Gut Check: Everyone Needs to Do It

I recently renovated my home office. What a project. Just getting ready took a full week. I moved everything out and committed to purging and not bringing anything back in that I didn’t use or love. Sort of a Konmari approach.

It was a journey back over my 11 years with Veritus Group, but I had things from my entire 43-year (and counting!) career. I kept selected items and “memorialized” them in a notebook. I also went through the many, many articles and studies I collected in hardcopy and organized those I still reference so I can get them as I need.

Then I found a Word document from my last few months as a Major Gift Officer at a University. I was completing my fourth year of a split role—a lot of management and oversight for Advancement, but I carried a caseload of 75 donors as well.

Due to staff retirement and turn over, I was going through a caseload rebuild to get to donors that had real potential. As we coach here at Veritus, I started with a gut check of my 189 assigned group, including 125 recently added to qualify and potentially replace some existing donors.

Here was my gut check for Highest Level of Contact ever:

• Visited in home, office, or restaurant – 46
• Campus return or Reunion only – 26
• Non-Campus Event only – 2
• Phone only – 31
• Email Exchange only – 10
• LinkedIn Exchange only – 2
• Letter Reply only – 1
• Voice Message only – 15

Total: 133 – 70% of the 189, so good progress with the new 125

And then I doubled down for 60 days:

• Visits – 18
• Booked – 3 more
• Pending – 22 agreed to visit; setting day/time
• Requested – 19 with no response yet
• Reunion only – 3
• Phone conversation – 6
• Declined – 5

I reached out to 76 donors or 40% of my assigned group. In that time period, I had 57 two-way or meaningful connections with 30% of them. I met 11% personally.

Why do I give you all of this detail?

Because no matter where you are in your career or with an organization, it is important to take a step back and evaluate. I asked key questions: Where am I with each of my donors? What do I know? How can I make a deeper connection? What do I want to learn about their passions and interests? Where is there potential for a transformational gift?

While this was a lot of work, it also re-energized me. I was able to move some donors out to our equivalent of a mid-level team. Others I was able to refresh my strategies with new information, including two at a transformational gift level.

The natural times to do this gut check are in January after closing the calendar year, and in early July at the mid-point. But you don’t have to wait until then. You can spend one day doing the evaluation and then let it turbo charge your next 60 days. Who knows what will happen! One thing I do know, your donors will be more deeply connected to your mission and that will result in greater financial support.

Diana

Diana S. Frazier is a Senior Client Experience Leader at Veritus Group. With over 32 years of experience in the non-profit sector, Diana has helped organizations meet strategic objectives through fund and product development, marketing, and operations management. She has worked on staff or as a consultant in a wide range of non-profits including print and media organizations, missions, higher education, health, crisis counseling, and churches.