Thursday April 10- Major donors

Hi !

🦆 It’s duck hunting season: What’s cookin this week

In this week’s enews…

• What my father taught me

• How donors react to your disappointment

• Treat donors like human beings, not aliens

• Food for thought for food fundraisers

• $1 million in 1 month

• A hilarious obituary

• The Lamborghini of baby strollers

The solution to last week’s Triple E (enews easter egg): Val Kilmer movie quotes. One starts to feel old when movie stars he grew up watching start passing away…

Let’s dive into this week’s pain point: How we treat major donors. It’s gonna get ranty in here.

🐰 That sir is a inmitigated frabrication! It’s wabbit season!: What my dad taught me

I am a third generation nonprofit executive and fundraiser. Proud of that fact!

My dad always taught me: Don’t look in other people’s pockets. Just because you think they have X doesn’t make it so. You have no idea what goes on behind closed doors and what they actually have to give.

On the outside someone may look well to do but you don’t know that they’re paying out of pocket for their parents health issues; they’re paying full college tuition for two kids; they’re going thru a divorce.

As you can see by the above tweets (and there’s plenty more) I am consistent. Doesn’t matter who the person is. Stop looking at what you think they can/should give. Say thank you for their gift, use retention best practices and lo and behold they’ll keep giving.

But when you treat major donors as a 💰️ 🐄 , when you view them as if they have a big 🎯 on their forehead, when you do a wealth screening and just assume person X will

you are shooting your organization in the foot.

Today’s pain point is how organizations view major givers and what needs to change.

🔫 Wabbit season. I say it’s duck season and I say fire: They sense your disappointment… and it hurts

Over the last year I’ve talked to many nonprofits and donors. Trying to understand how both sides view the relationship.

One thing has become abundantly clear: As more organizations chase the big bucks, their view of larger givers needs some fixing.

Major donors are VERY generous with their money and time. They are HAPPY to give! Just like you, they want to make their community and the world a better place.

But when you view their generosity only thru the lens of “well, they could give way more” you’re gonna lose those donors.

I’m going to paraphrase a collection of chats I’ve had. Please read this and try to understand how things look from a donor’s perspective:

“How do donors find me? Probably my name gets passed around on various lists. They did some wealth screening and found my name. The assumption is I’m worth X and should be able to give organization Y a five to six figure donation when they ask.

But here’s the thing: You’re not the only organization I’m seeing today! There are another five people who will be coming by to meet me. Like you, each of them assumes I’m only giving to them and therefore I can give a large amount. But I want to spread the wealth and help as many as I can! That means giving to more organizations but less to each.

Maybe I have made obligations to other organizations and I’m on a specific timetable for giving those donations. That means that right now I can’t help you at the level you’re assuming.

I happily invite them in and listen to their description of their mission and impact. The program sounds great but it’s not what I’m interested in funding. I give them something but not a large donation.

What bugs me most is that the fundraiser isn’t happy with my gift. From the look on their face it’s clear they expected much more.”

Here’s what happens after the donor says how much they can give: They can see the disappointment and frustration on the faces of the CEO and fundraiser. The donor FEELS that and it hurts them.

Think they’ll give again? Nope.

Rather than being thankful for their generosity, these donors get judged harshly for not giving enough. (And then we wonder why so many people are putting money in DAFs and giving it out when they want. It’s not a coincidence!)

Why bring this up now? I’ll assume you’ve been watching the news over the last week. I’ll bet many of your bosses and Boards are considering cutting everything to the bone because there might be an economic downturn or even a recession. At the same time they’re demanding you bring in max money TODAY.

Which means you’ll be relying even more on major givers.

Wanna go from survival to thrival? Major donors can play a big part in that. But only if we stop looking at them like they’re Daddy Warbucks and not people like you who have commitments, values, wishes and desires.

The Pareto principle could apply to your organization. 80% of your overall revenue will come from 20% of your donors. So it would make sense to build relationships with the 20%, connect with them, engage them, make them feel all the love.

Pissing them off? There goes a potential large donation this year and in the upcoming years. Can your organization afford that?!

💬 Let’s try that again: Donors are humans too

Lisa Greer is a major donor. She works hard to help the nonprofit sector better itself thru her Philanthropy 451 blog, speaking engagements and more.

