The Fundraising That Comes Next: Thinking Long-Term in an Urgent World

Speaker 1 0:06
One, hello. I’m laughing already at the chat. This is so great, you guys. You all, everybody, you made it. You did it. Seeing a lot of comments already on two days, who was it that said two days is a lot, but being in your pajamas for it is the best. Are so glad to Read More

Speaker 1 0:06
One, hello. I’m laughing already at the chat. This is so great, you guys. You all, everybody, you made it. You did it. Seeing a lot of comments already on two days, who was it that said two days is a lot, but being in your pajamas for it is the best. Are so glad to hear that. That really, that really means a lot, and that makes a lot. We are here at the end of two incredible days. I don’t know about you all, but today I was in just about every session for at least some time, and these trainers did just an incredible job, and so before we say anything else or jump into anything else, I just.. I want to call out your DonorPerfect team. Really, the kudos are to you all for being here, for making the priorities for this, for asking all the great questions and the discussions, and bringing it forward, but what you haven’t seen is behind the scenes, and I’ve been really, truly lucky to be here in person with a DonorPerfect team, and whenever there’s a break, or whenever we’re not on camera, every room I walk into, there’s trainers huddled together solving problems. The implementation team is working furiously to make sure everything’s working and keeping things going, the marketing team is watching chats and listening to things. This Donor Perfect team, and I will say, I have, in the 30 some years that I’ve been in fundraising, I’ve been fortunate to be on this side of the CRM world every now and again, and I have never seen a team like this one at Donor Perfect, and when they say, and I’m not a DonorPerfect employee, I’m just thrilled to be here and be a part of this. When they say they’re here for you, they mean it, and the culture that I have seen and the work that’s gone on behind the scenes, I just want you to know that you’ve got a tremendous team supporting you all in the work that you do, and there’s not a person affiliated or part of this two days that doesn’t believe that you all, the fundraisers, the executive directors, the nonprofit leaders, aren’t out there doing incredibly important work, and it’s just so affirming and joyous to be in community with you all, to see the work that you’re doing, the fascinating things with each of the different organizations, the missions you serve, the people you serve, this is what community means, and this has been so great for all of us to be a part of it. So, thank you, everybody, everybody that’s here in the chat, everybody that’s in the session, and everybody at DonorPerfect, for just making an incredible two days come together. I’m inspired, motivated, looking forward to what comes next, and that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today, but I couldn’t do it if you were here for our opening session yesterday. I couldn’t do it without, you know, opening up the great tater tot versus poutine debate, and I will call out my dear, dear friend Beth McGorry, who is here in the chat today, Beth. I saw that. Hello from you. Thank you. Beth is the one who introduced me to hot dish with the tater tot topping, and so I am a full believer that in the world of fundraising it’s not either or. We don’t have to choose between tots versus poutine. We can have a yes, and, and that’s the spirit that I want to leave you all with today, and talk with you all about, is as you close out this session, as you head into getting quote unquote back to normal, whatever that means for you, and for where you are, that it’s not an either or, and it’s not a binary choice, and you don’t have to decide, it’s a yes, and, and that we walk into this next phase, whatever tomorrow brings for you, whatever this next stage brings for you, with an attitude of abundance and gratitude, and going, I downloaded that cowboy casserole, I love it, that you go into this world with a less okay, Cheetah. That’s the first I’ve heard that, and that’s brilliant. Usually people say the T stands for trouble, but I will take tots. Thank you very much. I do appreciate it.

