126. Back to the Basics: Major Gifts - Jonathan McCoy, CFRE and Becky Endicott, CFRE

3:47AM Jun 4, 2021

Speakers:

Julie Confer

Becky Endicott

Jonathan McCoy

Keywords:

donors

gift

people

major

organization

mission

nonprofit

values

basics

relationship

stewardship

connect

feel

understand

build

pro tip

conversation

prospect

episode

cultivation

Hey, I'm john.

And I'm Becky.

And this is the we are for good podcast.

nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.

We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.

So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

So let's get started. Happy Friday, it's Friday. I feel like we need a jingle for this back to basics series. Can we get that in the queue?

A very basic Medley?

Very hashtag basic, yes. Okay, friends, if you are back from last week, we have started a series called back to basics, because we have these awesome conversations with innovators in the industry. And we're always going to lean to cutting edge. But we don't feel like we ever carve out the space to really just go back to the bedrock of how do we really run a successful nonprofit? What is the core fundamentals that need to be in place, if you want to make a movement and raise a ton of money for your mission.

And it's like every single one of us have something in common that we all spent a first day at a nonprofit. And we're like looking around saying, What is this language? What is this culture? What are these acronyms mean? And it's like, there's never a time where somebody kind of just gently takes your hand and says, This is what this is. And this is why it's important. And here's a glossary of terms, which I still don't think exist anywhere. So we're gonna break it down for you. And it's our job to do so. Okay, so

last week, we did annual giving, which is kind of the base of support. Today, we wanted to go into major gifts and major gifts has a lot of definitions is probably different at your organization, then someone else's. But you just have to have to look around and see what classifies as someone that's really making a transformational gift prior to them personally, and for your organization. But before we go into that, because there's so much around solicitation and the strategy, I feel like we've got to start with, where do you start with this. And for us, it really has to begin with it, you have got to become a student of your mission, really understand your mission, understand your values, your strategic plan, where are you headed, but not just check the box. And I'm not saying do this for like six months and put off going to people. But I'm saying you want to dive in peel back the layers? Because you want to understand the what the why behind it all, not just what you're wanting to do. But what you know, transformation Are you trying to accomplish? What does this mean in terms, what is the impact of it all, because those are going to be the things you're going to connect with people on. So really having this understanding of a case for support is fundamental to being able to have a true major gifts development program.

And a really dynamic case for support is not the physical case for support,

as much as we would love it to be.

I love it to be all things to all people, but it could be forever long. So you know, I would say that the way that some people get to know their mission, you may go to your organization's About Us page, you might read through that you might go through all the fact sheets. But this is about diving deeper than that. It's about talking to people and understanding their why understanding how they've been impacted by the organization there. It's understanding the story and the the players and where philanthropy converges to make the miracles happen. And that is the meat of the story. And that is what is going to translate the higher mission and vision to someone who wants to be a part of something other than, you know, whatever those basic facts are, that are on your About Us page.

And you know, we talk so much about values on the podcast, because we do feel like it's core to who you are, who you want to become what's aspirational for families and legacies and all of that. And so once you understand what those underlying values of what you're trying to accomplish, you can start to find the people that are going to connect on those values. And I think that is the underlining current that we just want to set tone for this conversation. You know, it's hard not to think of this a lot of times like being a matchmaker, you know, as we try to dive in, understand our cases for support at your organization. What are the key cogs? What are the programs, like Becky just talked about? Just how do you What's the storyline behind each of those? As you're doing that you're also getting to know your people, you know, the people that are in your portfolios. And so we really think about this as starting the matchmaking process. You want to get to know people at a different level, not just the surface where they work, what they do with how many kids they have, but what are the underlying values, what are the connective parts of their story, that you start to see alignment and you start to see things that are going to create resonance between the project that you've got that are brewing and the people that You are building rapport and relationships with. And I feel like I have to say this before going further that when we're building relationships, it's super hard to do this because naturally, we just want to be personal friends and buddies with everybody. But you're really trying to be strategic, that it's not a slimy thing. You want to build the relationships, but truly trying to build the relationship with the organization and the donor and not just a personal one off, because the higher value behind it all is that they're going to be a lifelong connected to the mission in the heart. And if you lose, leave and move on, you want that relationship to stay intact and allow the donor to still be connected to the mission,

