Successful marketing means updating approaches. In today’s media environment where and how you communicate to your audiences is always changing. New online platforms start to dominate how to engage with groups. Social media companies create new tools to achieve objectives. New opportunities come to the forefront to tell your story. Staying up-to-date on the latest trends can help you expand your nonprofit marketing and achieve your goals in new ways. Here are some exciting trends and opportunities worth exploring in 2022 to expand your nonprofit marketing reach.

1. Partner with Businesses to Achieve Shared Goals

Customers are reducing overall purchasing, and when they spend money, they want to buy from socially responsible companies. Smart business leaders know this. During the pandemic, Marketing Dive found that businesses have increased cause-related marketing by 41%.

Therefore, instead of only approaching businesses as potential donors, think of them as potential partners. Find businesses that are a good match for your mission, and propose a mutually beneficial collaboration. They feature you in their marketing—expanding your visibility at no cost to you—while you help them boost their reputation both inside and outside of the company. 

2. Video Has to Be a Part of Your Marketing Mix

Video continues to be a key driver online to engage audiences, help people remember your organization, and connect on an emotional level. 

If you want to reach more young people, TikTok is a go-to platform. Meanwhile, Instagram video provides options such as Instagram stickers and links if you want to drive people to content or to make a donation. 

And creating compelling videos doesn’t have to be expensive. Even videos shot on a smartphone can movingly capture how your nonprofit impacts your community. Post testimonials from donors about why they give. Ask volunteers to take videos during events—then they can share the material on their platforms, and you can share it as well.

3. Go Live

“Go Live” through live video platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn Live. Or choose an “audio room” with Clubhouse, Facebook Audio Rooms, or Twitter Spaces. 

The possibilities are endless. Organize a panel discussion around best practices in your field. Have an online fundraiser or volunteer training. Incorporate live feeds into events for those who can’t attend in-person. 

4. Advertise via “Connected TV Advertising” and Other Streaming Services 

Traditionally, the high cost of television advertising meant that most nonprofits wouldn’t even consider television for their marketing campaigns. But the rise of Over-the-Top (OTT) and Connected TV Advertising (CTV) should change that. Advertising through digital streaming services is accessible and affordable, while you can target your audience like never before—directing ads to those in specific locations, with related interests, and web visitation patterns. 

Developing a video is an investment of resources and time but can have a big return. Ideally you can use a video production service in your community. An alternative is to use options like Fiverr and Upwork to find experts who can turn your raw footage, photos, and graphics into polished pieces. 

Streaming radio services, like Spotify or Pandora, offer additional, affordable options to bring your content to a targeted audience.

Promote a special event (like a volunteer day or fundraising event), share your program with potential beneficiaries, or simply raise awareness of your organization’s work. 

Keep in mind, though, that as exciting as all of these opportunities are, effective marketing still requires thoughtful planning. Don’t chase after the newest shiny objects just because they are there. In other words, don’t just start indiscriminately posting. 

Instead, strategize. Figure out your goals: What action do you want people to take? What points do you want to communicate? Who do you want to reach? 

It may take some experimentation with different outlets and content before you find the sweet spot for promoting your work. That’s fine. The important thing is that you know that the options are there. Even with a limited budget and resources, you can still reach your ideal audience like never before. 

The post 4 Ways To Expand Your Nonprofit Marketing Reach in 2022 appeared first on Bloomerang.

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

Fundraising software firm helps nonprofit organizations achieve record breaking year, earns top peer-review awards, and releases multiple enhancements designed to empower fundraisers to do what they love

Bloomerang, the complete donor management solution for thousands of small and medium-sized nonprofits, achieved their most successful year yet in 2021 by processing seven million donations, accounting for over 8.1 billion dollars donated to their nonprofit customers. 

Bloomerang added over 3,200 new customers in 2021, received a record number of peer-review awards, grew the team by 41%, and deployed numerous product enhancements designed to help nonprofits thrive.

“I am so proud of what our community–our customers and employees–have been able to accomplish over the past year, despite all of its challenges,” said Ross Hendrickson, Bloomerang Chief Executive Officer. “The success of 2021 shows how we continued to advance towards our goal of empowering fundraisers to do what they love and build a world inspired by giving.”

The year’s biggest achievements included:

• Supporter impact: Bloomerang users generated more than 312.6M emails and 20.7M letters, resulting in more than 20M donors added to their accounts in 2021.
• Record-setting Giving Tuesday: On Giving Tuesday 2021, customers raised more than $39M, a 40% increase over their Giving Tuesday 2020 donation revenue.
• Acquisition of Kindful: Bloomerang strengthened its nonprofit software offerings through the acquisition of Kindful, another industry-favorite donor management solution. The launch of Kindful’s Online Fundraising Tools to Bloomerang users fueled online giving growth during the year-end fundraising season.
• Team growth of more than 40%: 142 new employees were added to the team in 2021, including a new Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of Payments. Three additional board members were also added.
• Product feature enhancements: Thanks to a continuous release cycle, Bloomerang added dozens of product enhancements that increased data security, system stability, and donor communication effectiveness, many of which were driven by user requests and market feedback. Most notably, Bloomerang released a suite of online giving tools that deliver a consistent donation experience across a variety of channels, and Bloomerang Payments, to eliminate the need for customers to use a third-party payment processing provider.
• Peer-review awards: Bloomerang was named a leader in several nonprofit software categories by G2, including “Easiest To Use,” “Best Results,” “Most Implementable” and “Best Support.”

“The nonprofit sector has been met with unprecedented challenges since the beginning of the pandemic,” said Ann Fellman, Chief Marketing Officer at Bloomerang. “Knowing that we are helping so many customers further their mission and unlock the generosity of their supporters in an ever-changing climate is immensely fulfilling.”

Bloomerang ended 2021 by announcing donations totalling $25,000 to five nonprofits that reflect company core values, lift up underserved communities, and support those impacted by recent natural disasters.

Learn more about career opportunities at Bloomerang. 

The post Bloomerang Helps Nonprofits Raise $8.1B in 2021 appeared first on Bloomerang.

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

Valerie Harris will focus on what is required when you commit to attracting and maintaining major donors, understanding how major donors think, and how to optimize your communications for this important donor segment.

Full Transcript:

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

Valerie: Absolutely.

Steven: All right. Awesome. Everybody, welcome. Good afternoon if you are on the East Coast. Good morning, I guess barely, if you are 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 major donor stewardship. Yes, strategies that are going to help build some long time relationships with those big time givers.

Thanks for joining us. I’m so excited that you’re all here. We got a big room of people, and we got a fun hour planned for you over the next hour. Like I said, I’m Steven. I’m over here at Bloomerang, and I’ll be moderating today’s discussion as always. Hopefully, not as awkward as that was.

So just a couple of housekeeping items. Just want to let you all know that we are recording this presentation, and we’ll be sending out the recording as well as the slides later on today. So if you have to leave early or maybe you got a meeting and a few minutes here, or you’re at home like me and a toddler interrupts you, don’t worry.

We’ll get you the slides and the recording later on. You won’t miss a thing. Just look for an email from me a little later on today.

But most importantly, I know a lot of you have already done this, but, please, send us chats throughout the hour or so. We’re going to save time for Q&A at the end. There’s a question box and a chat box. You can use either of those. We’ll keep an eye on them. The Q&A box might have a little bit more visibility to us. If you want to get your answer questioned or your question answered, just a insider tip there.

But bottom line, we love to hear from you. So don’t be shy, say hi in the chat, introduce yourself if you have not already because we would love to hear from you.

You can also send us a tweet. I’ll keep an eye on Twitter, but like I said, don’t sit on those hands because we love for these sessions to be interactive.

And if this is your first Bloomerang webinar, just want to say a special welcome to you first-timers. We do these webinars every single week, every Thursday. We do about 50 sessions a year. We got a great slate of webinars queued up for this year I’m really excited about. Today is by no means an exception to that.

But if you’ve never heard of Bloomerang, Bloomerang is also a provider of donor management software. So check that out if you are interested or maybe just kind of curious about us, all kinds of things on our website. You can watch videos to really get a good 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, one of my absolute most favorite people. And I don’t say that very often, but it’s true. You all are about to hear from one of the top higher ed fundraisers ever in my opinion. Joining us from beautiful Philadelphia is my pal, Valerie Harris. Valerie, how’s it going? You doing okay? Staying warm?

Valerie: I’m very good. I’m happy. I’m seeing all the people come in from all over the place, and I hope that I can share some information that everyone finds useful.

Steven: Oh, I have no doubt. Like I said, you’re awesome. You’ve done sessions for us before, and you all are going to want to follow Valerie after this. She’s got a new, some really cool coursework that she’s putting out herself that you can get hooked into.

If you don’t know Valerie, if you haven’t attended some of her webinars with us in the past, she just retired. Like I said, as the senior director of stewardship and communications at the University of Pennsylvania. Has raised billions of dollars over her career over 25 years doing this, not just for Penn, but for all kinds of nonprofits before that.

Has also shared a lot of her knowledge, not just on this webinar series, but she’s been really gracious with her time in contributing to our blog. She’s written a lot about managing teams and being a mentor. So you’re going to want to check that out as well because she not only is an awesome fundraiser, but has built teams and diverse teams, specifically it’s something that I really appreciate about her.

So, Valerie, dang, you’re awesome. I hate that I have already taken away a few minutes from you because I know you got a lot of good stuff. So I’m going to stop sharing my screen, and let you bring up those beautiful slides. Let’s see if we can get it going.

Valerie: Okay. Let me see if I can share mine. Okay. Where’s the share button. Are we there yet? Okay.

Steven: I don’t see it yet. I still see you. Did you hit the green button? There it goes. Oh, there it goes. It was a delay. Yep. You’re good, my friend. Take it away. Mm-hmm.

Valerie: Okay. Well, everyone, welcome to this presentation on building lasting relationships with your most significant givers. I know on Bloomerang it says major donor stewardship, but I had to go with what I know, and I call it major donor love. So let us talk about showing your major donors some love and getting their commitment to your organization and your mission.

As Steven said, I’m Valerie Harris, lately of the University of Pennsylvania, now of vharrisprojects.com where I provide courses, workbooks, webinars, and other resources for fundraising professionals. I’ve worked for nonprofit agencies big and small for more than 25 years and spent the last 10 years at the University of Pennsylvania where I specialized in leadership communications to Penn’s most significant donors.

So if you are a small midsize or startup nonprofit or if you are new to working with major donors and want to learn something about how the most successful fundraisers show and receive major donor love, this webinar is for you.

All righty now. Major donors equal your most significant givers. Most midsize and large organizations reach their current capacity with the support of one or more significant gifts from a generous individual, foundation, or corporate partner. Successful fundraisers and major gift officers know that individual major donors are the most efficient, most direct way to raise substantial amounts of money.

Professionals, as smaller groups, often find fundraising with individuals intimidating. These fundraisers can’t wrap their minds around coming out and asking someone for money. So they don’t put the procedures in place, they don’t get the necessary training, and they don’t gain the experience to effectively implement a major donor program. But everybody could benefit from having major donors.

So why does everyone desire major donors? Well, for the significant financial support they can provide, of course, but also for the connections to other potential donors, the prestige of their association with your organization. The thought leadership, the advice, these are the intangibles that major donors often bring to the table.

So who qualifies as a major donor at your organization? For some, a major donor is a $500 or a $1,000 donor who gives regularly. For others, it’s someone who has contribute $25,000. For others, $250,000. The level of giving that defines a major donor depends on your organization and the size of the other gifts that you get through solicitations, memberships, subscriptions, grants, special events, and other strategies.

I would add that an ideal major donor prospect is someone who can make regular gifts from their bank account but who also has other assets they can tap into to support your overall organization, your mission, or a particular program.