Speaker 1 4:12
I do ask, want to ask you all one favor for me this afternoon, because I know there’s a lot of information flying at you. I know there’s a lot of questions for this session, let me ask you to worry less about the content on the slides and capturing notes and capturing all the details. I’ll get them to you. You can reach out to me, and I’ll gladly send you the slides from either this session or that session. Reach out to somebody at DonorPerfect. I’ll make sure that they have it, but I can get it to you. I’ll get it posted for you, the recordings will be posted absolutely. If you really want the slides, though, do reach out to me, and I can get them to you. But today I want you to, I want you to just be in the moment with me, and let’s talk about what’s coming next, and what we’re doing, and what fundraising looks like. When we approach this from the invitation mindset that I talked about yesterday that Joan brought forward in her closing keynote yesterday afternoon, wait, butter chicken fries. Okay, so no, I’m distracted, I’m gonna, I’m gonna focus. But Steve, thank you for that. As we talk about what does it mean to be thinking long term and thinking about this identity and values approach to fundraising, right? In a world that values urgency, because let’s face it, I believe truly the hardest part of being a fundraiser is the two mindsets that you have to be in. You’ve got to be thinking about annual budgets and quarterly goals and retention rates, and all of these immediate metrics in this very urgent world that we live in, right. And you’ve also got to be thinking about relationship and long term, and what does that look like over the long haul. So you, you have to straddle a very fine line between I know I want to think long term. I know I need to be thinking about tomorrow, but I also got to get this annual gold done. So, let’s talk about how we approach that and what this looks like, especially in the days and years that are that are ahead of us, because this is such an unusual time. So, for just a minute, I want you to think about the last fundraising message you sent, whether that was an appeal, a grant application, a foundation appeal, an email, whatever it was, think about the last fundraising message that you sent. Did it ask somebody to solve a problem? Did it position whoever you were addressing it to as the hero, as something they could solve, as putting them in a spot of of being that hero and that savior, if you will, in that world, did it talk more about you or did it talk more about them, who was represented in that message? did it pique their interest? did it stress urgency? did it inspire them to give or did it invite them into a world or a vision that they could believe in? Because I really believe that this is where we are. I said at the start yesterday, we’re in an unusual time in fundraising. We’re in an unusual time for everybody, this economy, the political situation, regardless of where you stand on this, everything feels topsy turvy, everything is urgent, and everything is demanding something of us in this moment, and we, we don’t know what this looks like. All that we know is what we can do and keep moving forward, and that’s the number one message I believe for what’s what we’re in the world that we’re in is are we creating and building visions that build a future and that build hope and that build an ideal and an idea of what we can be, because so often our fundraising is shaped by deadlines and it’s shaped by the urgent needs and it’s it’s shaped by what is most in most immediate in front of us right away, and how do we respond to that critical thing right now that is demanding our attention. Urgency, while useful and very useful, and anybody that works in direct mail, like I do a lot, will tell you that urgency is a critical component of any solicitation, but it can compress meaning into short term action. In other words, we’re saying we need your help now, right now.

Speaker 1 8:27
Listen, I love a good challenge grant. I think challenges are some of the best tools that you can use in fundraising, but they can also give us multiple ways for donors to say no, I’m just going to wait until the next challenge comes along, right? So, do we compress that overarching meaning into a short-term action that we’re losing that or potentially losing that overall feeling and identity and values-based approach that we know really gets to the heart of who humans are, because the danger is when urgent becomes the only story we know how to tell. I’m gonna sit there for a second. The danger becomes when urgent is the only story we know to tell, and whether that’s a story we’re telling to donors or telling ourselves or telling our boards or telling whoever it is, and very often that urgency is, is tell is a story we tell ourselves of if I’m not doing something, then I’m not useful, right? Certainly, those of us that are Gen X, I think got that, got that message loud and clear. I know that was a thing that I learned very often in the workforce. If you, what is it, and they say in the restaurant world, if you got time to lean, you got time to clean, right? So do we too often translate urgency into the only thing that we know, and if we’re right, yeah, do we ever get past urgent? And I feel like I feel like our operations are always urgent. If you’re not moving forward, you’re falling behind. Yeah, Vincent, exactly. Are these the story? Stories we only know how to tell, how to tell others, how to tell ourselves. Look, how many just colloquialisms you all are throwing out on this urgency. How much a part of our culture it is that urgency equals value and worth. And I will tell you here and now, you have value and worth, whether you’re urgent or whether you’re laying on the sofa. Alyssa, was it you that said time for taters and a nap? Because you have certainly deserved a nap, and sometimes taking that nap is just as important as whatever that deadline is. Because we talked about retention a lot this week and over these two days, because retention weakens when donors remember the ask, but not the future. Retention weakens when donors remember the ask, because we’re so often putting an ask in front of them that we’re not often as much sharing the future and the vision that we can be a part of, because short term fundraising often creates short term relationships. Transactional fundraising emphasizes that response and transaction over relationship. Listen, I sat in on, and I will be perfectly honest and candid and fully open, and the DonorPerfect team knows that I’ve said this because I’ve said it to them. The thing that confuses me the most often in DonorPerfect is reports, and I sat in on a couple of those report sessions today, and took piles of notes, and learned a number of things about how I was doing reports that are are certainly going to help, and I’m not saying that reports aren’t important, I’m not in saying that we shouldn’t measure response, I’m saying what do we value more, do we sometimes place so much emphasis on the dollars in the response rates and the retention rates that we lose sight of the transformational aspect of what we’re doing because what we learned yesterday from so many of the sessions from Mallory’s great session on recurring giving and from Lisa Sargent sessions on on thank you letters and acknowledgement that donors are asking us for the long term, and we’re focused on that immediate transaction, and the number, can we balance both? And I think we can. Our core tension that we face is that our fundraising often lives in campaign-sized windows. Right? Let me ask you this. I’m an annual fund person through and through. I believe in the annual fund. I love the $50 donor. I love the $150 annual donor. I’ve gotten into planning now that I’ve moved to the Pacific Northwest, and I’m thinking more and more about less annual donors or more perennial donors, but that’s a whole like sidebar we can take another time.

