraising.  What will it take?

Forget a Top 10 – let’s focus on the Top 4!

Train Them

Yes, train them!  It takes 1,200 hours of instruction to cut hair in New Jersey (and this is not a ding against hair stylists!) and yet we send our board members out to slaughter with virtually no training.  Board members must be taught how to tell their story, how to cultivate, how to set up meetings and how to conduct them.  They must learn that fundraising is only 5% about asking for a gift and 95% about cultivating donors.  Otherwise they’ll continue to say “I’ll do anything but fundraise.”

Stop Asking Them to Hit Up Everyone They Know

Board members should not have to provide you their list or ask everyone they know. This is, in general, terrible fundraising (see my post entitled No More Asking Board Members to Swap Gifts with Friends for why). If you involve them in strategic relationship-building rather than transactional fundraising, they’ll be much more willing to fundraise…and much more effective.  And, for many small or mid-sized organizations, your board members are best off spending their time on your organization’s current donors rather than finding new ones among their networks.

Inspire Them

Board members are generally responsible folks.  They’ll do what they’re asked/required to do.  But if they’re inspired by a great vision and are part of strategic planning to fulfill that vision, they will have more ownership and be inspired to raise the funds for it.  So don’t look at them as a group that rubber stamps what the staff want to do, but rather as partners in figuring out what’s best to do.

Give Them More Opportunities to Experience Your Programs

Of all the hours board members contribute, most are spent in board and committee meetings. So, first off, make sure those meetings are rich in content.  Lots of strategic discussion and lots of presentation of your programs by program staff (and participants when possible).  Second, make it a priority for board members to experience program firsthand wherever possible.  That could be virtually today, but it should be live in real time.  Perhaps even trade off some board and committee meeting hours for time spent experiencing program.

Here’s to increasing your board’s involvement in strategic, relationship-building fundraising in 2023.

 

Share your results!

What will it take for us to get rid of this pernicious habit? It is such awful fundraising on every level, and we’re swapping so much long-term good for a bit of short-term gain.

It reminds me of credit card debt. I mentor a young gentleman of 23, let’s call him Alex, who has some credit card debt. Alex wants to pay it off slowly and put away an equal part of his paycheck. That sounds good. In reality, he’s trading some short-term false sense of security for his long-term financial health. If he paid off all the debt now, he would pay the credit card company far less overall and end up saving more.

The same is true of board-led fundraising.

Deadly Scenario Seen Again and Again

Let’s assume Anna sits on the board of your organization and you’re asking Anna to raise all the money she can. Perhaps you ask her to write an end-of-year letter or send out invitations for your fundraising events. Perhaps you’ve got a minimum “get” policy. Whatever it is, chances are you’re pushing Anna to look at her circle of influence for gifts.

While asking board members to evaluate their networks makes sense, asking them to do it for immediate gifts forces them to look at those they can arm-twist for funds, or those who know they can ask your board members in return.

So, Anna, being a good doobie, sends out letters and raises $2,000. Or sells $2,000 worth of tickets to your events.

What happens now?

  1. Anna probably tells you, “These friends gave because of me. Please don’t bother them during the year. Don’t put them on your mailing lists. I’ll go back and ask them again next year.”
  2. You add them to the database coded as “don’t contact” and send out four thank you notes. Anna finds out at least one is in error (“I told you Susie and Doug are divorced – this gift only came from Susie, and she was upset the letter referred to Doug”).
  3. Anna is solicited by her four friends and sends $2,000 worth of charitable gifts to their organizations. Or goes to four events she’d rather not go to! And now she’s given $2,000 of her money to causes very possibly not near and dear to her.
  4. At the end of the year, the cycle repeats. And every year it’s a bit awkward for Anna and her friends.

Here’s the kicker:

  1. One day Anna leaves the board. Guess what? All the donors she solicited leave with her because their allegiance is to her, not the organization, and she’s not going to solicit them once she steps down. It’s awkward again between her and her friends as they still want to solicit her but she’s not so keen to give.
  2. Now your organization replaces Anna on the board…and that person has to replace the money Anna raised.

Yikes! Have you seen this play out at your organization, or even in the fundraising you yourself do as a board member elsewhere?

