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“The voluntary annual turnover rate is 19% — far outpacing the all-industry average of 12%.” – Forbes

Why is this? We’ll explore issues nonprofits face in this in-depth webinar discussing what leads to burnout and turnover. But beyond that, nonprofit Executive Madison Gonzalez, will break down practical tips and reminders on what it takes to foster a positive environment for employees amongst the stress all year long.

Nonprofit burnout is a real phenomenon that affects our overall impact, missions, and organizations but with the right tools, we can tackle the overwhelm and keep a people-first culture!

Learning Objectives:

• How mental health affects nonprofit funding and programs.
• How to identify and prevent burnout it’s too late.
• Best practices to create a people-first culture
• Solid strategies to improve overall health and environment for staff.

And much more!

Webinar Slide Deck:

• Staff Burnout: How To Promote Mental Health and Increase Retention

The post Staff Burnout: How To Promote Mental Health and Increase Retention appeared first on Bloomerang.

This article originally appeared in Bloomerang. See the original article here.

Kari Trent Stageberg, MBA and Jackie Smith will equip you with easy, practical, and actionable steps to help you win back your lapsed donors, including learning how to identify, qualify, and communicate with them.

Full Transcript:

Steven: All right. Kari, Jackie, it’s 1:00 Eastern. Is it okay if I go ahead and get this party started officially?

Jackie: Let’s do it.

Kari: Yeah, let’s do it.

Steven: All right. Awesome. Well, good afternoon, everybody. Good morning, I should say, if you’re on the West Coast. And if you’re watching this as a recording, I hope you’re having a good day no matter when and where you are. We are here to talk about how to win back your lapsed donors. That’s right. One of my favorite topics. I’m so excited. And I’m excited that so many people are here listening live. And if you’re watching the recording, thanks for tuning in as well. I’m Steven. I’m over here at Bloomerang, and I’ll be moderating today’s discussion, as always.

And just a couple of quick housekeeping items. Just want to let you all know that we are recording this session, and we’ll be sending out the slides as well as the recording later on this afternoon, probably get it before dinnertime. So just be on the lookout for that. It’ll be in an email from me. So if you have to leave early or maybe get interrupted by a toddler at home, like, will probably happen to me, that’s why I’m talking fast, don’t worry. We’ll get all that good stuff in your hands, and you’ll be able to share it with friends and colleagues as well.

Most importantly, I know a lot of you have already done this, but please feel free to chat in your questions and comments. There’s a chat box and a Q&A box. You can use either of those, but we would love to hear from you. Don’t be shy. We’re going to save some time at the end for Q&A. We would love to hear from you. Introduce yourself if you haven’t already because we also like to know a little bit more about who we’re talking to. And give us the weather report, because I always like to see that, because I’m a dork. You can also tweet us. I’ll keep an eye on the Twitter feed as well. But bottom line, we’d love to hear from you.

And if this is your first Bloomerang webinar, just want to say a special welcome to you, first-timers. We do these webinars just about every Thursday throughout the year. It’s usually around 50 sessions a year. We love doing it. But if you’ve never heard of Bloomerang beyond the webinars, we’re also a provider of donor management software. That’s what Bloomerang is. So if you’re shopping for software or maybe you’re in the market or just curious about us, visit our website. There’s all kinds of resources you can take a look at, watch videos to get a sense of what we’re all about. But don’t do that right now. At least wait an hour, because you all are in for a treat. I am so excited not just about the topic but about the guests. Two of my favorite people, Kari and Jackie, are joining us from the Nonprofit Consulting Shop. Kari, Jackie, how’s it going? Are you doing okay?

Jackie: We’re doing good.

Kari: We’re good. We’re excited.

Steven: Yeah, I’m super excited. I wish we had more than an hour. I would have scheduled it for 8 hours if I could, because these two, I’ve really been learning quite a bit from over the past year or so. We got connected last year. They’ve been contributing to our blog, writing about donor acquisition, experts on both sides. So there’s actually an eBook they wrote on donor acquisition. But today, they’re going to be talking about how to get those lapsed donors back into the fold, which, of course, we’re all about here at Bloomerang. If you don’t know these two, like I said, Nonprofit Consulting Shop. Check them out. They do really, really good work for their clients, and they’ve also got a ton of free resources. They’re really generous with their time and expertise as well. Combined decades of experience. Jackie is down in Florida, and Kari is up in Seattle. So they got the whole nation covered, which is also cool.

So I’m going to pipe down because people don’t want to hear from me. They want to hear from you two. So I’m going to stop sharing my screen, and I’ll let you two bring up those slides. See if this works here. Here it goes.

Jackie: All right, we can move this, play from start. All right. Everybody’s good. We can start.

Steven: Yeah, good. Go for it, my friends.

Kari: All right.

Jackie: Kari, kick us off.

Kari: Great. Well, we are so excited that you all are here. And we are going to do our best to leave as much time as possible for questions because we really want this to be as specific as we can to you. So we’re going to talk today about how can you win back those lapsed donors. And again, you know, Steven did a fantastic and overly generous job of introducing us. But if you haven’t been on a webinar with us before, I’m Kari. This is Jackie. And, Jackie, I’ll let you introduce yourself.

Jackie: All right. So my background, just to tell you a little bit about my background, I am one of the co-founders of the Nonprofit Consulting Shop. Before Kari and I formed our company, which was back in 2016, I’ve spent my entire career working at ad agencies. I started out as a media buyer, traditional media buyer, back in the day, radio, television. I worked on accounts like General Motors. So I learned pretty early on, you know, when I was trying to reach a Chevy truck buyer, that perhaps that audience was a little different than the Chevy car audience. So over the years, I continued to really develop that audience expertise. And really, you know, you guys have all heard, you know, sending the right message to the right people at the right time. My area of expertise was always which are the right people.

When I left the brand side and went over to direct response, I started working for an agency that worked with nonprofits, and then my area of expertise was in new donor acquisition. Again, it’s about that audience, especially for new donor acquisition when you don’t have a lot of internal data points on those people, and how can you look at people as a group and try to determine how they’re going to respond. I met Kari working at an agency. We were assigned to the same account. We were actually both hired specifically for an account, but I’ll let her take it from here.

Kari: Yeah. So I’m Kari, and my background is kind of a little bit different than Jackie’s, where I’m more of the communication side, so holistically, how do you communicate with your donors, and what is that specific offer or message, and which channels do you need to use to reach those people. So together, Jackie and I make a great team in terms of who’s your audience and then what’s the best way and the best offer to communicate with them. And like Jackie said, we met because we were both hired to work on an account that the agency was losing, and our job was to turn it around or they were going to lose us and the client. Thankfully, that went really well, and the best thing that came out of that was a great friendship together and then, ultimately, the Nonprofit Consulting Shop.

In addition to the Nonprofit Consulting Shop, I also run a small nonprofit with my dad. So I’m also in the weeds with you guys in terms of how are we actually executing this, what are seeing happen with donors in real-time. So this is a huge passion point for me to help nonprofits. So again, we’re the Nonprofit Consulting Shop. You can find out more in our website, so we’ll just breeze over that. But really our goal is to help you connect with your donors in the best way possible and to not allow costs to be a barrier based on the size of nonprofit.

So with that, let’s jump into today’s agenda, because really we want to focus on how do you win back those lapsed donors. Well, we’re going to talk about a couple of three key areas on how we’re going to do that. So the first is we’re going to help you identify who your lapsed donors are. Then we’re going to help you qualify those people. Next, we’re going to give you really clear communication tips on how to actually tell them that you want them back and to get them onboard. And then we’re going to help you create a plan to do that. So you’ll be able to walk out of this with some action steps we hope that you can just go ahead and implement in your organization. And we’ll also try to do our best to leave as much time as humanly possible for Q&A. So with that said, let’s go ahead and jump in.

So we’re going to start with identifying the lapse. So, Jackie, sorry, I’ll do this and then hand this over to you. Really we want you to think of this funnel, and we’re going to use this all the way through, because each step, as you can see, whether it’s identify, qualify, or communicate, we’re going to get more and more specific and more and more narrow with who your audience is and how to reach them. So again, kind of keep that in mind. As we’re going through this, keep that funnel in your head.

Jackie: Right. So we’re going to start out by looking at how do you identify your lapsed donors. And again, using the funnel, right, we’re going to pour everybody in, and then, throughout this process, hopefully, you’ll be able to narrow that down to the select that you choose to go after first to try to win back.

So when we look at all of your lapsed donors, the first thing you’re going to look at is when did they give last, right? So their last gift could have been, you know, last year, but unfortunately, not this year, right? That could be 12 months, that could be 2 years at 24, 3 years at 36, etc., right? So that’s going to be the very first way to identify them in your database is to look at when was their last gift.

Kari: And again, at this point in the funnel, you want all of them. And we’ll help you get more narrow, but find all of them.

Jackie: Okay. So we’re going to just talk about this briefly, and then we’re probably not going to circle back to this. Okay? There are so many reasons as to why someone might have stopped giving. And we might not ever know any of them. Okay? And so, so many times when we talk to a nonprofit, they get very stuck on this part, why did they stop giving? And you’ve heard that expression, it’s not . . . I almost did it again wrong, Kari. I always say this, “It’s not me. It’s you.” Supposed to be, “It’s not you. It’s me.” Most of the time . . . 

Kari: Jackie clearly never said this when she was dating, so.

Jackie: Well, I said that to Kari when she was dating. But more than likely, it wasn’t you. There’s only a handful of reasons I can think of. Is there something you might have done that made your donors stop giving, right? So let’s just talk about those really quickly. One, you might have accidentally treated them like an ATM. Now, Kari, you want to tell them about your rule?

Kari: Yes. So anytime you’ll ask, you need to at least thank them more than once, like, at least twice. So double it. So ask, double it. So that would be a wide touch, a repeat-back, a “Here’s what your gift did. Here’s a thank you.” But you really need to have a good balance of asking and reporting back. And if that’s out of balance, that could be a reason why somebody may stop giving because they just feel like, “All you’re doing is asking me for money, and I’m not seeing the impact of my gift.”

Jackie: Right. But more than likely, you’re doing fine with that, right? And the other reason is you might have stopped communicating with someone. This could have been an intentional thing. You were looking at some sort of return on investment selection tool or something before you put an appeal to those donors in the mail. So you might have just said, “No, here’s our line, and anybody below the line isn’t getting an appeal because we can’t afford it,” or whatever. So then those people could have lapsed.

The other reason that sometimes when you think you’re communicating with someone but you’re not is because people move, and sometimes your mail file or your contact file might not be super up to date. And that can make someone stop giving. And so if you have postal addresses, you know, the post office recommends that you NCOA your file quarterly. NCOA only does a three-month lookback. So if you only do NCOA on your file one time a year, you could be missing nine months of moves. Okay. Now, those are two of the three [inaudible 00:11:42]. Yes.

Then there’s all of the donor’s reasons, which are many, right? More than likely, though, if a donor stopped giving, there’s been some sort of change in their life. There’s been some sort of change, right, whether it’s a life status change, a job change, maybe they moved, right, and they’re not in your city anymore, and they’re not as passionate about what’s happening in your town, or . . . 

Kari: It could even be something as simple as a credit card changed, and they didn’t update.

Jackie: Exactly. So really and truly, we’re not going to spend a ton of time about the why. We’re going to really spend our time today about what do you do. How do you identify them, qualify them, and then communicate with them? But the biggest thing, one of the biggest takeaways here is people probably still think they’re a donor even if you consider them a lapsed. Lapsed donors is an industry term that you use and we use, but the average person walking on the street doesn’t go up to somebody and say, “Hey, I’m a lapsed donor of American Cancer Society,” right? People just don’t think of themselves that way. They’re, like, “Oh, yeah, I’m a donor for American Cancer,” even if they know, like, “No, I can’t remember when I gave my last gift.” It’s, like, they don’t think of themselves as lapsed. So you’re going to hear us continue to talk about that, especially when we get into how to communicate with them.

