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So let's get started. Happy Friday,
welcome, everybody.
It's a good day to be here and be talking about some donor relations.
I mean, we're talking a lot of back to basics, but I'm gonna be partial and say that we get to love on people today and talk about how to love well on people. And so I'm a little geeked out. And I am also excited because we have an expert in the house today, who's actually been on a donor relations team. So Julie Confer confort has spoken into this conversation, and it's gonna be great. I'm excited about it.
So what I love about donor relations, and this has kind of been building the last few weeks have been the basics that we talked to annual giving major gifts, planned gifts. This is like the Forgotten segment, you know, and I think we just want to set the ground floor that development as a whole is a team sport. And if you're not into team sports, like don't come and play here, you know, and I'm not into sports at all. So I don't know what that means. But the whole idea of donor relations is creating the Connect connections between all of this allowing the donor to feel seen, to feel known to feel appreciated in between all of the stuff, regardless of the politics in the background, regardless of how complicated your processes actually are in the background, you want the donor to have this experience that just supports that you know who they are, and you really appreciate their gift, and you're happy to tell them what it what happened as a result.
So do us a favor, right now, if you have a donor relations team member, within your staff, go and give them a hug, go and give them an elbow. Yeah, give them a zoom fist bump. Because I think that a lot of people have a preconceived notion that it's easy to do donor relations, that it's incredibly intuitive to love on a donor, it is not. And if you employ some super smart strategies, and you play well in the sandbox, you are about to elevate your donor relations game immensely. And I am here to say our donor relations experts, they get it. And we need to somehow be able to triangulate all of our efforts, it cannot be, you know, I'm the major gift officer, this is my donor. So I own the stewardship of this relationship. Absolutely not, that actually, in my mind, cheapens the experience for the donor because this needs to be an all hands on deck approach, we need to be speaking to our ops team, they need to be talking about how the gift was spent, where it moved, what was the impact our donor relations team come in and try to help us tell the story of how the gift was impacted in particular areas. So if you can see the forest for the trees and kind of elevate yourself up, grab the hands of your colleagues, even someone who may not even be on your foundation, you may have a professor or a teacher or someone who has been the beneficiary of this gift to come play into stewarding. And what we're seeing today is the 2.0 version of donor relations means you've got employee a team sport with it.
And you know, I think what's really cool too, is so many of our values just converge on this. And I'm sorry that we're just like, you know, always beating this drum. But if you truly at your fundamental level, believe that everyone matters. And that's not just external of the donors of your organization in your community. But it's also your team, like if you don't have that approach internally, but there's this hierarchy that blocks some of this collaboration to happen. donor experience to the greatest degree is not going to happen. I mean, no one's got the time, the knowledge, the strategy to do at all. And so it's so critical that we work together. There's a lot of other values that I'm think we're gonna add.
There's a ton, we're gonna thread him in here, but here's really what the overarching theme is. For this conversation. We want to talk about strategies that help donors feel seen, known and appreciated. And the and I hope everybody noticed that we didn't call this the stewardship conversation back of back to basics. This is a donor relations concept. And so I think we get those two words interchangeably mixed up, and I have to say I was a frequent, frequent offender,
catch me still using them wrong. Let's be honest
before we had Lynn Wester on the podcast, which is probably when we adore Lynn and we will probably make drop her all the time she's on this episode because she's the donor relations guru. She's been building this content and standing up and grabbing a microphone and talking about these growth mindsets for 11 years. So there's a ton of information that she has been able to glean, looking at it from just a different lens. But it's really about saying that donor relations is the strategy. stewardship is a tactic to get to that strategy. But donor relations is really the process of trying to retain your current donors and keep them engaged with our institution that is the definition of donor relations. And how are we creating a memorable and meaningful experience for our donors, that can't be a one off, we can't do these things in silos, we can't just send a thank you note and say, there, I took care of that. It's got to be a much deeper approach that leads a donor a donor through their journey to the next gift.
