Group meetings are useful in that respect: you can use social pressure or, speaking more diplomatically, feed off one personas enthusiasm in the hopes of getting a buy-in from someone else. A buy-in can mean increasing oneas giving to your organization or convincing them to help out in a volunteer role. Your board members can fill in the role of the enthusiastic partic.i.p.ant, but others can as well.
If you are going to be using a board member or another enthusiastic prospect strategically in the hopes of warming up some other, less eager prospect, you will need an already existing familiarity with the party whose help you are hoping to enlist.
The advantage to this kind of set up is that the enthusiastic donor feels like he is helping beyond just giving, which in turn makes him feel good about the impact that he is making on your organization. It empowers that donor and also increases the likelihood that the prospect will react positively.
The added advantage to you being present at that meeting as opposed to letting the two meet alone is that you have some control over the message and can ensure the enthusiastic donor stays on point and doesnat misrepresent your organizationa"which can happen. With a board member, this is less likely to occur, but it is good to be present if only so that you can listen in and tailor your follow up accordingly.
Prospects also tend to react positively to folks who are volunteering their time to talk about the organization. Yes, the hope is that they will also react positively to you. But youare paid to stir up philanthropic support. Someone who voluntarily meets to talk with a prospect about getting involved with your organization may have a different kind of credibility.
Sometimes this requires some coaching on your part. Share your goals with the person whose help youare enlisting, and spell out clearly how the conversation should flow and who will take which speaking role. Once the meeting begins, that could fly out the window based on what the prospect wants to talk about. But it is always good to have some preordained structure.
Here is a real-life example of a successful group meeting. It was a recruitment meeting, meaning that I was hoping to recruit people as volunteer solicitors who would reach out to five to ten people that they knew in the hopes of getting those people to make gifts to the organization that I represent.
In antic.i.p.ation of that meeting, I called on one of them, Henry, who was already a volunteer. I explained that I was going to be in his city and wanted to do some recruitment. Would he be of help? Two of his colleagues were alumni and rising within the ranks of the company for which they worked. Both were pretty well connected.
One of those colleagues, Charlie, was a very enthusiastic supporter of my organization. He was a likely candidate to volunteer. The other colleague, letas call him Bob, was a higher net-worth individual and the prospect I was hoping to engage and cultivate. He was the one that was going to be hard to convince.
In short, the lunch consisted of the recruiter (me), a current volunteer (Henry), a likely volunteer (Charlie), and someone who was a bit harder to read (Bob). The conversation over lunch played out like this. I began by thanking them all for meeting me and explained my role as a professional fundraiser. I then laid out why I was meeting with them and the outcome I desired as a result of this meeting. After an explanation of the volunteer role for which I was recruiting, Henry was able to speak about his involvement, why he volunteered in the first place, and his positive experience so far as a result of his partic.i.p.ation.
Charlie then asked pointed questions about the role while Bob more or less sat back and listened. By the end of lunch, Charlie said that he would sign up, that he was into the idea of helping out.
To which Bob said smugly, aWell, h.e.l.l, I guess that means I have to do it, too. Fine.a Both ended up signing up as volunteers and doing great work in those roles.
Not every lunch goes as smoothly as that one did. But pay attention to the work that went into planning that visit. I had to get Henry to visit with me and get his buy-in to help me out. He then took care of inviting his colleagues out to lunch. Even so, prior to the lunch itself, we had several conversations about Charlie and Bob, their differing personalities, and their roles within the company.
The tradeoff between arranging a single visit vs. group meetings, of course, is that there is a good deal more pre-planning for groups, especially if the group grows beyond three, as ill.u.s.trated by the above example. Another danger with setting up group meetings is that as soon as one person has to cancel, itas more likely that others will back out, too. And, as noted, the conversation becomes much more susceptible to unantic.i.p.ated twists and turns as you add members into the conversation.
