Here are some questions to help you frame your organization to a donor: What is your mission?
What is the effect of your work?
What kind of labor goes into creating that effect?
Which way does your organization lean politically?
Are there complementary issues to the ones that you are focusing on? For example, if you are an organization focused on increasing literacy rates, and the rate at which teenagers graduate from high school in four years, might you not seek partnerships with organizations focused on educational reform?1 Have you partnered with other organizations in the past?
How would the broader movement suffer if your organization were unable to carry out the work that it does?
What is the profile of the average person affected by the work that your organization does? If you work for a group that helps teenagers cope with the stress of coming out, and a donoras interests arenat necessarily in LGBTQ rights, yet they enjoy helping teenagers overcome depression and suicidal thoughts, then your organizationas work can dovetail with their interests. It all depends on how you frame the work that you do. This is one of the skills that a major gift officer must possess: the ability to see latent connections between a donor and a nonprofit and tease them out, bring them to the surface, and initiate a robust conversation around a philanthropic relationship. If your organization is focused on clean water and the preservation of lakes, rivers, and streams in the Pacific Northwest, you probably have an audience among conservationists focused on forests or water-dwelling wildlife. It is up to you to figure out how the pieces fit together, and then how to narrate that in a convincing manner to the donor.
Do you have any great spokespeople who have directly benefited from the work of your organization? Anyone famous, regionally or nationally?
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1 This is not an implicit suggestion to steal donors from other nonprofits.
In addition to these broad, sweeping questions, you also need to think about the minutiae of running your organization: how much does everything cost, from the salaries of your staff, to the rental of office s.p.a.ce, to the electric bill, to the phone bill, to the cost of mailing printed material.
Tell a Good Story.
The really broad questions, and the really small ones, should help you craft a narrative. So much of the work of fundraising at the annual giving level, and especially at the major gift level, is about crafting a compelling narrative, or being a great storyteller. The more details you can include in your story, the more likely youall connect to a donor. The story should be constructed from the questions posed above, and it should be crafted in such a way that it answers the essential question on a donoras mind: why should I support your organization with a major gift?
Storytellers have to keep the attention of their audience, and each audience is different. Most of your major gift conversations will be happening face-to-face, on a 1-to-1 basisa"one fundraiser in front of one prospect. You will need to tailor your story to each individual prospect, and this will depend on their history with your organization, their current interests, and, if itas revealed in a meeting, their antic.i.p.ated future interests and their financial capacity to make philanthropic commitments.
Remember: you can do all the necessary homework and craft a beautiful story, only to have it crash and burn because you either misinterpreted the donoras interests in the past or the donoras interests have changed (and they doa"believe me). Iave labored over a narrative on athletics, only to have the donor tell me that theyare less interested in supporting athletes than they are in supporting scholarships. And vice versaa"Iave had donors where I thought the conversation was trending towards a gift for financial aid, only to find out that what they really support is the idea of cultivating student athletesa"even though the donor was not an athlete at the college.
This is a long way of saying you need to have more than one story at your disposal, in the event that your prospectas interests change.
We tell stories not just because theyare interesting, but because they help invite a prospect into your organization; itas a peek behind the curtain. The better crafted your story, the more the prospect will be able to envision helping you, and the more clearly theyall be able to see the impact of their philanthropic relationship. Prospects do not want to feel uncertain about how their money is being spent. A well-told story will explain why you need their money, and also how their money will shape the future work that your organization does.
Take your various funding priorities. Construct a narrative around them that addresses the broader questions posed above. Create a different one for each of your inst.i.tutionas priorities, so that youare prepared for multiple conversations if the donor takes you in a direction you hadnat antic.i.p.ated.
The Value of a Rough First Draft.
Remember the points from Chapter 7 on crafting your written, e-mail, and telephone solicitations? The same elements are needed for a compelling major gift narrativea"itas just that the elements are much more individually tailored.