This is Awful on Every Front

Anna feels put upon. She probably hated doing this fundraising in the first place and only did it to be a good board member (as you’ve defined it). She’s also, if she did this for six years, given $12,000 to organizations not in her sweet spot (as opposed to giving those dollars to you!). She might even have stepped down because she hated doing this fundraising.

Your organization has wasted resources a) interacting with Anna about these transactional donors, b) tracking the donors in your CRM, c) writing personalized thank you notes, and more.

You’ve brought in dollars short-term but do not have any more long-term donors who are passionate about your organization than when you started. You’re just reinventing the wheel year after year.

Ugh, ugh, ugh. I first wrote about this many years ago. I said my one wish was to stop this kind of fundraising. The more work I’ve done with non-profits and their boards, the more convinced I am that we must find a way to dial down this bad fundraising.

What Should Board Members Do?

Board members should only be involved in strategic, relationship-based fundraising. Serving as ambassadors, cultivators, educators, thankers, and, where appropriate, solicitors.

They should serve as mini major gift officers, each carrying a small portfolio – four is my magic number – of major gift prospects (which I define as any donors worth the time to cultivate and solicit individually and in-person when possible).

Those four don’t necessarily have to be in your board members’ own networks. How about all the people who are already donors or solid prospects and could use extra attention? Unless you’re a large non-profit, such as a university, chances are you have limited or no fundraising staff. You certainly don’t have any major gift officers, and your executive director and director of development can only spend so much time cultivating your larger donors.

Why ask board members to hit up those they know for transactional gifts when there are others who would give more if better cultivated? Why have board members ask for gifts you’ll only get in the short run when they can build relationships with donors who would give for many, many years? Why have board members give their money to charities they aren’t passionate about when they’d probably much prefer to give those dollars to you?

We need our board members to help us fundraise. And if we help them fundraise in the right way, we’ll raise much more money. We’ll create a more consistent stream of individual gifts. And they’ll feel so much better about their work. Talk about a win-win.

Share your results!

There have been very few silver linings amid the horrific losses and upheavals of the COVID pandemic. However, over the last two years, I’ve seen COVID act as a catalyst to underscore the importance of the causes we work so hard to address. In fundraising, the stresses we’ve all experienced and lived through can create powerful connections and build common ground between fundraisers and donors.

Every persons’ experience of living through the isolation and trauma caused by COVID is different. Yet, in many ways, we have all been in this together. Though not all of us have lost someone or had our livelihood diminished, we have all lost so much – time with loved ones, the celebration of special occasions, travel, in-person entertainment, and more. We’ve all lost a measure of safety and calm. We are on edge, we’re worn out, we’re tired of wearing our masks and still we’re wondering if we’re safe.

All of this has led to talk about COVID all the time. With anyone and everyone. We can’t help it. If you’re like me, you talk to strangers about it in line at the market. You talk to people returning to their cars in parking lots because they forgot their masks there. You compare notes on when you got your shots.

This means we can – and should (with a noted exception below) – talk about COVID with our donors. We just need to do so sensitively and respectfully. Depending on our relationship, we can share our stories, our perspectives, our fears. We can compare notes on how we’ve managed and what we’ve learned. We can form a closer relationship based on something real we share. And fundraising is all about relationships.

For many, the experience of living through COVID has caused them to significantly re-think their priorities. Many donors and philanthropically minded people are looking for more ways to give back and share their own privilege to help others. While you’re finding personal connections, make sure to tie the conversation back to the mission you represent. Share some recent challenges and successes. Make sure your donor feels involved, they know the impact they are making, and how important they are to your mission.

Exception: We are a divided country, and not everyone agrees on masks, vaccines, and the like. It’s important to be aware of that during your conversations. However, I believe you can still talk about how life has changed and what your hopes are for the future. You can talk about what you’re missing most and what you can’t wait to get back to doing.

Here are the questions I’ve asked donors recently:

We sometimes feel our donors live in a different universe from ours, and when we’re speaking from different generational and wealth-driven perspectives, it can feel as if we don’t have much in common. But the pandemic has brought profound losses, fears, and challenges to all of us, along with a newfound gratitude for the people and missions that are most important to our lives. Let’s talk about all of these things with our donors.

Share your results!