So this is what we’re going to talk about today. We’re going to talk about the major donor mindset. We’re going to talk about four commitments you must make for your major donor program to succeed, why you need a major donor society, and engaging major donors beyond please and thank you.

But as we move through the presentation, here are a few questions to consider. How many major donors do you currently have? At what giving levels? And how often do they give? Number two, if you have not yet identified any major donors, do you have any donors that you think could become a major donor with some attention and cultivation?

What are your group strengths and weaknesses in working with major donors? I’m really talking about the nonprofit that you work for, what strengths or what weaknesses can you conceive of that would impact your working with major donors?

Also, I’d like you to think about how much organizational capacity does your group have to implement a major donor program? Is there a staff or board member capable and willing to work with you or take on this role? You may not have it all together, but as we move through the presentation, I would like to think about what you can do now to help you prepare for major donor fundraising.

So let’s start by looking at the major donor mindset and that’s . . . we’re looking at it from their point of view. Major donors and prospects are looking for a passionate connection to your organization’s work. So how you communicate the work that you do is of utmost importance. They want to fully understand the impact of their giving.

What can you show them that demonstrates their contributions at work that shows them the results of their giving? Major donors want to engage with your organization beyond the money they give, whether it’s as a board member, an advisor, a board leader, or someone you can call upon to help with overall strategy.

Many significant givers achieve their wealth through entrepreneurial efforts, and they like to see that, kind of the mindset at work. They want to see innovative thinking and sound business practices in place at the nonprofits they support.

Lastly, most are metrics-driven. They want to see that you are achieving your mission, and they want to see the numbers to support that. So these are things that you guys can be thinking about in your own individual organizations, the metrics. I’m sure you’ve seen other trainings, webinars what, about gathering your metrics. So you should have started putting that in place.

So you now have an idea of how significant givers and prospects think. So if you think you’re ready to build a major donor program, here are three things to have in place to help ensure success.

First of all, you need a system like that of our friends here at Bloomerang that will help you be more organized and knowledgeable about your donors as individuals in addition to the general geographic, demographic, and relationship information. We, at Penn, always included in our tracking system, the personal information that the donor has shared or donor preferences.

This personal info helps ensure that you’re communicating with the donor in a way that shows familiarity and respect. For instance, if the donor’s name is James and he prefers James, don’t call him Jimbo, or Jimmy, or Jim. You will have in your preferences that he prefers being known as James.

Secondly, a commitment to professional development. If you don’t know, ask somebody, whether it’s talking to donors, writing solicitations, developing personalized proposals, whatever the area in which you, your staff, or volunteers are deficient, commit to finding the professional development resources and training that will prepare you to manage your program and donors appropriately and with confidence.

I would periodically create professional development trainings for my award-winning team at the University of Pennsylvania. These trainings were specific to the work that we did in partnership with gift officers in service to Penn’s major donors.

I have an online course available now, Writing to Donors” the “Thank You” and More, that you may be interested in, and you’ll be able to find that later on.

But getting back to this program that you need to have in place, the third thing you must put in place is a donor communication strategy. It can include grant writing because a foundation can be a major donor, and it might include publications targeted to this donor segment, but it must include personalized communications to individuals who support you with substantial gifts.

Okay. So we looked at the major donor mindset from the donor’s point of view. Now let’s look at what you need to bring to the table. The most important aspect I think of your mindset in pursuing major donors, and implementing a major donor program is commitment.

Commitment usually involves some kind of investment or money, of time, of change in behavior, and/or just how you operate or manage your business. Here are four commitments you must make in order to successfully implement a major donor program.

You must commit to prospect research. You must commit to relationship building. You must commit to fundraising in person and bottom line, consistent, personalized donor communications.

So let’s go on this major donor journey starting with prospect research. There are lots of prospect research software available. And although these tools require a financial investment, there’s a reason why prospect research is a best practice for those who are successful in attracting major donors.

So one of the things that I believe you must commit to is this, and if you have to invest some money to do that, you know, just find the one that suits your budget. Something is out there.

Actually, I love prospect research because I like to learn about people, and I like to learn about how they make their money too and where their money is coming from. So key factors that you’ll look for include wealth markers such as real estate and other assets. In fact, partnerships in football teams and stuff like that, thinking of the season and knowing about some donors that we have dealt with.

So wealth markers. You should also look at their education and business affiliations. You could look at their past giving, their philanthropic interests and tendencies like whether they support local agencies or only give to organizations with a national profile. These factors help you determine a donor’s ability and willingness to donate to a specific cause.

Secondly, do your homework. If you are not ready to invest in prospect research software, there is still a lot of information you can find online about a prospective donor, especially about those in the business world. Google them. Check out their LinkedIn profile.

You may even learn some things that tell you that perhaps they are not the best fit for you and your organization. You don’t want to reach out to a prospect who is being indicted for fraud, or domestic violence, or whatever. Major donor love does not mean you give up your values to nab a significant gift.

You just want to know as much as you reasonably and respectfully can about a prospect so that you can comfortably converse with them and develop an appropriate ask.

Third, use your existing network. For instance, you might have a faithful donor whose contributions have been steadily increasing. With prospect research, you can take a deeper dive into the donor’s giving history and preferences outside of your organization and perhaps figure out the best strategy for asking for a major gift.

And lastly, leverage your board. Even if members of your board are not major donors themselves, your board members may have the connections you need to reach out to certain prospects. An introduction from a trusted ally will help you get in the door with donors faster than starting from scratch.

So while you are exploring your existing network and researching prospects, make sure you have a communications package that provides detailed information about the types of programs you offer and their impact on your community. It’s one of those things you can do now to prepare to approach major donors.

You’ll want to have a communications package to send ahead of your initial meeting as it’s always helpful if prospects have a clear understanding of what you do and why it’s important. If you can’t send it ahead, be sure to have a package to share when you meet.

Your communications package can include an annual report, a sample newsletter that goes to your constituents, or a publication that goes to other donors, or a link to a video essay about your activities and constituent success. Whatever the package includes, it must be well prepared with no errors because you want to communicate to your prospects that you can provide a quality donor experience as well as meet the needs of your constituents.

Relationship-building. The get-to-know-you visit, or phone call, or Zoom meeting, in this day and age, whatever it may be, is one of the most important steps in cultivating relationships with prospective major donors. If there is a board member or associate who can make the introduction so much the better.

One-on-one meetings build the foundation for a meaningful relationship of trust and involvement with your organization. And donors often require this kind of relationship before making a significant gift. Many prospective donors will want to meet with leadership to ascertain how they think their management expertise, their accessibility, and their friendliness . . . An exclusive meet and greet can be the start of a long term and gratifying partnership.

Also, invite prospects to a VIP event. Small, exclusive, and personal events let major prospects see for themselves how they can play a key role in serving your mission.

For instance, I used to work for a program Philadelphia High School Academies, and they ran a student entrepreneurial program. We would invite local industry leaders in relevant areas to attend a business fair followed by a reception in which these leaders get to meet presenting students. Not only did gifts come out of that, internships came out of that.

Tools, and books, and workbooks, and things that the students could use to kind of really delve into the vocational area in which they were interested in. All kinds of things could come into that. So it’s very good for your prospects to see and meet the constituents that you serve.

Also, small informational luncheons also allow you to educate prospects about your work without being too formal. And I know fundraisers at Penn use those informational luncheons a lot. The same with office tours. Show prospects what you’re about, your staff, how you operate on the daily.

That’s another thing about diversifying. Ew, this reminds me about diversifying teams and diversifying your workplace because if they come into your office and you just like, you know, what you putting out there is not what they see, that’s a red flag.

Well, anyway, an office tour or a tour of the new facility where you are serving constituents can really solidify a donor’s interest in supporting your organization.

And I’ll say too that many foundations are not keen on funding capital projects or making capacity building grants. Individual donors are free to fund whatever you propose that they agree will be of most benefit to you. On the other hand, they’re free to fund what they propose and that you decide aligns with your capabilities, mission, and goals.

Now, I will say this because major donors can be very high-powered people, and they have notions and ideas that they would love to see put forth in our society. And they will definitely at times propose to you something that they are interested in funding. “Well, if you could do this, I would be interested in that. I would certainly be interested in supporting that.” That’s nothing that you say, “Oh, yes, we’ll do that.”

No. You go back and you talk about it, you think about it. You do not agree to do things that you don’t have the capacity to do or that do not really align with your mission or your goals.

The third thing that you must commit to, face-to-face fundraising. I’ve met so many professionals at nonprofits who say they could never ask someone for money, but the most successful fundraisers at any organization do not have this fear. If your current fundraising is limited to direct mail appeals and writing for grants, you are leaving a lot of money on the table.

Those activities need to be part of your overall fundraising strategy, not the entire program. Remember, this is not a cold call. The donor has heard of you, they’ve looked at your communications package, a mutual ally suggested that you meet, they’re interested or else they wouldn’t be giving you their time. So hopefully you can meet each other’s philanthropic needs.

Commit to getting the training you need. If you can’t find a program, enlist a, some successful major gift professional to assist or mentor you. Ask them if you may have a couple of practice sessions with them. Be prepared. Once you have the opportunity to meet face to face with a prospect, know what you’re going for.

I once went with the executive director of a dance organization to a one-to-one meeting with a prospect. And this was a good prospect who has served on this organization’s board under past leadership and had come into some money.

So she looked this organization up to see if she could support us in some way. However, we had not done our research. We did not know the prospect’s current interest. We didn’t practice, and all of that equaled disaster. I shutter to think about that meeting. Ooh. Put that out of my mind.

Anyway, be prepared to articulate exactly what you want the money for, the amount that is needed overall, segmented funding opportunities that might interest the donor, and also understand that one meeting may not clench the deal. Usually it won’t. You can’t rush major gift solicitations. Patience is key.

Take the team. One of my most successful meetings was when I was director of development at a midsized nonprofit. I was part of the team along with the executive director and the program director. Between the three of us, we were able to answer questions from all areas and that resulted in a significant multiyear gift. So that was one of the times I was proud to be part of the team.

Lastly, follow-up. Thank the prospect for the meeting. Was there something you promised to get back to them on? Was there an interest that they mentioned that you found a good story or some relevant information about? The meeting is not concluded until the follow-up is done.

Oh, you look at this picture. Who’s the donor and who’s the fundraiser? I’m looking at a lot of the images that I have here. And we may have association about who the prospect is and who is the fundraiser, but let’s think about either one of them could be either one. They’re just people. They’re just people like you and me.

We’ve talked about personalized communications before as one of the most important elements of successful fundraising and no more so than with major donors.

I’ve created a short ebook that summarizes the key elements that make up personal communications, but here is the short list for why it’s important to consistently communicate with your donors in situations that don’t involve asking for money. Acknowledges the donor as a person, not just the dollar sign. It deepens the relationship, and it actually makes fundraising easier.

We’ll touch on what some of these non-funding related situations might be a bit later in the presentation.

So now, why might you need a major donor society? When you request a major gift, you’re asking for a big commitment. If you want to secure a substantial donation and you want that donor to stick with you, you need to make them feel like they are part of something special. One way to do that is to create a branded major donor society.

At Penn, every school has a major donor society where . . . When I say every school, I mean Wharton, I mean the dental school, the veterinarian school, the college of arts and . . . they all have their own major donor society as well as the university on the whole has a major donor society.

And we would have some great brainstorming sessions trying to come up with names for these groups. So that is something that your whole organization and your board should be part of in terms of naming your major donor society.

Well, an important reason why you need a major donor society is because it gives you a chance to build a community of significant givers that you can call upon to help you meet major challenges and boost various campaigns. And you will build that community through exclusivity and incentives because in case you didn’t know, people who have great giving potential enjoy being in the company of others who do.