Group meetings can definitely be a good use of your time, and they can sometimes even be of better use than individual visits. However, I antic.i.p.ate that more of your visits will be held individually so that you can have that twenty or thirty minutes ora"even bettera"an hour of someoneas undivided attention with which to discuss your organization and move them along in the gift cycle.
So thatas a brief taxonomy of the types of visits youall be making and a short meditation on whether to do a group or individual visit. Now letas take a look at how to get you out on the road and in front of your donors.
Trip Planning.
Letas now focus on the actual planning of a trip. Again, here weall a.s.sume that youare planning an actual trip that requires you being on the road. There is also the possibility, if your organizationas donor base is locally concentrated, that you wonat need to stay overnight. But whether thatas the case or you go out for a week or more at a time, the basic planning points I lay out here will still remain the same.
Timing and Tips.
Allow yourself, ideally, at least two weeks prior to a trip to begin planning. If your trip is local, you can get away with planning a week beforehand, but itas best to allow yourself that first week out to secure the appointments and the week before the trip to plan and prepare for your visits.
Here are some vocabulary terms that we use in the fundraising business.
Anchor: Your anchor visit (or visits), as the name implies, is the princ.i.p.al reason for your visit. Anchor does not necessarily mean solicitation. An anchor appointment can be at any point in the gift cycle, from a.s.sessment to stewardship and anywhere in between. Your anchor visit should be someone with very high potential or, at the very least, very good connections who can help both financially and also open other doors for you.
The anchor is someone who is ripe for the next step in the gift cycle (and yes, sometimes this step can mean a.s.sessment). She is someone who needs to be visited both because of her potential as a donor and also because of your inst.i.tutional priorities (the two donat always align, remember, so beware!).
Filler: Again, the name should give it away. Filler calls are folks who you need to see but donat bear the same imperative that your anchors do. They are people that are worth the time to meet with on an individual basis but arenat necessarily in urgent need of attention.
Of course, any individual donor will fluctuate between the anchor and filler roles over time. Youall need to figure out which donors are at which points during your trip planning.
You should aim to have three to five visits a day. Less than three and it might not be the best use of your time to be on the road. More than five and youall be too fried to keep the conversations straight in your head after the fact.
The joy of travel and of meeting donors face to face is that, of course, sometimes anchors disappoint us and sometimes fillers pleasantly surprise us. Examples abound. Iall tell you a few stories later.
When planning your trip, you should call on your anchors first. Always put out more calls than you have time for, because it is a rarity that everyone you want to see on that trip will be available to see you. And if that does happen, well, having a stuffed trip is always a good thing if you can make the logistics of it work out. If you do become overbooked, be honest with donors. You can reply by saying, aIn the time between my outreach to you and your response, a meeting has actually come up for 10 a.m. on the 27th. Would something later in the day work? Or perhaps the day after? If not, please know I plan on being back in town before the end of spring,a or something along those lines. Donors tend to be pretty understanding, or at least the ones who are worth your time.
You might note that in a number of the examples Iave provided for your outreach I include a PS in which I tell them that I will follow up with a phone call. If you are contacting the person initially by e-mail, be prepared to follow up with that phone call or a second e-mail. However, it is good to change methods if you donat hear back.
If I allow myself enough lead time, sometimes I do one e-mail, resend it a week later if I havenat heard back, and then follow up with a phone call. Other times, itas one e-mail and one phone call.
The phone call can be more nerve racking, but itas just as efficient if not more so. Occasionally, when I am really pressed to put a trip together at the last minute, I do my initial outreach via phone. If everyone picks up the phone during your calls, you can have entire day or two planned out in a matter of half an hour.
If you get the person on the phone, thatas great! Explain who you are, tell them your t.i.tle, and explain your role honestly. Then explain the reason for your visit, just as though it were an e-mail.
If you are leaving a voice mail, keep the message under 90 seconds or even under 60 if possible. You wonat be able to cover everything you would in an e-mail. But the strategy then becomes to leave a voice mail alluding to the fact that youare going to follow up with an e-mail immediately following the call, and then follow through on that promise. The follow-up e-mail will allow you to talk more in depth about your goals.