When board members are asked what they’ve gained personally from their board experience, they first and foremost talk about making a difference and having an impact. Serving as a board member often adds another level of meaning to their lives, through the new people and communities they connect with.

There’s another important, though perhaps less-noted value. It’s the opportunity to develop and strengthen leadership and management skills by taking on challenges in an environment that allows for taking risks that might not be acceptable in their professional lives. For example:

Board members can strengthen their ability to work with a team, see issues from different perspectives, and reach decisions by consensus. They learn how to represent an organization, speak about it passionately, develop relationships and obtain important resources.

Teamwork

Teamwork challenges most of us. It requires us to really listen to our peers’ opinions…and value them!  It requires putting the group’s priorities ahead of our own and dealing with personalities we might otherwise avoid.  We generally join boards because of the cause, not the team, and then may have to stretch to learn how to work with the team we’ve joined.

One of our favorite examples of the value of being part of a team comes from a conversation recorded in “The Boys in the Boat” when George Pocock told one of the members of the crew that won the 1936 Olympics:

“When you really start trusting those other boys, you will feel a power within you that is far beyond anything you’ve ever imagined. Sometimes, you will feel as if you have rowed right off the planet and are rowing among the stars.”

The Value of Fundraising

Central to the work of the board is the cultivation of potential donors, and yet this is often the most difficult for board members. Many come with little experience. Most fear it. The hardest work however is often the work that teaches us the most. Actively engaging in fundraising provides board members the opportunity to develop important skills they can use elsewhere.

Key to being a great cultivator is developing a case statement – or story – that is genuine to the teller. This is not an “elevator pitch” but rather a story about the organization that reflects its personal value to the teller. This work leads inevitability to strengthening written and communication skills that are genuine.

Before reaching out to a donor, the board member must conduct some research and strategize about how to convincingly propose a meeting and then to plan how they’d like the meeting to unfold, the questions they will ask, what they will need to learn, and their goal for the meeting.

Think about how much better a board member will be at networking, communicating, planning, and persuading, after having had a few of these cultivation conversations.

Enter the Asking Styles

The Asking Styles were developed by Brian Saber (and Andrea Kihlstedt) to help board members and staff better understand themselves as fundraisers. The Styles use the basic extrovert/introvert and analytic/intuitive personality variables to assign participants to one of four Asking Styles based on their personality strengths.

Find your Asking Style

https://quiz.askingmatters.com/

What We Can Learn from the Styles

Receiving the Asking Styles report in itself provides great value to the board. By mapping them out on the Asking Styles Grid, one can recognize the diversity of board member personalities and how to best use everyone’s strengths and adapt to their limitations.

To further understand the strengths and challenges of each Style, boards can conduct workshops where members have 1:1 and group conversations exploring how to best work together. These exercises deepen our understanding of our own Styles and provide an experiential base for having similar conversations with professional colleagues.

Here are some questions that might be asked of the group:

Each board member can provide valuable fundraising contributions in a way that does not require them to be the imagined prototypical fundraiser. All board members can tell compelling stories from their experience and passion. All can develop relationships successfully in their own way and decide on the most effective way to partner with a fellow board member who has a different Style.

Conclusion

Board service can provide many rewards and benefits beyond making an impact in the world. Good board service builds a whole range of skills to take back out into one’s life. The Asking Styles provide a roadmap for approaching teamwork and fundraising which ensures one’s board experience will be the best possible…and that board members will actually fulfill their fundraising role. The more board members learn through board service, the stronger the skills they take out into the world.

Share your results!

How many times have you tried to get your board to fundraise only to find your efforts failing? If it’s numerous times, you’re in good company. However, Michael Davidson and I believe there is a way forward if you’re willing to strengthen the governance of your board and if you move away from transactional fundraising toward relational fundraising. Here are three steps to take today.

Treat the Board Experience as a Two-Way Street

Board members come to your organization because they care and want to make a difference Along with that they are often, and rightly so, excited to be part of a group, meet new people, and learn new skills. When their experience includes personal growth and meaningful new connections, they will be more inspired and more motivated to do the heavy lifting, which fundraising often is.

Action #1:
Ask your board members what they’d like to get out of their experience in addition to making an impact. You might have a group discussion, but we also recommend annual one-on-one meetings with a board leader to set a plan for the year that includes personal growth and accomplishment.