So the first recruits for your major donor society will be your existing donors who give at a certain level. A major donor society encourages mid-level donors to up their giving. For instance, if in the past I habitually made a contribution of $5,000 a year, and you noticed that for the last 2 years I gave $7,000, I might be a prime prospect for the major donor society.

A gift somewhat above my current giving, what we call a stretch gift will gain me entree into your major donor society where the minimum is $10,000. “So, Valerie, you gave $7,000, do you think you could rev that up a little bit more and help us launch this major donor society?” That’s a way to put it, and that’s how you encourage those who are already giving to step up.

Secondly, people like to feel included in what seems like an exclusive club. And that reminds me of that old time comedian Groucho Marx used to say, “I would not join a club that would have me as a member.” They want exclusivity.

One thing that makes people feel good about being included is what they can achieve together, a goal that the society and the organization aims for and meets and then comes together in celebration. And what makes the group feel good? Exclusive group, are the perks and incentives that you will provide for only those members of your major donor society. So think about the perks your organization can provide.

In my last experience, during alumni weekend, for example, our major donors got free parking passes, and in the city where parking is premium, free parking is very much appreciated. So what other ways can you show your appreciation to your most significant givers?

And a major donor society is an excellent opportunity for stewardship. It’s the most wonderful way to steward your most significant givers. And you can do that with special events and receptions, the con you invite your prospects to are excellent ways to recognize and steward your major donors.

By the way, your major donors are not only your most significant givers. They are also among your organization’s most important ambassadors. They will talk you up. If they work for companies that offer matching gift benefits, they tend to take advantage of them because they’re savvy about multiplying money.

Receptions for your major donors provide them with the opportunity to network among each other. And as I said, they enjoy being around each other. They enjoy the opportunity to meet somebody that they have been wanting to meet. They enjoy these, and they know how to work them to their advantage, and oftentimes for your advantage as well.

One way you can show your appreciation to your major donors is to optimize your communications with them. Every major donor is different. Don’t barrage them with information that does not resonate with them. Make every communication with them meaningful if you possibly can.

Provide your major donors with options for how often they hear from you because everyone may not be interested in your monthly newsletter unless they’re spotlighted in it, and then they’re going to want a copy of that. What information are they looking for? Do they want to hear stories of impact?

Do they want to just know new sources of income? Or do they just want to see the metrics, the numbers served where you stand on reaching your fundraising goals, etc.? How do they prefer to receive the information? Do they prefer print, an email, a link to a short video on your website?

And, by the way, all of your print media, including your annual report, should be available in digital format somewhere on your website.

Or will they be happiest with just a monthly or quarterly phone call from you? Wouldn’t it be nice if you looked at these happy smiling faces that somebody with some money would light up when you call them like once a month or once a quarter? That would be a wonderful thing. And I’m sure it would be very advantageous for you.

You can also create segmented lists according to donor preferences. List C gets the email complication. List B likes print. And list A will appreciate a call. Make sure you keep all of these communications preferences in your donor database and honor them.

Now, let’s talk a little bit about ways to engage your major donors besides please and thank you. Once you have received a substantial gift and designated the giver as a major donor, you will need to be meticulous in your ongoing communications to solidify and build upon the relationship because if I’m important to you, I don’t just want to hear from you when you’re asking me for a donation.

In addition to your gift acknowledgements, there are other forms of communications that tell me that you care about me and recognize me as a person.

I developed an editorial workshop for my team where we examined some of the non-solicitation communications we sent to our major donors throughout the year, and we asked, “What are these stay in touch non-solicitation communications meant to do? What does a congratulations, or an invitation, or a sincere condolence, what do these communications really say to your donor?”

Well, consider this. A congratulations on your new promotion or your retirement, says, your friends at Good Nonprofit are rooting for you. We celebrate your accomplishments with you. An invitation to serve on an advisory or fundraising committee tells your donor, we value your expertise. We would welcome your participation.

And a condolence says, we understand that you’re dealing with a loss right now, and we’re thinking of you. Let us know if there’s anything we can do. Staying in touch with these kind of communications humanizes your organization. They let your donors know that they are important to the organization outside of their giving. Donors want to feel that. That’s what engages them. And engagement is a huge part of ongoing stewardship.

And on this image here where the woman is reading the newspaper, it may be the newspaper where you find out that somebody suffered their loss, or somebody got a promotion, or somebody is, you know, being lauded for their contribution to, and I mean their work contribution to a different project or something. So it’s part of that ongoing research of your prospects and your committed donors.

We used to get Google alerts whenever certain people was in the newspaper so that we would know that something happened in their life, that we would then send an appropriate communications for.

And ultimately what you want your donors to say to themselves and to others is, “That’s a terrific group of people over there. They are a great bunch. They do a wonderful job.” Not only do you do a wonderful job with your mission, but you do a wonderful job with the people supporting your mission, and that’s who these donors are.

So now, if you ever get stuck on what you should say in your ongoing communications to your most significant givers, I have a workbook available that includes scenarios and sample letters along with questions to make you think about what will work for you, your leadership, your organization, and your major donors.

So how will you know your major donor strategy is working? How will you know your most significant givers are feeling the love? You can look at three areas of engagement.

Giving. So we’re talking about donors, so the giving is pretty obvious. Is it stagnant? Is it increasing? Is it decreasing? If it’s decreasing, consider if it’s something beyond your control like the overall economic outlook, [inaudible 00:44:37].

But if that doesn’t seem to be the problem, the next two things I would look at would be, one, your fundraising technique, your training, and your preparation. What’s missing that you need to help take fundraising to the major donor level? So take a good look at what you are doing and see where you can improve.

The second thing I would look at would be the quality and timing of your communications. How are you showing up in print, by email, on the phone, and in person? Are you showcasing your accomplishments to full advantage? Are you informed? Are you editorially correct? Are you respectful of donor preferences? The quality and timing of your communications may be a contributing factor if contributions are decreasing. And we never like to see that.

In terms of service, have you increased your board with any enthusiastic or generous new members? Have you snagged any new volunteers? Have your strategies invigorated any of your longtime supporters with new ideas to move the organization forward?

If you have communicated with your donors about a new challenge or need that your organization is facing, is anyone asking, “How can I help?” Oh, we would love to get those kind of emails, those kind of phone calls, those kind of letters asking how can they help.

Third, look at response and response rates. Yes, responding to solicitations is important because that impacts the giving. But what about your non-solicitation communications? Do you see an increase in donor engagement? Do they open the emails? Do they show up at events? When you send them a congratulations or a condolence, do they respond with a thank you?

You’ll know that your strategy is working when your major donors respond and engage with you by their giving but also beyond their giving. Oh.

So that’s all I have for you today. I hope I’ve given you some tips you can use or affirm some of the good things you’ve been wanting to try or have started to put in place.

Again, I have created some resources that you may find helpful, and they are available on my website for purchase if you’re interested.

And now, Steven, if we have time, I’ll take some questions.

Steven: Yeah. We got time. We probably got a good solid 10, 12 minutes. And there’s a lot of questions in here. I think you got people’s gears turning. So thanks, Valerie. That was a lot of good information. It’s always awesome to learn from you. So, first of all, thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it.

Valerie: Pleasure.

Steven: So there’s some good ones in here. A lot of people are asking about, you know, doing this during a pandemic. And when you were at Penn, I think it was, you know, in those early days of the pandemic, how did you do things like in-person visits? Did you tours, things like that? How did you kind of navigate, you know, social distancing, wanting to stay safe but still want to make, you know, those personal connections with donors and prospects?

Valerie: Well, we did not do in the early days of the pandemic . . . we did not do a lot of personal visits. I know that. . .Oh, goodness me. We were supposed to have events overseas. All of those were canceled. All around the country, we were canceled, but phone call wasn’t canceled. Email wasn’t canceled. And email worked so well.

Oh, my God. Email, and I’m sure participants have heard of this too because when I talk about sending a condolence or sending a congratulations, now that we were doing so much by email . . . Now, condolences, we do not send by email. We do send a hard copy.

But congratulating and all that stuff, all the things we were doing by email, donors were responding. Even if they did not respond before, they were definitely responding because everybody was on email. And it kind of solidified the relationships.

People who were not doing it, say for instance, the president would do it all the time, but say the vice president of development, he wasn’t doing it as much. He started doing it. So now he says that he will continue to be emailing all the major donors and so forth because he liked getting, “Oh, John, thank you for reaching out.” And all that. Email works wonderfully and people understand that.

Steven: I love it. Here’s another one. A lot of people ask variations of this question too. So I want to get to it.

We were talking before, and you told the story of how you experienced kind of botching a donor meeting because you didn’t do your research, or maybe you said a gaffe or something like that. And you mentioned that in the presentation too.

A lot of folks are wondering, how’d you recover from that? What can you do to maybe, you know, mend those fences and hopefully salvage that relationship when maybe something awkward or, you know, unfortunate has occurred in the communication or in meeting with them? Can you overcome it?

Valerie: Now, there are some cases where you can’t overcome it. I would say yes. If the what, faux pas occurred and it was not with the . . . if the executive director was not at the meeting, say it was just the development director and a fundraiser, whatever, was at the meeting and something didn’t go right.

And they kind of got the feeling from the donor that, oh, the executive director could then say, dear, so and so, I understand that you met with so and so, and so and so. And don’t admit that they were foolish. Just try to clarify, just wanted to clarify with you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So, yes, it depends on who was at the meeting. And I would think that it would be more salvageable if the very top person was not at the meeting. In my case, it was a very tiny organization, and the top person was at the meeting, and she just did not have a clue. She did not have a clue of how to meet with that.

But that’s when you got to be thinking, “We’re going to go after this segment. And what do we need to do to prepare to go after this segment?” Now, if she also had a great board, and I know you have people come on here talking about how to build a great board, and maybe somebody, the chairman of the board might could contact that person. But even that chairman needs to tread lightly. You don’t want to admit a whole bunch of foolishness, you know, you just want to get over it.

Steven: Yeah. That makes sense. I love it. Yeah. Bringing in the bigger guns sometimes that can help.

Dang, there’s a lot of good ones here. I want to get to as many as possible. What about, Valerie, this, you know, you talked a lot about doing your research. What tools have you used? A lot of people are putting in the chat like WealthEngine, and DonorSearch, and iWave, and some of those prospect research tools. Are there any that you’re familiar with and have used or maybe other things besides kind of those, you know, financial or wealth-screening tools?

Valerie: Well, actually . . . As I said, for the last 10 years, I was with a huge organization, and we had whole departments that do that themselves. I was the . . . I don’t know, it was something called . . . I don’t know what it’s called. It had to do with wealth that I could access and learn and do things that . . . So I don’t have a particular one that I would recommend for our participants, and they have to do their research.

But I say this, Google works well. Google worked well and costs nothing. So use that first. In fact, use that first before you . . . If you haven’t done anything, if you haven’t invested any money, go with Google first and then see if you need to do more.

Steven: I love it.

Now, you’ve worked at organizations, big and small. There’s a lot of those small shops listening. You know, that’s kind of a big piece of the Bloomerang community. There’s a lot of one-person shops here.

What advice would you have for the one-person shop here that’s trying to do everything? We were talking about this before, you know, wearing all the hats. Where should they start in terms of major donor cultivation? Is it the board? Is it friends and family? Is it, you know, existing donors? What do you think would be maybe the lowest hanging fruit for that limited amount time they have?

Valerie: Well, I never really got into the friends and family bit because I knew my friends and family didn’t have no money like that, what I was looking for. But I would, because this is the thing, and I know there’s a lot of people starting nonprofits, and you need to think about that because you need a board, you need a board.

This is not something that you go after alone. If a major donor, someone, you reading in the news but they don’t know you from Adam. You are a one-person shop, you got a great idea, you got a great little program, you got great little things that you’re doing, you’re still going to need somebody else to work with you.