A typical voice mail could go something like this: h.e.l.lo, this is a message for Wendy. Wendy, my name is Jeff Stauch, and Iam a gift officer at Roslindale Community Theater. The reason for my call today is that Iam planning on being in the Framingham area in two weeks, on Wednesday the 5th and Thursday the 6th, and Iad love the chance to meet with you. Iad love to say thanks in person for your ongoing support of RCT and to give you an update on the productions that weare going to be putting up this coming year. Again, Wendy, my name is Jeff Stauch from RCT, regarding a possible visit with you on either the 5th or 6th of October. My direct line is 617-555-5555. Again, that number is 617-555-5555. Iam also going to send you an e-mail that you can respond to. I look forward to hearing back from you. Thanks, and have a wonderful day!
That voice mail, spoken at a moderate pace, takes about forty-five to fifty seconds. It communicates who you are, who you represent, and it conveys the message that you want to visit with the person to discuss the work of your organization. It also provides the donor with your job t.i.tle.
You should always leave your number twice. Speak it slowly. Pause after the area code and after the exchange. Say your name at least twice during the message as well as the organizationas name and the proposed dates. Donat forget to say your name!The e-mail that you send immediately after the phone call should allude to the fact that you just left a voice mail. After that, you can use one of the templates I set forth above.
Packing.
Pack as lightly as possible, but not lighter than possible. I mean this both in terms of what materials you want to bring that represent your organization and in terms of attire, etc. If youare flying, try to fit everything into your carry-on baggage. First, itas cheaper. Second, when youare on a tight turnaround time between landing and meeting, not having to wait at baggage claim buys you extra time to get to your first meeting on time. And believe me, when you travel as often as I do and you already have to deal with delays and other airline-related snags, youall want to have as much autonomy over your belongings as humanly possible. Granted, sometimes it isnat always possible, especially if youare on the road for more than a week. But do your best to travel lightly. Travel is stressful enough as it is. The less you have to carry, the happier youall be.
To your initial meeting with a donor, err on the side of conservatism and wear a suit if they havenat told you explicitly that theyare dressing down (which they often do: aIall be casual,a or aIall be in jeansa). If it turns out that theyare casual, youall know for next time. Itas never good to be more casually dressed than your prospect. Of course, there have been times when Iave been greeted by a donor in flip flops and ragged jeans, or even snow pants once (she was going skiing immediately after our meeting), but those meetings are the exception rather than the rule. Err on the side of the formal rather than the informal.
Regarding what to bring from your organization, this is a matter of style. I have waivered in the past between bringing a lot information with me to provide the donor and bringing nothing, preferring to send it as part of my follow up (see below).
If you happen to know going into a meeting where a donoras interests lie, itas probably a good idea to bring along some sort of printed material if you have something readily available. We call these kinds of things aleave-behinds.a The advantage of leaving something behind is that it gives the donor something to have and hold after you leave. It is something to pore over once the meeting is over. Most times, donors will appreciate you providing them with something to take away from the meeting. Itas rare that it will backfire on you.
One thing you wonat want to forget is business cards. When you hand the potential donor yours, they will hand you theirs. Business cards can shed light on potential donorsa jobs and provide you with new contact information.
And yes: If they havenat made a gift yet this fiscal year, bring a gift envelope.
Follow Up: Where You Really Impress Your Donors.
The heartbreaking part about travel is that your visit does not close the communication loop. Rather, it opens it up. You fill each of your days on the road with at least three visits and sometimes more, no one cancels on you, and all of your conversations go exactly as you had planned. Thatas a trifecta if there ever was one. You can fly home and take a week off, right?
Sadly, youad be making a huge error. Timely, thoughtful, and thorough follow up is how you cement the relationship with the donors with whom you visit individually.
The scope and nature of your follow up will vary widely based on the type of visit that you had with the donor. Each step in the gift cycle, as Iave stressed before, is usually a visit or a lengthy phone call / e-mail exchange, and each of those steps requires follow up.