Well, you know, we are really big on frameworks around here, because we're each coming from different organizations. And we all want to apply this for it to make the most sense for whichever side of the house you're sitting in, presently. And so I think Lynne specifically does a really wonderful job, she was leading edge on really putting a stake in the ground around this, but understanding what are the pillars to donor relations? And so let's just kind of start at a base level. What are those? So let's dive in. Number one is acknowledgment. That's the building trust, establishing gratitude and ongoing communication. This is what you have to do, right? This includes like sending out a gift receipt, I hope that that's already happening in your organization, if not, like let's call me, okay, let's get that going.
And that needs to be like within 48 hours and no less. I mean, this is almost like a given and automated process. And it's, it can't just be attacks, you know, advantage that we're trying to do, because that's the right thing to do. Yes, we have got to acknowledge but that is just the beginning of the tidal wave. Okay, number two, number two, stewardship. So this is again, it's one of those tactics. So stewardship isn't even the first tactic to the pill, the four pillars of donor relations. This is about reporting back. It's about thank you notes, it's videos, its impact reports.
It can be stories, this is the actual physical act of showing a donor why their gift made a difference. Number three, three is recognition. And this is a moving target because people are moving targets and so you really have to cart Carvin understand motivations, what motivates people, why are they giving some may want to give for the public recognition. Those are the names you see on the sides of buildings, right? There could be a lot of reasons that someone would want public recognition or corporation for sure. But you also want to know the donor that that would scare the living daylights out of them to see their name Becky
Endicott Becky Endicott
does not want to name it. And I know them enough to that the recognition could literally be the most quiet, humble, thank you note delivered, you know, in a very quiet way. But it's reaching across the table knowing when to hold someone's hand and knowing when to grab the megaphone.
Exactly. So I love that one. And in that you cannot be effective at recognition unless you know your donor. And so it's really going to implore you to have to get in there, get to know them get to know their preferences and adapt accordingly. Yes, so I love that. Okay, last one. So, yes, is engagement. And so we know that donors have three desires, when they want to give them how they want to have interactivity with us. They want access to our organization, whether that's with our experts, with our people with our programs, they want information, they want to know what are we doing to help solve these problems or these crises? And how are their gifts making a difference? And the third one is they want experiences. So what does that look like? Are we taking them on a tour? Are we inviting them into an event? You know, are they having lunch with someone who could answer questions, and however we want to show up and and fulfill those three donor desires are going to be the hallmarks of engagement for your donor relations program.
Okay, so that's really a quick look at the four pillars of donor relations. And Lynn has an amazing book that you can get everywhere that books are sold, if you want to really dive into it. But a couple of mindset shifts that I want to lift. As you know, Becky just talked about experience. And I think that this is really, really key right now. Because you know, donor and customer could really be interchangeable in so many ways with how corporations engage with us. And certainly just the expectation of a donor of how you engage with a brand with an organization. And so really, unpacking the idea of the experience is really key. One way that we did this prior organization that we worked out is I would always challenge the team. I'm like, okay, imagine me as the gift coming in the door. Like I'm literally like a pledge card coming in the mail. Like let's step through the journey of this of what happens let's make sure the checks and balances are in place. Do all the reporting and the acknowledgments happen in a timely way. But also do that with from a donor perspective, like actually be the donor? And you can do this by being a little secret shopper on a different, you know, organizations websites, how long does it take for someone to reach out? Do they reach out? What kind of steps happen? And you want to do that? Because thinking of an experience, think about when you check out your favorite online store? What's that welcome series look like? What is the next move on their part? How often they communicate, when your items getting shipped? How much happier do you feel, knowing exactly where your item is, and when it's gonna arrive? True. And those that ask for review right after that. I mean, it's like, there's a cadence and those that understand experience on the consumer level. If you apply those principles and the donor level, like you will be lightyears ahead of where others are sets a mindset shift and a hack that you could totally employ today.