I wish you would have put that on the pro tips down at the bottom that we're going to talk about, because that was worthy of a serious pro tip it is. And I think that is honestly something that I want to say out loud. And I can say this, I feel like I have the clout to say it as a major gift officer, major gift officers. This is not about you. Wow. I there's a lot of ego at times and major gifts. And I think what you just said very gently was a good reset for all of us is that it is about us and our relationship and our goals. And the metrics we're trying to hit are the KPIs. It's about the donor? And how do we connect and be a bridge to them achieving their heart's desire and their legacy giving through our organization? So I'm so happy we took ego out of the conversation really already does me feel better? Yeah, it does make me feel better. Okay, so at its most basic form, as we're getting back to basics here, what is major gifts, I think it's pretty intuitive. But I still want to run through it. It's the largest gifts that an organization receives and defining what a major gift is. And what the levels are, is really dependent on your past gifts, your average gifts, as well as the size of your organization. So it could be $100,000, to an Ivy League school, or it could be $2,000, to a very modest community based nonprofit that's working in the social services area. All are important, and all need to be defined at some point. But if anyone has ever heard the 8020 rule of major gifts, or which I think now it's 9010, which is 96 90% of our revenue is going to come from basically 10% of our donors. And that underscores how a major gift program in my mind is absolutely essential to being a launching pad for you to grow and do bigger and better things.

I love that because I think a lot of times more in mass because of my background and annual giving and marketing. You're always thinking about how are we shepherding and we talked a lot about this last week of how are you shepherding a lot of people through this pipeline and through this journey. But this is why it's so critical to build portfolio sizes that can be accommodated by a person that you can actually wrap your arms around people and get to know people in a one on one basis. This is not mass congregating people this is getting to know and making these deep connections and deep connective points to your mission. And that can only happen when you've got an engaged group of people that you're actively getting to know and working through the process.

I love having this conversation. I'm having so much fun right now, I really like where this is going. But I want to dive into some of the art of fundraising goals. We did this last week with annual giving. And these are things that may not be written down in many academic books about major guests. But there are things that we have seen to be true in our business, especially as you are trying to build massive movements and sustainable fundraising programs that compound upon themselves year after a year. And so the first goal that we want to kind of challenge you to do is something that Jon's already teased, which is align this process based on your shared values. That could be the values of the individual, of a corporation have a foundation, and it's really about developing relationships based on those values and how you can mutually benefit each other. And the person I think that does this better than anybody else in the country that I've seen is Mallory Erickson. And Mallory was Episode 60. She did just a brilliant analysis and breakdown of how you build something called power partners. And the difference that she's talking about is that, you know, these meetings are really they feel some can feel life changing. And some Can, can feel to John's point very smarmy. But if you can come down to alignment and you can go back to your values, then we're not looking at donors simply as benefactors or sponsors of our gala or you know things that are very I would call shallow in terms of our relationships. We're going into these discussions, like partners, we have something to bring to the table that's very valuable to them. They have something to bring to the table that's very valuable to us. And as we put these values together, it can create a magical things that also make others want to join along. Malory in that episode, I really encourage people to go back and listen to it, we'll drop some of her tips into the show notes. But she's developed this framework to help people move through this power partners process and how to make it very authentic.

I love that one. Okay, the next one is that is not enough just to cast vision, you really want to illuminate the path with how to get there. I mean, your mission is specifically serving this sector, it's working on eradicating a problem or serving a community, you should be experts in this. So you've got the plan, you just need the partners to make it happen. So it's not just about talking about the dreams that really is about Hey, with this amount of funding, we can take the next step we can do this, we can make this type of an impact. And before we just blast past this, I think it really is this blend of values, you know, these are these like deeper core values that someone holds. But then there's also this motivation piece. And there's a lot of motivation for why people give. And sometimes it's really good. Sometimes it may be more influenced by friends that are involved or organizations they're affiliated or just this persona that they're a part of. But I think these conversations have to be all encompassing, you have to understand when you're working with corporate donors, they do have motivations, they have shareholders, they have other interests, besides just being philanthropic. So all of that has to come into the mix. And that's the art of it, which makes it really fun,

very smart tip. Okay, number three, don't laugh. But I'm going back to kindergarten with this one. Be a human being be real. We're giving you permission to go in and have a super authentic conversation that is not donor to major or development officer to major gift prospect. It's about meeting a human being as another human being, and getting to know their heart, getting to know to John's point, their motivations, understanding their why and if the opportunity extends itself to going into your why of your mission. Great doesn't have to be done in the first meeting, but get to know them and care about the things that they're saying and denote them in your brain or later on, you know, in a voice memo or a contact report. And just listen intently for ways that you can connect them to someone or something within your organization that they're interested in learning about. This is really like meeting a friend for the first time over coffee and having just a Why do you love our organization, tell me about how you got connected to us. And if that is the basis of how your relationship starts, I just think it's gonna be really healthy.