If youare new to the major-gift story game (and Iam a.s.suming that you are), invest in a dry-erase board or butcher block paper. You want to be able to toss down a lot of ideas, answer the questions posed above, and then string these answers together, using your own voice, to create the story of your nonprofit as being the little engine that coulda"with the appropriate amount of philanthropic support, of course. When writing the first drafts of your major gift narratives, you want to imagine and create freely. Get all the ideas down, even if you think theyare half-bakeda"thus, the dry-erase board or butcher block paper.
When taking that first cut at your major gift narratives, it is a good idea to overwrite. Cram in more information than you think you need. Include everything that could be relevant, including the kitchen sink. Imagine that your donor is so infinitely patient and so incredibly intelligent that they can make sense of all the nonsense youare throwing down on that dry-erase board.
You donat even have to think in a linear fashion (i.e. in order to do X, we need $Y) when taking that first cut at your narratives. Itas okay to think in flow-charts, diagrams, and shapes. Remember: this is brainstorming; this is the dream state; this is pre-verbal and pre-coherence. Youall have time to iron it into a neater form later on.
Let it sit overnight. Come back to it in the morning, and begin paring it down. Iam a firm believer in the value of overwritten and somewhat disorienting first drafts. Itas not accidental that theyare called arougha drafts. Donat let your more rational filters get in the way during the rough draft session. Just throw it all down on paper (or the dry erase board). It doesnat matter if you come back the next day and think what the heck was I thinking?! For every moment like that, you will likely have one of glorious inspiration, in which you have succeeded in painting a beautiful picture for the donor.
Overwrite, be sloppy, get it all down on paper. Itas a good exercise for you to reduce, organize, and distill that psycho-babble into a more compelling and powerful story with fewer words.
Remember: the great painters of yesterday did not go straight to the canvas with their oil paints. They sketched it first, and produced interim versions of the final product (smaller scale studies, pastels) before the final opus took shape. You must approach your narratives, especially at the major gift level, in this way. The great painters needed to produce work that was pleasing to their patrons. For you, as a development officer, your patrons are your prospects.2 Take this one step further: create different versions of each narrative for each funding priority. Create one long narrative, rich with examples to support your case. Then create an aelevator pitcha for each, which can be delivered in 90 seconds or less (ideally 60 seconds). Do you have a story that can be told in the time it takes to walk from your desk to the restroom?3 Let me expound on brevity, and creating a short narrative. Itas important, because itas more difficult and more stressful to make the case for a significant philanthropic commitment when the clock is ticking. All of a sudden the pressure is on and you have to deliver a compelling case if you want this donor to write a check. If you have an hour, itas a bit easier to figure out where her interests lie, and you can build upon her enthusiasm as the conversation goes on. But if time is short, you can find yourself choking.
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2 Remember: for all my talk of this as an art form, donat forget that oftentimes donors will want quant.i.tative data on the program they are considering supporting; and they may also want data on their fund once it is established (remember the chapter on stewardship). It is how you weave these numbers into your narrative that will enhance the case for giving.
3 I have had times where I had to continue talking to a prospect while standing side-by-side at the urinala"no joke. If they donat think itas awkward, go for it. Also, donat call attention to the fact that it is somewhat strange to be pitching while relieving yourself.
So it really does behoove you to craft short pitches for a variety of your organizationas funding needs, not only because you sometimes have only five minutes of a donoras time, but because, as youave seen, a donor might throw you a curve ball, and youall have to speak about something else. What if this happens as the donor is paying the bill, or as youare getting up to leave? What if, as youare walking to the exit, she wants to know about something else that your organization does, and really perks up when you start speaking about it?
Itas happened to me more than once, where, during a half hour meeting, despite numerous casts, I could not get a donor to bite on anything. I tossed out story after story on what I thought would interest them after doing my homework. Iam not exaggerating when I say that sometimes it is only once the elevatoras been called, quite literally, that I mention a certain program in pa.s.sing, just to kill time while waiting for the elevator doors to open, only to see the donor get really excited about the initiative. Needless to say, my follow up with these donors includes a lot of information on the program I covered in those last 30 seconds together.