Speaker 1 12:34
But as an annual hunt, as your annual operations, does your mission end at 1159 on december 31 or june 30, does it? Does it end and then start again on the first, or is it ongoing, right? And when we stress, when we overstress urgency, please let me be clear, I am not saying don’t stress urgency at all. I am saying when we overstress it, and we focus so much on the immediate and the short term. Are we conveying that message that there’s a finite moment of our mission, and there’s a finite time that people can be a part of, or are we inviting people into an ongoing long-term strategic engagement? Lisa Sargent talked about this yesterday in her session, and it comes again from research from Dr. Jen Sheng at the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy, and what you see in that river picture there are the adjectives that come up the most when people are asked to describe themselves in psychological settings, and this comes from a number of different studies when people are asked to describe themselves as a moral person or as a good person. These are the adjectives that come up the most. People think of themselves as generous, kind, caring, friendly, compassionate, fair, hardworking, trustworthy, and helpful. All of us are walking around thinking of ourselves in these terms. I’m a kind person, I’m a caring person, I’m a compassionate person. Trust me, those of us that have been through these, and I think most humans have, we can actually carry two thoughts simultaneously. I can think of myself as a friendly and compassionate, comparing, caring person, and also have imposter syndrome at the exact same time, right? Because humans are complex and we’re messy, and we don’t do anything simple. So you might sit there and go, well, I don’t know that I think of myself this way. I bet you do. I bet on some level you think of yourself in some way as helpful or caring or friendly, or whatever it may be. I guarantee you the person that microwaves fish in the, in the workroom microwave thinks of themselves as a good person, even though you wish they wouldn’t microwave fish in the microwave, right? If we look at generosity from that lens, that all humans are walking around thinking of ourselves in these terms, and we look at generosity as an. Innate human behavior, we’re all coming from a place of generosity or kindness or caring, and we come together into what I call the river of shared belonging, right, because we’re coming from these places where we think of ourselves as good, we think of ourselves as caring into this place where what we want is to belong, what we want is to matter. I want someone to notice when I’m not around. I want my being here, Patty and generous. That’s why I get the large fries and share. Yes, exactly. That is it. Right, right. And we, we come into this river of shared belonging, if you will. This goal of wanting to be a part of something that is bigger from than ourselves, from our individual places. Beth, you might come at it from your true compassionate nature. Sam Swaim, I saw you there. I know you think of yourself as helpful and trustworthy. You’re coming from that mindset. I’m coming from a place of thinking myself as kindness, and we come together in this act of shared generosity that we together are creating belonging for each other, so we might have a different starting point, but when we’re giving, and when people are giving to our charities and our nonprofits, we’re coming together in what is one of the greatest social experiments, and one of the greatest things that humans can do, because the greatest relationships are built on shared belief. Think of your best friends, your family, the people that you love the most, and I will bet you anything that there is an element of shared and common belief and goals and values that you all share together, which is what brings you together. Because every gift a donor makes is a vote for the future. Donors are investing in outcomes they may never see.