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've 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. Some, like virtuous may be a fit for your organization, learn more today@virtuous.org Follow the link in our show notes. I think that's a perfect segue into another value we think is really key is diversifying the type of stewardship that you do in these relationships. And we're going to talk a little bit about the phases of major gifts, you know, that we'll see in any textbook, but you're stewarding along the entire journey. And you want to be creative with this because your mission is bright, hopefully. And there's a lot of dynamic and creative ways to bring people along, and to show gratitude to show impact in different ways to connect with your donors, think volunteers, beneficiaries, maybe your nursing staff or your school kids, the young professionals board, there's lots of different people to engage in the stewardship process that could just create this extra connectivity with your donor that they're going to feel more connected to your cause.

And doesn't everybody want to come over to the space where everybody's hanging out? And where it looks like there's a robust community of several hands and hearts pouring into a mission. I want to be a part of those kind of cultures. And that is a super smart way to engage more people in your process. Okay, the last goal is weaving Connections is a total growth mindset hack. And so what we're saying there is leveraging any connection you have to your man is a very, very smart thing. And I will give you an example of whiplash that I experienced coming from higher ed to health care when you're in higher ed, I think john and I've mentioned this, we still call it the land of milk and honey, because he COVID this is pre COVID. But it's like you would call I remember like even when I wasn't a gift officer, I would call up a donor I would get right through based on their alma mater was calling them their alma mater wants to meet with them. This was a place where they had such happy memories. Not only are they going to take the meeting, the gift ask was so much more frictionless. Then when we moved into healthcare, and it's like those doors were not opening at the same speed. I mean, it was particularly if you were not a grateful patient. And so if you can employ any level of your network to harness the power of volunteer relationships, it's going to be game changing. Because what appears to pierce solicitation can do to elevate that storyline, it's much different than Becky coming in and saying, I would love for you to come and be a partner in helping us grow this pediatric ICU. It's much different when your good friend from Sunday school who you play tennis with on Tuesdays, comes in and says, I've made my gift join me. It's like

the social proof, you know, total

social proof.

I love that so much. Okay. Well, when you think about the drivers of major gifts, there's really three big components we think about that we would classify people under and one is influence. The second is affluence. And third is traction. Do you want to walk us on pack

them for you? So number one, and I we intentionally put influence before at fluids? So influence? How much? How are they respected in the community? How are they seen among their peers? And if you could have someone who could never make a major gift to an effort, but is so well connected, that they can open doors, and ask people to come alongside them again to that last point about weaving connections, that it could be more important than number two, which is looking for someone with affluence. This is certainly something that you're going to need as basic hygiene for major gifts is looking for wealth, you know, but to me, the the the secret sauce is having all three. And the last one is traction, how quickly can they get someone motivated? How are they going to sit there for two months and not write that thank you note or not send that email, we have to figure out a way to get the influencers motivated to identify who our most prolific prospects are, and how to get them activated quickly. That is the three secret sauce to major gifts, fundraising. And I

think a trap people fall down as they only look at number two is totally so we run a screening on our database, and we try to go prioritize these people when there's really no connectivity to the cause or the attraction piece. That's really super, super helpful. Okay, of course, we start with the art, right, like the artist here. But we want to talk about some just fundamental basics. When you're thinking about how do you move somebody through the major gift program, there's really five key steps. And it's identification. It's finding your people, it's identifying who are the people that are going to go into step two qualification, which is really just getting to know understand their values, understand if they meet those of influence, affluence, traction, peace, and kind of just getting to know the basics of that relationship. Step three is the longest place bring your tent you may need to camp out here. This is the cultivation says. And it really is building this relationship, building the rapport, getting to know donors at a deeper level, understanding how there could be connectivity, introducing them, maybe if they're new to the mission, like bringing them around and getting to meet the leadership and really understand the nuts and bolts of what's happening during this phase is when you're going to understand what is my solicitation going to be you're going to get a gauge for what the range should be, what the project should be. And probably most importantly, who's going to make that ask, which leads us into Step four, this solicitation phase, this is what gets all the attention, even though it's probably the shortest, it is the shortest space. But this is where you're actually setting up the meeting, setting up the call, and bringing the right people in the room to ask for the right amount at the right time by the right person. And then stewardship, that's step five. And this honestly should be happening throughout the journey. A lot of times, you know, your the prospects that you're talking to you have probably been prior donors. So they've been connected to your mission. So stewardship should be happening as part of the ecosystem of your nonprofit anyway. But certainly, you're going to want to follow up and have specific stewardship and reporting on what they're gifted because this is a cycle, you know, this an opportunity to show how impactful how much this move the needle in connectivity to what we started off talking about earlier in the episode that this amount of money is going to do X for your aligned values and mission fear.