To work on your shorter narratives, you have two great resources at your disposal: jokes and the short personal essay. Jokes are good to study because they teach you delivery, timing, and brevity. Itas harder to tell a really long joke than it is to tell a short joke. Or you can think of it this way: over the course of a dinner, you have time for an entire standup comedy routine. But if you have only 90 seconds, you have to think of it more like telling a simple joke. Not that roping in donors by telling jokes is an essential skill; itas just that joke-telling is good practice for coming up with short narratives because it trains you to articulate and deliver a message clearly and succinctly.
For help with content and economy of words, you should turn to the short personal essay, which is a narrative form gaining prominence in the literary world, and with good reason. It is hard to pack an entire story into a single page, or even a single paragraph. Itas worth reading a few of them, and studying the use of language, to come up with a compelling message. As with the study of joke-telling, be sure to spend some time looking at how the ending of each essay rounds out, or recasts, all that precedes it.
You want your stories to end similarly to these short, personal essays; you want the last lines of your story to force the donor to think broadly about how your organization makes an impact, how it fits into the larger movement, and why they need to get involved right now.
Here are some essays you should read to see what Iam talking about:4 aWalleta by Allen Woodman aSweetheartsa by Jayne Anne Phillips aIn the Animal Sheltera by Amy Hempel aMorning Newsa by Jerome Stern (a personal favorite of mine) Take a look at your aleave-behinds.a Do you have supporting material for each of your funding priorities in the event that you donat get to talk about everything you were hoping to? Even if you do get to address everything, there is always the possibility that the donor will want something over which to ruminate. Do these materials complement or regurgitate the oral story you are working on?
The case for a major gift lives or dies on the strength of the story. When I first moved from annual giving to major gifts, a colleague, who became my mentor, pithily explained that athe conversations are more philosophical.a And thatas about as good a summary as I can give, not only for the work of a major gift officer, but also for the distinction between major gifts and annual gifts. Instead of hammering away at the message of partic.i.p.ation and the bottom line, major gift conversations necessitate a certain abstraction, more of a birdas eye view of your organization.
Telling Your Story to a Group.
Group meetings can be useful as well, especially if you have a group of prospects in the cultivation stage that youare looking to move along. Though most of your meetings for major gift conversations should happen on a 1-to-1 basis, group meetings, as noted earlier in the book, do have their uses.
For a group meeting,5 you generally want to advise the audience in advance what the topic will be. You canat tailor the narrative to include everyoneas specific interests, so youall really have to focus on either the stories that most effectively highlight your inst.i.tutionas most pressing needs or a narrative that best captures the interests of the majority of prospects on your invite list.
When organizing a group meeting, if there is an invitation that goes out to prospects, itas generally good to have a t.i.tle for your talk or theme, along with a quick paragraph on what you hope to talk about. The reason is to create a clear set of expectations for what the prospects will hear, and to create for yourself an audience legitimately interested in hearing about the given topic.
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4 Credit to author David Shields for introducing me to these wonderful essays.
5 This kind of meeting is different from a simple social gathering. A group meeting is generally content rich as opposed to a more general mix-and-mingle.
In these group meetings, be sure to leave plenty of time for a question-and-answer period. It will be up to you to decide how much time to leave, but you want the meeting to turn into a conversation, as opposed to a lecture. Yes, you want to deliver your points and make the case for giving, but the more you allow the group to ask questions, the more tailored the conversation will become and the more it will reflect their interests. And, of equal importance, you will acquire more information, which will enable quality, personalized follow-up.
When to Negotiate.
Negotiating with donors when there is a misalignment between your organizational needs and their philanthropic priorities can be tough, and at times downright frustrating, but it is essential work for any good major gift officer. So letas talk about how to fit that square peg into a round hole.
Be prepared: sometimes the matcha"the fita"just isnat there. The more single-issue oriented your nonprofit is, though, the less likely that is to happen. I am guessing that most people reading this book belong to this type of organization, which focuses on one or two issues for which they advocate strongly.