Understand the Importance of Teamwork and Work to Build It

Most of the work of a board is done as a team. Decisions are made by the team. Fiduciary responsibility belongs to the team. Governance is accomplished by a team. If the team isn’t strong, the work won’t be solid, and the institution will get bogged down in inertia or worse.

Further, much fundraising is done by board members individually, perhaps in partnership with staff. While the work isn’t conducted as a team, it is deeply dependent on a strong sense of team. Team members can’t do their work if they don’t know what it is, and they won’t do it if they don’t believe everyone else is doing theirs. We believe everyone on a board needs to help fundraise (not necessarily solicit gifts!), and that means everyone feeling they’re part of a team where everyone is doing this hard work.

Action #2:
Have everyone on your board take the Asking Styles Assessment at askingmatters.com, and then map out the results on the grid. At your next board meeting take 10 minutes to discuss how the balance of Styles impacts the work of the board, and break people into groups of two or three to discuss how they might better work together given their Styles.

Stop Quid-Pro-Quo, Tit-for-Tat Board Fundraising

Most board fundraising we encounter is transactional. Board members hit up people they know for gifts, often having to make gifts to those people’s organizations in return. It’s not getting anyone anywhere (listen to this chat I had with Jerry Panas a few years back). Worse than that, it’s deadening. Board members hate it and eventually throw up their hands and say “I don’t know who else to ask.”

Action #3 – A Bigger Step!:
Try to wean yourself off this practice and, instead, look at board members as mini major gift officers helping you cultivate and steward your organization’s donors. Unless you’re one of the big non-profits you don’t have major gift staff to spend the time educating, cultivating, involving, and thanking your current donors. We believe board members can make a much bigger long-term impact doing this work rather than hitting up friends for transactional gifts that don’t lead to relationship building. Start by having each board member thank four current donors, and then a few months later write to those four donors updating them on the work of your organization.

Engaged boards will fundraise. Michael and I have seen it done successfully through our work over the years. But it doesn’t just happen. It takes good governance and setting board members up to do the right work. Start that work today with these three steps and your board will raise more funds for you starting tomorrow.


Brian Saber is the recent co-author, with Michael Davidson, of Engaged Boards Will Fundraise! How Good Governance Inspires Them,” available tomorrow at amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and even perhaps your local bookstore! He is also the author of “Asking Styles: Revolutionize Your Fundraising,” and “Boards and Asking Styles: A Roadmap to Success.” He can be reached at askingmatters.com and briansaber.com.

Share your results!
 
September 2021

Come Check Out My Brand New Website!

Learn how my services can help grow your nonprofit

Dear [First Name],

I am so excited to announce that my new website, BrianSaber.com, is now live!

While all of you know about my work at Asking Matters, many don't know that I also offer a wide range of consulting, training, and speaking services for nonprofits.

I’m incredibly fortunate to have spent my career in the nonprofit world, a world with important values and strong community. I’ve worked with more than 150 individual organizations over the past 30 years, and have conducted more than 200 training sessions. I’ve also presented 600+ webinars for a range of online audiences. If you want to learn more about my services and how I may be able to help your organization, please visit BrianSaber.com and reach out to me!

Save 25% on my upcoming CharityHowTo Webinars

Don't miss this exclusive offer for the Asking Matters community

This fall, would you like to:

  • Be more strategic by setting up a basic individual cultivation and solicitation program?
  • Increase your board’s personal giving and their involvement in fundraising?
If so, I can help! I’m leading several webinars for CharityHowTo this fall, and because you’re a member of the Asking Matters community, you can take one or both at a HUGE discount: save 25% when you sign up today.

These webinars have been rated number #1 by CharityHowTo members every time I’ve led them. I asked CharityHowTo if I could do something special for our Asking Matters Community, and they generously agreed to these discounts to help our members prepare for the fall fundraising season.

Use my code SABER2510 at checkout to register for my essential webinars and take advantage of the 25% off savings.
 

Asking Styles Tip of the Month

Asking Styles and board leadership

We all have our own leadership style, and the Asking Styles can give you some clues as to your board chair’s style. Once you know their Style, you can better understand their leadership decisions and figure out the best way to support and complement their leadership style:

Rainmakers: Excel at keeping their eye on the prize and keeping the conversation high-level and strategic. However, they aren’t big on process and need help ensuring everyone around the table feels their views have been heard and validated.