In the a.s.sessment follow up, you are usually providing the donor with information on subjects around which the conversation focused. For cultivational visits, send information on the project or area of your inst.i.tution around which your solicitation will likely focus. For solicitation visits, if appropriate, send that proposal! For stewardship, send reporting that demonstrates the impact of the donoras philanthropy.
You should also be sure to answer any questions that came up during previous communication. This can sometimes involve detective work on your part, especially if an inquiry comes out of left field. You had gone into the meeting to discuss a new after-school mentorship program and you got asked a nuts-and-bolts question about how long Alfred Jones has been on the Board of Trustees. Ask for help from the appropriate sources in your inst.i.tution until you can get the answers. This can involve e-mailing or calling other departments within your organization, and can sometimes engender some frustration, but it is worth your time and your organizationas time for you to do the digging so that you can provide thorough, accurate answers to the donoras questions.
For those inquiries for which you donat know the answer in the meeting, admit that you donat know. Itas always a little tough to stomach, and sometimes a little embarra.s.sing, but it is always, always better to admit that you donat know something than to make something up. You donat want to get caught inventing something and then have it come back to bite you on the tail later on. Be sure to make a note of those questions so that you can answer them thoroughly when you return.
There is always tension, when there is a lot of follow up to be done, between wanting to provide the information piece-meal as you come across it and waiting until you have all the necessary information needed before sending it off via e-mail or mail. This is a judgment call that youall have to make based on your read of the donoras patience. I tend to compile everything and send it off in one shot if only for the simple reason that it is the best way that I have come up with to make sure I actually get to all the follow-up activities I need to do. This makes it less easy to drop the ball.
Given my own modus operandi, if I do things piece-meal, I inevitably forget at least one element of follow up. So I wait until I have all the information that I need before sending it. If you think you can keep track of all the various items, by all means, contact the donor as you complete each individual element of your promised follow-up. The advantage to that approach is that it gives you an excuse to have multiple contacts with the donor.
The potential downside is that it might feel like youare barraging them, depending on the number of items you have to follow up on. Trust your gut and know yourself on this one. Regardless of your style, be sure to take the time to do your follow up work correctly. I canat stress enough that your follow up is what cements the relationship and what gains the donoras trust in you.
On Note Taking, Again.
So, how do you remember everything the conversation contained? At the end of the day, after three to five visits, itas hard to disentangle all the conversations that youave had. Did I talk about our volunteer program with Vincent or Ted? Did the question about corporate matches come from Cynthia or Patty? How do you keep everyone straight and the content of each conversation accurately summarized?
You take notes. Earlier, in the chapter on data and records, I made the case for taking good notes. Well, here we are again, revisiting that theme. You need to take notes in order to execute your follow up effectively. Remember the small notebook I alluded to earlier, the one where you can write down your goals for the conversation before heading into it? The good news is that you can use that very same notebook to capture the content of your conversation after the meeting, too!
Summarize the meeting immediately afterwards. Write it down. Iave had colleagues that use Dictaphones and voice recorders. Given how terrible my handwriting is, I should probably consider that myself. Itas seductive to think that youall remember everything, but you wonat. Trust me. And that can come back to haunt you. Include not only the content of the conversation but also your antic.i.p.ated next steps and the time horizon involved.
You should type all of your notes up within six to twelve hours of the meeting and send them via e-mail to yourself, to your support staff if you have it, and to your supervisor. I might sound repet.i.tive with the constant pet.i.tioning to take notes, capture information, and put it in a place centrally located and universally accessible, but it is key to the success of your organizationas fundraising operations. Remember that dismal question of business continuity? What if you get hit by the theoretical Mack Truck next week? How will the next fundraiser know what the next steps are for a given prospect?
Tales from the Road.
Iall provide you with a few tales from personal visits that will hopefully prove, if nothing else, that despite everything Iave just told you there are instances in which you will have to be flexible.