Kari: Yep. Absolutely. So let’s talk about qualifying those people, because again, we’ve started with the top of the funnel, which is we’re pouring everyone in, but let’s get really specific about how can we start narrowing them down. And why we want to narrow is we realized that, unless you’re a unicorn, the rest of us have limited time, budget, and resources. So we want to help you pick the lowest-hanging fruit, the easiest thing that you can go after right away to get some wins so that, hopefully, your budget can grow, and you can go after some of those other things. So that’s, again, why we kind of want to help narrow the funnel.

Jackie: Now, what we’re going to cover is best-case scenario. Okay. We understand you might not have all of these data points. That’s okay. Use what you have. We’re going to show you the most important. But don’t get overwhelmed here if we start going through all of these things that you should be looking at and you don’t have those. We get it. Okay. We get it.

Kari: But the good news is, if you are using Bloomerang, you will have a lot of these, or if you’re not, you can start tagging things so that you can. So that’s the great side of it as well. So the first thing that you want to do when you’re qualifying is determine who you want to target. So to do that, which is actually the whole point of qualifying is the who, so we’re going to go through these things. I’m going to just list them out really quick. And then we’re going to go through these things specifically. So we’re going to look at recency, we’re going to look at monetary, we’re going to look at seasonality, we’re going to look at the offer, and we’re going to look at their preferred communication channel. And as you’ll notice, again, each step that we go down, the funnel is going to get more and more narrow and more and more specific to help you come up with who is that specific audience group that we can go target as soon as possible and the most cost-effective way possible and have the greatest win. Makes sense?

Jackie: Exactly.

Kari: Cool. So let’s look at recency. So one thing that you absolutely need to look at is, just like it sounds, when did they last give? So hopefully, you have that information or have some idea of that information. Because you need to know, was it 12 to 23 months ago, were they in the one- to two-year range, were they in a 24- to 35-month, were they 36 months out, or are they 49+? Because this matters. So the more recently they gave to you, so that 12 to 23 spot or even that 24, kind of within that 24-month range, they are the most likely to come back the quickest. And again, that could be something as simple as maybe they got busy at year-end, or they weren’t home this year, and so they didn’t give you the gift that they normally would have, or their credit card expired and they were a monthly giver, or something just got crazy this last year and so they didn’t give what they normally would have. So they’re your hottest targets. 

And so, if you’re going to start anywhere and if your budget and your time is really short, we really recommend starting with those people because they’re going to be the easiest to get back. But again, what we hope is that this plan that you create is something that you can rinse and repeat throughout all of these different target levels and that you can begin to include more and more of them as you go through and as you get those wins and those donors back on your file. So again, the higher up they are in this, the easier that it’s going to be and the lower hanging the fruit is to get them back.

Jackie: You can absolutely reactivate people who are 5, 10 years. I used to have to do it. Lapsed donor reactivation was part of acquisition at most of the agencies where I worked. That does usually take a little bit more money in order to find those people, but it is possible. It’s all possible. But again, at the end of this presentation, we’re hoping we’re giving you a couple of steps of where do you start. You start with the 12 to 23, possibly the 24 to 35 or 36 months, depending on how you see that natural break in your own data. Okay.

The next thing we’re going to look at is the money. How much money has someone given to the organization? Now, a lot of analysts believe that, you know, and this is true, the more money somebody gives to your organization, the more invested they are in it, right? If I give $500 and Kari gives $20, I’m a little more invested, right? I’ve got a little more skin in the game, right? So you do want to look at monetary. 

Now, here’s . . . so if you talk to analysts and you talk statisticians and things like that, there’s this huge debate. I can’t tell you how many, I was going to say arguments, conversations that we had at the agency about which was the right monetary amount to go after. Do you look at someone’s cumulative giving, how much they have given over the lifetime of being involved with your organization, or do you look at their last gifts, their last single highest gift, or, yeah, their most recent highest contribution, whichever, however you want to call it? Our recommendation, if you have the data, is to do both, right? Look at lifetime giving, but then just give it a glance and look and see if you see any patterns in the year-over-year single gifts. Because that might tell you, again, if I have to pick one person over another to target, who am I going to pick, right?

Kari: We’ve got an example of this, because I know that some of you are going, “Well, that sounds confusing.” But let’s show you how this looks practically.

Jackie: Okay. So we had donors . . . 

Kari: So we’ve got three sample donors. I’ll let jump in, sorry. I get excited about examples.

Jackie: You can jump in. So we have Donor A. Their lifetime giving amount is $240. You might be, like, “Oh, you know, that’s okay.” They’ve been a monthly donor. They’ve given single gifts, $20 a month, so $240 they gave for a year, right? And then they haven’t given in 16 months. Now, this could very well be a case of an expired credit card or a credit card change, or something, and it just didn’t get updated. They got your notice, and then they forgot, or whatever. So Donor A, right?

Then we’ve got Donor B. Lifetime giving amount is more. So if this was all you were looking at, you may pick Donor B over Donor A just based on the lifetime amount. But why we think it’s important to look at those single gifts year-over-year is, in our example, you can see that Donor B has trended down in their gift amounts, from a highest amount of $120 all the way down to 2019 they only gave $20. Their interest in the organization may be waning, as shown in their gifts. Donors are telling you what’s important to them and how you’re doing based on how they give. That’s your clue as to how people are doing. And let’s say this person hasn’t given in 26 months. Now, if you said, “I only have the money, time, and resource to go after one of these two people, who do I go after?” I’m going to go to . . . 

Kari: Who would you pick? I want to know what everyone would pick. Given what we said, drop in the chat, who would you pick, Donor A or Donor B? Yeah, I see a lot of As.

Jackie: Yeah. That’s what I would do. If I had the money, I’d do them both, because I think we could probably fix what’s going on wrong with Donor B. But again, at the end of the day, if you only can pick one, who do you pick?

Kari: Absolutely. All right. So let’s talk about seasonality, because this matters as well. And again, you may not have all of this information, but if you do, it can be really, really valuable. So what you want to look at is when did they first give and when do they normally give. So let’s dig into this a little bit. Did they first give to you on a monthly basis? Are they a monthly recurring donor? Or did they give you a single gift? So what did that first gift look like? And then, how do they normally give? So, again, do they normally give you one gift a year? Is it, you know, quarterly they’re giving? Or are they a monthly donor? Because that’s important information to know. Again, as you saw in the last example, their level of commitment with the giving over time is really important.

Also, when did they first give? Was it a season? Did they first give in the fall? Was there a specific time of the month or time of the year that they came in? And when do they normally give? Are they still giving in that particular timeframe, or are they just giving sporadically throughout the year? Because again, their behavior is going to tell you what they’re passionate about and when the best time is to reach them. And we’ll explain this more as we go, but just follow me on this. So again, did they come in on year-end? Do they usually only give at year-end? Because again, that’s really important. I mean, we’re in January right now, and if somebody typically only gives at year-end, that’s a long time to wait to have to target them. So is there someone you can talk to sooner? And again, we’ll talk more about this in the plan part. But when did they first give, and when do they normally give?

And then, finally, was there something that brought them on the file or that they always give to that’s a seasonal offer? So is it a back-to-school campaign? Was it an Easter campaign? You know, was there something that happened? Was it a disaster, an natural disaster that happened that brought them on and they always give to that particular topic or in that particular month when we talk about that topic? Because again, you want to look at their behavior and what is most likely going to help them come back to you as a donor.

Jackie: Right along with seasonality is offer. Now, a lot of you probably only raise money for one thing. In this part, you can kind of just tune out a little bit. This is really about those organizations that have many different things that they’re raising money for. I’m going to use the example of a rescue mission because I think that just kind of paints a picture of what we’re trying to say here.

Let’s say that you’re a rescue mission, and you provide meals, especially holiday meals, you provide shelter and maybe some counseling, and job training, and job placement. Okay. So when you’re trying to figure out who you’re going to target to win back, you really do want to say, “What was that first thing they gave to?” More than likely, in our case of a rescue mission, it was the meals, right, because that’s what you put out in acquisition, right, was the meals. But let’s say, you know, maybe you’ve just been talking to them about job placement because the job placement is really the thing that elevates the homeless and helps them get off the streets and all of that. 

So again, not everybody will have this, but if you have this information and you can see what did people give the most . . . words are hard, what did they give the most to as far as your offer. Do they always give to meals? Do they always give to job placement? If you have this information, you can use it then to win them back because all you have to do is talk to them about the thing that they’re passionate about, right?

Kari: And I do want to talk about really quickly in here why it’s important to talk about the first thing that they gave to, because even if you’re an organization that only does one thing, is there a change in how you’ve been talking about that one thing? Because if you were presenting it one way and that was really resonating with the particular subset of your audience, and now you’re talking about it in a different way, even though it’s the same thing, that could be under one of those little categories of, hey, maybe that’s something we did that has transitioned the behavior. They’re no longer hearing it the same way that hit their heart and their head. They’re hearing it in a different way, and it’s not as motivating for them to give. So again, anything you can do to get specific with why were they giving in the first place and what are they really passionate about, it’s going to help you be, like, more consistent as you craft that offer.

Jackie: Exactly. Because it’s really important to evaluate and do a little self-analysis and say, “Are we still sending these offers?” or like Kari said, in the same way to these people. Okay. So if you’re a disaster response organization, this is a toughie. This is really tough. I would say, disaster donors, whether it’s a humanitarian disaster or a natural disaster, tend to give just for that particular thing. That doesn’t always make them a long-term donor of the organization. Gosh, I think I saw a stat earlier this week that said only 10% of disaster response donors continue with an organization, 10%. So winning back those lapsed, again, is possible. It’s just . . . it’s really tough. Living in Florida, like I do, there is . . . you know, when Puerto Rico had that hurricane, you know, that was huge here. It was huge. A, we understand how horrible it is to go through a hurricane, and B, a lot of people who live in Florida have family members in Puerto Rico. And so there are ways, again, to win those people back if you continue to talk about, “You know, it’s almost hurricane season again, and we still haven’t rebuilt from the last one,” and all those things. There are ways to do it, but it’s a little bit of an uphill battle, but we did kind of want to mention it here.

Kari: Yeah. And I do see a lot of questions about COVID-specific donors, and we’ll talk about that in the Q&A because I know that that’s something that a lot of people are experiencing right now, people that came in almost kind of like that feeling of disaster relief. But it is different, and we are seeing differences with that. So we’ll make sure that we address that in the Q&A part so we can give some specific strategies for those COVID donors.

Jackie: Yes.

Kari: So again, going deeper into those qualifiers, let’s look at the preferred channel. So again, how did they come into your organization? Because this matters. And how did they engage with you? Because again, this is going to help you be specific about how you can communicate with them. So let’s go through these.

So the first three we’re going to kind of lump together. So these are people that came into you from a peer-to-peer campaign, they came in from social media, or they came in from an event. And the reason I’m lumping these together is because these donors typically tend to respond the same way. And what I mean by that is they gave to your organization, but they may not have given to you because they’re passionate about you. They may have given to you because a friend asked them to. So their friend did a campaign to promote, you know, your organization on their birthday, or their boss invited them to come to your fundraising banquet when we were having fundraising banquets or if you’re in a state where that’s still happening. So they might have come and given because of the person that invited them, not necessarily because they’re super passionate about your offer.

Now, that said, there are things you can do that will help them become passionate about you and your organization, but statistically, people that come in from these channels, it’s more work and it’s more money to convert them to being a donor than it is the last three that we’re going to talk about. So again, if we’re talking about finite resources, finite time, and a finite budget, you’re going to want to focus on these bottom three, if you can. So again, knowing how somebody came into your file is going to be really important, and the second part, how did they engage with you, is going to become really critical as we talk about these three.