Speaker 1 16:51
We’re telling them, sure, $50 can rescue a dog, $150 can feed a family for a week, but they may never meet that family, they may never pet that dog, they may never see the house that is built, or whatever the mission may be, but they’re coming together for outcomes that they never witness, because it’s not just that they believe in the work that they do, they come for the mission, but they’re staying for the vision, they stay with us to build the world that we all want to see, the world that we want to live in, because your mission is a goal towards a world that could be a world where nobody is hungry, a world where every dog has a home, a world where everyone is treated fairly and justly, right, whatever that mission is, ultimately gets to a vision that we all want to believe in, and that’s what donors are coming for. I will promise you, based on what I have seen here with the Donor Perfect team this week, that this team on this side of the camera is working together towards a shared vision, a vision of what can be when you all have the technology and the tools that you need to do your work. There’s not a single person here this week that I saw that wasn’t committed to that goal and making that happen. You all are there, committed to your mission, and your donors are coming to you for your mission into the world that we can create together, because, as Joan said yesterday, and about fell out of my chair when she shared this slide, because here it is a society grows great when we plant trees under whose shade we know we will never sit. This is what long-term fundraising is. This is what looking at that long horizon is about, is knowing that, yes, we may feed a family today, but we’re working towards that goal where no family ever has to go hungry again. We’re working towards that day when no child is lonely again, where no one exactly.. Alyssa, thank you. Being future-oriented, what does.. what does today’s work like? Work look like? I will tell you, in this world that we’re living in today, and I talked yesterday about the loneliness epidemic again. I’m going to call out Sam Swain, who I did see in the chat. Sam, it’s great to see you here. Sam is the one who gave me the term, the connection recession, that I shared with you yesterday. Right, exactly. Thank you, Samantha. This connection recession, I guarantee you that one thing that everybody is looking for is what does the world look like next, regardless of where you come from, and your framework, and your position on this. We’re all working to world towards a world, and looking forward to a world that is better and more connected, where we all belong, and we all matter. Mission explains the work of today. Vision describes that world that we want to be a part of, that long horizon that we’re talking about that that step to the future, that what comes next is about that forward movement, and and how do we look right? So these are great ideals, and I believe in the ideals, and I am, I am, I am here for the theory, and I am here for right, the inspiration and the motive. Nation and I’d love a flag flying in the background and a swell of inspirational music playing underneath me, Lori. Maybe we can get that next time, right? Some a soundtrack and some visuals right to go along with the inspiration, but I hear a lot of you saying, what does this mean, Clay? This is great. Hopefully it’s great. Hopefully you’re saying it’s great. Hopefully it’s inspirational, but how do we do this right? How do we make this happen? So I jokingly have, as you can tell, I have a rather.. I don’t know, some people say bizarre, some people say twisted, some people appreciate my sense of humor, you know? I try, but.. but I find that wombats are some of the funniest animals on the planet. They’re adorable, they’re cute. It’s wombat is a fun word to say. We don’t have them outside of zoos in the United States, so it’s a, it’s a pretty safe animal to talk about here, or in Canada.

Speaker 1 20:57
Thank you, Janet, for super supporting that. Jill, you gave away the punchline. I’ll let the rest of you, I’ll let the rest of you see Jill’s comment, but it is true, unique in the animal kingdom. They do something that no other animal does that Jill has shared with us. So, thank you for that. Right, but I use these rum, a wombat rescue to rescue the world from ravaging wombats as kind of an example, right? So, how do we do this? Okay, well, mission in your appeal, in your invitation, right, we’re talking about identity. Well, the first step is, as we talked about with segmentation yesterday, we’re talking to people that agree with our mission, right? They are dangerous, it’s true, they can be a little vicious at times, right. So, the first step is people that are in your database, people that have already raised their hand and said, hey, I believe, or hey, I’m here, or hey, I want to get your emails, or whatever it is, right. We’re approaching that mission. I agree that all wombats deserve a safe home. The vision that we promise is I believe in a world where all wombats have a safe, protected home, and the identity that we are highlighting when somebody comes to us through that mission and through that vision is they are I am the kind of person who helps to make that possible, that’s just who I am. When you start approaching your donors from this identity mindset that they have already given to you. They’ve raised their hand, they’ve volunteered with you. There is some part of them that they’re in your system because some part of them already said I believe I am here. There is some part of them that is saying this is who I am. I’m the kind of person who believes that wombats deserve and need a safe home, and I believe in a world where that’s possible, because that’s just who I am. I think I said this yesterday, but if I didn’t, I’m going to say it again. You do not have to convince people to be generous, what you do not have to convince people to be generous. People are already generous. We already think of ourselves as generous. People are giving, regardless of what the economy or your board says the economy is doing, right? People are giving in ways that are meaningful to them and in ways that they can, I had a lengthy discussion yesterday about giving out of discretionary income, and while that is true, that giving to charities does come from discretionary income, it doesn’t come from the same place in the same mindset that we’re going to buy a luxury item or we’re going to buy something that we don’t need more often than not. What you see is people, they may have to cut down on the number of charity support they support, they may have to cut down on the amount that they support a charity, but we always find ways to afford the things that mean the most to us. So I’m not saying that it doesn’t come from discretionary income, I’m saying it’s a different type of discretion, it’s a different type of focus, because it’s so identity and values based that they’re giving out a sense of who they are and what they believe the world to be and what it can be, the story that we tell, the mission that we use, the case for support that we use, how we frame the invitation, the appeal, the email, the ad, the grant, whatever it may be. That story that we tell is what connects immediate action, today’s gift into long-term impact, because it allows people to see themselves in the future be the voice that in this world of noise and where social media is dragging us down and where you can’t escape the 24 news, 24 hour news cycle, and you can’t escape the latest whatever controversy or. Catastrophe may be upon us, being able to see ourselves again, or the AI slop in some cases. Yep, agreed. Right, being able to see ourselves in a future where nobody goes hungry, where every cat has a home, where every problem that we care the most about can be solved is a little sliver of hope in an otherwise dark world. Can you provide that? Can you be that?