Go-Getters: Good at finding creative solutions when the board is stuck, and win the day on enthusiasm and a sense of the greater vision. Can be challenged keeping order, ending discussion when appropriate, and keeping focused on the matter of the day.

Kindred Spirits: Make sure everyone feels heard and validated, and always bring focus back to the people being impacted. Their dislike of “confrontation” can interfere with their ability to move agendas ahead and keep board members from derailing conversations.

Mission Controllers: Bring order and detail to the role, and come to meetings uber-prepared and ready to run a tight ship. They can sometimes be too rigid in not allowing for the natural rhythm of discussions, and can be thrown when things veer off course.

On the Road – For Real!

September 2021

Speaking with the graduate theater management students at the Yale School of Drama has become a highlight of the fall. Many thanks to Andy Hamingson for inviting me each year to discuss the Asking Styles and individual gift fundraising with these talented young theater professionals.

This past weekend I lead a staff retreat for The Drama League. As the only national organization 100% focused on supporting directors in their careers, they are of pivotal importance not only to the theatre world, but to film, advertising and more.

We used the Asking Styles as a prism through which to discuss how to work together collegially. How do we ask for the things we need to do our jobs ? What are our challenges in asking others for what we need? Many of the retreat attendees had recently seen their first live production in 18 months and it was so great swapping stories and sharing our relief that live theatre is back.

If you're interested in having me conduct a training at your organization, reach out to me at brian@askingmatters.com or learn more at BrianSaber.com!
 


Brian

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What’s An Asking Style?

Brian Saber

President of Asking Matters
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There’s No Such Thing as the Perfect Fundraiser

Along with the Loch Ness Monster and the Perfect 10 is the myth of the ideal fundraiser.

Lots of people think one particular type of person makes the ideal fundraiser – and that this person exists! They have in mind an image of someone outgoing and friendly. Someone very convincing who knows exactly the right words for any situation and has every fact and figure at his or her fingertips. Someone comfortable talking about money and not afraid to ask. Someone driven to close deals and unafraid of rejection.

Sometimes that image turns into a stereotype – the cliché of the car salesman who’s very talkative, perhaps a bit loud, and certainly a bit slick and conniving.

Your Asking Style is based on your personality and unique set of strengths in fundraising. Find your Style for free and learn how you can use it to raise more than ever!

find your asking style

Asking Styles ChartIdeals are just that – ideals. While we can fantasize about the Perfect 10 of a fundraiser, doesn’t it make more sense for each of us to embrace our own personality, and ask in a way that will work for us?

This belief led me and Andrea Kihlstedt to develop a system to help fundraisers discover their personality type and apply their unique strengths – and work with their particular challenges – to fundraise comfortably and effectively.

We coined the term Asking Styles, and determined four main Styles: Rainmaker, Go-Getter, Kindred Spirit, and Mission Controller.

Rainmakers

Are you comfortable talking to anyone? Do you need a wealth of information at your fingertips? Then you might be a Rainmaker! Rainmakers are analytic extroverts. The information they gather and analyze informs their decisions.

Rainmakers are energized by interactions with others and view developing relationships as a rich, vibrant, and important process. Driven and competitive, they enjoy the prospect of succeeding in a field so full of resistance.

Go-Getters

Do you thrive on being with other people? Do you bring passion to the cause? You might be a Go-Getter! Go-Getters are intuitive extroverts who act on instinct and connect to donors through their energy and friendliness.

They often base decisions on intuition rather than on analysis. This results in the ability to think quickly and fluidly, which enables them to relate well to donors. Go-Getters are extroverts with a natural enthusiasm and energy that draws people to them.

Kindred Spirits

Are you private and quietly thoughtful? Do you decide based on instinct? You might be a Kindred Spirit! Kindred Spirits are intuitive introverts who bring passion to the cause and connect to donors through their deep commitment.

Kindred Spirits base decisions on intuition, and those decisions come from deep wells of emotion. They are introverted, drawing energy from internal experiences, and more likely to enjoy one-on-one situations. They have a strong desire to selflessly help those in need and want others to do the same.