So again, did someone come in as a major donor, did someone come in on email, or did they come in on direct mail? Well, why does that matter? If they came in on email or they came in on direct mail, and that’s how they’ve been engaging with you, that’s probably how you want to retarget them. So don’t change the game. I mean, you can still do a multi-channel where you send them an email and direct mail campaign, but if they’re giving to you one way, that’s probably how they prefer to hear from you and how they prefer to give to you. So you’re going to want to try to retarget them and win them back in that same channel if you have that information.

And the one-to-one major donors, if you have a major donor rep, that’s fantastic, people that can really meet with them. But there’s kind of even more specific strategies on major donors, so we’re not going to get super far into that. But again, how did they come in, and how do they prefer to hear from you? How do they prefer to give? You know, do you send them a direct mail piece, but they give online? You want to make sure that you’re meeting them where they’re at and giving them an opportunity to communicate back to you in a way that they’re really comfortable with.

Jackie: Okay. So that was a lot of stuff, and like we said before, don’t panic if you don’t have all of those things in your database. It’s very easy to add them now going forward. And we strongly recommend that because down the road, again, it does help as you’re doing any type of select, whether it’s for an appeal or for a win back. Okay.

Kari: Because if you think about it, the time and money that you can save by having the right audience with the right offer at the right time, it’s incredible, and your results are going to go up, your response rate will go up. All of that matters. So taking the time to make sure that your data is as full as you can get it is really worth the time. And again, something like Bloomerang is so fantastic for that because there’s options to add all those tags.

Jackie: Exactly. And I guess we’ll say here too, it is easier to win back a lapse than it is to get a new donor. Okay. So really the more that you can focus on this, it really will help you bring in revenue and re-engage valuable donors. Okay. So we’ve gone through all of these qualifiers of all the stuff we want you to look at. Okay. So you looked at it, now what? What do I do with it, right? So that’s what we’re going to talk about.

So on the recency, as we said, the most recent is best. Go for those in your first group. Absolutely. That’s where you’re going to see the biggest win. Also, on the monetary, you’re going to look for that consistent giving pattern and the total amount that someone has given, right, those two things. Now, more than likely, you have this information on your database. When was their last gift? And how much have they given?

If you have it and you can work into seasonality and offer, what we want to do is find where the similar offer is in a similar season so that we can get these people back into a communication stream as fast as possible. So like we said before, if somebody only gives at year-end, gosh, darn it, you know, if we wait, they’re going to be 24 months lapsed as opposed to only being, well, it’s January, 13 months lapsed, or whatever, right? So you’re going to try to find where somewhere we can work them in that’s similar. Again, if you have the data, if you knew that they liked meals, maybe you do a meal offer or something sooner than the time that you normally would.

And then, of course, there’s the preferred channel, which we just said. Email, direct mail, and one-to-one are the lowest-hanging fruit. You will more than likely get the bigger bang out of your buck. And that is absolutely where we would recommend. Obviously, email is less expensive than the printing and postage of direct mail. You can keep the funnel a little wider on that. But anytime you’re talking about things that are going to cost you money, you want to really narrow. Sometimes mailing less is better. Okay.

Kari: And I do see . . . Steven, if we could flag, I see a lot of questions about relationship donors, whether it’s either peer-to-peer or major donor or somebody who is a major donor rep or in that role. So if you could flag that for a question because I think that’s a really great question that we want to make sure we have time to answer at the end and can give some specifics around that.

Jackie: I’m glad you can see that. I can’t see any of that. Okay. All I see is this. Okay. So now we’re moving our way through the funnel, and we’re getting to the communication part, what do you say to them, right? We’ve identified them, we kind of figured out who maybe, and now it’s what do we say, how do we do it?

Kari: Yep. So let’s talk about best practices. So these are things that you should be doing every single time you communicate with your donors, and then we’re going to talk about specifics for your lapse. So anytime you communicate with your donors, period, especially when you are asking them for a gift, you need to make sure that you appeal to both their head and their heart. So what that means is you need to use logic and you need to use something emotional, like a story, like Jackie just posted up, the lives changed due to your organization, to show them that, “Hey, here’s a logical reason why you should give, and here’s why you should really genuinely care in your heart about this offer.” And it’s a balance for doing that, because they need both in order to choose to make that gift. So you want to make sure that you’re doing that, that you’re really focusing on those lives changed by your organization with a powerful and compelling story. So this is, like, do not skip this anytime you communicate with your donors.

And then, finally, this sounds really basic, but you would be surprised of the number of times that a Donate button is either buried, or we post a social media thing and there’s no link to actually give, or we maybe don’t even ask them to give in the email. We’re so caught up in all of this other stuff. So make it really, really easy for them to do what you’re asking them to do. One click to your donation page. You know, one, just very clear, Give, Click Here, Give, Reply, “Here’s the reply envelope.” Make it very, very easy for them to actually do that.

So let’s talk about lapsed specific, because there are some things here that are really going to help you win those people back. And how you communicate with them matters. So the first thing is don’t tell them they’re lapsed. Remember how we said, they don’t consider them to be a lapsed donor. They really don’t. So if you’re coming out the gate saying, “Gosh, we miss you so much,” or, “Why haven’t you given?” and you’re even using the phrase lapsed, don’t talk to them that way. And we’re going to give you a really great example of how you can actually do this, but rule one, don’t tell them they’re lapsed.

Second rule, don’t be desperate. And Jackie has a great example of what desperate looks like when it comes to trying to reactivate your donors.

Jackie: We had a client, and their agency, for some reason, excluded a ton of donors, and they were never communicated to. Okay. So the organization felt horrible, and they had all of these things. So they sent us this letter that they wanted us to review, and it was . . . the organization was falling on the sword. “We’re so sorry. Please come back. We didn’t mean to exclude you.” And we were, like, “No.” They were too desperate. They were begging. They were taking responsibility for something that people might not have even noticed. You can really treat them just like you did before.

Kari: Yeah. And then ask appropriately. Ask them for the appropriate amounts. And if possible, ask them to reactivate on something that they’re really passionate about. What was that thing that they originally gave to? What’s that thing that they give to again and again and again? Maybe they haven’t for a couple of years, but what is that thing that they are passionate about? So let’s show you an example, because I think this is going to answer some of the questions that are coming up in the chat.

So this is something that Jackie actually got in the mail not that long ago. She’s not the person, but it was sent to her via somebody else because they thought it was a great example too. So, Jackie, I’ll let you jump in.

Jackie: Okay. So Kari has this saying that you cannot over-thank a donor. You cannot thank a donor too much. She says these things all the time, anybody who talks to her. So I get this, I take a picture of it, I text it to her right away, and I’m, like, “How about now? Is this too much?” And her answer was . . . 

Kari: Nope, not at all. Not at all. I thought it was great. I mean, who doesn’t want to open that letter? I hate mail, and I would totally open that letter.

Jackie: So here’s the inside. Now, we’re going to walk through . . . Kari, you want to start at the top and kind of walk us through it?

Kari: Yeah. So I thought this . . . from start to finish, I thought this was a really great example of how to treat your lapsed donors, because I think sometimes we get really awkward. You know, it’s kind of like that friend that we haven’t seen in a while, and it’s, like, “Are we still friends? Do you still want to be my friend? Do we need to have, like, a DTR and determine what broke down and why, you know, is there something we need to fix?” This is a great way of addressing all of those things in a way that doesn’t do any of that in an awkward position and actually helps the donor feel really understood and valued and that you see them and know who they are. So let’s start at the top.

At the very top of this, it says, “Partner since 1995,” and actually, they even have the entrance date, December 18th. That’s when this donor gave their first gift. So that right there says, “We know you. We know who you are. And you’ve been around for a while,” whether it’s a year ago or now, like, you know, you matter, and we know who you are. And you don’t have to use the phrase renewal notice. You can use your own language, however you want to do it. This is just a great example of how this organization did it, and it’s language that they’ve used before.

So find your own way of saying renewal if that’s not your particular way of doing it. And then what they’re saying up here is, you know, “Notice for partnership in 2022.” And they even have a card up here saying, “Hey, we’re a partner in 2022,” and this is a program that this particular nonprofit has where they call those particular donors partners. So again, this is very branded to them, but use your own for what makes sense to you. And they have a card where it even says, “Partner since 1995.” So again, they’re re-emphasizing, “We’ve had a relationship with you. We value you. We know you and who you are.”

So here, we get into this part, and their first sentence is, “A new year has begun! We hope,” their organization name, “can count on your renewed support with a 2022 gift today.” So what they’re saying here is, “We hope we can count on your renewed support.” And you don’t have to use the word renewed, but what a great way to say, “We know that you want to be with us. We’re excited. We hope that you’re with us.” But it’s not desperate. It’s not beggy. It’s not, “Hey, we haven’t heard from you in a really long time,” you know, that kind of a thing. But it’s still acknowledging, “Hey, we haven’t heard, but we’re expecting you to renew.”

Jackie: Now, the part where they kind of call out that maybe we’re lapsed a little bit here is in this Recent Activity Summary box here, right? And they just put it. There’s no real, you know, flashing lights and, you know, “You suck,” or anything like that. It’s just, you know, “You didn’t give a gift in 2020 or 2021. It’s only 27 days into 2022.” But then they put this little sentence in here, “Above is a summary of your giving activity over the past few years. If you made a recent gift that’s not shown here, perhaps our letters crossed in the mail. If so, accept our warmest thanks.” Again, it’s not beating you up over the head. There’s a little bit of logic here, though, right? There’s logic, right? Oh, logically, I’m looking at the numbers. Oh, yeah, I guess I haven’t given in a couple of years. Huh, okay. Well, yeah, they sent me this thing, and now, there’s also a little bit of emotion in here. It’s talking about how important it is and how your support has made all of these things since 1995. But again, you don’t have to go overboard because this donor has been with you for a long time, even though . . . and I do know this donor, by the way, and there was a change for them in 2020 and 2021. But we’ll probably get them.

Kari: And if you look here, too, the other thing to point out is “Your renewed donation of,” and they have specific dollar amounts that make sense for this donor. Now, their last gift was less than those amounts, but their lifetime giving and gifts in the past, you know, how we talked about year-over-year, it went down in 2019, but in previous years, it was higher than that. And we talked to this donor so we know all this information, because again, we thought this was just such a great example of how to do this well. So again, you don’t need to have a box that calls it out, but look at these elements and try to figure out for you and your organization, how can we take some of this language? How can we take some of these elements and use these to win back these donors in a way that sounds like we know who they are, we know what their giving amount is, and honestly, something might have just happened in their life where they didn’t give? They’re not mad at us. We didn’t fail them, we don’t need to fall on our sword, but, “Hey, we’d love to count on your gift moving forward.” Makes sense? Everyone good? Thumbs up. Are you with us?

Jackie: Okay. All right. So we’re going to make our plan. Our action plan is three steps, right? First, we’re going to pick our who, then we’re going to pick our when, and then we’re going to pick our how. All right. So we’ll jump into picking the who.

Kari: So again, look back at what we talked about. So go back to those qualifying attributes and go through them and really identify if we have a limited amount of time and budget and energy, who is that first group that we want to go after? What is the lowest-hanging fruit? And again, if you look at that slide that we talked about that had all those qualifiers, if you literally just follow that, you have a great, small low-hanging fruit select that you can go after right away. So the next thing that you want to do now that you have that group is pick when. And like we’ve talked about, you want to go back to the offer and the seasonality and find the soonest time you can communicate to them about something that they’re passionate about. So don’t wait till year-end. Still target them at year-end, absolutely. But you know, we’re almost in February, so we’re thinking, “Hey, March, April, what is something that we could send to this group that would resonate with them? How soon can we get something to them that makes sense?”

Our slide is stuck, I think. Sorry about that. I got muted. Jackie got muted. Jackie, are we able to move the slide forward?

Jackie: Yeah, sorry. I think something happened there.

Kari: No, that’s okay.

Jackie: Okay. Back in business.