Speaker 1 25:28
Can we be that? If we talk about fundraising being about relationships and we talk about fundraising being about identity and values and all of these wonderful things that we talked about with tools today that tools can do are there to help us bridge that gap between that action and that identity and that meaning, right? Can you set your systems in such a way that your data and your CRM and your donor perfect implementation is creating ease between you and the connection between your donors, because I promise you this too, every piece of information that you have in DonorPerfect is some part of a story that a donor is telling you. When a donor tells you their whole name, when they give you their email address, when they tell you their phone number or their address or what their interests are, or anything like that, they’re telling you a little bit of a piece of their story, and they’re saying, hey, I want you to notice me, I want you to see me, because right now I think I can see myself in the future that you’re talking about, I can certainly see myself in solving this problem today, I want to be a part of the bigger thing, will you invite me into that? Will you create a place where I belong, and where my generosity, as I see myself as a good, caring human, will you help me create a place where that generosity matters? So, another wonderful book, I mentioned this yesterday, bit of a book nerd, right? Normal days, I have huge bookshelves behind me of things that I’ve picked up and skimmed, and Lauren asked me earlier if I had read Mel Robbins’ Let Them, and my response was, I have skimmed it, does that count to get enough where I can talk about it somewhat intelligently, but this from Roman Krusnarek, talking about how to be a good ancestor, and what he’s talking about in this long-term thinking as a futurist is what does it mean to think beyond today. He draws distinctions between the marshmallow brain and the oak brain, or the boy did that word just leave my head. Somebody help me. What are we looking at there? They’re called acorns. Thank you. Yes, exactly. Thank you. That was a test for you all to make sure that you were still listening. I knew the word. I’m just glad that you all were there for me. Thank you. Yes, marshmallow thinking versus acorn thinking. And marshmallow thinking is that part of the oak potatoes. Patty, stop it. That’s great. Oak tots, can we go with oak tots? Marshmallow thinking versus acorn thinking. That marshmallow thinking is that part of the brain that thinks immediately for immediate satisfaction. I want, I want that. I need to feel that you can actually.. I want to feel that right now. I need this need satisfied in this moment versus the acre, the acorn thinking, or the tater oaks, apparently thinking of that long term, because it takes an oak tree a long, long time to grow. I planted some seeds before I left Washington last week, and I keep texting home, going, have they sprouted yet? Have they sprouted yet? I get clay. It’s been like two weeks. Like, relax. Exactly, Jeanette. Instant gratification versus delayed gratification. That’s exactly correct, right? These two sides of the brain, are we thinking about fundraising from that marshmallow brain perspective, where we’re looking for that instant gratification, where we’re looking for that immediate buzz, and then moving on immediately to the next thing, or on some level, are we also planting acorns, so that our fundraising will yield oaks of generosity in the future, and whether that future is next year, or five years from now, or 25 years from now, What does the tree that we’re planting today start to look like, and how do we approach that? He talks about several things, and there’s a number of things in this, this chart of the tug of war for time. Many of these are, you know, very relative to fundraising.