Mission Controllers

Do you decide objectively? Do you connect by laying out a thorough presentation? You might be a Mission Controller! Mission Controllers are analytic introverts who are quietly thoughtful and always have a wealth of information at the ready.

Mission Controllers are great listeners and observers, which makes them effective solicitors. They place value on gathering and analyzing information, and approach their work systematically, making sure to dot their i’s and cross their t’s.

Finding Your Asking Style

What do you think your Asking Style is? Are you wavering between two? In fact everyone has a Primary Asking Style and a Secondary Asking Style, and you can find out what yours are by taking the 3-minute Asking Style Assessment. Learn how the strengths of your personality can help you raise more money!

 

 

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August 2021

Register for My Upcoming Webinar at CharityHowTo:

Amazingly Successful One-to-One Solicitations

Dear [First Name],

Almost 87% of all charitable gifts come from individuals, and virtually no one gives their biggest gift without being asked one-to-one. If you’re not out there asking, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table.

Do you know how to have an intentional conversation during which you ask a donor for a personally significant gift? Do you ask the most revealing questions and get your donor to do most of the talking? Do you feel comfortable with gift negotiations?

Join me as I drill deep into the solicitation meeting itself in this powerful 90-minute interactive webinar on Wednesday, August 18th at 1pm EDT.

Asking Styles Tip of the Month

how to recharge for the fall giving season

The fall is always a crazy time for fundraisers. It’s a short season that includes annual appeals, Giving Tuesday, special events, donor cultivation/solicitation and more. So, we need to be fully charged and ready to go.

Part of getting ready is reminding ourselves why we care and why our organizations are so important. Our Asking Style impacts how we go about that:

Rainmakers: Review your organization's outcomes measurements to remind yourself of its accomplishments, and set some personal, quantifiable goals for the fall. How many donors will you contact? How many gifts will you try to close? How many board members will you engage in the cultivation cycle with donors?

Go-Getters: Remind yourself of your organization’s vision and what you know is possible if your organization raises the needed funds. Take some time to chat with program staff and be inspired by the impact they’re making. And if you can visit the program and interact with participants, even better.

Kindred Spirits: What is your organization’s mission? What is it trying to “do”? Being reminded of that will play to your sense of responsibility in making sure it happens. And never forget your own story of why your organization is personally important. How has it helped you or spoken to something your heart feels should be addressed?

Mission Controllers: What’s the plan? Make sure your fundraising plan is S.M.A.R.T. – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. And remind yourself how your fundraising plan ties into the organization’s annual and strategic plans. Then map out September so you know you’ve got a game plan.

Blind Dating and Cultivating Donors:

My "Aha" Moment

Blind dating and cultivating donors. I’ve been doing both for as long as I can remember.

One night, as yet another guy ended the conversation by saying he’d had a really great time, I had an “aha” moment.  Dating is just like cultivating donors.

Read my newest post to find out how. Can you commiserate?

On the Road – For Real!

August 2021

Last month I headed up to Hamilton, NY to train the board of Fiver Children's Foundation at their glorious camp. It was exciting for all of us (everyone was vaccinated) to be in the room together. That included five new, brave board members who had never met their fellow board members in person before! We had an amazing day together.

When I train boards, we always map out the team's Asking Styles to better understand the profile of each member. Fiver was fascinating in that more than 75% of the board and key staff were Mission Controllers.

It was the highest concentration I had seen in a decade. Perhaps not surprising given Fiver's strong emphasis on measurable results (99% of their grads also graduate from high school). We talked about how that might impact discussions, strategic planning, developing personal stories and more.

Sneak Peak: Rubber Stamps Don't Fundraise
I'm excited to announce my third book will be coming out this fall. The book, written with Michael Davidson, is about how board governance  impacts a board's willingness, and ability, to fundraise. I can't wait to share more with you soon!

 


Brian

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Share your results!

Blind dating and cultivating donors. I’ve been doing both for as long as I can remember.

In the old days, I’d read an ad in Chicago’s The Reader, send a note with a headshot to a P.O. Box, and hope for a call or a return note with photo, after which we’d meet. Now, I swipe right, we text a bit, and then have a video chat or meet over coffee or food.