And I will say, just as nonprofits, we have the scarcity mindset that we're always worried that we're bothering donors too often, and I don't want to bother them. And it's like, actually, if you did those steps that john was just talking about, it's like, you're actually showing, oh, we care this much about you, we care enough to tell you, you know, when the impact has happened, we care enough to thank you on the back end, we care enough to have you know, you know that a receipt is coming, you can use that for your taxes, every one of those steps is showing that we are really leaned into your gift, we truly care about you. And we're gonna make all this effort worthwhile because we think your gift is worthy.
Okay, a second mindset shift, I feel like is really key is this whole idea of the difference between stewardship and donor relations?
Yeah, I just think that my mind was blown a little bit, the day that I figured out that I had been calling donor relations, stewardship my entire career. And then link comes on the show. And we're totally paranoid that we're going to keep saying, Do you remember that I do. Remember, it's like don't say stewardship don't say stewardship. But I think here's the mindset shift that that she taught me, stewardship is tied to the gift that the donor gives. So you cannot technically steward a donor, you're just steward their giving. So but as an organization, you can engage you can cultivate them in to relate to donors, with stewardship being a part of that overall donor relations strategy. And so but we're taking it much higher, we're taking this donor on a journey with their gift, and we hope it leads to many, many gifts. And that is why the donor relations strategy is where you need to be placing your focus superduper smart,
okay, so everyone obviously, is coming from a different place today. But we'd really want to talk through just some steps of creating this donor relations program in your organization. And you know, we have this conversation a lot, we're very growth mindset oriented. And just quick refresher, just means if you don't know it, you just have this belief that you can get there you can learn, you can grow, you can adapt, you're not too old, you're not too, you know, out of touch like it's, it's within reach. And we really believe that same with an organization, if you're really small, you don't have, you know, the resources to have a dedicated donor relations department, like don't fear, like you can start with implementing some of these strategies with the team you have. But we're going to challenge you here to really make an investment long term because this is a cog to any high performing nonprofit, to have a dedication to resources, and resources, meaning people and resources, meeting some of the overhead to be able to make this type of experience and type of interactions possible. So have to get on our soapbox around that like we invest
it is it is so worthy of your investment of your budgetary dollars, I cannot underscore how important Julie Confer was to me in the stewardship process of my huge portfolio of donors. I mean, there is comfort, and being able to say, Julie, I have my annual meeting coming up with my donor and I really need a refresh on where the gift went. What are your thoughts about how we can thank them? What should the report out look like? What are some really creative ways that we can go back to them and just having that creative energy and having someone one, keep it organized to bird dog the answers for you it allowed me to be out there raising money. And I knew that this part was being taken care of in the background. So thank you, Julie, for making my life easier.
And I will say you did a great job at keeping good record because you are in those meetings with those donors. And then I was expected to steward them well. So if you are in the seat as a major gift officer, make sure that you are bringing the donor relations person in with you and you're communicating. You can even bring them to meetings with you. I was included in these key conversations so that I was set up well, so you did a really good job of doing that, Becky,
well, that's very kind and that's totally working smarter, not harder. You know, and I don't want to have to download that conversation again with Julie. She's gonna have her own questions and I want her to hear it straight from the horse's mouth. So what we're talking about is you've got to build a very intentional stewardship. program you need to outline when we get a gift of $1 to $100. What happens when we get a gift from 100? To $999? You know, how do we increasing the benefit and the benefit doesn't have to be tchotchkes, it doesn't have to be physical things that you're doing are going to provide, it can be a digital touch point, it can be a phone call, it doesn't even have to be you, we would really say that the hallmark of having a really robust stewardship program is diversifying, who's pouring into the process, I don't want to be the only one living on my donor. You know, when I'm in a health care institution, and someone gives to me, I want the physician saying thank you, I want to nurse pouring in, if we're doing continuing education, if there's a patient, that benefits great, I want my executive director to occasionally pop their head in or the CEO, it needs to, again, look like a team sport. And so and I really think that that will take a lot of pressure off you as a fundraiser, if you can diversify and use the talent around you.