If your organization or your program, you don’t have name recognition, you’re one person, so your results may not be all that tremendous, you may have wonderful potential, but you’re going to have to have somebody else who is also convinced of your wonderful potential to go with you arm in arm and start this.

So if you don’t have a board, and you’re trying to do this, and you got your friends and family on the board, you need to shore up your board because your friends and family are not going to help you when it’s time to go to this one-to-one meeting with this person, with this major donor prospect. So that’s where I would start.

Now, if you have a wonderful board, then you start with somebody on that board and say, “Look, I think that we need to go to the next level. We need to start trying to attract these major donors.” And you still need . . . They got to be on board. Somebody has to be with you, you know, to help you with this. This is a big prospect and a big commitment. And you don’t want to go out there failing all the time.

You know, I did it once and it was a lifetime enough for me. So yeah, where I would start is with my board. And if I already got a good board, then I would get a commitment from somebody on the board to work with me, and let’s start with the research.

Steven: Yeah. It seems like they’d be kind of a secret weapon because maybe they’re in the business community, right? Maybe they could have those connections. That makes a lot of sense.

Valerie: Yes. And read the newspaper, stay with them, stay on . . . Look and see who’s doing what you need done.

Even say, for instance, if you had a foundation at work that liked you, you were their pet project, and they liked you, and you maybe had a program officer, maybe I will even ask the program officer, “Can we meet? Can I talk to you? I want to try to do this.”

Maybe somebody could put you in touch with, as I said, like a successful major donor fundraiser who could assist you, or mentor you, or just, you know, have lunch with you and give you some tips.

Steven: Yeah. That’s really good advice. Since you mentioned it, a lot of people have asked for advice when they have maybe reached out to that prospect. Maybe they’re already a donor, maybe they’re not, and not getting a response, but they don’t want to be annoying. When is it time to maybe move on, I guess? Yeah. What do you think?

Valerie: When is it time to, I mean, people . . . I don’t know how they’re communicating with the person, if they communicating via letter, if they’re communicating, being email. But I think that if, I don’t know, I think that I would play it by ear in terms of like what I’m sending them. What am I sending them?

If I’m just getting no response from them, I might would give it up. But maybe the last thing I would try if I had somebody else who put in a word for me, I would try that. And I’ve had this too, I talked to somebody, they’re just not interested. Okay. Then you got to move on.

Steven: That’s okay. That’s not your people, right? That’s okay.

Valerie: Right. It’s not your people.

Steven: Well, you’re my people, Valerie. I’m so happy that we got to hang out with you for an hour. I know there’s a lot of questions we didn’t get to. Is it okay if maybe I send those to you, Valerie, if you want to reach out, or can people reach out to you? Is that okay?

Valerie: They can absolutely reach out to me at vharris@vharrisprojects.com. You can send me the questions that you have in the chat, and I’ll try to get to them as well.

Steven: There’s a lot. I know you’re super busy. You’ve got a lot going on. You’re helping out people, doing webinars, helping, all the coursework. We’ll link to all that. We’ll send everybody those links, so you won’t miss anything as well as the slides and the recording. Valerie, thanks for doing this. You’re awesome. This is great.

Valerie: You’re quite welcome.

Steven: And thanks to all of you for hanging out. I know it’s a busy time of year. Maybe you’re doing those year-end acknowledgements and trying to wrap things up from last year. So I always appreciate seeing a full room, especially this time of year.

And if you are free next week, we’re going to keep it going. Let me bring up our next webinar. Speaking of the board, my buddy, Elizabeth, is going to be talking about getting those board members involved in fundraising. Yes, one of our favorite topics. Elizabeth’s awesome.

She’s over at CCS Fund raising and really knows her stuff. So this is a nice little dovetail from this presentation for sure. You know, all of the things that Valerie talked about, you’re going to get some advice specifically on getting that board involved. So next week, 2:30 Eastern, same time, same place.

If you can’t make it, register anyway because then you’ll just get the recording. I don’t care if you don’t show up live. I won’t even know, actually, if you . . . I don’t look at that. I don’t mind. So I’m happy to send that out. So don’t feel obliged to attend live. That’s okay with me. If you still register, you will get the recording there. So we will call it a day there.

I hope you all can join us next week or on another future webinar. There’s lots of other sessions out there that you can check out and register for.

Valerie, thanks again. Good to see you. We’ll have you back for sure.

And I hope you all have a good rest of your Thursday and a good weekend. Stay safe, stay healthy. We need you all out there, and hopefully we’ll talk to you again soon. See you.

Valerie: Bye.

The post [VIDEO] Major Donor Stewardship – Strategies That Build Lasting Relationships With Your Most Significant Givers appeared first on Bloomerang.

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

Do you ever worry about “intruding” before you send out a fundraising appeal? Do you get heart palpitations when you pick up the phone to make an ask for a philanthropic gift? These feelings come from a sense you’re “taking” rather than “giving.”

5 Benefits of Giving

Whenever someone I know expresses resistance to asking for a philanthropic gift, I revisit 5 Ways Giving Is Good for You on the Greater Good Science Center blog. It’s helpful to reconnect with all the benefits giving has to offer. Because there’s plenty of research showing giving leads to a boost in health and happiness for both givers and recipients — and their collective peoples. And all sorts of giving yields this beneficial result. Generosity is wired into our brains. Let’s look at some of the science and data so you’ll never again feel bad about asking someone to give.

1. Giving Makes People Feel Happy

“For it is in giving that we receive.” — Saint Francis of Assisi

Perhaps you were taught it is better to give than to receive. It turns out good feelings elicited from giving are reflected in human biology.

• 1989 study by behavioral economist James Andreoni: The concept of “warm-glow giving” – also called “impure altruism” because the giver gets something back — is introduced. Warm glow is the private benefits people receive, such as self-satisfaction, for having done their part.
• 2006 study by Jorge Moll, Jordan Grafman and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health: After MRI brain scanning of volunteers as they were asked to think about a scenario involving either donating a sum of money to charity or keeping it for themselves, researchers found giving won out. Giving to charities activates regions of the brain associated with pleasure, social connection, and trust, releasing endorphins that create a “warm glow” or “helper’s high” effect.
• 2008 study by Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton and colleagues: Researchers found giving to anyone other than themselves lifted participants’ happiness more than self-spending, despite participants’ predictions to the contrary. Generosity kick starts happy chemical production in your system. Don’t feel bad asking; unless survival is at issue, giving trumps hoarding.

2. Giving is Good for Health

“If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.” — Chinese proverb

Here is a sampling of just some of the research linking different forms of generosity to better health.

• 1999 study led by Doug Oman, University of California, Berkeley: Research found elderly who volunteered for two or more organizations were 44% less likely to die over a five-year period than non-volunteers, even after controlling for their age, exercise habits, general health, and negative health habits like smoking. Sometimes people have more trouble modifying bad behaviors than beginning good ones; why not help them?
• 2002 research by Stephanie Brown, University of Michigan and NIH: Longitudinal research showed people who give live longer, reducing their risk of dying by nearly 60% compared with non-giving peers. When extolling all the benefits of giving, including tax benefits, why not wrap other rewards for giving into your appeal?
• 2008 and beyond work by Stephen Post: Through 50 studies at 44 major institutions, Post, a professor of preventative medicine, has focused on the traits and qualities that create happiness, health, contentment, and lasting success in life. In Why Good Things Happen to Good People he reports giving to others increases health benefits in people with chronic illness. Don’t be stingy when sharing opportunities to give; you’re helping, not hurting.

3. Giving Promotes Cooperation and Connection

“Human beings have survived as a species because we have evolved the capacities to care for those in need and to cooperate.” — Dacher Keltner, UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center

The aforementioned 2006 MRI study by Moll and Grafman found givers not only experienced heightened neuro-activity in their pre-frontal “pleasure center” but also in the subgenual area in the frontal lobes that helps control the release of oxytocin. This hormone promotes social bonding, trust, and cooperation. Perhaps this is because when you give, you’re more likely to get back. And this relates to one of Robert Cialdini’s principles of influence and persuasion: reciprocity.

• 2007 work by sociologists Brent Simpson and Robb Willer: Reciprocity for prosocial behavior can be real or simply perceived. Research suggests when you give to others, your generosity seems likely to be rewarded by others down the line—sometimes by the person you gave to, sometimes by someone else. You can even suggest to people “your giving is a blessing.”
• 2013 work by Brent Simpson and Rob Willer: Beyond altruism or reciprocity, many other social norms around giving can come into play. This is why saying “people like you (using some part of the donor’s identity) generally give…” can be a powerful motivator.
• John Cacioppo, author of Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, 2008: A ripple effect was found from reciprocal altruism born of social connection, yielding to a greater advance toward health, wealth and happiness. Benefits come from serving and helping others in a conscious way. Do more good deeds: When you make asking a conscious act, would-be donors can make the conscious decision to give – and reap the rewards.

4. Giving Evokes Gratitude

“Gratitude opens your heart and carries the urge to give back – to do something good in return, either for the person who helped you or for someone else.” — Barbara Fredrickson, Director, Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory (PEP Lab) at UNC-Chapel Hill

Research has found cultivating gratitude is integral to happiness, health, and social bonds. For example:

• 2003 studies by Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough, co-directors of the Research Project on Gratitude and Thankfulness: These researchers measured the effects of thankfulness on health, finding teaching college students to “count their blessings, not their burdens” caused them to exercise more, be more optimistic, and feel better about their lives overall. This is one reason making philanthropic appeals during the year-end holidays, when people tend to focus on their blessings, is so effective.
• 2010 study led by Nathaniel Lambert, Florida State University: Expressing gratitude to a close friend or romantic partner was found to strengthen one’s sense of connection to that person. Could expressing gratitude towards donors help you create more connected relationships?
• Research by Dr. Barbara Frederikson: This psychologist found expressing gratitude in words or actions not only boosts your own positivity, but others as well. In the process of expressing gratitude you strengthen bonds and reinforce the recipient’s kindness.

5. Giving is Contagious

“The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.” — Leo Tolstoy

“We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.” — Winston Churchill

When we give, we don’t only help the immediate recipient of our gift. We also spur a ripple effect of generosity through our community.

• 2008 study by Paul Zak: In this famous study, neuroscientists found giving releases oxytocin (also known as the “trust hormone”), inducing feelings of warmth, euphoria and connection to others that are addictive. An oxytocin high (which lasts about two hours) can jumpstart a virtuous circle of giving, which is why it makes sense to ask donors to share their giving on social media or engage in peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns immediately following their own giving.
• 2010 study, James Fowler, UCSD and Nicholas Christakis, Harvard: Research found when one person behaves generously, it inspires others to behave generously later, toward different people. When people benefit from kindness they “pay it forward,” helping others to create a cascade of cooperation. Positive acts of “social proof” influence additional giving.
• In the case of one Brazilian man’s pathological generosity engendered by stroke-induced brain damage, he gave and gave and gave like crazy. But here’s the kicker, per neurologist Ricardo de Oliveira: “João never actively sought out street children and offered them money or sweets. But whenever children asked, João couldn’t help reaching for his wallet. It was more or less a reflex, like the one that made Pavlov’s dogs salivate whenever they heard the dinner bell.” The urge to give seldom bubbles up spontaneously; you are required to ask.

New Year’s Resolution: Show that Philanthropy is Something for Something

“I have one simple message to offer and it’s this: giving is the most potent force on the planet. Giving is the one kind of love you can count on, because you can always choose it: it’s always within your power to give. Giving will protect you your whole life long.” — Stephen Post, author, bioethicist, Why Good Things Happen to Good People

I talk a lot about the fundraiser’s role in facilitating the powerful pathway to passionate philanthropy. Never feel bad about taking people on this journey, interspersing it with plentiful opportunities to give. It turns out this is a potent way to help people find purpose, transcend difficulties, and find fulfillment and meaning in life. Your gift of opportunity becomes the recipient’s gift of health and happiness.