And I would also say I like that you brought up cycle and so many people are going to be listening to this and we're very few people that actually watch these episodes, but I'm drawing the circle in the air to kind of talk about how you move through these steps. And I think once you get to stewardship, the next step after stewardship is solicitation and the next step after that is stewardship. And then you just start in that solicitation stewardship circle, and it goes on and on and on until perhaps there's a time where you get in for solicitation of a planned gift. But that is the cycle. We're working to get all of our major gift donors through so great job on the steps okay. So the next one is major gifts is a team sport. I've seen a lot of shops where the major gift officer or the executive director has all of the power as it comes to relationship equity. And that is a really short sighted approach. Because this sort of cultivation effort has to be a team sport from the prospect researcher all the way to the person doing the gift processing to the volunteers that you are employing to help you, you know, open doors and and create that peer to peer solicitation. So define the roles and responsibilities to ensure everyone is speaking with one voice. They're all pouring into the overall strategy. And then there's just a total synchronization of the timing tactics and everything that's going to lead into that solicitation point.

So I think there's some really good tips that we can give for figuring out what are the indicators for major gift potential. So as you're getting to know the donor in the cultivation stage, these are some questions or some things you can think through, what are their previous donations to your nonprofit? What's their past giving to other charities, if that's public donations to political campaigns or relationships with your nonprofit, real estate and stock ownership, that often really visible through different search engines online, business ties, volunteer involvement, you're really just trying to decode to just an understanding of how much wealth do they have? How much of that is liquid? How much do you think that a percentage of that could be available to making a gift?

Okay, that segues really well, because I think a lot of that is about doing your homework. And our last little basic here is befriend the prospect researcher. Now, if you have one, and if you don't have a prospect researcher, then befriend Google, the county assessor records wherever your hometown is, that there's a great resource with the Foundation Directory, I don't know how much the annual membership was, but it's like 300 bucks or something for an annual membership to look up all the foundations in the world. Look at the criteria look at their endowments. I would also look at the National Center for charitable statistics, they have incredible resources on where giving is going and trends. Look at social media, look at any host of government, financial or real estate sites, you don't have to pay, you know absorbent prices to get these really customized research tools, a lot of them are free. And so I know that not a lot of people understand what a prospect researcher is. But this is someone that literally goes out. And they're the data miner, and they're gonna find all the detail on your donor. And so if you don't have one, congratulations, you are the person or we need to find somebody who can do that, because the research is absolutely so critical to setting the tone for this relationship.

So good. Okay, we've talked art, we've talked basics, let's give you a few pro tips to kind of wrap up this conversation. And I think the biggest one that I've seen, really, with talking to organizations across the country, is that you don't have a specific plan of cultivation for your top donors. And so if I want you to look in your portfolio today, figure out who are your top 20 donors and make a plan. It doesn't have to be that detailed. Just think about monthly, what is some an action that could move the donor closer into making a gift? Ask monthly? So is that meeting somebody? Is it sending them something? Is it connecting them with someone or touring a certain part of your campus, get creative, and build those strategies, because if you have a plan to follow, you're more likely to follow it, it's not going to just happen. So you really want to put plans around the top 20 specifically, to make it happen.

And if you're like john and i, I'm throwing us under the bus. Here's our spoiler. And you tend to be a little add in your work because there's so much to do, as most nonprofit prep professionals are. This is really a centering guiding post for you to make sure that your work is incredibly intentional. every single month or week by week, you know exactly what the roadmap is for each of your donors. And I honestly think that there's a sense of security that can come from that. So that was a great one. The next pro tip is communicating impact is probably the single most powerful and important tactic you can employ with major gift donors. Casting vision is important. connectivity is important. But if you cannot illuminate and articulate what their gifts can do have done then getting that second gift is going to be a much harder mountain to climb. So begin building a culture of tracking down impact on all of your gifts. And I would say not even just for major gifts. I mean, I think your annual giving donors deserve that as well. But your major gifts especially deserve to know that if you don't have a culture of being able to track that, find story within that start building that today.

super important. Okay, this is really a hack again, coming from the annual giving angle. Don't think so. Narrow in your approach with major gifts because We talked about values talked about motivation. When you start realizing all the different places that campaigns and fundraising is happening in your organization, you can start threatening those places together. Maybe you have a big event that would have a platform and opportunity for somebody to announce a big major gift or a lead gift to a campaign. use that as an opportunity. Don't think of it as it's an annual giving event, turn it into a major gift moment that you could cultivate somebody specifically to it's really looking at these opportunities or assets that you have across your organization that you can connect to major gift donors.

