But it’s not easy for you. It’s hard work. Because, inside the mind of a potential donor, many things are working against you. I don’t know enough about you. I can’t make a real difference. I don’t think of myself as a philanthropist. I don’t know how to evaluate one charity against another. I don’t…
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What must you keep top of mind to have meaningful conversations with donors who (you hope!) may contemplate a gift to your organization?
I’ve given you a hint within my question.
One word: meaningful.
And for a conversation to be meaningful, you have to speak in a language that resonates with the other person.
And what is it that resonates more strongly than just about any other emotion?
LOVE.
To get folks to “YES” you need to learn the meaningful language of love and apply it to gift planning.
The word philanthropy literally means, from the Greek, the feeling of love (philos) towards humankind (anthropos).
It’s not just about HOW people give, but WHY.
What is it about your organization’s values, as enacted, that your donor is most passionate about? How can you, as a philanthropy facilitator, make it easy for the donor to meaningfully express their feelings and passions?
Passionate philanthropy is seldom a spur of the moment action.
No one just gets up one morning and decides to give away $10,000, $100,000 or $1 million.
Or let’s just stipulate it’s relatively rare.
Rather, would-be philanthropists consider how making a particular gift at a particular point in time may match their values and help them accomplish their objectives, personal and philanthropic.
Anyone who contemplates a major, or stretch, gift plans ahead.
For purposes of this gift planning article, let’s consider your audience to be prospective major (outright) and legacy (deferred) gift donors.
The single most important lesson I ever learned. Begin with the why. Always. If you don’t, you’re likely to work very hard and not achieve much of value. Why? Because you didn’t begin your endeavor by asking yourself: “Why am I doing this?” “What’s the value in this work upon which I’m about to embark?”…
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The modern model is more like a vortex — an energized circle where everyone is equal. People move in and out as needed, and your job is to keep the energy flowing.
NOTE: My article on the topic of moving away from the donor pyramid model for donor acquisition, cultivation and major gift solicitation recently resurfaced on social media dialogue, so I thought it was time for a reprint.
Why do we always think of donors with pyramids? The pyramids were built in Egypt. On the backs of slaves. It took a very, very long time. The cost, in human terms, was untenable and unsustainable.
That’s why you don’t see many pyramids being built these days.
Except in nonprofits, where building the donor pyramid is still the holy grail. Get ’em in. Move ’em up. Acquire through direct mail. Convert to monthly donor or sustainer. Acquire through events. Convert to mail. Up, up, up … to the pinnacle of major and planned gifts!
Except for one tiny thing.
It doesn’t work.
Pyramid building is so 2630 BCE. Nobody’s got 100,000 workers (aka direct-mail donors) building a solid pyramid anymore. Many so-called pyramids really look like hourglasses. Or upside-down pyramids. Or plateaus. Even the pyramid-shaped ones are resting on shaky foundations of donors who move in and out, in and out — eight out of 10 newly acquired bottom-of-the-pyramid donors leave — making the “foundation” more like a river than a solid, secure slab of mortar. The days of the donor pyramid model are gone!
Digital toppled the donor pyramid. Actually, it crumbled it … slowly, surely … until there was nothing left but an empty frame. A triangle on paper. The donors no longer fit inside of it.
The donor pyramid (sometimes call the donor ladder) was a great model for linear thinkers like me. It was neat and orderly. Engage folks from the bottom up, level by level, one step at a time. It was stable.
Or so we thought,
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What motivates someone to make a major philanthropic gift?
Generally it takes one or more meaningful conversations with a donor who (you hope!) may contemplate a gift to your organization. At some point you’ll be ready to make them an offer you hope they won’t be able to refuse. But how do you develop their interest and passion to the point where they’re willing and ready to enact them? Today I’m suggesting it’s actually pretty simple, as long as you truly understand the process of what the nonprofit sector has come to call “development.”
To get folks to “YES” you simply need to learn the language of gift planning!
It’s not just about HOW people give, but WHY.
Planning is the operative word. Alas, when many folks talk about ‘planned giving’ it’s a term that’s come to mean giving vehicles. Often it’s just about deferred giving vehicles. Most donors don’t think this way. Rather, they consider how they want to help. They concern themselves with the best ways to enact their values. This may mean an outright gift today or a deferred gift tomorrow. Or both. Form follows function. So thinking in terms of gift vehicles is a decidedly non-donor-centric way of framing things.