The research has all been done. By psychologists, neurologists, behavioral economists and sociologists. We know a lot about what motivates philanthropy.

It’s now up to you to choose. Use it, or lose it.

When you choose the latter (generally by default), we all lose. You, your would-be donor, and society as a whole.

This year, choose to actively facilitate philanthropy – “love of humanity” — whenever and wherever you can.

Download this Culture of Philanthropy Checklist loaded with action tips to determine if your nonprofit has one in place, and how to get started with adopting a culture of philanthropy.

The post Why You Should Never Feel Bad About Asking Someone To Give appeared first on Bloomerang.

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

The fundraising landscape is changing rapidly and the way funders want to work with nonprofits is too. Mallory Erickson will help you start your 2022 off fundraising in the right way.

Full Transcript:

Steven: All right, Mallory, I got 1 p.m. Eastern. Is it okay if I go ahead and get this party started officially?

Mallory: Do it.

Steven: All right. Well, welcome, everybody. Good afternoon, good morning if you’re on the west coast or somewhere in between. Thanks so much for being here. It is our first webinar of 2022. Hard to believe, but we are really going to kick things off on a high note here because we’re going to talk about how to raise 25% more from the right funders. That’s the keyword there, this year and beyond. So excited that you’re all here. Awesome to see a full room. I hope everyone had a nice year-end giving season. I hope you got some rest maybe in the last week or so. Hopefully, that happened. And yeah, just really excited to kick things off in our webinar series for 2022. I’m Steven, I’m over here at Bloomerang, and I’ll be moderating today’s discussion as always. 

And just a couple of housekeeping items, just want to let you all know that we are recording this presentation and we’ll be sending out that recording as well as the slides later on today. So, if you have to leave early or maybe you get interrupted, or you just want to review the content, maybe share it with a colleague, don’t worry, you will be able to do that. Just look for an email from me a little later on today with all those goodies. 

But most importantly, we love for these sessions to be interactive, so feel free to use that chat box and the question box throughout the next hour or so. We’re going to save some time at the end for Q&A. So we would love to hear from you. Introduce yourself now if you have not already because we always like to know who we’re talking to. But don’t be shy, don’t sit on those hands. You can even send us a tweet. We’ll keep an eye on that. But the bottom line is we would love, love to hear from you. 

If this is your first Bloomerang webinar, welcome. This is a really good one for you to join in on for the first time. But if you haven’t ever heard of Bloomerang besides our webinar series, we are a provider of donor management software. That’s what Bloomerang is, that’s what we do. And if you’re interested in that, maybe you’re shopping for a new system this year, check us out. Visit our website. There’s all kinds of goodies on there you can check out, watch videos and really get a good sense of what we’re all about. But don’t do that right now because my buddy Mallory Erickson is joining us. Mallory, how’s it going? You’re doing okay?

Mallory: Oh, great. And I just realized it’s my first webinar of 2022 also. So I’m really thrilled that I get to spend it with all of you. Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Steven: This was a choice by me. I wanted to start things strong. I thought Mallory can do it because Mallory is awesome. If you all don’t know her, check her out over at the Power Partners Formula. She’s got a really cool training program. I think she’s going to tell you about it later on. And I’ve sat in on her trainings. In fact, I have heard this presentation before and I thought after finishing, we got to have her on to talk to the Bloomerang crew because it’s a really cool presentation. She’s done tons of training. She’s trained a ton of people. She’s a former fundraiser herself. She’s served as an interim ED. She’s been in your shoes and definitely knows what she’s talking about. And she’s got a really cool podcast, which I think we’re going to link to afterward so you can listen to all that good stuff, too. So dang. I’m excited and I want people to hear from you, Mallory. So I’m going to stop sharing. I’m going to turn off my screen share here, and we’ll let you bring up those beautiful slides.

Mallory: Amazing. Okay. Yes. Thank you so much for having me, and thank you for that super warm introduction. I am really happy to be here with you guys today. And yes, I love that you pointed out that it’s about raising 25% more from the right funders because that really is a huge piece of what we’re going to be focused on today. Who are the right funders? How do you find them? How do you outreach them? How do you get them to respond to your emails? All of those pieces. So just really thrilled to be here with you all. 

And so, as you saw, here is what we’re covering today. We’re going to talk a little bit about some of the primary barriers that hold organizations back from fundraising effectively. We’re going to talk about the difference between securing a one-time gift versus reliable, recurring, major funders. So we all know the rise of monthly giving, there’s so much more focus on recurring sustainable fundraising right now, which is awesome. We’re going to be talking about it particularly from a major funder standpoint. So both major donors, but big corporate partners, foundations, all of those things. 

We’re going to be talking about how to leverage your authenticity as you’re building these relationships, and we’re going to talk about one of the things that gets in the way of so many fundraisers and being able to fundraise effectively, which is perfectionism, and I call myself a recovering perfectionist. So if you identify with this, no problem, but we’re going to talk about it a little bit today, and what it looks like to build true win-win partnerships.

But we’re going to start with something just a little fun. Actually, the whole thing is going to be fun. Because it’s 2022, things are crazy. We need to have a little bit of fun. I like to laugh, so I’m going to move quickly through the content. I want to give you as much as possible as I can today, but like Steven said, you’ll have the recording if you want to go back and visit. But let’s just start with something fun. So who here wishes that they could have been on the original Oprah Show? Anyone? They’re always looked so, so fun. She’s obviously just amazing, and I’m all about energy. And Oprah is just the epitome of good energy. Kind of obsessed with her. 

So let’s say that Oprah with her big personality said, “Honey, I want to give you $50,000 dropped into your nonprofit’s account, but you have to have a little friendly competition with someone else in order to get it. And the first fundraiser to get 10 donors to increase their annual gift wins.” So you have two choices around how to approach this contest, right? You can choose Sandy. One of them is Sandy. I call her Scattered Sandy. Sandy gets straight to work. She hustles her face off, she scavenges around her CRM system, she runs report after report on her donor data and prospect list, she sends out an email to her board members to see who they’re connected to, she starts talking to her staff members about running a campaign. She’s constantly moving from thing to thing, and it’s leaving her a little bit scattered. In fact, maybe even a little bit of a hot mess of a situation. She is stressed to the max.

The other option . . . oh, here are the bullets. The other option is Maggie. So Maggie approaches this challenge so differently. Maggie doesn’t dive right into the nitty-gritty. She takes a step back and she creates an engagement strategy that she knows will engage and inspire a huge group of donors. She creates a five-minute personal selfie video talking about her idea and the challenge and sends it out without second thought to 20 donors who she knows are going to be excited. Her confidence and engagement methods and authentic relationship buildings get 10 donors on the phone fast, and they all participate in the challenge. This is how Maggie approaches fundraising. 

And here’s the thing, we get this choice every single day. When we wake up, we decide, “Am I going to be Sandy or am I going to be Maggie? Am I going to be that scattered fundraising spray fire system or am I going to be a funder magnet?” Believe it or not, it is less scary to do the scattered approach, to be Sandy spending more time, which we think will raise more money and become more reliable. Choosing the Maggie route seems uncomfortable and unfamiliar at first, but that is the route to success. And that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. 

So, as Steven gave me such a nice introduction, my name is Mallory Erickson and I am here to help all the Sandy fundraisers of the world become Maggies so that they can hop off that hamster wheel that they call fundraising, that we all call fundraising, and actually help build organizations that are going to change the world.

Like so many of you, and you can raise your hand if this applies to you, I became an accidental fundraiser as a nonprofit executive director. I just started working my way up in the nonprofit sector. And before I knew it, I was a managing director and then an executive director. And I had these massive fundraising expectations in my work. And I’ll be honest, at the beginning, I feel like I had big dreams about the type of fundraiser, the type of leader that I was going to be, but the reality was something a little bit more like this. I was having to put this appearance everywhere that I had it all together. And I don’t know if you’ve been there, but this is literal proof that I was there. I was pretending like everything was running well, but in reality, the nonprofit was a constant hustle. I didn’t have a donor pipeline that I trusted, I was working 12 to 15-hour days sometimes, I was choosing my organization over my family, my friends, my health. I was really miserable and I felt really alone. That’s where Sandy comes from. I was Sandy. I would spend my days daydreaming of everything my organization could do if only I could get the funding to do it, but I was spending 10 to 15 hours a day scattered.

So I did what a lot of nonprofit professionals do and I gave up, which actually meant that I switched organizations thinking that it was going to be different somewhere else. But before I knew it, I just became Sandy again. And I got to a really big breaking point where I was like, “A year from now, I cannot be doing this anymore. I either want a thriving nonprofit where fundraising is easier and less stressful and doesn’t make me feel so uncomfortable all the time or maybe I need to leave the nonprofit sector.” And I really didn’t want to leave the nonprofit sector, so I spent the next few months iterating and creating a reliable fundraising method with the tiny bit of time that I could sacrifice. And that is really what created what I now call today the Power Partners Formula. Everything that I’m going to be teaching you today comes straight from this formula. I am actually going to walk you through all of the steps of the formula today as well. So you can take it, you can implement it right away. And then as Steven said, if you’re interested in having more support, we can talk about that at the very end if you want support in the program and the course. But I’m actually going to just give you the roadmap. I’m going to give you the blueprint today that you can implement into your organization right away. So before and after I started using it. But let’s dive in to some of the meat here.

So when I was in that constant hamster hustle wheel, I was making three big mistakes that led to my fundraising burnout. And you may recognize these mistakes too. And if you do, do not feel bad because guess what? All of my students did too, all of my clients did too. So I want to go over these mistakes with you and how to fix them. This is where you are going to want to take notes. And again, you can revisit the recording if I’m moving quickly. I just want to give you as much goodies as possible during our time together today. 

So, okay. Mistake number one. So I’m going to probably start with the one that has you screaming, “No way.” But I want you to hear me out, especially as we are launching into 2022 with all the uncertainty that surrounds us. So tell us in the chat if you’ve been told that cold outreach is never successful, that nonprofits need to have a warm introduction to a new funder. And I know Steven is watching the chat, and I’m staying focused on the content. But I think it’s important for you guys to recognize some of these trends that we all see and just know that you are so not alone in doing these things or hearing this advice because you guys, the amount of time I wasted over 13 years waiting for a warm introduction or sending the wrong cold email. So I’m actually calling BS on this entire thing. And here’s why. Your goal is getting in front of the right people regularly.

So the old-fashioned fundraising gurus, they focus so much on a warm introduction, but what we actually need to be focused on is the right person strategy. I say the Power Partners Formula is an alignment-first strategy. So the old-fashioned way of doing prospecting and outreach is that we do a search based on wealth or loose mission alignment. We look for that warm connection forever. We get an introduction, maybe, and then crickets, or maybe they’ll respond to that first email from the connection and then the ghosting begins. These are not Power Partners, these are not the right people and this is how you know. 

Something I love to do in webinars and for you to know you’re so not alone is to answer how many unanswered emails are in your sent folder. Take a wild guess and throw it in the chat. And don’t worry because we’ve all been there. I think I had over 10,000, probably in my 13 years. And this is because we’ve all been told and taught the same old-school strategies. 

So when we talk about wasting time, here’s a sample of the numbers that I see with folks in terms of how they’re spending their time. They’re doing broad LinkedIn mining for eight hours, they’re emailing their board of directors and volunteers asking for introduction, ghostwriting email outreach that sometimes never goes out or sometimes it does, they’re emailing donors for listening tours, and we’ll talk more about listening tours later. But they’re emailing donors for listening tours, and they’re doing funding searches based on warm leads.