And you know, we're big proponents of using and leveraging technology. And there's a lot of companies out there in the space that can help us do that. And you know, one of our faves, as has been our podcast sponsor virtuous. And I mean, they've built the platform around creating automations in these processes. I mean, the example I said of, you know, your shoes that are getting shipped to you and getting all these updates, if there is literally somebody sitting there thinking, Oh, I need to remind john, that his shoes are now in Albuquerque on their way to his house, like it would be so ridiculous. But spending the time to automate the things that can be automated, you know, looping in the right people and notifying the right people. So these personalized touch points can happen, like the tech is there. And there's a lot of options out there. But just find ways to automate the things that are automatable. So you can be really focused on your time on the things that are personal.
Absolutely. The other one I'd throw in there is Thank you. And I will give a little story with it. I mean, thank you is your video platform. And I remember the first time we ever talked about thank you on the podcast, and we just kind of put a tag in Instagram, you know, hey, we got a great resource today. And it's from Thank you, thanks for hooking us up. Well, the CEO of thing view, our sweet friend, brother, BB JD VB, like, we have not even met him yet. But all of a sudden, that day later in the day, we get a video in our in our inboxes. And it's JD coming to us live from his living room in New York. And he was like, Hey, thanks for just, you know, giving us a shout out that was really kind and we're really interested and intrigued by what you're doing and appreciate it. It was like 30 seconds worth of love that, like cemented our relationship. And it was such an easy thing. You can do that with your donor, it would take 30 seconds. They don't care what your office looks like in the background, as long as it doesn't look sloppy, like a fraternity house.
But it's less that's your brand and embrace it.
So yeah, I think tech is great. The other thing that I would also suggest is use your donor relations team to train the rest of us on what are the best practices here you have experts. If you have a donor relations team, a team member on they know what your donors are going to respond to, they know what resonates. Allow them to talk about the hacks that they're using how you can partner together, they're the experts, they're probably in house, use them. And if you don't have somebody in house, go find some resources, get some training, go to donor relations guru you knows website go to adrp dotnet, which is the Association of donor relations professionals, there are resources or resources out there, just get educated.
Taking a quick pause from today's episode to thank our sponsor who happens to be one of our favorite companies virtuous, you know, we believe everyone matters. And we witnessed the greatest philanthropic movements happen when you see an activate donors at every level. And virtuous is the platform to help you do just that. It's so much more than a nonprofit CRM. virtuous helps charities reimagine generosity through responsive fundraising. And we love it because this approach builds trust and loyalty through personalized donor engagement. Sound like virtuous may be a fit for your organization, learn more today@virtuous.org Follow the link in our show notes. While we keep talking about this being a team sport, and I want to also just, you know kind of paint a picture for you that this donor relations really sits internally kind of as a collaborator between multiple teams to because you've got the front end aspect of development, engagement with your donors and talking and giving updates, but you also have the back of house of how is the money being invested or steward or spent and all those transactions needs this strategist that is with compassion and empathy and understanding that can understand both sides of this and be a thought partner to be able to give the donor the reporting that they would want to see but also make sure that the money is being used in the right way and being that air traffic control cop to you know, right that it is monumental and so key to have this Roll on your team
donor relations teams, we love you can you tell like you just make our hearts feel full? Like we're coming back in for another? Yeah. So I really like something that mark Lanham said he was on the podcast a couple months ago. And he's the Senior Director of donor Relations at Brown University. And he's he talks a lot about this notion of donor relations as a team sports, and he talks about, you know, fundraisers need us, and we need them. And just the scope of the world is changing. And it's so digital. And I hope that everything we're saying I'll has you thinking about how you can up your donor relations game from a digital standpoint, because people are going to be finding you online, through your website through your social channels. And we've got to have strategies that engage with them online. And so the other thing that Mark said, that I thought was really helpful is, you know, if your job is not geographic specific, the hiring pool, for someone who does this really well becomes massive, and you can attract great talent, you know, that doesn't require somebody to relocate from around the country. And, to me, that's really super exciting that we could employ these tactics, and we could do it virtually too. So thank you, Mark, for that awesome tip. And if you want to go back and listen to Mark's episode, it was Episode 101.