Kari: So again, the soonest most compatible time. So what can you work into your upcoming communications is one thing that you can look at. So let’s say you have a communication coming up in March and April. Is that something that makes sense to these donors? Can we work into that and just have a lapsed version that goes out to these specific people with just one or two sentences changed kind of about, “Hey, you know, we’d love to have your support for this gift,” just a little bit of language changes, or do we need to create an entirely new campaign we is really kind of what we’re going to talk about in the how.

So which channel do you want to communicate with them with? Is it direct mail, is it email, is it both? And again, is this going to be a standalone campaign, or is this going to be, like, a version of something that we’re already doing to the rest of our donors? Is it a specific acquisition campaign that we’re going to run, or is this . . . again, you know, is it going to go with acquisition, is it going to go with our normal file, or is it totally by itself? Makes sense? So how do we want to do it?

All right. So really quickly, we’re just going to review, and then we’re going to open it up to questions. So again, we’ve got your funnel, starting with all of your lapsed donors, follow those steps to qualify and to get down to the lowest-hanging fruit, and then follow those communication tips to really win those people back. And again, that plan is really just that one, two, three, how are we going to do that? And I know I went ahead of the slide, but I really want to get into questions because I think that’s what . . . you know, as much time as we can spend on that would be great. So, Steven, we’d love to throw it back to you for questions, and we’ll do our best to answer everything that we can. We’ll put up our contact information. If we don’t get to your question, send us an email. We’d love to hear from you and love to help if we can answer the questions that you’ve got.

Steven: Nice. That was awesome. First, thanks, Jackie and Kari. That was really a lot of good information in a short amount of time. So thank you so much. Thanks for doing this.

Kari: A firehose.

Steven: Yeah. But it was good stuff, for sure. And I just found myself nodding along so often. And I love what you said right at the beginning that, you know, some of these people may not consider themselves lapsed, so, you know, be careful how you address them. That’s awesome. So there’s a lot of good questions in here. If you have not asked your question yet, do so now. We’ll probably be able to get to all of them. I promise I’m not playing favorites. Probably have about 10 minutes. But, Kari, why don’t we start on what you called out, this idea that these folks are giving in different ways, peer-to-peer, you talked about? It seems like maybe there’s a similarity with memorial and tribute donors, right, because maybe there’s a third party, maybe there isn’t that necessarily that affinity with your relationship, and also similar to the disaster donors, too. What should people . . . are those the signals they should be looking for when kind of deciding how to approach the communication? What have you seen work with those kinds of folks?

Kari: Yeah, that’s a great question. Jackie, I’ll let you jump in, and then I’ll fill in.

Jackie: Okay. So, okay. So I’m going to take a slightly different look at that, and then we can get into how to communicate with them. When we’re talking to people, when I’m talking to people, especially about new donor acquisition, right, if you’re trying to bring in people just really for those one-time gifts, that is a solid strategy, right? The peer-to-peers and the memorials, and all of that, that is very solid, and that can give you all kinds of revenue, right? You want different revenue streams. But to act like those people are going to be with you and give to you monthly or all throughout the time is not really how it always works, right? But you can . . . there’s always something you can do, right? And so there’s different ways that you can communicate. But again, if you know why, right, even on a memorial gift, if you know why somebody gave, let’s say American Cancer, right, because my mom died of cancer, and so, you know, but people know that . . . the organization knows that I came in from a memorial gift, so they send me anniversary appeals near the time of when my first memorial gift came in.

Kari: Yeah. And I do want to talk specifically about peer-to-peer because I did see some people in the chat saying that that was a big reason why they have lapsed, and first of all, that’s normal. Like, we talked about that’s going to happen. Second of all, there are things you can do to reactivate those people. It might not be the lowest-hanging fruit for you, but one thing that we recommend if you are not doing this already is anytime that there is an event or there is a peer-to-peer campaign, add those people to your welcome series. Give them, you know, three to five emails over a condensed period of time that introduces them to who you are, that tells them about what you’re doing, that lets them get to know you in a way that’s outside of that relationship that they came in on.

Again, this is specific to peer-to-peer and events, because I do want to address the major donor situation that came up too. So work them into that welcome series strategy. That’s a great way to begin to build that relationship. And so, again, there are things that you can do, but if I were to say, for peer-to-peer, and that’s something you can even do with lapsed peer-to-peer right now, is if you haven’t sent them a welcome series, send them a welcome series. They don’t know it’s a welcome series. All they know is they’re getting information about your organization. And you can even tailor a couple of those sentences, “Hey, we’re so thankful for your gift. Look at what you’re doing. Look at the impact that you’re having.” So you really want to try to build that relationship with them outside of how they came in.

So to circle back to that same question with regard to major donors and relationships, you know, the reality is, is major donors, yes, they give because of relationship, in a lot of cases, but they also give because of a passion point. And so if you’re in a position where, you know, let’s say that major donor rep is leaving or your executive director who had that relationship is leaving, what you really need to do is get specific about who these people are and what was their passion point about giving, and then you probably are going to have to spend some time and effort and energy building that relationship personally yourself. But if you know what they’re passionate about, it’s a lot easier to do that. Because major donors are very unique in their giving. They don’t want to give to everything. They want to give to something specific. And there’s a reason why, and there is a passion point in their heart why they want to give to that. So the more specific you can give them, and ask or an offer that you can give them that’s specific to that, the more likely you are that they’re going to stay on your file and stay with your organization after that person leaves, because that’s not going anywhere. And if you can show them, “Hey, this person might be leaving, but this isn’t leaving, this still is here,” they’re more likely to stay.

Steven: That makes sense. Yeah. Dang, you covered a lot there, too. That was awesome. My takeaway is it’s okay if people give once. Like, there are going to be some people, right? And to Jackie’s point, that’s a sound part of your overall mix. So, and I’m like the retention guy, but I’m not afraid to say, “Just bless and release some of these people,” because that’s okay. So I love that you’re encouraging and giving people the freedom to think, by the way. So thank you. The letter example you all showed, it generated a few questions. Yeah, I’m wondering and some other folks are wondering, is that letter . . . first of all, it’s dedicated to lapsed donors, I assume. In other words, it’s segmented to those people. So if that’s the case, are you withholding other communications from that group? In other words, they’re only getting that kind of segmented piece. Are you kind of suppressing them from the other communications? And at what point would you decide to do that, if so?

Kari: That’s a great question.

Jackie: Actually, this person who this example was addressed to is not being suppressed from other communications. They were sent year-end. They were sent some . . . they get something about once a month. But this one, in particular, really calling out, “Hey, it’s been a little bit.”

Kari: We haven’t heard from you in a while.

Steven: Makes sense.

Kari: And that is a great question. And Jackie and I might have different opinions on this. You know, at what point do you really drop those people? I don’t know that you do. And Jackie might disagree with me on this, but how you go after them will change. When they’re outside of that 24-month range, you might want to consider putting them into a different category. Maybe they’re not getting all of [inaudible 00:53:27].

Steven: Stream, yes.

Kari: You know, maybe they’re getting a really targeted lapsed strategy, or maybe you’re adding them into acquisition, and you’re kind of at a certain point . . . and Jackie is a lot better than I am at determining where that point is, maybe you’re treating them as an entirely new donor as opposed to someone that was specific to lapsed. So I mean, how you communicate with them will change, but I mean, in my opinion, keep them on your file and try to just find a new way to communicate with them as you have time and budget. But, Jackie, I’ll let you add your thoughts on that.

Jackie: No. I agree with that. And in the case of this particular example, right, like, this particular donor usually does do . . . gives at year-end. And so they absolutely did not exclude her from year-end.

Kari: Yeah. And Suzanne asked a great question. If someone’s recently lapsed and they don’t consider themselves to be, which I guarantee you, they don’t, can you just include them in current donor communications and send them current stuff? Yes, absolutely. Keep them in your file. Keep giving to them. Where you might want to target them though is, again, kind of going back to what was the last thing that they gave to. What are they really passionate about? What is that offer that they were really excited about? And how can I specifically target them if I need to with that? So maybe it’s something extra.

Steven: Makes sense. Yeah. Most people don’t ask enough, so why not keep some of those other things going too, right? That makes sense. So you both mentioned NCOAs, address updaters, things like that, assuming that maybe some of these lapsed people, you know, their contact info has changed. What are some other ways or maybe schedules where you are going back to the data to update, to clean? Any tips and tricks there?

Kari: Jackie, I’ll let you take that one.

Jackie: Well, like I said before, you know, the post office recommends NCOA quarterly. I would say, we do too. It’s only a 90-day lookback. I get that that’s an additional expense, but I’m telling you, getting return mail first-class that you spent a lot of money on is heartbreaking. And it really does kind of turn your stomach when you see hundreds of your appeals coming back to you. I think that is, for sure, you know, that’s the easiest, fastest thing to do on the address side.

Steven: Got it. A few people are asking about board members. Does the board play a role in any of this perhaps? And there’s actually one specific question, what if some of your lapsed donors are board members? Well, we all want board members giving every year. Any differences there? And I assume maybe some of the board members could participate in the stewardship after this, perhaps. What have you seen work there?

Kari: Yeah, that’s great. And you do want to tread differently with your board members. For some organizations, they see that when someone joins their board, they actually stop giving, because some people, they’re either giving you money or time. So that’s something to look at, did they lapse when they joined your board? So, and if that’s the case, maybe approach it differently and just kind of assume that maybe the giving will resume when they leave the board position, you know, when they cycle out. The other thing that you can do, again, board members are very unique and very different, that’s really a place I would start. That’s your lowest-hanging fruit. Secondarily, you can talk to them about upcoming . . . what are they passionate about? Why did they join the board? When they’re in your board meeting, what’s the thing that you’re doing that they’re excited about, and how can you build a campaign around that? How can you get them energized to want to give to that specific thing? That would be another recommendation. Because again, major donors, they want to give to something specific, not to everything.

Steven: Makes sense. Wow, this hour flew by. We’ve only got a couple of minutes left, and I want to give you two the last word. I know we didn’t get to all the questions. I’m so sorry about that. There are some good ones in here. But can folks reach out by email? Is that okay with you two?

Kari: Yeah. If we didn’t get to your question, please email us. We’d love to connect with you. Yeah, absolutely.

Jackie: One quick thing, because this was brought up earlier, Steven, sorry, about COVID donors. Kari, you want to just mention that really quick on our last two minutes here?

Kari: Yeah. Do you want to take that, or do you want me to jump in?

Jackie: You can.

Kari: So we are hearing a lot right now, as everyone is, about COVID fatigue. I mean, just raise your hand if you’re sick of hearing about COVID. All of us are sick of hearing about COVID. And so if you had donors that came in on a COVID-specific related thing, we’re noticing two things. Some of them are responding like disaster relief responders, where they gave to that thing because it was hot, it was urgent, it might have even been local to their specific situation, and they wanted to help someone in that environment. If that’s the case, it is probably going to be harder for them to stay on your file in an active way because they came as that disaster relief mentality.

Now, we are seeing on the other side, and where we’ve seen a lot of success, is again people that came on from that offer, but they received a welcome series, they’ve had great feedback on what you’ve done with their gift, how have you used what they’ve given, and how were you helping people transition into this new avenue. And so really what I would say is it’s very similar to peer-to-peer or even disaster relief, is you don’t have to keep talking just about COVID to them. In fact, maybe don’t. But show them what their gift’s doing. Show them how they’ve had an impact. Show them where those people that they helped during COVID are now, why does that matter, and why do you still need their support, you know, beyond that. But again, realize that we’re still learning a lot about this donor group and their specific behavior patterns, and it has kind of been pretty split between those that want to stick around and those that behave more like disaster relief donors. And, Jackie, I know you have thoughts on this too.