So this is like 45 hours of work that sometimes leads to . . . this is just a sample of what I saw with some of my clients, 67 outgoing emails on average which then was leading to 10 response emails, eight ideal prospects identified, five meetings with an ask, and one yes. So this is crazy. This is not linear at all and it is a completely broken strategy. But if you focus on the right person and the win-win, successful cold outreach is actually really easy. 

So this is how we do this inside the Power Partners Formula. This is how prospecting works and what it will take to get you in front of the right people regularly. So the first thing is understanding your goals, the gaps, and opportunities. That’s easy. I don’t even have that on here. Then we do something called funder lenses. So what this is, is really about activating your deepest empathy, which is how can you see your organization through the lens of different types of funders, how does a foundation view your organization versus a corporate partner versus an individual. So really starting to understand and view your organization through the lens of a funder. Then we use my signature asset mapping system that helps you identify both what your partners are looking for and what your assets are beyond your programming. And then you funder match based on alignment. 

So I’m going to walk you. If you’re like, “Wait a second, I’m not following.” I’m going to walk you through this step by step. So, like I said before, the very first step is to start bucketing your funding opportunities. What are all the programs you need to fundraise around? What’s the gap?

And I want to be really clear here for a second. This has nothing to do with restricted or unrestricted funding. By understanding your program budgets and how much you’re trying to fundraise around different areas, this is not so that you’re raising restricted funding for that program, but it’s so you can start to understand where you need to have and find the most alignment. If one of your programs costs $500,000, and one of your programs costs $50,000, then your prospect list around alignment, the funders who lens is most aligned with that $500,000 program is the priority. And we’ll talk more about how you prioritize and focus later on. But this is the purpose because sometimes people ask me that like, “Well, what about unrestricted funding?” This is unrestricted funding, but it’s just about helping you figure out how do you prioritize alignment areas? 

So you understand the different programs, different opportunities, then you need to understand funder decision-making for different types of funders. What are individuals looking for versus foundations versus corporate partners? I actually have a number of episodes in “What the Fundraising,” my podcast where I’m meeting with folks, I’m meeting with a grantor at a big foundation. I meet with a corporate partnerships person to help you all start to see how you would think about your organization through the lens of different types of funders. So you think about the lens of these different types of funders and areas of your organization they’re likely the most aligned with.

The third piece of this is that you identify your assets so that you can see everything that you’re bringing to the table for different funders. Some examples of assets are things like thought leadership on your board of directors, the skills that your staff have, your newsletter and distribution, volunteer workdays. Each of those are assets. They’re things of value that different types of funders are interested in for different reasons. And every organization has these assets and tons of them, but you might not have realized this until now. And so sometimes we focus so much of our outreach on our mission and our vision of our organization, but that’s through our lens. That’s not through the lens of the funder. And when we really understand and we match against the assets that we have as an organization and the funder lens, then when we’re outreaching to folks, we’re able to really speak their language, tap into that empathy and leverage our assets in a way that gets them interested and wanting to respond at a much, much, much higher rate. 

So I want to give you an example. Actually, let me say one more quick thing. So when you’re engaging them, you’re really highlighting the win-win relationship in all of your communication. And the thing I want to say is that this strategy, this whole strategy is called funder mapping. This strategy, you can use this with warm connections too, obviously. If you get that introduction from your board member, still use this strategy. Still, really focus on that alignment there. But what I’m saying is that if you prospect in this way, it actually doesn’t matter if the prospect is warm or cold because you’re making it about them. Not about them doing you some favor for their friend by meeting with you. You’re really tapping into where the alignment already exists. 

So I hear people ask their board all the time, “What’s your Rolodex? Who do you know who’s a philanthropist?” But the question to be asking instead is, “Who do you know that cares about blank? Who do you know that wants to see our community do X? Who do you know that cares about X audience?” Those are alignment-based questions instead of just wealth-based questions that have a much, much, much lower conversion rate. So I want to give you an example of how funder mapping worked for one of my clients.

So let’s just call her Annie. She has a dog rescue organization. We did asset mapping, and one of her key assets that she wasn’t leveraging at all is that she had these amazing dog trainers on her staff. So we set up these monthly free training opportunities for people who have fostered through her organization and others. She had been wanting to do this for a while anyways. But we set up these monthly free trainings that these staff members were leading. She set up sponsorship tiers for this monthly free training. She focuses her time on using the effective engagement strategy around alignment for cold outreach to companies who are also trying to get in front of dog owners and new dog owners. She books 10 to 15 meetings a month, and she brings in $10,000 to $40,000 a month from this one power partner offering. 

So this is a different alternative to what you can do with fundraising, and it’s a lot easier because it’s focused on the funder lens asset alignment and then you’ve created this map and you know where to focus. Okay. So what makes all this work is that it’s all about true win-win alignment. Cold outreach works when we’re mapping our funders and we’re speaking to the win-win in our outreach. So that is mistake number one around cold outreach.

Mistake number two . . . actually, I’m going to take a sip of water. It takes 12 to 18 months to cultivate five, six, or seven-figure gifts. So I understand why you think this because all of the old-school fundraising gurus talk about this crazy long relationship-building phase. But these cultivation strategies worked when the biggest fundraisers looked like this or like this. So, if we’re not planning to raise the bulk of the money for organizations by doing this anymore, then why are we cultivating funders in this old-fashioned way? Which is totally outdated too and it’s rooted in a lot of the language we hear around like, “Don’t be transactional.” And so we have related transactional to be something quick. Don’t be transactional, be focused on the relationship. And that leads to all these limiting beliefs around how early in a process we’re allowed to talk about investment, or money, or what we want to do together. But that’s all rooted in these very old-school messages. Times have changed, but most fundraising training hasn’t caught up. So let’s talk about the transactional piece a little bit because the old-fashioned fundraising led to what I call the car salesperson way.

So who in here has had a fundraising meeting and walked out of it and been like, “Ooh, that did not feel good”? You can raise your hand or you cannot, but you could know that you have to because everybody . . . I’ve never met a fundraiser who hasn’t had that moment. But that is not actually the only way to fundraise. And so I want to tell you how to fix this with what I call the fearless fundraiser way. But first, let’s talk about the car salesman way, which is literally how we’ve all been trained to fundraise. 

So we avoid going car shopping without knowing exactly what we want because car salespeople make us uncomfortable. Why do they make us uncomfortable? They make us uncomfortable because the car salesperson is focused just on what they want, selling the car. And it feels like they want to sell the car no matter whether or not it’s truly the right car for us. That’s why it feels pushy and uncomfortable. So we’ve been taught to do this in many ways in our fundraising too, but even more subtly, which creates even more awkwardness because we’re helpers. You guys in the nonprofit sector, and I can totally identify with this too. We have really strong helper energy. So when we’re taught to be on these listening tours to pretend like we’re just interested in building a relationship with the donor, and we have this goal underneath that we’re listening for clues around whether or not they’re going to give a gift or not, but we’re not allowed to say that. We feel really inauthentic.

And so this car salesperson strategy always has our objective top of mind, even when we’re asking the funder questions about them. And the funders can feel this energy. Think about it. Think about a time when you’ve been with someone and you can tell they have something to say that they just aren’t saying. You can feel that. And again, this is not our fault. The truth is that we’re not showing up as our best selves because our energy is messed up by this end goal that we’re anxious about, but not totally honest about and that doesn’t sit well with us as helpers. 

So that’s the meeting that we have, this sticky, uncomfortable meeting that checks some box on our old-fashioned to-do list. But then what happens? We try to follow up. We’re totally ghosted, and we’re sitting there like, “Wait, I thought we had a connection.” But did we really have one? So here are a few ways to know if you’ve been taught to cultivate the car salesperson way. One is that you aren’t being totally transparent about why you actually want to meet with the funder. Two is that it always feels uncomfortable and you’re constantly getting ghosted by donors. And then three is that your fundraising is not consistent. So you may be fundraising like big spikes here and there, but you can’t rely on it. And again, remember, if you are relating to one or all of these things, you are exactly like I was and exactly like all of my students were and basically, 99% of the fundraisers that I see. But the car salesman way is what is keeping us stuck in where . . . in these feelings and in these results.

So, if we’re wanting to fundraise more with less self-doubt and fear and discomfort, we have to ditch those old-school strategies. And that requires us to focus on that win-win like we already talked about when we’re busting myth number one, to be transparent and authentic in our communication, and to bring our power partner energy to the meetings. 

So it’s funny because people think Power Partners are all about the funders, the funders to the power partner. No, you guys are the power partner. Two, you have so much to offer your partners and bringing that energy, understanding all of your assets is going to help you bring that energy into every conversation. So you really recognize all the value that you’re bringing to that table. And it’s just about figuring out, “Is there a win-win here? Is there alignment here?” 

This also helps with a lot of the feelings of rejection we deal with as fundraisers. So much of those feelings become personal for us. But if we focus on our alignment, then it’s like, “Oh, no, this just wasn’t aligned.” Has nothing to do with you as a fundraiser, it has nothing to do with how amazing your organization is, it just wasn’t aligned. No problem. So much easier to move on from. A huge way to help move through some of the perfectionist tendencies that many of us face.

Okay. Mistake number three. Oh, my God. Okay. I’m fired up about this one because I think this is what stings so many organization. So tell me if you feel like you’re constantly finding yourself jumping from one shiny fundraising opportunity to another because you’re being told, “Okay. You need to do this type of event now, or you need to do this type of activity or this type of programming or shift your programming this way to get this foundation grant.” So that is happening to so many organizations that I see. And we believe that if we want to raise more money, we need more events or we need more programs because old-school fundraising has been really built on this. And some of this has shifted a little bit since the start of COVID, but not nearly enough. Because if you’re already maxed out on time, which you are, then how can you fundraise more? Because you need more time in order to do more events in order to fundraise more, which is just mathematically impossible. You can’t do it. It’s impossible. 

So let me explain. I’m sure you listen to a lot of podcasts, read blogs, watch videos on how to fundraise. I know that I did and I do when it comes to business. And I even put out all these things and so does Bloomerang. So many amazing materials.

But sometimes what can happen if you’re over absorbing different suggestions or different types of information is that you could constantly come up with new fundraising ideas because you have a lot of ideas, you’re a visionary, you’re a creative person. And so you’re coming up with all these different ideas, but every idea turns into a bridge. The bridge is focused on how do you bring the donor in or how do you get the donor to give. So what happens is, is that we create a lot of half-built bridges. Maybe Giving Tuesday as a bridge, or a gala is a bridge or a walk is a bridge or some peer-to-peer campaign is a bridge. But when we’re trying to do all of these things at once, it’s building these half-built bridges. 

And there’s another way to explain this, which many people refer to as context switching. And this is what I see and how fundraisers run their day-to-day. As they’re adding more bridges, the percentage of time throughout the day switching from thing to thing starts to get sucked into this black pit. Switching back and forth takes time, and it’s literally disappearing into this not very fun pit. And so then at the end of the day, we’re left with a bunch of hours put into all of these half-built bridges.

So another way I think about this is like it’s opening up so many tabs in our brain. And I don’t know how many tabs you have open on your computer. I’m a little bit embarrassed to talk about mine, but that is happening in our brains too when we start to follow these shiny objects back and forth. So all of that fundraising time, then when we’re running from bridge to bridge to bridge, it means that only 20% of it is productive. 

So I really need you to hear this. Having more events or programs does not actually mean that you’re going to raise more money. And instead what you need to do is you need to focus on one fundraising strategy at a time. You don’t need to do it all, you need to look at where you’re wasting time and where you’re wasting energy and really complete a bridge before you move to building the next one. And so that’s what’s super important when I was saying back at the beginning about understanding your needs in different areas. If you have a program that needs $500,000 and another that needs $50, well, my recommendation is that the first reliable bridge you’re building is for that $500,000 program. And so you’re prospecting based on alignment as close as possible with that program.