It was only last night, as yet another guy ended the conversation by saying he’d had a really great time that I had an “aha” moment. It came because, yet again, I had a mediocre time and could tell pretty early on I should have swiped left.

Why? Because for an hour (and sometimes over dinner for 2+ hours — painful!) the guy asked virtually no questions. I asked about his work, his interests, and his family. I shared things about myself I thought might be interesting in the context of our conversation, and things I thought would help this guy understand me better. I made witty (I think!) comments. And he asked me virtually nothing! Crazy, right?

I certainly got off our video chat uninspired and uninterested. Next!

The “Aha” Moment

After the chat I had the “aha” moment. . . dating is just like cultivating donors.

We say in fundraising the goal is to get your donor to do more than 50% of the talking. Sixty-percent or better is great. Why?

First of all, if we talk too much we create a wall of words where the donor might not be listening any longer or can’t possibly retain what we tell them. Who knows in that context whether they will remember what was most important?

Second, people remember more of what they say in a conversation than what they hear. The more they talk, the more they’ll remember.

Third, and most important, people often don’t remember what was said in a conversation, but they always remember how they felt about it. They will feel so much better if we engage them and they do the talking. If we ask them questions and show an interest in getting to know them. If they’re active participants in the conversation.

So, fundraisers – be curious and ask those questions. Get your donors talking. You don’t want them leaving conversations with you thinking… next!

Guys, the same thing goes for you. If you want a second date show an interest in me on the first one by asking me questions. Otherwise… next!

Share your results!
 
July 2021

Ten Questions to Ask Your Donors Post-Pandemic

Dear [First Name],

The pandemic gave us much more to talk about and many more shared, deeply important experiences. It was impossible, in most of our interactions with anyone and everyone, not to talk about the pandemic.

Coming out of the depths of the pandemic, as we have in much of the United States, another great opportunity presents itself. We can talk to our donors about their experiences over the last 15 months. We can swap stories, share perspectives, and learn so much.

Here are some questions to ask your donors, however you reach out to them:

Asking Styles Tip for the Month

Your Donors Have an “Asking” Style Too

Though your donors are not asking in this relationship, they all have an Asking Style based on how they think and how they interact. Figuring that out can help you build relationships as you can sooner provide them information they find compelling and involve them in ways that suit their personalities.

How do you figure out a donor’s Style? Start with how they interact. Extroverts will be more amenable to a call out of the blue, while introverts will generally prefer you write to them first, even if it’s to find a time to talk by phone.

Rainmakers will probably ask for an efficient meeting and get right to business. Go-Getters will enjoy free-flowing chats. Kindred Spirits will want to be helpful in answering your questions and let you run the meeting. Mission Controllers are most likely to ask you to send them information in advance and then ask you lots of questions about what you’ve sent.

Eight Questions Every Individual Gift Officer

Should Ask Themselves Post-Pandemic

This has been a time like no other. For those of us on the frontline asking for gifts, we’ve had to figure out new ways to move forward. So where does that leave us now?

What do we need to ask ourselves as we emerge from the worst of this pandemic and can once again join our colleagues and donors in person? What does it mean that we might be moving away from virtual cultivation events toward hybrid or in-person events?

For those of us in most of the United States, that moment of transition is now. For those around the world, the timing has yet to be determined.

Looking ahead, here are questions I recommend asking yourself:

On the Road

July 2021

I've continued my work with Northwestern Settlement House in Chicago, where I've worked for 30 years. This is my fourth campaign with them, and the most special as we're raising funds, in honor of Ron Manderschied, to expand teen programming.

Ron is retiring after 40 years as the CEO – an extraordinary tenure. And I've been lucky to partner with him for 30 of those years. We've been in more than a thousand donor meetings together over the years…can you imagine!

We used to carve out a day or two a week and drive up to the North Shore, where many of our donors lived, and have four or five meetings in a day! At one point, the coffee shop owners really started to wonder what these two guys in jackets and ties were doing meeting with this revolving door of people.

On another note, I am SO happy to be back on the road again. My first live, in-person training is later this month and I can't wait! My calendar for the rest of the year is already starting to fill up, so please reach out to me if your board or staff could use some training later this summer or in the fall.
 


Brian

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