Jackie: Again, back to the audience, right, the thing about a lot of these COVID donors that is different than emergency relief is the amount of time, right? Normally, with emergency relief, it’s something you saw in the news, it’s in the paper, whatever, it’s in your face for a very short period of time. It’s an earthquake. It’s whatever. The COVID thing, you know, we’re, like, on year two here. So they are responding slightly different. They are retaining more. Again, from what we’ve seen, most of them are retaining at a greater rate than the typical earthquake or hurricane disaster. But keep asking.

Kari: And again, keep in mind that rule. Every time you ask, thank them twice. Report back to them twice on what you’re doing, on why it matters on who you’re helping, that good news, the good news, the good news.

Jackie: Thank you. Thank you.

Kari: Yeah. And that can help as well in terms of keeping them around.

Steven: Can’t thank too much, can’t report on impact too much, right? Always good advice for everybody. Yeah. That’s an awesome topic. Dang, I wish we could talk another hour on just the COVID donors, but definitely a situation I know you’re all looking at and we’re keeping an eye on too.

Jackie: Every day.

Steven: Yeah, absolutely. Well, how can folks get in touch with you two? I want them to check out the shop, so how can they do that?

Jackie: Well, you can go to our website, thenonprofitconsultingshop.com. And like we said, if you have a question that we didn’t get to, shoot us an email at info@npconsultingshop.com. We’d love to hear from you.

Steven: Nice. Thanks for doing this you two. I know you’re super busy, you’re doing all your client work, and, Kari, you’re working on your nonprofit too. So thanks for taking the time for joining us today.

Kari: This was fun. Thanks for having us.

Jackie: Yes.

Steven: Yeah. This was awesome. And thanks to you all for hanging out. I think we had almost 500 people at the height. So that was awesome to see. So thank you all for taking an hour. Yeah, that was great.

Kari: And for being so interactive. It’s fun to see the chat. It’s always encouraging as a presenter when people are participating, so thank you.

Steven: I told you, the Bloomerang crew, they’re a good crew. I always appreciate all the chats and the weather updates when they indulge me on that. So thank you. Speaking of the Bloomerang crew, we got another one coming up next year. We’re going to talk about the relationship between the ED and the board chair. Oh, yeah, that’s always a fun one, right? So if you are one of those two people or if you are around one of those two people, I think that’s basically everybody, right, join us, same time, same place, next week, next Thursday, 1 p.m. My buddy Nancy is going to talk about that relationship, because it’s an important one and not one we see talked about too often. So join us. 

If you can’t make it, register anyway because I’ll send you the recording if you are registered, just like we’re going to send the recording to this one. Don’t worry about taking up somebody’s spot. There’s an infinite amount of spots, and I won’t know necessarily that you weren’t there. That won’t hurt our feelings. So check that out next week if you’re free. We got a lot of other sessions scheduled that you can check out as well every Thursday. We’ll keep it going through the year. So thanks for joining us. And like I said, be on the lookout for an email from me with all the resources from today. And hopefully, we will see you again next week. So have a good rest of your Thursday. Have a good weekend. Stay safe. Stay warm. Stay healthy. And we will talk to you all soon. Bye now.

Jackie: Bye.

The post Win Back Your Lapsed Donors appeared first on Bloomerang.

This article originally appeared in Bloomerang. See the original article here.

Elizabeth Abel will explore the role of the board in elevating fundraising activity and discuss effective strategies to recruit, engage, and deploy diverse board members as fundraising ambassadors.

Full Transcript:

Steven: All right, Elizabeth, I’ve got 2:30 Eastern officially. Is it okay if I go ahead and get this party started?

Elizabeth: Yes.

Steven: All right. Awesome. Well, good afternoon, everybody. Good morning if you are on the West Coast, I should say. And if you’re watching this as a recording, I hope you’re having a good day no matter when and where you are.

We are here to talk about philanthropic leadership. Yeah, engaging those board members to be fundraising ambassadors. Who doesn’t want that, right? And we’re going to be talking about that today over the next hour or so. I’m so excited for you all to be here. Nice to see a full room, especially and during such a busy and hectic time of year. So thanks for being here, all of you. And thanks for watching if you’re watching the recording.

I’m Steven. I’m over here at Bloomerang, and I’ll be moderating today’s discussion as always. And just a couple of quick housekeeping items. Just want to let you all know that we are recording this session, and we’ll be sending out the slides as well as the recording later on this afternoon.

So if you have to leave early, or maybe get another appointment, or maybe you’re working from home and a toddler barges in something like that, like me, don’t worry. We appreciate that situation for one thing, but don’t worry, we will get that recording to you later on today. So just be on the lookout for an email from me with all those goodies.

But most importantly, I know a lot of you have already done this, but please feel free to chat in during the session we’re going to save some time for Q&A at the end. There’s a chat box, there’s a Q&A box, you can use either of those. If you use the Q&A box, it might be a little bit more visible to us. There’s just a little insider tip there.

But either way, we love to hear from you. Introduce yourself now if you haven’t already. Tell us where you’re from, what you do, how the weather is. I always like to get the weather report. But we love to hear from you. We love for these sessions to be interactive. You can also send us a tweet, I’ll keep an eye on Twitter as well. But don’t sit on those hands. Don’t be shy, we’d love to hear from you.

And if this is your first Bloomerang webinar, just want to say a special welcome to all you first-timers. We do these webinars just about every Thursday throughout the year. We literally do like 50 sessions a year. It’s one of our favorite things that we do here at Bloomerang. Definitely, my favorite thing because I’m the host.

But if you’ve never heard of Bloomerang beyond the webinar series, we are also a provider of donor management software. That’s what Bloomerang is. So if you’re interested in that, check us out. We’re pretty easy to find online, you can visit our website. You can get a demo, you can watch videos, all kinds of cool things on our website. If you’re interested, just putting that out there.

But don’t do that right now, at least wait an hour because dang, who doesn’t want to hear about board fundraising, especially from an expert like my pal Elizabeth Abel, who’s joining us from beautiful downtown Manhattan. Elizabeth, how are you doing? Are you doing okay?

Elizabeth: I’m doing well. Really thrilled to be here, Steven. Thank you.

Steven: Yeah, I’m thrilled too. I’ve been looking forward to this one for quite a while. We’ve been getting to know each other over the past few months. And you all got to know Elizabeth because she’s all over the place speaking, she’s doing podcasts, she’s getting interviewed. She works over at CCS.

Which by the way, if you work at CCS, this is pretty serious people if you know that agency. If you don’t, check them out because they do a lot of really awesome work. We have a lot of mutual clients and customers. And I can vouch for the awesomeness of all the things they do.

Elizabeth has worked on tons of campaigns for her clients, billion dollars raised. She can put at least her fingerprint on a little bit on all those too, and a lot of our fingerprints too, because she’s awesome. I don’t know how you find the time to do this, Elizabeth, in addition to your full-time job which is a lot, but you’re also an instructor at the University of Pennsylvania. That’s awesome, really involved in their nonprofit leadership program, which is really cool.

And she also serves on her home chapter of AFP which we always we appreciate. Love AFP. And, dang, you’re busy and you’re a super-smart person. So I’m going to pipe down because people don’t want to hear from me, they want to hear from you. So I know you got some slides to pull up but the floor is yours. Tell us all about those philanthropic ambassadors. Go for it.

Elizabeth: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. Really thrilled to be here. Again, my name is Elizabeth Abel. And I’m a Senior Vice President at CCS Fundraising, which is a global fundraising consulting firm that works with nonprofit organizations.

And my colleague is going to share our presentation and we will jump right in. This is one of my absolute favorite topics in philanthropy, this idea of engaging board members as fundraising ambassadors.

So today, we are going to talk about a few key strategies to help you educate, engage, and empower your board members to amplify your fundraising activity. We’ll start with a few key trends in philanthropy that will ground our conversation. And then we’ll have some time for question and answers to make sure that we can do our best to address some of the things that you and your teams and your boards are facing today.

So we have three key goals for our conversation this afternoon or morning depending on where you are. First is to understand the role of the board specifically in elevating an organization’s fundraising program.

Second is to develop some action-oriented strategies to recruit and retain and engage diverse board members in fundraising activity broadly. And then we’ll hone in on some best practices that you and your teams can apply specifically to leverage your board members in your fundraising activity in a way that excites and energizes them.

So a little bit more about me very quickly. As I shared, I’m a Senior Vice President at CCS and an instructor at the University of Pennsylvania. And when people ask why I do the work that I do, I like to share my own mission.

As nonprofits, we have the missions of our organizations. And my mission is really to educate and empower nonprofit leaders and their teams with the knowledge and tools to scale their revenue and amplify their impact. And that’s really what I do in my role as a fundraising consultant through capital campaigns.

I’ve managed campaigns ranging from about $5 million to over a billion dollars in health care, education, arts and culture, and advocacy sectors. And really appreciate the opportunity to share my experiences on the frontlines working on these campaigns with all of you here today.

For those of you who are not familiar with CCS, we are a global firm. We have offices across the country and around the world. So on the next slide, you can see we partner with more than 500 nonprofits annually worldwide. Currently, we have campaigns under management totaling about $10 billion.

So again, we work both with smaller grassroots organizations all the way up to some of these large institutions that you see here and may be familiar with. And we have about 300 employees across the country and a few in Europe as well.

So with that, what we wanted to do is start our conversation by understanding your understanding of key trends in philanthropy. So we have three questions that will help anchor our conversation. And just to make it easy, we’ll ask you to type your questions in the chat. And then you’ll get a chance to see you know, what other people think about these trends and how they relate to board members in fundraising.

So the first question we have, how much do you think was invested in the philanthropic marketplace in 2020? So your options include $389 billion, 471, and 525. All right, I got a lot of Cs, some Bs. A lot of Cs, okay. I love the active participation. Please keep it up. We appreciate it.

So what we’ll share in the next slide, is that in 2020, giving reached a record-breaking $471.44 billion. So for those of you who guessed B, you are correct. In June 2021 Giving USA Foundation and partnership with the Lilly Indiana Family School of Philanthropy released their annual Giving USA report. And the headline was that this $471 billion was a new record for charitable giving in the United States.

And I want you to let that number really sink in because it is extraordinary. And it represents the highest year of giving on record since the Giving Institute began tracking this data more than 60 years ago.

So knowing that 471 billion is kind of the volume of the philanthropic marketplace. On the next slide, we have a question about where the majority of this fundraising revenue comes from. So A, corporations, B foundations, or C individuals. All right, I will argue that this is probably the easier question and most of you are getting this right. So we’ll jump right to the next slide.

What we continue to see is that individuals drive giving in America. And so of this 471 billion individuals gave $324 billion in 2020, which is about 69% of total giving. And if you think about this pie chart, what I really want to call out is that bequests, which are about 9%, are gifts made by individuals. And foundations this 19% includes both, you know, national foundations and family foundations.

So when you really think about it, individuals drive about 80% of total giving in America. And as fundraisers, this is really important because it grounds us in the value of building relationships with people. I’m sure you’ve all heard the phrase people give to people.

And as we think about our board members and think about their individual reasons for being a part of your organizations and how they are people who care about your mission. It is incumbent upon us to really engage them thoughtfully as people who give to nonprofits that they care about and who are leaders of these nonprofits.

And so the last question we have, what percent of charitable donors are also volunteers? So 21%, 46%, or 62%? Seeing a range here.

So I was pretty surprised to learn that on the next slide, it’s actually 62% of charitable donors are also recent volunteers. And this is according to a 2020 report The Role of Volunteering In Philanthropy by Fidelity Charitable. And this is really important because it means that meaningful volunteer opportunities can build engagement that then leads to greater giving.

And so a few of the statistics here from this report that we wanted to call out before delving into some of our specific strategies. So 62% of donors are also volunteers. 39% of donors support a nonprofit by volunteering before they make a donation. So again, volunteering can lead to being a major donor.

And then I thought this was really interesting about millennials is that 33% of millennials say they give more to a nonprofit they volunteer with. So all signs lead to thinking about volunteers as meaningful perspective major donors.