So one of the ways, and this is like a quick tip too, I mentioned that some people focus on this like shifting back and forth thing is context switching. So one of the ways to address context switching is by bucketing your time, bucketing your funding opportunities, and bucketing your types of funders. So an example of this would be something like, on Tuesdays, you focus only on leveraging the assets associated with your sixth-grade math education program through corporate social responsibility programs because let’s think about that for a second. If you’re focusing on one program and one type of funder, then that time that you spend fundraising in that time block, all the language is going to be really similar, you’re going to be using the same funder lens, you’re going to be leveraging the same assets. Just think about how much more optimized your energy is going to be if you bucket your time in this way. And the funder map is what leads you to figure out, “Okay. This is what’s going to be my first bridge.” And then start bucketing that time on your calendar. Tell your team that you’re not available during that time, and really stay focused. Okay. So I went through these three mistakes really quickly. We’re going to move into three tips that relate to these as well.

But we talked about, first, how to how to address these three mistakes. So prospect for win-win alignment using funder lenses and organizational assets. Showing up as your authentic and vulnerable self, it is 100% your superpower and the way to get out of that car salesperson feeling. And then the third one is focus on one bridge at a time, no more context switching, use that time bucketing strategy, but really focus on bucketing by funding opportunity and type of funder so that all of your communication, content creation, prospecting like your brain is in the same space. 

Okay. We are going to move into these tips, but I want to just take three minutes. Steven, I don’t know if there are any questions. I haven’t been watching the chat so that I could stay focused on the context. Are there any clarifying questions that are out there that would be helpful for me to answer before we move on?

Steven: Just a couple, but I think from what I know about your slides, Mallory, you may cover them in subsequent slides. So why don’t we keep trucking? You’re doing awesome.

Mallory: Okay. Okay, great. Okay. All right. Then we’ll just keep rolling. Okay. So let’s go into these three tips. Take some water again, you guys. Okay. So I didn’t say this at the very beginning. I’m a trained executive coach. So a lot of the work that I do focuses on the relationship between what’s happening in our brains and our bodies to the actions that we’re taking or we’re not taking. I’m also trained in behavior change and habit design. So the first thing I really want you to understand about all the things we just said and went over is how critical is to be aware of your thoughts and beliefs so that you can harness your energy to be able to activate and get into those donor lenses or do that asset brainstorming. Because when we’re feeling depleted or defeated, or quicksand dread, it is so hard to access those types of feelings. 

So what’s really critical here is to understand that everything starts with awareness around our emotions. So this is something called the cognitive behavior loop. This is the idea that our beliefs and our thoughts inform how we feel, and ultimately how we show up. So I’m going to say that again. Our beliefs and our thoughts inform how we feel, and ultimately how we show up.

So oftentimes we say things like fundraising is stressful. And before you just leave the presentation, just hold on for a second. We have this belief that fundraising is stressful. But let me give you a non-fundraising example for a second. I talk about this a lot. I was talking to a group of students and parents around test anxiety many years ago. I said to the room, I said, “Chemistry is not stressful.” And everyone was like, “What is she talking about?” I was like, “Chemistry is not stressful. What’s stressful are the thoughts and the beliefs that you have about chemistry.” “I’m bad at science, so I’m going to be bad at chemistry. I did poorly on the last test, so I’m going to do poorly on this test. The teacher likes Johnny so much more than me. Argh, I can never understand concepts like this. My brain just doesn’t work that way.” And gosh, I think I’m just spewing out what I thought about me and chemistry when I say all those things, but the thing to take away here is that those beliefs and those thoughts, that’s what actually makes chemistry feel stressful. 

And actually, the exact same thing is true about fundraising. Fundraising is not inherently stressful, it’s just a thing. What’s stressful are the thoughts and the beliefs that we have about fundraising. “That donor didn’t respond to my last email, they must be really upset. This donor didn’t give last year and so they must not want to work with our organization anymore. I must have done something wrong in that meeting because the donor said we weren’t a fit for them anymore. How are we ever going to reach our 2022 fundraising goals?” 

Those thoughts, those beliefs, that’s what’s actually impacting how you feel as a fundraiser right now. And what I want you to understand is that those feelings then impact how you show up. If you’re feeling . . . if the thought and belief is how are we ever going to reach our 2022 goals, or if your thought and your belief is I must have done something wrong in that last meeting to get the no. If that’s the thought and the belief, just think about how that thought and belief might impact your willingness to meet with other donors. 

But what if your thought and belief was instead, “Oh, it just wasn’t aligned. We just didn’t find that alignment there.” Think about how differently each of those beliefs would lead to one how you feel, and two, how you take future action. This is why it’s so much fundraising and why I do so much coaching around this, and we talk about this so much on the podcast is because so much of what keeps us trapped in these fundraising cycles is this sort of predictive emotions, predictive. We predict something bad happening in a way that makes us feel horrible, and also holds us back from taking the actions that we need to take in order to finally create that sustainable, reliable revenue model. 

And that’s why I said at the very beginning too, it’s actually easier to do the Sandy hustle wheel than Maggie because the Maggie piece requires you to really look inside and to really challenge some of these thoughts and beliefs and make the choice to choose different ones because you see the difference it’s going to make and how you feel and how you show up. 

And I will tell you when I first started doing this work for myself, really looking at my own cognitive behavior loop, one of the biggest things that I took away was that one of the biggest thoughts and beliefs that switched for me was that great fundraising is not an ask, it’s an offer. It’s about partnership and opportunity, it’s about vulnerability and connection, it’s about two people or two groups wanting to achieve the same goal together. This is my new belief. This is my new belief. Before what I believed is that I was begging people to give me something they didn’t want to give me. Think about how that belief was probably impacting how I fundraise versus then when I adopted this belief. Well, I’ll tell you actually. It helped me take an organization from a million to $3.8 in 18 months. This belief, really, this belief shifted everything, and Power Partners is really based on this mantra too.

Okay. Tip number two, build trust through transparency, not perfection. So we focus a lot on this idea of this know, like, trust factor. That in order for anyone to give, they need to know, like, and trust us. But oftentimes we take know, like, trust to mean we need to be perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect. And I will tell you, did an episode on “What the Fundraising” with this woman, Heather Sager. She talks about how actually when someone appears too perfect, we do not trust them nearly as much. That is not actually how we build trust. And so what you need to actually be focused on is building trust in a more authentic way, which means that they know you through real stories, that they like you based on vulnerability, and that they trust you based on your sharing of real challenges and real opportunities. 

And when I talk about transparency, I don’t just mean budget transparency, I mean organizational transparency. How do you let your donors in? How do you let them feel like they’re a part of your inner circle? Do you have enough trust in them to let them see behind the scenes, even the challenges and trust that they won’t just jump ship right away? And if you don’t have that trust, then how do you expect them to trust you? Because trust is a two-way street. And so we cannot achieve the trust we’re looking for with our donors when we do this perfectionist, know, like, trust.

Okay. And then tip number three, which you’re probably like, “Okay. You’re a broken record, Mallory.” But I cannot stress this enough. Tip three is around focusing on alignment. So one of the questions I get asked the most is, but who are the right funders for us? And this goes back to this piece, letting go the right funders for you have nothing to do with whether or not they are a warm or a cold connection. The right funders for you have to do with who are the people that are trying to accomplish the same goals as you? Who are the people that care about the same audience and community as you? Who are the people who are really your teammates in this ecosystem of trying to address this problem? And is there alignment there and is there an opportunity to partner to achieve your mutual goals? So this is the process I outline before really understanding that funder decision-making, doing that asset mapping, and then aligning based on who the funders are, and the assets that you have that are the most impactful for them.

Okay. Now, I’m going to just give you the blueprint for how do you take these pieces and use the Power Partners Formula? So the Power Partners Formula is this three-step process. So funder mapping, we’ve already talked about this, but if you want to write it down so you know the three steps. Funder mappings to doing that alignment around assets and funder lenses, effective engagement roadmap. This is about how do you talk to funders in their language? How do you highlight that in your email outreach, not make it so centered on the organization or the mission and the vision, but really see them and see what they’re trying to do that it’s in alignment with your organization? And then I call the third part of this process a simple yes system. The reality is, if you are doing funder mapping and effective engagement really well, the meetings that you have and the relationships that you build, and the opportunities that you create are actually going to be just so much more of a routine.

So the thing I want you to understand about the funder mapping framework because I know one of the stories that we tell ourselves a lot in the program is that . . . or like in this sector is that we don’t have time to do X. The reality is inside my course, funder mapping takes one and a half hours. This is not a crazy thing. And you want to be doing this for foundations, for corporate partners, for individuals because there is nothing more important than knowing who the right funders are and how to talk to them because this is how I felt oftentimes, and honestly, I just got off a call with a discovery call with a prospective client and she was just bouncing from thing to thing to thing to thing and trying to figure out what’s the first step? What’s the first thing? And I know that beginning of the year energy that can really activate are like Scattered Sandys. So I want you to just take a step back and start with the four-step process that we talked about. Start with mapping funder lenses, mapping your assets. Really understanding what are the true win-win offerings that you have here. 

Okay. I want to make sure we have time for questions at the end. So, look, I’m a teacher by training. I taught middle school as my first career, so the repetition is intentional because that’s how many times it can take for us to really learn something. 

But I want to just say this piece around creating the funder map and the alignment. The results we see in Power Partners when people do this, when they actually take the time to do this is wild. It is wild. The biggest feedback we get is, “I cannot believe how quickly these huge companies are responding to me. I cannot believe how quickly I’m getting meetings or getting yeses.” And that is because all of the communication and the meetings are focused on alignment and then prioritizing based on the most alignment, communicating about assets and funder goals in a unique way. 

So I’m going to get us . . . I’m going to make sure that we have 15 minutes at the end for questions. So the one thing I really, really want you to know is that if you take one thing away from this, it’s that you can have consistent fundraising success without hounding funders for money. And you don’t have to feel so defeated, frustrated, and uncertain all the time. If that is how you feel, it’s because of an alignment gap, an alignment gap. So I normally don’t do this. I know Steven said this. So usually, the only way to get into Power Partners is to watch this other webinar and things like that.

Anyways, I’m doing something special for you guys today because I know it’s the beginning of the year where I’m actually inviting you . . . you can actually enroll in Power Partners today, and you can get 10% off if you just use the code Bloomerang. And what I’m wondering is, did I actually give you the URL to do exactly that? Oh, yes. I did. Okay. So malloryerickson.com/invited. If you want support moving through these pieces, that’s what Power Partners is all about. It’s 12 months. We do group coaching calls, and there’s a Facebook group where you can ask questions at any time. There are over 100 organizations inside of it right now. The results we’re seeing are amazing. And it’s such a privilege to get to work with so many incredible organizations. So don’t tell other folks that I’m doing this. I usually don’t give away this link on webinars like this, but I just want to invite all of you because I really love Bloomerang and everything that you guys do to support organizations and the way they fundraise and have good data, which I know we’ll talk about later this year and all of that. 

Okay. So what if we move to questions so I make sure to give you guys some of that personalized time.

Steven: Yeah. Sounds good. We got a lot here, Mallory. But first, thank you. That was a lot of good stuff. And just the energy we needed to start the year. So thanks for being here and sharing all that wisdom with us. That was fun. Yeah. And if you haven’t asked a question, now’s the time because like she said, we’ve got almost 15 minutes. There are some good ones in here. One jumped out at me, Mallory, was from Nicole. Could you talk a little bit about what it looks like to be vulnerable as an organization? Can you define vulnerability and maybe some examples of what that actually looks like in practice?

