The Best Podcast Episodes and Blogs of 2024!

Here's a recap of our favorite podcast episodes, blogs, and other resources that you might have missed over 2024 to help you raise more revenue for your mission.

Best of the Nothing But Major Gifts Podcast:

How to Get Yourself Transitioned into the New Year

Welcome to January! In these first weeks of the year, you’re likely still finishing out the year-end season, thanking donors for gifts received, and assessing your performance compared to your goals. At the same time, you’re working on communication plans and strategies for the year ahead.
In this episode, Jeff is joined by Theresa Tapocsi and Edie Dahlen, two of our Client Experience Leaders, for an overview of what fundraisers and leaders need to know right now while you’re wrapping up from year-end and getting started on your top priorities. Listen to the episode here.

Mapping the Donor Journey: A Pipeline Health Checklist

Is your organization set up to support the donor journey? What structures do you have in place to develop your donor relationships from initial acquisition to cultivation, mid-level, major gifts, and planned giving?

These are some of the questions you need to consider as you work to build a healthy donor pipeline. In this episode, Richard and Jeff discuss five key focus areas for organizations seeking to improve their donor’s experience at every stage of their giving journey. Check out the full episode here. 

Practical Tips for Facilitating a Donor Meeting

As a fundraiser, you play two roles in any donor meeting. First, you’re there to be a partner to your donor, which means you’re seeking to learn more about their passions so you can help to match those with your organization’s programs.

And your second role is to act as a facilitator so that everyone is on the same page about the purpose of the meeting and leaves feeling like their time was well-used. This is a real skill that requires some practice.

In this podcast episode, Karen and Matt share their top tips for how fundraisers can successfully facilitate a donor meeting using our Permission-Based Asking™ model. Listen to the episode here.

Do You Know the Hidden Potential in Your Donor File?

 Over the past two decades, our team at Veritus has analyzed hundreds of different non-profits’ data files, and we see the same trends over and over again. While overall revenue may go up year-over-year, many donors give less over time (or go away altogether). But organizations are often unaware this is happening because the loss is covered up by gifts from new donors.

So, what can you do about this? The first thing to do is start analyzing your donor file so you can understand where you have opportunities. For today’s episode, Jeff is joined by Theresa Tapocsi (Client Experience Leader) and Amy Chapman (Director of Client Engagement) for a conversation about how we perform our free donor file assessment to identify the hidden potential in your donor file.

The sooner you understand what’s happening in your data, the sooner you can take action. We hope this episode helps you think about your next steps in analyzing your donor data for opportunities to better engage your donors. Listen in here now!

Best of the Passionate Giving Blog

Get Your Donor Calling Muscles with this Checklist

Lower your stress about making donor calls by having a clear plan and approach. This will help you start each conversation with warmth, curiosity, and openness which impacts how your donor will feel when they pick up the phone. And if you are well prepared with a clear objective and have great open-ended questions to ask your donor, they will feel seen, honored, and heard, which sets the partnership up for great things in the future. Read the full blog post by Karen Kendrick here.

What Does the New Phone Etiquette Mean for Your Donor Calls?

A recent Washington Post article advised that the new phone etiquette is “Text first and never leave a voice mail.” While we get the sentiment behind it, it’s not universal – certainly not when it comes to communication with donors, many of whom are 60 years or older and remember when fax machines and voice mail were brand new. In this blog, Diana Frazier breaks down the best way to contact your donors and things to consider about each of the ways you may reach out to them. Remember, at the end of the day, your communication has to be received for it to be meaningful. So be sure to know what your donor wants and values. Read the full blog post here.

Mastering Donor Conversations: A Guide to Purposeful and Meaningful Dialogue

 
In this blog, Karen Kendrick offers some questions and topics to explore with your donor, as well as some draft language to use. Take the questions, make them your own, and practice them out loud to see if they sound like you. Then, have a number of questions ready for when the donor picks up the phone. You want to ask a question, listen actively to what your donor is saying, and let that guide you toward what else you might ask. For the full guide to purposeful and meaningful dialogue, check out the blog here.

Are Donors Even Reading Your Emails? 13 Pro Tips to Help You Write Better Emails

We compiled a list of our standard tips for email communication. (These are general guidelines, but of course there may be exceptions where you must use your best judgment.) From proofreading to best practices for scheduling a follow-up meeting, we hope this resource comes in handy when you’re writing your next email. Check out the full list here and be sure to add your tips in the comments!

Free Resources:

Removing Obstacles to Major Gift Fundraising

What’s preventing your non-profit from seeing greater success in major gifts? In this paper, we’re sharing some of the most common and avoidable issues we’ve seen – not to embarrass anyone or make you feel bad, but to help you and your organization identify where you need to improve so you can grow and thrive.

Here’s a list of the top challenges in major gift fundraising, sorted by category. And if you see yourself or your organization in these descriptions, you’re in good company! We’ve helped many organizations to remove these barriers, and we believe you can do this too. Download your free white paper on removing obstacles to major gift fundraising here!

Request a Free Donor File Assessment

How well are your mid-level and major gift programs performing? Do you know what your year-over-year donor value attrition rates are? Given your current program growth, do you know where you’ll be in five years? If you’re not sure, don’t worry! In our experience, most non-profit fundraisers, managers, and leaders can’t confidently answer these questions. That’s why we’ve developed our FREE and CONFIDENTIAL Donor Assessment. This comprehensive assessment will provide you with specific information around donor attrition rates, donor value attrition, program growth, and how many people you need to hire to grow effectively.

There’s absolutely no obligation to work with us, and you’ll learn the key steps to take to grow your fundraising program. Are you ready to get started? Head over here to request your FREE Donor Assessment today.