People making bequests or gifts in trust often visit legal and financial advisors. So we think of this more as “planning” mode. And we ask “planned gift officers” to work with these folks. This isn’t wrong, but it’s not as right as it could be if you approached the donor’s giving decision more expansively.
In othe words, major gift officers are also planned giving officers.
No one gets up one morning and decides spontaneously to give away $100,000.
Or let’s just stipulate it’s relatively rare.
Rather, would-be philanthropists consider how making a particular gift at a particular point in time may match their values and help them accomplish their objectives, personal and philanthropic.
It’s seldom a spur of the moment action.
For purposes of this gift planning article, let’s consider your audience to be prospective major (outright) and legacy (deferred) gift donors.
They’re meant for each other. Yet it may take a while to bring them together.
Here’s what I mean:
Peanut butter was first introduced at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. It didn’t get mixed with jelly until 1901, when the first PB&J sandwich recipe appeared in the Boston Cooking School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics. It was served in upscale tea rooms, and was exclusive food. Until the world changed.
The 1930 Depression made peanut butter, a low-cost, high-protein source of energy, a star. But not the combo sandwich. Not yet.
Then…WWII.
Peanut butter and jelly were on U.S. Military ration menus. Soldiers added jelly to the peanut spread to sweeten the sandwich and make it more palatable. When soldiers came home from the war, peanut butter and jelly sales soared.
Suddenly this marriage became the norm. Why separate them? After all, they went together like… PB&J!
We never looked back.
They didn’t start out married, but they belong together.
Here’s what I mean:
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Believe it or not, this guest post appeared originally on my blog 3 1/2 years ago. I happened on it today, and thought it was still appropriate so wanted to share. One of my Clairification School students, Matt Patchell, had begun an important discussion in our online Subscriber Forum about what he termed the current “digital divide.”
He was referring to the chasm between nonprofits who are facing the digital revolution head-on, adapting their strategies to embrace its’ opportunities, vs. those sticking their heads in the sand and hoping it will go away.
Folks, digital engagement is not going away. Rather, it’s exploding.
As of late last year, one study found 43% of U.S. adults get political news online, rather than via television, radio or print media. A report from the Pew Research Center found one in five Americans get their news from Facebook. For the first time in the Center’s surveys, more than half (55%) of Americans age 50 or older report getting news on social media sites. That is 10 percentage points higher than the 45% who said so in the previous year. And that report is now three years old!
If you continue to ignore the channels your supporters frequent, and the ways they prefer to receive their information, the only thing that will be going bye-bye are your supporters.
It’s a sea change in how your marketing and fundraising team(s) operate and cooperate. Adopting is a far cry from adapting.
What does this have to do with Trump?
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I recently listened in on a thoughtful webinar by Scot Lumpkin for The Stelter Company. It’s all about meaningful conversations with donors who (you hope!) may contemplate a gift to your organization.
To get folks to “YES” you just need to learn the language of gift planning!
It’s not just about HOW people give, but WHY.
Scott was speaking of what is often called ‘planned giving.’ It’s a term that’s unfortunately come to mean giving vehicles, which is a decidedly non-donor-centric way of framing things.
Anyone who contemplates a major, or stretch, outright gift plans ahead.
No one just gets up one morning and decides to give away $10,000.
Or let’s just stipulate it’s relatively rare.
Rather, would-be philanthropists consider how making a particular gift at a particular point in time may match their values and helps them accomplish their objectives, personal and philanthropic.
It’s seldom a spur of the moment action.
For purposes of this gift planning article, let’s consider your audience to be prospective major (outright) and legacy (deferred) gift donors.
Do you ever worry you’re not doing enough to attract the donors of the future?
Does thinking about how to market to Millennials (who already are the largest segment in the workplace, will be 50% of the U.S. workforce in the next two years, and who will be 75% by 2030, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) fill you with anxiety, because it’s just one more thing to add to your overflowing list?
Fear no more!
Today I’m going to tell you how you can have it all – and with very little extra work.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not dissing a multi-generational strategy. If you can manage to treat different types of donors differently, you absolutely will get the biggest bang for your buck by so doing. However…
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Or else.
Reframing how you’ve done fundraising in the past is not optional.
It’s time for a change.
You must do it, because fundraising and nonprofit marketing have changed a LOT over the past ten years. There is absolutely no denying this at this point. You need to adapt. Or suffer the consequences.
If you’re still doing the same exact things you did ten years ago, or even five years ago, it’s time to rethink. If you have leaders who doubt there’s a need for change, simply explain the reasons as I’ve outlined below:
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