Speaker 1 29:36
Some are a little aspirational, sort of beyond, beyond us, but the they relate in looking at how do we think about and how do we shift our thinking into a longer term perspective to build on those identities and values that come to us, so the drivers of short term, short term is our own short term ism. Anybody else tired and tripping over your tongue? I know the training team is, I’m sure they are. They’ve been on all day today. A marshmallow snack, I like it. Jeremiah, good, good. The tyranny of the of the clock, and he talks about the acceleration of time since the Middle Ages. You know, and it’s true, right? The clock seems shorter and shorter than it does. An eight hour workday doesn’t seem as long as it used to be. Remember when it was nine to five, and now it’s eight to five. Remember when we weren’t always constantly accessible to email, when we didn’t have work like tools for our home, like we didn’t, we didn’t have email at home, and now there’s always this sense of urgency in front of us, this sense of time versus this deep time humility in recognizing that where we are now is just a moment, it’s just a blink in the context of time as a whole, right? In serving a mission, the mission that we’re serving today will be with us likely for a while. The family that we feed today is absolutely critical and critically and important, and we also have to realize there will be another family tomorrow. In working with a number of homeless service organizations, and any of you that work in the homelessness in housing spaces, pop in the chat and let me know if this is true for you. I’ve been hearing more and more from donors of saying, hey, we have been funding this for years. Why is there still a problem? Why do we still see this problem when we have been giving and giving and giving? And the answer to that is, it’s a huge problem. It is. It is a situation that continues to grow, and without people being a part of it and caring about it, as it’s true with any mission, we, we can’t accomplish today without that, and what we accomplish today, we’ve got more coming in, and this happens everywhere, recognizing that the problems and the missions that we serve aren’t simply solved with this appeal, but are a long-term solution, but today your $50 matters because we’re going to feed what’s right in front of us, and we’re going to keep building for the future. What are we talking about versus being distracted by what’s in front of us right now versus how will we be remembered, and how will we be thinking about this in the long term? Right, how do we shift our focus from what’s just today or until the next election and focus on what are we doing every day that forwards justice, that forwards equality, that forwards welcoming and belonging? I would translate in our terms this intergenerational justice concept into how do we translate that into mattering? How do we turn today’s $50 donor into someone who recognizes that their work and how they’re showing up for this space matters? Right, we’re looking at, and I know one of the biggest things on our mind right now is the economy, and this economy, but this economy will change. It always does. This economy will shift, maybe not next week, maybe next month, maybe next year, but it will shift. So, are we building, are we, are we building Quonset Hudson tents, or are we building a cathedral that’s going to take us much longer, and plans beyond our time? Are we building beyond what our time in the seat at this organization with this mission, because there will be a whole new board sometime. There will be a new annual fund director in that seat at some more board. So, are we also thinking about what this looks like in five years, in 10 years, and how we are approaching towards that transcendent goal of what does that vision, what could it be if we focus on that from a relationship perspective, while also hitting today’s goals. Being of that split mindset is so critical. So, how do we, how do we build this?

Speaker 1 33:56
Joan talked with us yesterday about that culture of philanthropy, and how do we build that? So, the first step in building cathedral thinking in this terms, and this, the term cathedral thinking comes from, of course, the Middle Ages, where a cathedral, if you think about, like Notre Dame in Paris, if you think about the I’m thinking of buildings, not just in Western and European traditions, but any buildings of significant statute, the Great Wall of China, right? Any of these were built beyond people’s lifetimes. Very often, the workers in a cathedral, we are still building them. Graydon, you’re 100% correct, right? The Mayan pyramids, right? They took longer than a single person’s lifetime. Very often, the person who worked and laid the cornerstone didn’t even see the roof encapsulate that building in their lifetime, and that may be true for many of us in these nonprofit seats. Some of you are working with organizations that have been around for decades. For centuries, right, continuing to work and try to solve the same problem, so how are we, how are we approaching that cathedral thinking and building this culture of philanthropy, and the first is getting that buy-in that from everyone, that development is inviting participation, it’s transformation, it’s not transaction, it’s development, not fundraising. This is, and many of you asked yesterday during Jones session, right? In talking with a board or a leadership that doesn’t get this, this is the difficult situation conversation, and let’s own it and be honest about it, that this might be the tough conversation that we need to have, and it’s the conversation worth having, and sometimes it takes might take a while to have that tough conversation, and it might be uncomfortable for you, but grow where you’re planted, and if you can be an advocate for even a glimmer of this long-term identity values based within your organization, and deliver the reports that your board is asking for, but also keep focused on that long term, that might be the tough conversation that needs to have. Secondly, does everybody share the same vision? Are we all building toward the same future? Do we all know where we’re going, and do those short term goals support our long term vision? Are you building a cathedral or are you building an annual fund that ends at midnight on june 30 and starts again on july 1. These are the questions to ask internally and to start building internally. So, what are things that you can do right now? So you disconnect from this meeting on the East Coast here, it’s 4o’clock Hopefully many of you will take that last hour of the day off and and do something, touch grass, breathe in some, some good air or something, right? Or you’ll jump back into the office, but things that you can do right when you disconnect from this, and yes, and I know on the West Coast you still have about a half a day in front of you as well, so what can you do? Well, number one, replace one ask with an invitation. Look at your appeals, look at the emails that are going out, look at the things that you’re planning to come up during this fiscal year end period, or during this summer period, wherever you are in your calendar. Can you take one of those, just one of those, and switch it from an ask into an invitation. Right, I’m inviting you to be a part of this mission. Try it and see how it does. Number two, another thing you could do: design for recognition. Where in your systems are people feeling more like a record than instead in than than like a person? Maybe it’s in your automated thank you email, which is great, as Lisa said yesterday, right? Get a thank you out is your automated thank you email for somebody that gives online, is that you know, dear Jack, thank you so much for your gift of $50 You can use this for your taxes, or is it Dear Jack, wow, thank you so much for making a difference, you have really shown your generosity and your caring through your gift, and we just wanted you to know that it had been received and will be put right to work right away.