She speaks openly about how CEOs and fundraisers treat her and it’s not great. When I had her on my podcast, she talked about how people view her as an alien and not a human being. (Listen, watch or read the podcast transcript)

I have no problem with pursuing major donors as part of a healthy, diversified fundraising portfolio. And I apologize if I sound like a broken record but again:

Your fundraising will succeed when you realize it’s about building relationships and not about the money.

At a first meeting with a potential major donor you can’t just launch into a $100,000 ask. It takes time, patience, back and forth, communication, understanding to get to a point where a donor will give you a major gift.

Having been in your shoes I know that many organizations don’t have the patience to wait around until the donor decides they’ll give a large gift. But being pushy or saying “that isn’t enough. We need more”- and yes, that happens in donor meetings more often than you might think!!!- isn’t going to get you what you’re after. It’ll have the opposite effect- a small donation and you’ll be shown the door, without a chance to return.

We have to stop treating major donors like cash cows.

Here’s how you go from survival to thrival: Celebrate everyone’s generosity, no matter how much they give. Make donors feel special. Keep them updated. Stay in touch.

Retention will go up. Over time you’ll see larger gifts which means growth, more impact, more people served.

Win win win!

A little more help:

• 5 best practices for major donor meetings 

• How to get major donors involved 

• How to retain major donors

• 3 keys to successful major donor outreach 

• 10 questions to deepen the conversation with major donors

😕 Say, what’s the matter with you anyway? Don’t you even know a rabbit when you see one?: Learn from the good- $1M in 1 month

Nick Savarese. He’s a friend and he’s also the Executive Director of the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism.

What separates Nick from others isn’t just his total dedication to the job but his ENTHUSIASM and the way he involves everyone and gets them pumped up to help the organization grow.

Last month the Flutie Foundation ran their annual Month of Giving partnership with restaurant chain Jersey Mike’s Subs. Learn from Nick and his team how to create a successful corporate partnership:

• Watch the video as they launch their Month of Giving. Notice that in ONE DAY their team visited ALL 74 Jersey Mike’s locations to kick it off! (This across six states and three time zones) Get everyone involved!

• Take a look at the Month of Giving landing page on their site. All the info, plenty of videos, follow the Bread Relay, map with locations of every Jersey Mike’s and more.

• One day during the month- March 26- was reserved as a special day: 100% of sales from partner stores went directly back into the local autism community.

• Nick went on TV to do interviews and promote the Day of Giving.

• At the end, they released a video about hitting an unbelievable milestone of raising ONE MILLION DOLLARS in one month! Notice in the video how people are wearing matching tshirts and they’re excited to participate. Best of all is Nick showing his enthusiasm at the end of a VERY long day announcing that they’ve raised one million dollars. (See Nick with 90 seconds left in the video)

When you create a true partnership with a corporation, when you plan well in advance, when you get everyone involved, you will be very very successful.

Congrats to the entire team at the Flutie Foundation!

🤯 Shoot him now! You keep out of this. He doesn’t have to shoot you now. He does so have to shoot me now. I demand that you shoot me now: A little of this and that

Here’s some great content for you to learn from:

1. How to successfully ask Board members for gifts (Amy Eisenstein) Editor’s note: I don’t believe in forcing the Board to give or get. Will be discussed at some point in this enews.

2. Plenty of ideas for food fundraiser events (Wild Apricot)

3. 4 ways to thank donors on your website (TravelPledge)

4. A guide to event sponsorship opps (GiveSmart)

5. Diversify your fundraising portfolio. Now. (1832 Communications)

⏹️ Ha! That’s it. Hold it right there. Pronoun trouble: Tell the truth

Sometimes in life you gotta tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Love this!

🔄 This time we’ll try it from the other end. Look, you’re a hunter, right?: This week’s Make It Make Sense poem

Sure they me be ill or very sick in bed
But that’s no reason to publicly announce they’re dead 

If the whole world was in Rhode Island let’s say
And we all jumped together, would the earth sway?

What if Princess Leia couldn’t finish her words
This one is funny for the Star Wars nerds

It better go 100 MPH and have wings
Otherwise who’s paying $5,000 for this thing?!

I’ll be back next Thursday. Have a great weekend!

P.S. I listened to this song on an endless loop while working on the enews. I needed it.