Mallory: Yeah. So I think one thing about vulnerability is just recognizing. So one thing that can be really helpful when you’re trying to figure out how to be vulnerable with a donor is, what are the things that you feel like you might be hiding? So I’ll tell you just a little example story. When I was the managing director, I was really struggling with the executive director. He had started the organization when he was 22 years old, didn’t have a ton of leadership skills. The organization was being wildly successful. 

What they found was that in these meetings with these donors I was really close with, I wasn’t comfortable sharing that. And so what vulnerability looks like for me in that example was starting to talk to my biggest donors. “I’m trying to figure out the best way to support blank and his leadership development. I’m curious if you’ve worked with any other organizations that have had young founders,” and just letting them in. 

Or let’s say you’ve piloted a new program, and the results are not what you expected to see. I just did this interview for a podcast. You have some early results that are really different than what you thought you were going to see. Sharing that with a funder, talking about that with a funder, that’s another way to show vulnerability to be like, we’re human, we’re iterating, we’re trying to figure this thing out. It doesn’t mean that we’re getting it 100% right, but we’re driving towards the score and we’re not going to pull the curtain back and just finish this year of the program when we already see it’s not working for whatever reason. Instead, we’re going to be really vulnerable and to say we were wrong. Here’s the reasons we made this decision, and here’s what we’ve learned so far. And we think the most respectful and transparent thing to do is to shift in this way right now. That’s a really vulnerable thing to do. So those are some examples. I hope that’s helpful. And let me just turn my screen sharing off so maybe you can see me better.

Steven: Yeah. That made a lot of sense to me, Mallory. That’s awesome. And there’s a question here that I think is a good dovetail off that from Dina. And Dina, if I’m pronouncing your name wrong, please forgive me. Just yell at me in the chat. But they want to do all the things you just said, but a lot of the folks here listening, they’re not on the front lines. And Dina’s question is, how do we get some of those stories, that info, from the program people because they are on the front lines? They see all that, and this is a common question I see a lot of people struggle with. What have you seen work in your experience, Mallory, of getting those stories from those folks to use in fundraising?

Mallory: Yeah. So much of this depends on kind of the structure of the organization, the relationship between programs and fundraisers, but I’ve seen everything from the lead fundraiser doing site visits every so often and capturing the stories because there’s a real capacity issue. Other times I’ve seen organizations who have hourly staff, for example, that haven’t typically been compensated for administrative work, have to shift an operational or administrative package like the way they work with folks to make sure they’re really being compensated for their time sharing back this data. Sometimes it’s going to happen with billable hours where the tracking of certain things isn’t worked in. And so I’ve watched organizations subsidize that and pay hourly for people sharing those stories. 

The other thing is ask your program staff what is feeling the hardest about sharing these stories with us. What’s feeling the hardest? Maybe they’re going to tell you sitting down at the computer after a 10-hour day is really hard. And maybe the solution to that is they send you a quick voice memo and you transcribe it and you take care of it, or you guys record your team meetings every week, you spend the first seven minutes, five minutes, three minutes, sharing out a few quick stories, you record it, you send it to Temi or whatever, you transcribe it. There you go. 

So I think when I do habit-building and behavior change, the question to ask yourself is, how do you make that action easier to do? Whenever people are not taking an action, the first thing to ask yourself is, how can I make this action easier to do? And so that’s the first thing I would think about when you’re struggling to get certain data from folks inside the organization.

Steven: I love that. That makes a lot of sense. Here’s one from Holly. Holly is considering getting rid of sponsorship levels for their events and instead matching funders with an area of interest. Intriguing idea. Have you seen that?

Mallory: Yes.

Steven: Does that make sense to you? Have you seen that work?

Mallory: Yes. So, inside Power Partners, we do this too actually. I talk about corporate sponsorship from an annual sponsorship perspective really focused on a program area as well. And then sponsorship benefits sometimes if they’re good, are retained in benefits. So I think I’m like a maybe with that comment. I think sponsorship packages are really important. And the assets, if you brainstorm assets with your staff, you want to be converting those assets into benefits. 

So an example of that would be, let’s say an asset of your organization is thought leadership on your board of directors, for example. So, if you think about that as an asset, the corresponding benefit to that might be a networking event with your board of directors, a special networking event with your board of directors. That’s how it would appear as a sponsorship benefit. So my answer is yes. I think aligning corporate partners with program areas is awesome. I highly recommend it. And I still think you want to have sponsorship tiers and benefits that are related to your asset. So this goes beyond like a table tent at an event. Those are sponsorship benefits that really make an impact is when they’re aligned with the asset that that type of funder is the most interested in.

And if you don’t know the answer to that, ask them. The thing I would say to a funder is, “Hey, I really want to get out of the way we’ve done these gala sponsorships every single year.” And I want to think about, “What does it look like for us to really build a win-win strategic partnership here? What are ways you’ve worked with other organizations that have felt really good? Or what are some things you’d love to see or be involved in?” And let them talk to you about that. My favorite question to ask a funder is, what problems keep you up at night? What is keeping you up at night right now? And is there a way our organization can support in addressing that? That’s really when you ask those more open-ended questions instead of, do you like the benefit of your logo on a welcome sign? That’s a binary question. But if you can start to get into the dreaming mode with your funders, that’s where you’re going to really figure out how to build those sponsorship levels related to that program sponsorship.

Steven: That makes sense. That’s cool. I like this one that just came in from Keith. Basically, Mallory, what about walking away from a donor? And maybe it’s not a good fit. The relationship exists, but it’s no longer healthy, equitable, or maybe they’re pushing themselves onto things too much. And curious what you think if you have encountered that in your work and maybe what you’ve done with telling those people maybe it’s not a good fit.

Mallory: Yeah. I will tell you. So the students inside Power Partners have raised millions of dollars. But the best, my favorite metric of last year was a Power Partner member who told me they turned down a million dollars from a funder because what she understood was that it wasn’t aligned. It was going to run her staff ragged, it didn’t feel good, it wasn’t maximizing their best assets. They were going to need to build all this capacity tangentially that wasn’t a part of their core offerings. That, if you recognize that, you are already seeing what I’m inviting you to see here. 

So is that going to be a challenging conversation? Potentially. And I don’t think you have to say . . . if you’re ready to let go of a funder, you don’t have to just break up with them over text and whatever, but you can say, “Hey, it’s been feeling recently like we’re missing an alignment piece here. And I want to be clear about where we’re going and what we’re looking for in terms of our partnerships, and I want to make sure that that is in alignment with what you’re looking for and how you work with an organization. And if it’s not, no problem. No problem. Then maybe I could help you find another organization that’s better suited or make some recommendations for you. But I just want to make sure we’re on the same page about what we’re hoping for in this partnership moving forward.” You can do that with compassion, with empathy, still with the win-win in mind. Because if the win-win is always in mind, then even if alignment isn’t there for your organization, you can help them recognize that and that they can find win-win somewhere else.

Steven: What about communicating that internally, Mallory? I can imagine maybe a co-worker or a board member being like, “You want to turn down a million dollars? What are you talking about?” What have you seen for maybe getting other people internally on board with this philosophy, which I think is the right one?

Mallory: Yeah. I think a mantra that we also use a lot inside Power Partners is like not all money is created equal. And like money, I think sometimes in the nonprofit sector we get so tunnel-visioned on money above all else, just the money. And that’s why I say . . . I just started to say this. I’m like, “Power Partners is an alignment-first methodology, not a money-first methodology. Because the money-first methodology is what leaves us scattered and chasing and doing these things that don’t feel good, and that we feel like we’re prioritizing things that aren’t around our core mission. There’s plenty of money out there, let me tell you. There’s plenty of money out there. There is no scarcity. The possibility for the sector is endless. There’s no market here even, it’s just about how much generosity we can inspire. And especially with new tools around online fundraising, there’s so much possibility. So, but is board culture hard to shift is like all those things 100%. 

So I think you just need to start . . . One of the ways I encourage . . . I have a board mobilization training inside Power Partners, and one of the pieces of that that we do is we do the cognitive behavior loop with board members. What are the thoughts and the beliefs that board members are holding about money, about philanthropy, about funders? And how are those beliefs impacting the way that the organization is showing up? That the organization is feeling, that the organization is showing up? And do we want to keep those beliefs or do we want to adopt new ones?

Steven: I love it. Dang. That might be a good way to end on. We’ve only got a couple of minutes left. I want to give you the last word, Mallory, and give folks another chance to get in touch with you. Would you mind sharing that last slide again with that link on there?

Mallory: Yes. Yes, yes. Hold on one second. And I’m also going to say, if you are like, “Oh, my gosh. She didn’t answer my question. I’m going crazy.” I just put my IG in there, you can send me a direct message on Instagram and I’d be happy to answer that too. So I don’t want folks to feel like I’m disappearing. But yes, if you want to join me inside Power Partners Formula, I would love to have you there. It is really just such an amazing group of nonprofit leaders and fundraisers. So malloryerickson.com/invited, and you get 10% off with the code Bloomerang, because I just really love you guys. And we’re going to be announcing so many other cool things. It’s 12 months of access. There’s even a 60-day guarantee. We’ve never had anyone use it, so I don’t talk about it. But if you’re like, “Oh, what if it doesn’t work for me?” Well, then you can ask for a refund. But it will work for you because I care about this sector so much.

Steven: That’s nice. You can’t beat that.

Mallory: Yeah. Yeah. I know. I was like, “Okay. 60 days.” Yeah. You’re going to see real results. It gives you plenty of time. And you know, I do not subscribe to the old scarcity mindset mentality. And so I really . . . I love this sector so much. I’ve spent my entire career here. I believe so much in nonprofit leaders, and I just really believe that there are these limiting beliefs that surround the sector, that surround the organizations that are holding us back from being able to be the powerful embodied, embolden fundraisers that we deserve to be. And I really believe that fundraisers are like the unsung heroes of the world moving money to address the problems that we all want to see solved. And so my goal is that you recognize how important you are, how special you are, how critical the work that you’re doing is, and how grateful I know like Steven and I both are for you, and to be in community with you.

Steven: I love it. Couldn’t have said it better myself. I love what you said about there being money out there. There’s so much capacity that you don’t have to settle for misalignment. That was my big takeaway among many others. Thanks for doing this, Mallory. I know we didn’t get to all the questions. I’m so sorry for that. I wasn’t trying to pick favorites, but do reach out to her. Real active on Instagram. I love that too. So really do send her a message. I get messages there too and it works. And thanks to all of you. I know it’s a new year, maybe you’re doing some year-end wrap-up stuff. So it was awesome for you to invest in yourselves and us for an hour. I really appreciate that as well. We have some awesome, awesome webinars coming up this year. Schedule is almost complete. And every Thursday, we are back at it. We got some cool sessions coming up for sure, including one week from today, my buddy Valerie Harris who is a working MGO, she’s going to talk about stewarding major donors. It’s a nice dovetail from this presentation. 

So, if you’ve got some major donor relationships, but maybe they’re not where you want to be, that is the presentation for you. And if you don’t have major donor relationships yet, you’ll still get a lot out of it because she’s going to talk about how to generate those. So register for that if you’re free. Even if you’re not free, you can still register because you’ll get the recording, even if you’re not there. I don’t care. Don’t matter to me. You’re going to get the recording to this as well as the slides. And there’s lots of other sessions already scheduled on that page. You can check it out. Pretty interesting topics coming up, something might catch your eye. So visit that and hopefully, we will see you again on another Bloomerang webinar. So have a good rest of your Thursday. Have a good weekend. Stay safe, stay warm, stay healthy. We need all of you out there like Mallory said, and hopefully, we’ll see you again next week. See you.

Mallory: Thank you.

The post [VIDEO] How to Raise 25% More from the Right Funders in 2022 and Beyond appeared first on Bloomerang.

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