And so when we think about today’s theme, and this idea of your board members as your fundraising ambassadors and your leaders as your champions, it really reiterates the point that volunteering leads to fundraising, that it’s kind of a symbiotic relationship. And we need to be that much more intentional in engaging our volunteer leaders and our board members in a way that’s meaningful, and valuable, and energizing for them.

So that brings us to the heart of our presentation today. So we’ll talk about the role of the board and elevating fundraising activity. We’ll then pivot to recruiting and retaining diverse board members. And then unpacking some case studies that can articulate some of these strategies in action.

So the role of the board, every nonprofit has a board of directors, which as we know provides strategy, oversight, and participation. So strategy really focuses on organizational direction, establishing values, mission, ensuring the organization embodies its cultural ethos. Oversight, specifically in financial matters, ensuring accountability, approving the budget.

And then participation, which is really focused on fundraising. So ensuring that an organization has the resources it needs to do its work. And as we all know as fundraisers, one of our main goals is to ensure 100% board participation in both annual and capital fundraising projects.

The key message that I really want to leave you with today is that board members are your greatest fundraising ambassadors. They are natural storytellers and advocates for your organization. They bring a diverse set of experiences, skills, talents, perspectives. They provide access to potential avenues of new support. And through all of this work, they are multipliers of your fundraising activity.

And so this is one of my favorite graphics which really shows your development office, your board members, they’re effectively being multipliers that leads to greater revenue. And the point that I would emphasize here is that this theme and this concept is particularly important for smaller development teams, where you have limited staff capacity. And yet ambitious revenue goals, deadlines that you need to meet, pipelines that you need to kind of mine through, and you just can’t do it all yourself.

So think about your board members as an extension of your fundraising team. And think about how we can have them multiply all that you do.

The next thing I want to talk about is setting fundraising expectations with your board. So your responsibility as we know is fundraising. We’ll talk a little bit about what that means specifically. And so what we’ve seen according to BoardSource, and I really think this is important when we think about setting up our boards for success. Is that when fundraising expectations are clearly articulated during recruitment 52% of CEOs report that their boards are actively engaged in an organization’s fundraising efforts.

Now personally, I would like to see this 52 be like 82 but I will take the 52. Compared to when fundraising expectations are not clearly articulated during board recruitment. Only 12% of CEOs report that their boards are actively engaged in fundraising efforts.

Huge lost opportunity by not communicating fundraising expectations when you are bringing people onto your board. And when you are kicking off your fiscal year or your calendar year, set those expectations high so people know what they can do to be helpful. And what is expected of them to be successful on your board and for your organization.

On the flip side, there are a number of things that donors want to know about your board. So donors want to know that your board members are supporting your mission. And this is not just in the boardroom, but that they’re really championing your mission as human beings outside of their formal responsibilities. Donors want to know that your board members are personally involved, they want to see that your board is diverse and inclusive of all perspectives and backgrounds.

Number four is something that I come across a lot in my work when we think about campaigns. When we’re asking a major donor to support a campaign, the first thing that major donor will oftentimes ask is, do you already have 100% board participation?

We get this from foundations in particular. Okay, I’m a foundation. I’m interested in supporting. Has your board already committed to supporting? Because we want to make sure that if we’re going to invest in you, your board and your closest circle of advocates has already demonstrated their support.

And then five, donors also want to believe that there’s a solid partnership between your board and your administration and that you’re working in harmony together.

So now that we understand the role of the board and supporting your fundraising activity at the highest level, let’s discuss the importance of recruiting and engaging diverse board members.

This is really important when we think about an organization’s values and beliefs. Having a diverse board allows us to reach a broader audience. It builds a culture of trust and respect. It allows an organization to communicate authentically. And it ultimately as we’ll talk about in a minute, will allow you to amplify your fundraising efforts.

So over the summer, BoardSource published a really excellent report called “Leading with Intent: Reviewing the State of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion on Nonprofit Boards.” The report, which if you don’t have it, we can share it after this. And if you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend it. It was super interesting.

It really unpacks data around the composition of boards and specifically, the implications of diversity on boards, programming, fundraising, and operations. And what the report states is that the percentage of people of color on boards increased from 16% in 2017 to 22%, in 2019. Okay, so positive trend.

And what we’re seeing is that while this is encouraging, the numbers are going up, nonprofit boards are still far from representing the communities that they serve. And this is compounded by traditional board recruitment practices, where oftentimes board members identify new board members through their own existing networks. And so what we saw on the right-hand side, some of the statistics that really resonated with me.

So 82% of chief executives say that racial diversity is important to their external leadership. But only 70% of that group is . . . or actually 70% of that group is dissatisfied with the board’s racial composition. And what we’re seeing is that’s because only 50% have actually aligned their board’s recruitment practices with their diversity goals.

So what does this mean? Why is this important to our work as fundraisers specifically? So board diversity is critical to philanthropy. And so a board’s level of diversity . . . on the next slide, we’ll talk about how it really affects the organization’s programming, fundraising, and overall impact.

So greater board diversity will allow us to do six things . . . many more than six things but we’ll focus on six things right now. Number one, it will allow us to expand our donor base and reach a broader audience. Number two, we’ll be able to enhance our organization’s current standing with current funders and donors alike.

Third, greater board diversity will allow us to attract and retain top talent for the board. Next, it’ll allow us to cultivate trust and confidence with the communities that we serve. Enhance the organization’s standing with the general public. And then understand how best to serve the community because as we know, we want to make sure that our boards are representing the communities that we serve.

So the question I’m asked a lot is how can we turn this insight into action? And so I really want to emphasize the importance of intentionality and authenticity and offer a few action-oriented strategies to foster greater diversity and inclusion on our boards.

So the key message I want to share for right now is that by becoming more diverse and inclusive, boards will be better positioned to amplify their fundraising activity, which in turn will allow them to be more effective in fulfilling their mission, delivering their programs, and positively impacting the communities that they serve.

And so the report really challenges us to think about five things. So first is how we can reflect on the importance of diversity to our board’s work, specifically fundraising. Second is how we can recruit board members in a strategic and thoughtful way. Second or third is committing to building an inclusive and welcoming culture. And I think number two and three go hand in hand. So we’re not just recruiting, but we’re really engaging meaningfully.

Four is considering the level of depth of our DEI practices and challenging ourselves to engage in deeper, more meaningful ways. And then five is to dedicate time for continuous learning and growth. Knowing that we’re moving forward and we need to be intentional about our commitment [inaudible 00:20:57].

So now that we’ve talked a little bit about board compensation broadly, I want to talk a little bit about what it means to be an effective board member, specifically an effective fundraising ambassador and board member.

So one of the questions that I receive almost all the time when I talk about board members and fundraising is what characteristics should I look for in a board member when I think about their fundraising responsibilities? And there are really six characteristics that resonate most with me.

The first is advocate. So we want people who are respected community leaders, strong communicators, people who will generate energy and momentum, and credibility and trust in the work that you’re doing.

Second, we want people who are also able to make connections. So people who have access to potential new supporters, potential leaders who can continue to multiply the community that you’re a part of.

Next is, we always hope that our board members are some of our most generous stakeholders, they’re personally philanthropic, they’re setting an example and helping to raise your communities’ sights. You know, one of the things about being a donor, it’s not just giving a gift, it’s building a strong culture of philanthropy.

And if we have 100% board participation, if we have people who are advocating and connecting and giving, that will allow you to build a strong culture of philanthropy, where giving and major giving is a natural and valued, and energizing part of your culture.

Next is we want people who we can partner with. They’re collaborative, they’re passionate about your mission. And they’re not scared to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty on behalf of the work that you’re doing.

We also want people who have a unique perspective. They can share their own personal story for why they’re involved in your organization, how their involvement has perhaps changed their life or their perspectives, and how we can really leverage their stories to help generate momentum and energy around the work that you’re doing.

And then lastly, we want people who we can steward and who can help us steward our community members. So we want our board members to have the time to commit to building, maintaining relationships, making calls, thanking people with notes and emails. And helping to again, just build a strong culture of philanthropy.

So this really brings us to the heart of our conversation today. So once we have a strong board, we have the right people on our board, we’re building an inclusive culture. How can we activate our board members as fundraising ambassadors specifically in a way that resonates with each of them?

And kind of the big disclaimer I always share is that, you know, it works for me as a board member, what I like to do may not be what you like to do as a board member. And so I think it’s really important for executive leadership, and development directors and board chairs to understand that being an effective board member is not just asking for money. And we’re going to talk about all of the ways in which board members can engage in fundraising more broadly.

So there are four ways we’re going to talk about today. First is championing the vision. Second is building meaningful relationships. Third is activating personal networks. And then fourth is supporting solicitation and stewardship activity.

Now I know there’s several hundred people on this call from all over the country, the world, small, large, complex institutions, newer institutions. What I want to share to you is for development professionals on the call, I would note that there are ways for your leaders to support philanthropy at every stage of your donor journey. So identification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship.

And then for those of you who are board members and volunteers on this call, I would encourage you to think about what resonates most with you, and what gets you most excited. And then follow up with your development directors to talk about ways that you can elevate your own involvement in fundraising. Because I do mean it sincerely when we were thinking about this presentation and the audience, I can promise you there will be something in here for each of you and for your teams.

So the first thing we’re going to talk about is championing the vision. So what do I mean by championing the vision? So every nonprofit, every vision that we have, is grounded in what we call a case for philanthropy, a case for support. So it is essentially a vision for the future that illustrates the impact that philanthropic investments will have, and that we can communicate to help inspire support. It’s like a cohesive vision, a cohesive mission, and a cohesive message that we want to be sharing and championing within our broader community.

And so what I would say here, is that the simplest way to be an effective board member is to champion and communicate your vision. So let’s build enthusiasm and momentum around the case for support. So talk about what’s happening at the institution.

So if you’re embarking on a capital campaign, and you’re building, let’s say, you’re a hospital system, and you’re building a new oncology wing, let’s talk about that in the community. What’s the need? Why are we meeting the need? How are we meeting the need? What will the impact be?

If you have a gala coming up, how can you speak on behalf of the organization at the gala? Could you share your story, whether it’s you know, with the people at your dinner table, or whether you’re delivering the keynote, but how can you always be thinking about opportunities to talk about the organization, formally and informally?

And then the bottom left box, the easiest way to do this, and it’s also the most compelling way to do this is to share your personal story. So if you’re involved in your organization as a professional fundraiser, or an executive leader, or volunteer leader, I would argue that you’re involved because the mission resonates with you. And there’s probably a reason why you have a connection with that mission.

And so I would think about your own personal story, why are you here? Why do you care? Why should I care as a donor? And champion that vision through your personal story. So talk about why you’re involved and talk about why you give.

I sometimes think some of our major donors can shy away from talking about why they give financially. And I think it’s a missed opportunity because if I respect you as a board member, and you talk not only about why you’re involved but also why you give, it will inspire me to think about how I can give and how I can stretch my giving too. As I think about you know, those characteristics, you’re credible, you’re an advocate, you’re someone that I aspire to be like perhaps.

And then another way we can help build brand awareness for the organization through our role as a board member is to allow the use of your name associated with an organization. Again, how many of you have attended an event or go to a museum? I feel like the first thing I do is look at the names of the donors, and the trustees, and the ambassadors who are publicly proudly championing the vision and mission of the organization.

So again, thinking about that initial message that I had shared, our fundraising ambassadors, our board members, our multipliers. So championing the vision, what we’re doing here is we’re multiplying the message, we’re multiplying the case for philanthropy in our community.

So the next thing we’re going to multiply is our audience through building meaningful relationships. So one of the ways that we can really leverage our board members is through their personal networks and community connections that can ultimately drive support for our organization.

