Jeff and I see a lot of development departments around the country. We’ve become aware that many of them either do not have all their “personal contact” programs in place or, if they do, they are operating in their own little silos.
By “personal contact” programs I mean the functions of major gifts, planned giving, foundation and corporations/business. These categories or functions of fundraising use the concept of meeting people face to face as a major cultivation and solicitation strategy. This is used, as opposed to direct marketing strategies, where classic direct mail and electronic media strategies are used.
Personal contact and direct marketing strategies are both critical to the success of fundraising in an organization. Both should be managed and implemented in a unified, integrated manner – but most often they aren’t. In fact, in some situations, the leaders of one area are downright hostile about “those other folks snooping around in my area.” I’ve even seen some very talented major gift folks turn up their noses at their direct marketing colleagues as if they just climbed out of a sewer. Pretty sad – and pretty arrogant.
Most enlightened and professional development directors will lead their team toward caring about, valuing and taking practical steps to integrate these important fundraising areas.
The best example I have seen of this recently was presented in a meeting by my friend and colleague, Chris Doyle, Executive Director of Development of the Southern California division of The Salvation Army. I want to share what he said here.
To begin with, he laid the groundwork for integration by telling his team that these functions need to be incorporated and valued by everyone. This one tiny step is important. Why? Because the authority figure is setting an expectation for integration and cooperation. No more solo playing!
Then he shared the following example, which he used to illustrate effective integration:
A new donor (Mr. Smith) sends a gift of $1,000 from a direct mail acquisition mailing. A major gift officer follows up with a phone call and determines that the donor meets the criteria to go on her caseload. The MGO visits the donor and finds out he sits on the XYZ Foundation board, and that Mr. Smith is an executive of a large corporation. The MGO lets the Foundations person and the Corporation person know these facts.
The Foundations person researches the foundation and finds they give to organizations like The Salvation Army. The Foundations person works with the MGO to craft a proposal that the donor can take to the foundation board.
The Corporations person discovers that the company Mr. Smith belongs to is launching a social responsibility program that fits The Salvation Army’s program criteria. He, together with the MGO, craft a proposal for the company to consider. But they hold on presenting the proposal until the Foundations proposal is on its way toward getting funding.
The MGO also finds out that Mr. Smith has taken out several gift annuities with other charities and likes this way of giving. The MGO talks to the Planned Giving person and together, they craft a proposal for Mr. Smith, who takes out a $100,000 annuity. Mr. Smith changes his will to include The Salvation Army.
Chris goes on to observe that there are several key takeaways from this kind of cooperation and integration:
- The MGO asked questions and listened.
- The donor was appreciated.
- The donor was stewarded.
- Various departments worked together.
- The MGO orchestrated the timing of the various approaches and strategies.
- The focus was on the donor and what he wanted to do.
- The organization ended up with multiple gifts over time.
It’s true that this example is simply a scenario – a way to illustrate how all of this could work together. While you may want to just discard the possibility of this ever happening in your organization, I challenge you to try it. Try cooperating, without regard for credit, and see how much further it takes you, your organization AND the donor.
Richard
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Great reminder! Where I see the “hitch in the get along” is credting. While it shouldn’t guide the process you described, I find that it becomes the stumbling block to coordination (and breaking down of) the silos. What has worked in the past to overcome this “hurdle?”
Thank you.
Thanks for writing, Art. Two things have worked for us in this situation.
The first is to give a soft credit to the person helping the primary person. So, if it’s an annuity that comes in then the PG person gets the hard credit and the MGO gets the soft credit. If the corporate gift comes in the corporate person gets the hard credit and the MGO gets the soft credit, etc. Most donor management software programs allow for this hard and soft credit thing. If they don’t or you need to spread the joy around more than two people, then….
The other thing I have done many times is to simply write it on the bottom of the monthly report so that everyone up-line sees that the MGO, or whoever, made this happen. Often, the whole thing is about recognition vs. credit.
However, there are managers out there that are so busy counting the pennies that they can’t see how abusive their penny counting is.
Lastly, and we are constantly telling managers this: a caseload and the donors on it ebb and flow as time passes. So this year Mr. Jones gives a donation through his business, the corporate MGO gets the credit and the “regular MGO” doesn’t. So what?! The manager needs to see that the trend line with the donor is doing just fine. Or, Mrs. Smith gave $500k to a capital campaign last year but this year she is back to her $50K operating gift and the MGO’s caseload value dropped by $450K on that one transaction. So what?! There’s more there! We are constantly telling managers to value the long term. The caseload value in any given year can and will go down. The only question to answer is WHY.
Keep your head up, Art, and keep influencing the system toward a just and objective way of seeing (and measuring) things.
Love this. The deep division between these areas is the main reason I left my position earlier this month. Without appropriate leadership, there was no way to get the players to collaborate and seek holistic strategies for our donors. In four years I never found a way to get people to the table. Not only did it impact the organization’s ability to fundraise, it caused an almost hostile work environment that has been increasingly unhealthy for staff. But it starts at the top–and by that, I mean C-level leadership, not just within Development. Keep writing, guys–you rock!
Good points, Christine.
And the situation you describe is so sad and so unnecessary. We must, all of us, keep working to make this right. And Jeff and I agree with you, it does start at the top. As someone once said: “the fish stinks at the head.” And when you have this kind of situation you have to do all you can to try to change it. Then, failing that, just like you did, you leave for a better place.
I am most definitely in favor of taking down silos, but reading this post has made me look at my own focus in this matter. As a long time planned gift fundraiser/consultant, I’ve always leaned more into the “people” gifts and stayed out of corporate foundations and sponsorship fundraising. I’ve always felt a real disconnect between the corporate and the individual gifter. People stuff vs. profit stuff. While I urge collaboration between PGO’s and MGO’s I never considered joining forces with grant writers in donor cultivation. Yet, I think it’s important to let everyone know who you’re meeting with (maybe Monday development roundtable or something) so that situations like you mention with the Salvation Army can come to light.
Excellent, Lorri. Yes, I hope that you can bring your team together. It’s so important! Thanks for writing.
Jeff