Negotiations can take many forms. The simplest form is answering the donoras questions regarding the various aspects of the gift, from the timing of the gift, to the allocation of the funds, to the reporting, etc. Be up front with the donor, even if you think she might not like the answer. It isnat worth anyoneas time to sugarcoat anything. Yes, an answer might turn a donor off, but itas better to be honest.
As soon as donors start asking questions, the tendency is to get nervous, feeling as though the donors are trying to punch holes in your solicitation. You fear that the conversation is heading downhill, toward rejection. However, this is not necessarily the case. Donors are often genuinely curious about how their gifts will impact the organization. Questions are a good thing. They indicate that a donor is interested, and looking for more information. While itas natural to feel uncomfortable when youare barraged with questions, you should take it as a good sign: youave inspired a response, and you have made them curious about continuing the conversation. When they are asking questions, they are beginning to envision themselves doing what youave asked them to do.
So why are storytelling and negotiations lumped together in the same section? Negotiations arenat necessarily born from the stories that you tell, but thereas certainly a lot of ammunition from the crafted narrative that you can use. Especially when a short pitch invites a longer conversation, and when the negotiations turn into more than just answering questions.
Having stories at your disposal is the equivalent of having more arrows in your quivera"you will often find yourself drawing upon these narratives in order to build a case when a donoras interests donat align perfectly with your organizationas goals.
The situation in which youall most often find yourself is with a donor who has the capacity, and who has been supporting your organization, but whose philanthropic pa.s.sion lies elsewhere. The prospect is reluctant to increase his giving because, well, his real interests are, on the surface, outside the scope of what your organization does.
This situation can be described in many different ways, but it will be clear when youare dealing with it because of the frequency with which it arises. The prospect considers himself to be a token donor, and the increased commitment is greeted with hesitation and discomfort.
Itas generally my recommendation to zoom out when this happens, much like when you begin thinking of how to tell your story. Again, going back to what my mentor said, itas time to get philosophical and steer the conversation to the big picture, away from the specific solicitation (at least for the moment). If you start the negotiation process with too narrow a focus, on getting a yes or no, youall be shooting yourself in the foot. Avoid positional bargaining. Positional bargaining happens when you become too focused on the outcome of the conversationa"the bottom line, the yes-or-no resolution. If you worry too much about the ultimate apositiona of the donor, you will likely walk away empty handed, leaving a donor who is none too impressed with your lack of finesse.
You need to start big and get small. This will involve talking about your core mission in the broadest way possible. Think about the abeating hearta of your organization, and render it explicitly for the donor. If your organization were a person, what would get it out of bed in the morning? Have examples of people who directly benefited from the work that your organization does: think about your poster children, the biggest success stories. Part of a successful philanthropic negotiation is inspiring an on-the-fence donor. Sometimes the inspiration is data-driven: the donor will want to learn about the successes of the program youare asking them to support through the numbers. Sometimes, the inspiration is case-driven: the donor wants to hear an example of a life changed. Sometimes the donor wants both. So, have both types of example at the ready.
Hereas an example of a great negotiation from a colleague of mine. One objection that we often encounter with donors who are far from the campus is that the major gift prospect prefers to give locally, since their gift of $100,000 will have a more direct and powerful impact on their community than on some place halfway across the country. My colleagueas reb.u.t.tal is brilliant. Iam going to do my best to reproduce it for you here, acknowledging, with apologies, that Iam messing up a few words here or there: Itas wonderful that youare so philanthropically committed locally, and there will always be a need for that type of support. The reason that Iam here asking for a major commitment to a place like [our school] is so that we can continue to educate the best and the brightest to produce the leaders of tomorrow, who will be able to directly address the societal challenges of the nonprofits youare supporting here in your hometown.
A short, very sweet response to a very common objection when talking major gifts. A few things make this reb.u.t.tal stellar. The first is that my colleague acknowledges out loud his appreciation for the donoras philanthropy, even if it isnat towards our organization. You never want a donor to feel badly for giving money away. Other nonprofits need (and deserve) money just as badly as yours does. By making the donor feel okay with their other outstanding philanthropic commitments, my colleague is now well poised to continue a meaningful dialogue with the prospect.