I even think about an employee giving campaign it's like a major gift donor to an employee giving campaign could be $1,000 total that is a major gift. We should stand that up. Make those people feel like Rockstar steward them well. Okay, here I'm gonna give you some comfort. The next one is you can still orchestrate and very solid major gift ask and doing it virtually. We just had lirica Monique on it was Episode 104. And she did such a great job of walking us through the steps of how you can solicit someone without actually being in the room is best case scenario being in the room? Probably yes, every single time The more you can make the interaction human. But I really encourage anyone to go back and and look at that show notes on Laura rica's episode because she gives you questions to ask yourself and to prepare for prior to walking into a major gift solicitation and the more prepared you feel, the more confident you feel. And the conversation can still feel natural, even though you're not in person.

having confidence to walk in is just a theme that we've seen in a lot of conversations, I think of Lindsey Simon's in Episode 50, or Julie orden, as she talked about the five tips to conquer the ask. And it really started with even a mindset of how you walk into the room how you have a script in mind. And pairing that with the amazing conversation with Julie Ordonez and Episode 88. It was all about finding the courage to ask for more, how much are we limiting ourselves just with things that we're you know, maybe putting on something else that's blocking us from making the ask when it's actually some of our own mindsets and our own things, holding us back to really ask for what the donor would give if we actually made the ask.

Yep, it's really about getting out of our own heads. And getting out of our own ways, which is great. Love Julie love Lindsey. And they also have frameworks that are step by step that you could look into. And we'll include those in the show notes as well. The next one is go back to your data. And so I'm going to give you a couple of tips right here of how to segment your data. I mean, basic number one, look at your largest donors, look at the cumulative annual giving that they've given to your organization over the past two years and just run the top 100 sorted and look at it, that can be a great framework for prospects who could be ready for a major gift. The second data tip might be donors who make major who make multiple gifts. So maybe excluding your monthly annual donors, look at individuals who have made additional gifts through the course of the year, it could be two campaigns direct mail events, this is a sure sign that you're at top of mind for them and your organization is one of their priorities. And then the last one, john rdts, this may be conducted well screen, but we put like an asterisk on that. Move cautiously through this because well, screens are not the end all be all. And it's not always entirely accurate. It can't grab everything. It could be a guiding pois post and kind of illuminate someone. But again, it's just a tool, it's not everything.

So end of the day, you can follow one of these wonderful frameworks from one of these amazing people that we've had on the show or something that you could find from a colleague, but most importantly, follow your gut. Yep, building authentic relationships with major gift prospects is a long game. So you have to start slowly, gently. And it's something that you know, you'll both support just from a gift that you're trying to receive, and from the gift that a donor feel really great about. So being an incredible listener and observer, I remember a connector is really where the secret sauces and major gifts,

amen. And we never want to close out one of these discussions without giving you something free that can be actionable for you today, and our friends over at Bloomerang are so smart. And they put together this great little resource called 10 questions to ask on donor qualification visits. And I think that's something that a lot of people have question about once I get in the door, what do I say to them? How do I start to build that partnership that we referenced, Mallory was kind of leading us through with power partners. It's about asking really basic questions like, Why did you give your first gift to our organization? Why does our mission matter to you? Why are you interested in it now? I mean, there are a series of questions and Bloomerang is going to help you walk through those until you can get comfortable with them.

Okay, so can we cue up the rocky music, I feel like you did that on time to get organized. Time to dust off your portfolio, make a plan and make some asks. You can

do it. You got to like tap in that inner courage. This is all about you showing up to be your authentic self casting a massive vision, getting those value alignments and sitting back and almost like selfishly basking in the joy of watching this donor, understand what it feels like to have their dream come true of impacting people at your organization. It's a selfish inclination. But man, it's one that feels good for everybody involved.

We're pulling for your friends, you can do this.

Thanks for listening to today's back to the basics conversation diving into major gifts. 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 teach podcast episode. It's our own social network and you can sign up today at we're for good.com backslash Hello. One more thing if you liked what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating and review? It 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 Remy boys boom. Thanks for being here.