Okay, so we've been throwing a lot of like philosophy at you, which is really good to get straight before you kind of move forward. But here's just a few goals that I would really think about incorporating into your overall plan with regards to donor relations. One is just that, can donors feel defeated, and that their gift made a difference, or just a fundamental level.
Yeah, I mean, that seems basic, but we are in back to basics, and it should be your first goal. And we need to put a stake in the ground on that one. And in that work hard to see as much down to the one specific person and to think that one specific person is possible.
I heard something this last week that really resonated with me that even when you're making a video, how often do we say, Hey, guys, and the person watching your videos by just them on their phone watching it? It's like, how do you just say, Hi, you know, I see you. And doing that at scale to everything is really talking to the one so they feel seen, valued and appreciated.
Love that. So I think the other really basic goals that your EDI is going to want tied to actually some metrics are the three phases of you need to have a retention goal, you need to have an upgrade goal, you need to have a referral goal. And so this is not really about putting the fundraising goal on the donor relations professional, it's about keeping this at top of mine that we're trying to get them to give another gift, we're trying to create such an experience that it connects to another gift, that's your retention, we're trying to have such a positive experience that they want to upgrade, they want to give a little bit more than next time. And the ultimate phase is referral. If they love you so much, they're going to start opening up their network to you, they're going to start sharing information about your mission to people within their world. And that is how you really get next level with your donor relations process when that donor becomes an ambassador,
so good. And you know, the next goal that we throw at you is to create communications that feel personal, even if the message is going to your entire list, do some segmentation, you know, at least pare it down so you can talk specifically about some things. And this is going to be game changing for you, especially in the annual giving kind of groupings of gifts.
Okay, so the next one, number five, of course, we're going to throw in a marketing one we have to because we're so visual, but give information that's really short and easy to read and formats like infographics, photos, video, people want to see faces, they want to see they want to hear voices and hear testimonial, make it human and make it super short and palatable. And you know, we're gonna round out this list with humanity share stories and updates that make people smile. We're humans, right, we want to feel positive energy, we want to see the good work that our gifts are doing. So just play to that emotion not play to it in a creepy way but
in a human to human way that we all are looking for that kind of bright spot in our day.
So for anyone still playing the Lynn Wester drinking game, you know which drinking your coffee, we've got one more little segment we're going to talk about that she had written an article that I thought was really great about advice for small shop nonprofits. So if you don't have a donor relations member on staff, here's some ways you can kind of reboot or re examine your program. We've already talked about analyzing your gratitude process and following a gift as it relates to when the gift is given. Where does it go throughout your organization and where are the processes set up? John's already talked about being a secret shopper, which I thought was a great one. She has that in here too. But I would also say employ your volunteers to help share gratitude. So ask them to write thank you notes. Have a make a video I would say even staff could help share gratitude. It's not just on the donor relations team. Lastly, think about your donors and segments, like look at donors who had been giving to you for half or more years that you've been in existence, they could be giving really modest amounts. But those are people we really need to focus in on because their loyalty is so palpable. And the other thing is, you don't just have to steward big donors, we know that your biggest donors, your top 1% are going to be stewarded well start looking at those loyal donors, build relationships with them. Are you
seeing the back to basics thread together, because I'm seeing the though. Those are the prospects we said to be great plan gift prospects in last week's episode. And that's what it's about, if you're creating this two way street relationship where they're falling more in love with your mission and seeing the impact. And they're so loyal. Those are the people that you can really cultivate into these transformational relationships. Okay, so let's get even a little bit more practical and personal. Okay. Each of us are donors to different organizations, we have had stewardship happen in our own lives. I'd love to hear from you, Julie, Becky, like what is a moment that stewardship has made you feel really special
mine happened like, actually, just a few weeks months ago, I'm losing track of time. But I made a gift to upward transitions, a local organization here in Oklahoma City. And they just work with people through community collaboration and emergency relief. And they really focus on people who are experiencing housing instability. So I wanted to support people that were having a hard time paying their rent throughout COVID. truly great, stop. But with as I made that gift, within probably 30 minutes an hour, I had an email in my inbox of one of their development officers thanking me said she loved the podcast, just I felt very seen. And I've been thanked by a lot of different organizations, and just the quickness and the personalization of it made me feel very special. And it was super short, maybe took her one minute to write. And I'm still thinking about it. So that was that was a super special one for me. One minute stewardship can have resonance. That's a story I'm taking away from that.