Now look at how quickly my colleague zooms out, and talks about our organization at the broadest possible level. Without getting into the program for which he was hoping to raise support, without talking about dollar amounts, he focuses for a moment on the mission of our organization: to educate and produce leaders in society.
My colleague, with this reb.u.t.tal, has carved a new path in pursuing the conversation with the prospect. He isnat entrenching himself by being overly concerned with the ultimate dollar amount or the program supported. He has invited the donor to walk down a path with him, to see what type of program in our organization might, albeit indirectly, best serve the prospectas philanthropic interests.
Despite my praise for this brilliant reb.u.t.tal, I need to be honest and admit that Iave never been able to pull it off in a face-to-face meeting. Iam hoping that with enough practice in the mirror Iall be able to use these lines successfully at some point during negotiations.
Negotiations take time, and, often enough, it takes more than one meeting, with no dearth of follow up in between. Much like storytelling, youare building a case for giving, but the difference here is that your audience is much more active and your story has to be more individually tailored.
If youare really lucky, the situation will be such that when the donor thinks that his interests are not represented by the work that your inst.i.tution does, in reality there are programs that he simply doesnat know about. Then negotiations become easy, and you can let him know how the fit is better than he originally thought. However, this is often not the case, so youall need to be more creative in making your claim.
Start by listening closely: where do the prospectas philanthropic interests lie? What is he pa.s.sionate about? Look for potential opportunities for cross-pollination or, again, latent parallels or areas of overlap that you can tease out.
While the parallels will depend on your organizationas work and the donoras stated interests, here are some categories that will help you think about how to frame the negotiations: Political affiliation or leaning General cause (environment and wildlife, education, human rights, athletics) Demographics served (age, gender, religion, s.e.xual orientation, minority status, among others) Methods of outreach/engagement/effecting change Notable affiliate organizationsa"other nonprofits with whom your organization has partnered, or that do similar work Once youave thought about these, inform the prospect of the relationship between his interests and the work that your organization does, focusing on the complementary nature of your work and what he is currently supporting. In helping your organization do its job, he will also be helping the work of the organizations he is already supporting.
What youare essentially doing here is using storytelling as a way of negotiating. Youare constructing, whether on the spot or in your follow up, an alternate narrative to the original one you pitched. Your follow-up story, your revised, re-tailored narrative, is your offering at the negotiating table. You are finding latent connections, teasing them out for the donor, and then rendering them in an explicit way.
The broader goals of the movement will be achieved through the work that both organizations do, which means that both need philanthropic support.
Here are some examples, some of which youave read about before, of missions that arenat necessarily the same, but which complement one another: Organizations that deal with depression, teenage LGBTQ groups that support individuals during the coming-out process, and suicide hotlines Affordable housing organizations, homeless shelters, and poverty alleviation nonprofits Organizations that promote access to healthy food, soup kitchens, and poverty-alleviation nonprofits Nonprofits that concentrate on deforestation and broad-reaching environmental organizations Youth sports programs and educational nonprofits Civil liberties groups and 1st amendment activist groups Politically conservative nonprofits and religious organizations These are just a few examples of like-minded organizations that might not work together directly, but which you, as a fundraiser, need to be coupling in your own mind as you engage your prospects and hear what interests them in terms of their philanthropic priorities. Again, to the donor these connections might be latent and implicit, but it is up to you as a gift officer to render them explicit.
The other situation that requires no small amount of negotiation, is when you have a major gift prospect who simply isnat terribly philanthropic. Theyall give their $25 once a year, or once every few years, despite the fact that your research shows they could easily give your organization five-figure gifts every year.
There are many reasons why people arenat philanthropic: they werenat raised that way, theyave never been approached, they simply donat believe in giving things away.