Case Study 1: The Zero-to-Sixty Conversation.
The first case study is one in which a conversation went from zero to sixty far more quickly than I was antic.i.p.ating. It was, for all intents and purposes, a planned a.s.sessment call. Granted, this prospect was one of my anchors for this trip to Indiana, but it was more an exploration of her interest in a certain science fundraising effort we were undertaking.
I arrived at the meeting and was led in by her a.s.sistant. The company she worked for had recently gotten some pretty negative PR. She, as the VP of Marketing and Public Relations, was taking heat. I walked into her office.
Her first words: aI havenat slept in 72 hours. You have thirty minutes. Letas talk.a I outlined, in the first five minutes, the project about which I wanted to talk. By minute ten, she had already taken two phone calls and was visibly distracted. Fifteen minutes into the meeting, she said, aOkay, I need the bottom line. Why are you here, and how much are you asking for.a I wasnat expecting to have to show the gift pyramid for this particular project, but I did have it on hand, miraculously. I showed her the fundraising goal and explained that I envisioned her being at the top of the gift pyramid, hoping that she would consider a six-figure gift to the sciences revolving around this project.
aIam in for something. Iall let you know. Have to check with the other half.a And that was it.
Normally, for me to get from a.s.sessment to solicitation would have taken multiple visits, but here I was going from a.s.sessment to solicitation in twenty minutes. I wasnat very well prepared, and I was caught more than a little off-guard by the pace of the conversation. However, the one thing I did do correctly was, noting how little time I had and how frantic she was to get on with her day (and also the fact that I wasnat planning on making it back to Indiana for at least six months), that I guessed that this was my one shot to make the ask with this donor. So I did. I put the $100,000 figure in front of her, and she said shead consider. This was not an ideal situation by any means. But I donat think I was too rash in fast-forwarding that conversation. She ended up making a smaller gift, but it was still a very significant increase to her donations thus far, and she did leave the conversation open as to whether there would be bigger gifts in the future.
Case Study 2: Static Records vs. Dynamic Interests.
Hereas an example of our records misleading me in terms of area of interest. A prospect of mine in Illinois was cited as someone who we should consider aA-Lista for a basketball fundraising effort. We were hoping to endow the programmatic costs of the sport. We knew he still played avidly and still traveled to various parts of the country to play in fun and informal tournaments along with other alumni. My predecessor, when meeting him for an a.s.sessment call, noted that the capacity was there; the inclination was medium; and the timing, at least for the prospect to start making small to moderate sized gifts, was imminent.
So I walked into this meeting with the intent of cultivating this prospect for a gift to the basketball program. Again, all signs pointed to the fact that basketball was still a big part of his life and the college connections only reinforced that signal.
The only problem was that I was dead wrong. He was interested in unrestricted giving and said he didnat want to support athletics. He provided his reasons, and the conversation very quickly turned to a conversation on the importance of unrestricted annual gifts to the school.
Again, I did all the necessary preparation to discuss basketball and ended up having an entirely different conversation.
These stories not designed to scare you but rather to advise you to prepare and to trust your gut and be open to the conversation turning in a completely different direction. Itas easier said than done, and it does require practice. And this is NOT a recommendation against preparing thoroughly for a visit. Rather, it is a reminder that fundraising is, at the end of the day, an exploration in human interaction, and humans can do funny things.
Mike Tyson famously said: aEveryone has a plan until they get punched in the face.a In other words, do your prep work, but be willing to leave it behind if need be.
Of course, not all unexpected conversations go poorly. Youall recall in the chapter on records that sometimes we go into meetings thinking weare meeting with a B-list filler visit only to find out that theyave changed their mindset and are looking to increase their support to your organization. Always be open-minded when heading to each meeting no matter what your research and your past interactions suggest.
In this chapter, weave explored the joy of trip planning, the types of visits that fill up a day or a week on the road, and how to follow up properly.
And now, the moment youave all been waiting for: the in-person solicitation!