I mean, I've shared this story on the podcast, but one of my favorite charities is positive tomorrows and it's a school for children experiencing homelessness here in Oklahoma City. And I gave during their Giving Tuesday campaign. And I think that they did something so simple. That was so poignant to me. And the week after I gave I got a handwritten thank you note. Also a nice comment about the podcast on there. So I also felt very seen, but they gave me a decorated ornament with a little girl's face who was a student to put on my Christmas tree because they knew that Giving Tuesday was like the day after Thanksgiving, and I was putting up my Christmas tree. And don't you know that I put that ornament on my Christmas tree. And every single year, as I put up my Christmas tree, I'm going to think about that organization and about that little girl's face and her first name. And I'm always going to include them in my urine giving
Bravo positive tomorrow's plotting these small organizations. Okay, mine water for this fall. This fall, we get our kids Becky's kids, my kids involved kind of a family affair to raise money for their walk for water for and it was just this really fun thing that kids are selling art on the corner of our street and doing different things to raise money. But you know, they wouldn't have necessarily known that, you know, we submitted the money kind of collectively, but they looked in, knew our story knew who our kids were. And they sent us a personal email address to our kids names next level with a story and just saying, hey, thanks kids for doing this and just made them feel incredibly special. And it's kind of like complimenting your dog or your children. Like it just isn't Okay, everywhere in life. Yeah, that's all you have to do. That just stuck out to me because it'd be so easy for us just to get the canned letter or email address to john because I, you know, use my credit card or something. But they dug in to understand who it was on the other end of the line. And that meant something.
I think you said it best. JOHN, when you teed up this section, and you said we're getting basic, but we're getting personal. And that to me is your secret sauce, people with donor relations, you can be entirely basic, just be personal, just be human. It doesn't have to cost anything. How do you see people? I mean, that is how we're going to round out this conversation is your donors want to feel seen, and your ability to show up authentically. Take that extra minute to share your gratitude. And remember the moments that have made you feel seen and thanked and try to replicate that feeling in the same way. I just think that is the next level 2.0 mindset shift for donor relations.
That's what it's all about. I don't know what else to say. But you've got this friends
you do where but got your back, go to donor relations guru.com. And on their library, they have incredible resources. They have a gift receipt swap, they have event collateral dei resources, impact reports. I just think That could be a treasure trove of information. So get equipped, dive in and know we got your back.
Thanks for listening to our back to the basics conversation diving into all things donor relations. You probably hear it in our voices, but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before. We'd love for you to join our good community. It's free, and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode. It's our own social network and you can sign up today and we're for good calm backslash. Hello. One more thing if you love what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating and review means the world to us and Your support helps more people find our community. Thanks, friends. I'm our producer Julie Confer and our theme song is sunray by Rumi boys. Boom. Thanks for being here, everyone.