Negotiations become a process of educating the prospect on the importance of philanthropy, and just how critical a role it plays in keeping nonprofits afloat. Again, start broad and then get specific. Begin with a sweeping description of how philanthropic dollars are often the life blood of any major nonprofit, and a very important part of the smaller ones, too. Youall then want to get into the nuts and bolts of how philanthropy impacts your organization. What percentage of your organizationas revenue comes in the form of donations? What would happen if that revenue dried up? What would happen if that revenue increased? How would it benefit your organization, and more importantly, how would it increase your organizationas efficacy at promoting change, at carrying out its mission? What are concrete examples of how philanthropy affects your organization? Notice here that youave returned to the importance of storytelling.
Not every non-philanthropic prospect will be converted. But just because someone isnat giving now, does not mean that they will never give. I know Iave said it before, but you never know when the timing is right until you ask.
Finally, a call for patiencea"both with the donor and with yourself. You are at the donoras mercy, so you need to be patient as she processes the narrative you have constructed. But you have to be patient with yourself, too. You wonat be diving into this work as a master of negotiations. Youall learn through practicea"and yes, by messing up a few times. It happens to everyone; ask any veteran of the trade. Iall be the first to admit to fumbling my first few major gift negotiations. You also need to be patient with yourself during the negotiation process because, as Iave said before, you are not responsible for the outcome. You are only responsible for making the best possible case for giving. And sometimes, in fundraising, this just isnat enough. And thatas okay. You did your best.
Challenge Gifts.
One trick that you can use that, when properly executed, is a win-win for your annual fund and major gift team is to line up what we call a challenge gift. Challenge gifts can be structured in several different ways, and Iad caution against creating anything too complex. As Iave noted before, itas hard enough to keep a donoras attention, much less ask them to do math.
Challenge gifts occur when one donor makes a big gift or pledges a big gift but does so in a way that engages and rallies your abase,a which is to say your smaller-league donors. The two simplest ways to structure a challenge are as follows: The donor matches all gifts to your organization, dollar for dollar at a rate of 1:1 until the entire value of the pledged gifts from the major donor is drawn.
The donor pledges a lump sum gift if your organization can clear a certain benchmark. Those benchmarks can include: Raising a certain dollar amount by a certain date Getting a certain number of donors by a certain date Increasing the percentage of gifts by a certain amount by a certain date The situation is win-win because it makes your major donor feel very good about increasing the level of support to your organization and because, well, hopefully, youare getting new gifts or increased gifts that you wouldnat otherwise get.
The only drawback is that it does create work for your organization. You want the challenge to bring successful results (and believe me, the donor really does, too). Making it work will require increased communication from your office to your donors and prospective donors. You really need to hammer the message and structure of the challenge through aggressively, but in a celebratory way. It will take your audience more than one communication to get the message. But itas worth your time, because thereas a lot of money to be had with challenges.
Challenges do work. But again, keep it simple. Put too many rules in place and it will be distracting. Even more importantly, the data suggests that more stipulations donat really help increase giving much. Itas more the very existence of the challenge itself that motivates donors to step up and give. Donors give at higher rates and higher amounts when there is a 1:1 match, for example, than without a match in place. However, there is not necessarily a discernible increase in giving when the match goes from 1:1 to 2:1. Another argument for keeping it simple, then: the marginal returns just arenat there.
As great as these gifts can be, it does add work to your plate, so do ask yourself whether it is worth your time to issue a challenge, or whether it makes more sense just to try to get the major donor to make a major gift without all the fanfare. That decision will be up to you and will depend on your organizationas resources.
When it comes to solicitation of a major donor, it isnat the norm to lead with a challenge gift solicitation. It takes a certain kind of donor and a certain kind of inst.i.tutional motivation to make a challenge work. So donat go out and pitch challenge gifts to all your major gift prospects. Just know that it can be a useful tool for boosting partic.i.p.ation towards special projects, or just to giving you some fresh messaging.
Timelines and Strategies.
Letas talk about the timeline engendered by major gift solicitations, which requires patience and more than a little bit of faith.