So some of the ways that we can do this are by identifying and qualifying prospective donors. We can ask our board members to assist in what we sometimes call prospecting sessions. So let’s say we want to expand our board or, you know, engage a new cohort of major donors. Let’s talk about who we know in our community that has the ability to make a meaningful gift, that they have an affinity for our mission, and that we have access to them through our board.

Our board members can facilitate personal introductions to our professional leadership. They can help with follow-up. I think about it like they’re the glue. If you look at the little icon, they’re really the glue that bring people together under the umbrella of the mission and the community that you’re serving.

Where board members can add a tremendous amount of value is by participating in select donor meetings. So, you know, if I’m an executive director and I’m meeting with a new donor, I should and I would encourage you to invite one of your board members to join you. You know, your perspective as an executive leader is complemented by their perspective as a volunteer and major donor. And together, you can probably have a really powerful response and conversation.

And similarly, you know, when . . . we do a lot of work here at CCS with independent schools, and we really lean into peer-to-peer fundraising. And we’ll talk a little bit more about that in a few minutes. But having our board members not only participate in donor meetings but perhaps lead those donor meetings is really powerful as well.

And then, as we continue to engage in this digital remote world, I think we’re all becoming much more comfortable with leveraging technology and social media to amplify our message as well. So encouraging our board members and our volunteer leaders to engage with us on social media, again, really furthers our brand awareness and our audience as well.

So I would say you know, thinking about the most active ways that we can engage our board members in fundraising specifically, now we’re starting to get into some of the cultivation and solicitation tactics. When you think about identify, cultivate, solicit, and steward, we’re probably now starting to get into that second half.

So one of the ways that we can leverage our board members is by engaging their personal networks. And so again, thinking about how we’re multiplying, we’re multiplying engagement, we’re multiplying our audience. So board members can invite prospective donors to meet to learn more about your organization.

You know, pre-COVID, we really encourage board members to host a parlor meeting in their home or business. I know we’re starting to see this happen a bit again. Specifically, in a nicer weather, we can host things outside. But it’s really powerful. And I’ll walk through one of our case studies in a few minutes, how a parlor meeting is a really great opportunity to bring a select group of people together and to help build some meaningful relationships under the umbrella of the work that you’re doing.

And then again, inviting people to attend events that are in your network, your professional, personal, religious, children’s networks, invite friends, invite prospects. What we see is that personal touch really goes a long way in driving engagement and ultimately philanthropy.

And then finally, one of the most valuable ways that our board members can support solicitation and stewardship activity is by thinking about how we can leverage their own giving and their own role as champions, to inspire giving.

So the most, I would say straightforward way is to ensure that all of our board members are making a meaningful stretch gift to the organization, that they’re growing their philanthropy. That they are really setting the tone for your community that we take philanthropy seriously, it’s an integral part of our culture, and that we expect 100% participation on our board.

The next way that we can also engage our board members is offering guidance on the right gifts strategies or materials to present to a donor. You know, I think this will depend on the type of organization you have and your community. For schools, for you know, smaller communities where people know each other, it’s helpful to get a sense of insight. It might be harder if you’re a national organization.

But, you know, if I’m sitting at a table thinking about how to engage you know, Joe Smith and I know Joe from work, I’m able to provide some insight that our development department might not know that can help inform a gift strategy.

And when I say stretch gift, I’m really talking about major giving. So some of the larger annual gifts to your organization, or if you’re embarking on a capital campaign, some of the gifts at the top of your gift pyramid. The ways in which board members can really again just set the tone and lead with pace-setting gifts that inspire the rest of the community to step up as well.

I will say the most powerful way that board members can serve as fundraising ambassadors is by asking others to join me in making a gift. I think this phrase “join me” I’m sure many of you are familiar with it, it’s very powerful. If I’m being solicited for a gift and I have a board member say, “Join me in making a gift,” I hear a few things.

Number one, this board member has already made his or her gift so I’m not alone in making a gift. Number two, this board member is important, influential, probably wouldn’t make a gift to an organization if it wasn’t credible. So I’m joining a credible winning team. And then third, I’m part of a community, I’m part of a community of people who are making significant investments to support the organization that we care about together.

And so I would encourage you, for those of you who are board members, for those of you on the call, who are thinking about how to leverage your board members in fundraising. This idea of peer-to-peer gift requests, and this phrase of “join me” is one that I cannot emphasize enough.

And then finally, supporting stewardship activity. You know, one of the questions that I hear a lot, especially from smaller development teams, I only have a finite number of hours in a day, Elizabeth. How am I supposed to do everything? How am I supposed to make the ask, and then thank all the donors who have already given?

Because we know as fundraisers we have our annual goals, we have a finite amount of time to meet them. And if we have an extra hour in our day, are we going to make an ask, or are we going to thank someone for an ask? We’re probably going to make the ask.

So the best way we can complement our own time is by leveraging our board members to help us with stewardship. So could each of our board members over the course of the year thank 25 people, make five phone calls, write five thank you notes, write five emails. When you kind of divide it into these small micro-steps, and then take a look at how much you can do collectively, it will go such a long way.

At CCS, we do feasibility and campaign planning studies for organizations that are thinking of embarking on larger campaigns or capital campaigns. And one of the questions we ask is often around stewardship. And you know, how well does the organization steward? Are there opportunities?

And one of the things we hear a lot is, you know, I only hear from the organization when they want my money. And so one of the ways that we recommend kind of balancing this is by leveraging your board members to help partner with you for your stewardship activity.

So we’re going to kind of pivot to the final phase of our conversation today, around some of our case studies. So I’m going to walk through two case studies. And then what I think about is a toolkit that we can use to help support our board members.

So the first case study is about parlor meetings. And I want to talk about an experience I had working with an advocacy organization. And the way that I’m going to talk about these case studies is the purpose, the structure, and the outcome of each. It’s how my brain works. Very linear thinker over here.

So the purpose of the parlor meeting for this advocacy organization was to engage high-capacity prospects in fundraising efforts and to expand their donor audience. And so here’s what happened.

We had a board member host a parlor meeting over the summer. And this was pre-COVID. But it was still able to be outside should it be in COVID. And it was positioned as a special opportunity to hear from the CEO on his vision and a unique capital project. The board member is a person of influence who invited some friends and colleagues to their home and the CEO spoke about the vision.

So the board member welcomes everyone, so thrilled to be here, introductions, little cocktails, everyone’s mingling getting to know one another. And then we hear from the CEO about this inspiring vision. The impact of financial investments on allowing the organization to realize that vision sooner.

We had a number of attendees who were really inspired. And there was one attendee who was like, really, really excited. The mission of the organization really resonated with him. The CEO’s energy he felt a connection to. And this vision and the call to action he felt ready and willing to make a meaningful gift the next day.

Now, I will say this is an ideal outcome, of course, we were prepared to have one on one follow-up with each of the people who attended. But really the outcome is that through this parlor meeting that was hosted by a board member, we were able to engage a new cohort of leaders through one-on-one meetings and strategic follow-up that built authentic personal momentum with the people who had never attended an event for this organization before.

And I would say this is a pretty replicable model, right? You have your board member host, you hear from your executive leadership. Perhaps there are community members who are beneficiaries of your organization’s work who could speak as well. There are plenty of opportunities to be creative.

Next case study is peer-to-peer solicitations. And I’m going to focus on this for a few minutes because as I shared again, you can probably tell this is one of my favorite opportunities. I just saw a question pop in the chat. I’ll pause quickly. How many people attended this event for the advocacy? There were about 40 people in attendance.

And I would say there’s no like one-size-fits-all model for the number of people. I think it really depends on having the right people in the room. So if you have, I would say 12 to 15 is probably a nice, sweet spot for a parlor meeting. Cocktail party, you could have maybe 25 to 30, it depends on the space. And it also depends quite honestly on the capacity of your team to do follow-up. Because a parlor meeting is great but if there’s no follow-up, then it’s a little bit of a wasted opportunity.

So peer-to-peer solicitations. So our purpose here . . . this was an independent school. And so really, our focus was on the annual fund. We wanted to build a stronger culture of philanthropy at the school and secure new and increased gifts to our annual fund. And so what we did is we established in advance the committee.

So we recruited and convened a group of major donors who were influential in the community. Again, thinking back to those characteristics of successful fundraisers. Influential, ready to roll up their sleeves, comfortable making peer-to-peer solicitations, major donors themselves.

And what we did is we assigned each committee member two to three families that they would personally be responsible for soliciting with support from the advancement team. We provided a solicitation training and toolkit. And I can talk a little bit about the solicitation training in a moment.

But basically, we talked about why we have the annual fund, why we support the annual fund. We talked about how to make the ask. And then most importantly, we talked about how to respond to donors’ responses after we do make the ask so that people are prepared. You know, if we were to ask the family for a gift, and they said, I need to think about it, how are you responding in a way that makes everyone comfortable and moves the conversation along.

So after the solicitation training and toolkit that we provided, committee members were then kind of activated to invite families to meet and these were . . . at the time, this is pre-COVID. But I think depending on people’s comfort levels, these were in-person, one-on-one-meetings. Now we’re seeing them virtual. But these were kind of personal one-on-one meetings where committee members met with families and then made the ask for the annual fund.

And what we saw is that we were able to multiply solicitation activity from about 500,000 to about 850 that year, because of this ability to leverage our board members as fundraising multipliers, and help generate additional revenue for the organization. Because at the time, the team internally was really small.

And so again, this idea that your board members are your fundraising ambassadors, they’re multipliers, I think is really important, because we’re able to see how they can help us raise more revenue in a way that works well for them.

The final slide before we open it up to question and answers is empowering your fundraising ambassadors. So while our board members are instrumental in supporting our fundraising efforts, it is on us as fundraisers and development teams to make sure that we’re providing them with the support that they need to be successful.

So there are three things that I’d like to focus on. Number one is clear expectations. Number two is a fundraising toolkit. And number three are educational opportunities.

So clear expectations. So whether this is your board or an advancement, or major gifts committee, or capital campaign committee, we want to make sure that we are communicating clearly about what is expected in this rule. Again, think back to that slide I shared at the beginning of the presentation, the 52% versus 12% of board participation in fundraising efforts when they’re clearly communicated. Again, I still think 52% is low.

But think about the importance of clearly communicating, you want to be on this board, there are lots of things we do and fundraising is one of them. You want to be on our capital campaign committee, amazing. Let’s talk about your participation in the campaign and, you know, your comfort level, inviting others to join you.

Second, is a toolkit. So we do this a lot when we partner with nonprofits on capital campaigns specifically. We’ll craft talking points and you know, do you have an event calendar or prospect list? But really, I think about like, tactically this is like a folder if I’m a board member with everything I need to be successful. It includes your giving societies if you have them, it includes your case brochure if you have it, it includes an event calendar to drive activity.

So one of the things that I really think is so important is once we meet with families, or donors, we never just want to say thank you. It’s nice to have that conversation. But oh, by the way, it’s so great to see you. I’m so glad you’re excited about our mission. Here’s our event calendar. We happen to have you know, an annual gala in a few weeks, would love for you to attend as my guest.

But always have something in your back pocket that you can pull out to continue that conversation. And the fundraising toolkit is a really helpful way to kind of compile that all together.

And then lastly, and this is something that I personally do all the time, in terms of fundraising trainings, and workshops, and solicitation trainings, fundraising retreats for your board. But what are the professional opportunities that we can offer our board so that they feel prepared with the language and the skills and the tools to be successful?

When I was working at that independent school, and we led the solicitation training, we did it in the evening. We had wine, it was actually fun and I think it built people’s confidence. So we’re not just saying, “Great, thanks for being a board member. Here’s the five people you need to ask for money.”

But we’re talking about what does it mean to make the case. We’re talking about the way in which you’re asking for money so that people are prepared, and they’re confident. And then they do have those wins. And it’s like a snowball effect. You have a board member who solicits a major gift and the donor says yes, that board member is like, give me more donors to solicit. I am ready to bring home the money. And that’s really what we want.