Speaker 1 38:09
Right, where do people feel like part of your system instead of part of your mission or your vision? Look at participation, not just revenue, that’s what I was saying earlier, where are people providing you information? Where are they telling you more parts of their story? Where are they raising their hand and saying, hey, I want you to notice not only when I’m not around, but I want you to notice that I’m here. Are they opening your emails? Are they clicking on links? Are they making gifts online? Is somebody calling you and complaining a lot, because I guarantee you that person that is complaining cares. I would much rather have a donor complain than I would have a donor be apathetic and not say a word and not give again. Where are they raising their hands to say, hey, I’m here and I want to be a part of this, right? Four number four. Look for one source of burnout. This is for you. Look for one place that is causing you burnout or stress or having some issue that is frustrating you to no end. And can you fix that? If it were me, I’d look at data, because that’s the thing that I hear the most, is our data is so bad. Can you fix one part of your data? Lauren shared with us earlier today about some new tools with duplication, duplicate constituents. Can you dedupe, I don’t know, 100 records? Can you sit down with a cup of coffee and fix 10 of your most current donor records to ensure that those 10 are reachable and clean, and every time you pull that list, they are ready to go. Where is one source of burnout that you can fix if your sense source of burnout is another person? Can you go out for coffee? Can you grab some dessert together, something, and say, hey, let’s work on this relationship. Let’s work on how can we work better together, because you, that person that is causing you the most stress, might be having the same thought about you, and maybe it’s time for you all to have a great conversation. Maybe your burnout is just the amount of things that you have to keep going. Can you let one go? You know, we have to keep all the plates in the air. Maybe it’s okay to break a plate or two. Which plate can you break? Take a look at that. Five, ask better questions every time you start to do something, ask the question: Does this help someone belong? Does this help someone participate? Does this show someone that they matter, and whether that’s a donor, a volunteer, somebody on your email list, a coworker, a volunteer, an intern, a board member. Joan said yesterday, you know, it’s it, and I, I hear this too all the time. My board doesn’t read the materials. My board won’t fundraise. They don’t, they blah blah blah. Maybe just have a conversation with them and say, hey, what are you feeling? Do you know how much you matter to us? Maybe part of their lack of response is they don’t feel that their responses is valued, right? Maybe there just might be a conversation with your leadership with other people on the team that might be uncomfortable, it might be difficult, but it’s definitely worth having that conversation when you need to, and let me tell you this, you are worth having that conversation too. So, when you’re looking in the mirror and you’re thinking, am I a kind and good and generous and caring person. Also, keep telling yourself that you are worthy of the work that you do. You’re worthy of not being in burnout mode all the time. You’re worthy of having good, solid data and systems that support the work that you do, and your mission is worthy of everybody’s involvement, including you, yours, and I’ll say this again, as we talked about yesterday, so that I leave you with this, and, and hopefully you’ll hold on to this, but think of fundraising as proclaiming what we believe in such a way that we offer other people an opportunity to participate with us in our vision and mission. So, is somebody making a gift, are they giving you a gift, or are they participating with you in your vision and mission?

Speaker 1 42:26
And maybe that’s the number one thing that you can have, and the conversation that you can have internally of really championing that participation as part of the vision and mission, and you might be the first person in your organization that believes it, or maybe everybody does already, and yay for you, but when you talk about inviting donors into being a part of the mission, it changes the way everybody starts to think of what fundraising is. Right, today’s fundraising, and the fundraising that comes next, asks different questions, and some of you may see yourselves in some of these questions that I brought forward, and some of these are ones that, yes, did come up in the chat, and I want to tell you, I’m not singling you out or not calling on anybody, but maybe it is about how we ask questions, because the question isn’t necessarily how many emails should I send, so we can check a box and say, oh, I sent five emails, that’s the right amount. The question is, does even one of those emails that I send contain a values-driven identity-based invitation into shared purpose? Right, maybe it’s not. Is an automated thank you email enough? Maybe it’s what that automated email contains. What story am I telling the donor about who they are when they give? Remember what Jen Shang said yesterday for the slide that I shared yesterday from Dr. Jen Sheng. How, why people give is less interesting than who they are when they give. What are the questions that we’re asking, right? Maybe the question isn’t, how do I get to my board to fundraise? Maybe the question is, am I so aligned with our mission? Am I so bought into this and believe in it that I can’t help but invite others into it? Maybe your board is disengaged because they don’t feel like they’ve been invited into it, and is that a you thing, maybe you feel burnt out and disengaged because nobody’s invited you into the mission, maybe you haven’t invited yourself fully in. How do you ask different questions about that involvement and engagement and invitation? Maybe the question isn’t, I wear too many hats and I’m burned out, but I have to keep going. How do I keep going? Maybe the question is, have I remembered why I said yes to this in the first place. What future am I building, and is it one that I want to inhabit? Have you lost sight of the vision? Do you still believe? Eve in the vision, and can you reinvite yourself back into that? That’s my invitation to you: is go back to your mission, go back to your vision, not the PR version, not that one that’s cleaned up, not the one that gets put and edited to death in the in for the funding request, but the real mission behind what you do, go back to that and spend a moment with that, and go, is this the future that I believe in, and that I want to inhabit, and can I invite others into being a part of this as well, because friends, it’s true, fundraising is about money, and I tell my students at UNLV this all the time. Fundraising is about relationships. Yes, you can spend all day building relationships and not raise a dime, right? You can spend all day building great relationships and not raise them, right, not raise a single penny. And is that fundraising? Some of us have worked at work with those major gift officers, haven’t we? Right. Yep. Go Rebs! Thank you, Barb. Yeah. yeah, right, but you can also be out there all day raising money and bring in a check every time you walk in the office, and are you building that future, are you fundraising, or are you developing a mission, because it’s never really been about the money, and if you go back to the earliest texts in the earliest literature and the earliest writings on fundraising was just having this conversation on LinkedIn today that some of our earliest writings have talked about this, the proven principles best practice will adapt. The proven principles are about this relationship and about connecting to values and the question that we ask always in everything that we do as human is how do I make my life matter. How do I make my life matter?

Speaker 1 46:49
Because the organizations, the nonprofits, the fundraising that will thrive into the future aren’t the ones that ask for the most, aren’t the ones that send the most emails or the most direct mails or have the strongest ask, but they are the ones that create the most opportunities for people to belong, to participate, and to matter. Fundraising is about inviting people into significance, and you, as a fundraiser, stand in that gap between people that need help and situations that need help and the people that can and want to help, and what an incredible honor that is, as we get to see, yes, sometimes the worst of humanity, but at the same time the best of what makes us all human, and what makes us all matter, which is that generosity in action, and sometimes generosity in action means more potatoes. I am here for the hashtag that kicked up on LinkedIn. Fundraising with a side of fries, I say fundraising with a side of passion. You all are passionate, caring, wonderful people doing incredible work. I will tell you that on those days when it feels hard and it feels tough, you’ve got me, you’ve got a whole DonorPerfect team over here that is cheering you on and supporting you and working again very, very hard over here to make a great two days for you, that I hope you all have enjoyed. I hope it’s been meaningful to you. It has certainly been meaningful to all of us to have you here. That’s one of the other hallway conversations that has come up so frequently, is seeing friends and people that have been clients for years, and people that are doing great work, and people that are asking challenging questions, and making us all go, ‘Wow, how do we solve that? You’re doing wonderful work, you are doing important work. We appreciate you. We are so grateful to have had this time with you for these two days. I think it’s okay for me to say, I think I did see that dates for next year are up, or about to be up. So, do keep an eye out for that. Again, all of these sessions will be posted online and shared with you, so that you can go back to the recordings, reach out to me, reach out to your Donor Perfect team, reach out to each other and support each other. Maybe you made a new friend this week, maybe you connected with somebody in a different way. Be engaged with them, support each other, and remember, invite yourselves and invite others into something that matters. We appreciate you. Thank you for being there here. Thank you all. Thank you to the Donor Perfect team. You all have a terrific rest of your day. Great weekend, those of you that are into your end of year fiscal year, you’ve got this. Those of you that are into summer, you’ve got this too. We’ll see you again next year. Thank you, everybody. Take care.

Unknown Speaker 49:35
Bye.