So the final thought I will leave you with is about recognizing our board members for their time, energy and leadership. So our board members are the greatest asset to our fundraising efforts and we just need to make sure that we remember to thank them, you know. Perhaps it’s an orchid, it’s a bottle of champagne, it’s a handwritten thank you note. But what are the little things above and beyond that we can do to recognize our board members for all that they do to support our mission and the communities that we serve?

So with that, I will turn it over to Q&A. I will encourage you, if you, you know, liked what you heard, you want to stay in touch, you want to learn more about CCS, you can visit our website. Connect with me on LinkedIn. I have a professional Instagram as well, where I offer nonprofit industry insights and fundraising tips as I think about them in my work. It’s Elizabeth Berni Able. You will also see some photos of my adorable toddler.

But really, as I shared with you, my mission is to be a resource and to help you and your teams amplify your fundraising efforts so that you can have the greatest benefit to the communities that you’re serving each day. So thank you.

Steven: Nice. Thank you, Elizabeth. That was awesome. I was just finding myself nodding along with basically everything you were saying for an entire hour. So I think that was echoed in the chat here. So thanks for doing this.

We’ve probably got about 10 minutes for questions. So if you haven’t asked a question, do so now because there’s a lot in here, and I don’t think we’ll be able to get to all of them. But we’ve got Elizabeth’s contact information like she said up on the screen. And she’s an awesome person. And I bet if you shoot her a quick note, she won’t mind that at all.

Dang, there’s a lot here, Elizabeth. Maybe it might be time to get this question out of the way, which is a lot of people are asking about, well, what if the board is just not doing these things, right? Maybe one person, not the entire board. What’s your take on term limits, on, you know, asking board members to perhaps roll-off? What’s your philosophy on all that?

Elizabeth: It’s a great question. It’s something that we see all the time. And it’s our greatest challenge. Because if our board members are our greatest champions, and they’re not necessarily championing the work that we’re doing, it can inhibit us, I think, in sometimes building the momentum and multiplying the fundraising activity that we know we can.

So what I would say is a couple of things. I do believe in term limits. I think it’s important. We want to make sure at the same time that we’re recognizing outgoing board members, we’re bringing new energy to the board. And I think energy is important.

I was on a call earlier today with an organization that we’re working with. We’re embarking on a campaign. It’s the second campaign that the board is doing. The board is tired. They are tired of being asked for money. They’re tired of peer-to-peer solicitations.

And so the conversation pivoted almost immediately to who’s next on our pipeline? Who can we bring onto the board to be the next champions of this fundraising effort or campaign? And how can we bring their energy and their generosity to inspire greater culture of giving?

So yes, definitely think about term limits. And then always think about people you’re meeting in your community that you can funnel into your board leadership.

Steven: I love it. Here’s a question . . . a variation of one. I’m going to kind of combine a couple similar questions here. So if you hear elements of your question, it’s because I did this. This concept of 100% board giving, which I totally agree with, is there room for maybe organizations who may have someone on their board that is someone that directly receives services?

For example, I got invited to one of these parlor meetings next month, and the organization serves people in Nepal. And there’s a Nepalese villager on the board. Is there room for maybe that person being perhaps exempt from a stretch gift, or some other you know, mode of participating?

Elizabeth: It’s a great question. And I would say that yes, and there are also opportunities to incorporate give/get policies. So if you’re someone whose perspectives and experiences are tremendously valuable to the organization’s mission, if you’re a thought leader or someone who brings a tremendous amount of credibility on your own, yet can’t necessarily make a gift. Could you perhaps make a gift that you can comfortably give, and perhaps fundraise on behalf of the organization as well.

But I do know of many organizations who try and bridge that because they do want to make sure that they’re not excluding people from the board, who can bring a lot of value in different ways.

Steven: I love that. Yeah, I had a feeling you’d say that. Dang, there’s a lot of good ones. Stewardship. So you recommend people getting involved in making phone calls, writing thank you notes.

What have you seen work in terms of like the training or kind of preparing them to do that work? I think a lot of people are excited about trying that. How would you recommend maybe getting them to do that? Because, you know, is it giving them a script for a phone call, or a template? Is that kind of a good way, or what do you think?

Elizabeth: There are so many ways. This is one of my favorite questions. So I think a couple of things. I always like to set . . . I like to use the calendar. So what are opportunities in two ways, one, in terms of upcoming board meetings at the beginning of a fiscal year, or the beginning of a new calendar year that you can use to anchor the work of your board as fundraisers for the next three months, six months, 12 months?

And I would think about it quarterly like, is there one event each quarter that you can really rally your board around? So do you have a Giving Day? And can you have your board make phone calls? Yes, we do need to provide the board with scripts, like a voicemail message, and some talking points, if they do have someone pick up the phone.

If we’re having board members, send a personal thank you note. I always want to emphasize the importance of making it as easy as possible for our board members. So I would draft a thank you note for my board member to send and then write in red, insert personal note or a thank you note.

If you’re doing a new building tour for a capital project, like have a template and then have spaces where you can make it personal. Because our donors aren’t stupid, they will know when it’s a generic note, and they will know when someone’s like really put some time and thought into it. So I think it’s a balance between making sure that we have a template that’s easy. And we’re then providing personalization.

And then the second thing I would say is, don’t shy away from formal fundraising training workshops with your board. So if you have a board retreat . . . you know, I think board members actually appreciate sometimes when you bring someone in to just talk to them about fundraising. And they can ask, you know, without fear of, you know, what if I’m nervous to make an ask? Like, how do I handle someone saying no? I don’t like to be rejected.

And so being able to create an environment where you can role-play and you can help your board members feel more confident, I think is really great.

And then the last thing I would say is leverage your holidays. So you know, the end of year is always a great time for giving as we know, and it’s also a great opportunity for stewardship. So perhaps at the end of this calendar year, let your board members know in September that in December, we would like each of them to write 10 handwritten cards.

We’re going to mail you your pre-addressed cards with the donor’s information. And you know, over your weekends or your evenings, if you can just do one card. If you have 15 people on your board, that’s 150 thank you notes that you can get out to your community.

Steven: I love it. And you read my mind on the retreats thing because I was thinking about orientation as well. It seems like this would be part of like a new board member onboarding. What do you think about that?

Elizabeth: I love that idea. I couldn’t agree more.

Steven: So in keeping in this idea of the training, what about when it’s time to ask for money, is it same rules apply to the stewardship piece you equip them? Like what’s in that toolbox? I think you used that word in the presentation. What are the kinds of things you see in that? Are they stories, talking points?

Elizabeth: So I think it depends on what you’re fundraising for. So again, CCS, we do a lot of capital campaigns. So, typically, we’ll have our case for support. We’ll have an FAQ that we like to provide our board members.

So like, if I’m asking for a multi-year pledge, I might have questions around, how can I pay that pledge? Can I give stock gifts? Does the organization accept gifts from my donor-advised fund? Like some of the technical things that we want our board members to be able to answer that they just might not know.

So you’ll have your case for support, which is focusing on the organizational vision. You’ll have your FAQ which is some of the tactical questions we get from donors. And then we also will put together kind of like a prospect research snapshot on who you’re asking and what you’re asking for.

So one of the things that we believe in is asking for a specific concrete figure. So you know, Steven, would you be willing to make a gift of $25,000 to our annual fund? Or, you know, would you be willing to make a multi-year pledge of $250,000 to our capital campaign? And would you join me in serving on our campaign committee? So I think, again, it’s not just the physical materials, but it’s the language and the messaging that we want our board members to kind of embody so that they’re successful.

Steven: I love that. And on the topic of capital campaigns, I know you do a lot of good work on this and the ask amounts. How do you kind of decide on what that ask amount would be? I assume you equip the board member with what that range would be. But what do you use? Do you use wealth screening? Is it the donor database? What are the things that go into that ask amount?

Elizabeth: Whole separate presentation topic, which I will cover later. At the highest level, it’s a mix of publicly available information. We do oftentimes rely on databases. I like Wealth-X for high-net-worth individuals, as well as WealthEngine. And then we think about past giving to your organization to peer organizations, and then levels of engagement currently. So it’s both a science and an art.

Steven: I love it. That’s the stuff. We’ll have to have you back if you’re willing to talk about that because I love that topic too. Last thing, it might be a good way to end on. I know a lot of folks listening are small shops, maybe one or two-person shops, there’s an ED, there’s a DD. How do you get kind of buy-in for this?

I think one thing you mentioned, I wonder if you could kind of pull on the thread is, maybe there’s a champion on the board, maybe it’s the board chair, right? If the ED doesn’t necessarily have that power to dictate what the board does is. Is that kind of the key piece to get these things kind of moving for folks? Or what would you recommend for maybe those small shops who may feel a little powerless to, you know, direct the board to do some of these things?

Elizabeth: I do think the board chair is for sure someone you want to make sure that you have a great relationship with. I also think a very valuable and perhaps underappreciated member of your board is your development chair, or your advancement, major gifts chair of your board.

So just like you would have your finance committee, you have your development committee, whoever is leading that, I think is someone that should be a real partner to your development director, because they’re oftentimes the people that are rolling up their sleeves with you.

Steven: Dang, I can’t believe we got to an hour. That flew by. And I know you and I could probably talk about this all day. And I think we almost did when we talked last. But I want to be respectful of everybody’s time. And you’ve already been so kind and gracious in giving up part of your day. But I want to give you the last word. How can folks reach out, learn more about CCS, maybe? Tell us how to get involved with all the cool things you’ve got going on?

Elizabeth: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Steven. Really, it’s been such a valuable conversation. And to those of you who have been participating today joining us in the chat, welcome you, encourage you to stay in touch. You can learn more about CCS at our website, ccsfundraising.com. We do a tremendous amount of work with nonprofits seeking to scale their philanthropy on planning studies, development and systems assessments, and of course, capital campaigns.

And then if you’re interested in connecting more with me, would be happy to facilitate one of these retreats, or volunteer leadership workshops for your board and just continue to stay in touch and be a resource.

We have a number of publications that will be coming out as well this year. So feel free to get on our mailing listserv or whatever the real phrase is called and stay in touch. Would love to continue the conversation. And thank you so much for being here.

Steven: I hope folks will do that because CCS puts out some really good stuff. I see that come in my inbox as well. So thanks for doing this, Elizabeth. Hopefully, you will come back. I was totally serious about the ask amount thing. And I think people would enjoy that based on what I’m seeing in the chat. So thanks again for doing this and your team there, and CCS for giving you the time to do this. I think that’s really cool.

I know we’re right at the half-hour mark here, but I just want to let people know about our next session. Next Thursday 1 p.m. Eastern. Every Thursday, we got a good session, folks. And next week is by no means an exception, we’re going to talk about lapsed donors. One of my favorite topics for January because maybe you’re looking back on past year’s performance and some of those folks who gave in 2020, didn’t give in ’21. We’re going to talk about that.

My buddies, Kari and Jackie are going to be here. They are awesome. They’ve been contributing to the Bloomerang blog and doing webinars all over the place. And we finally got them on Bloomerang webinar, so I’m really excited.

So register for that. Even if you can’t attend, you can register and get the recording. It’s okay, if you don’t attend live, I won’t even notice necessarily. I’ll still send you that recording. So be there if you can. And if you can’t there’s a lot of other sessions out there scheduled on into the rest of the year that we’re really excited about. So check that out. Hopefully, we’ll see you again on another session.

And like I said, we’ll be sending out the slides and the recording a little bit later on today. So be on the lookout for that. Be an email from me. And yeah, connect with Elizabeth, connect the CCS. And I hope you come back and join us on another webinar.

So thanks to all of you for hanging out for an hour or so. It’s really fun. And hopefully, we’ll see you next week. So have a good rest of your Thursday. Stay safe, stay healthy. We need all of you out there doing all y good work. And hopefully, we’ll see you again soon. See you.

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