Jeff Schreifels

Hey everyone, thanks for joining me today. I'm really excited about this podcast because I wanna discuss what you should be focused on this year with your relationship fundraising program. There's so many things coming at you as a fundraiser or if you're a development director or even executive director.

that can easily distract you from what you really should be focused on. And today I want to help give you clarity. Now to help me do that, I've invited Diana Frazier, our Senior Client Experience Leader here at veritus, who's been doing this work much longer than I have even. And I know she's going to have some great insights for you. So Diana, Thank you for joining us.

This is going to be a great discussion. And the whole hope here is the reason we want to do this at the beginning part of the year is to give people direction because a lot of folks saying, what should I really be focused on? We're going to, we're going to give you the outline of what you should be focused on. And by the end of it, if you actually focus on these things that we're talking about, you will have a great year. You will. It's no doubt.

because we see it over and over again with the folks that we work with. I've got a number of great questions for you. So the first one is, okay, so for frontline fundraisers, what do you feel is the number one thing you wanna make sure that they're focused on in 2026?

Diana Frazier
You know, the simple answer is have a plan, right? Have a plan. I say simple, but it really takes a lot of work that, you know, involves reviewing each donor on your caseload, creating customized steps for each donor based on their interest for the full year or whatever remains of your fiscal year depending on how you are here in 2026, setting a revenue goal for each and every donor and major gifts, a management goal and an aspirational goal. Sometimes they can be the same, but

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Diana Frazier
You want to be reaching higher wherever you can. ⁓ Then I always start with the anticipated month that you're going to do that ask and make that the anchor. And I work back to create that plan. What do I need to do to get there? And then after, what do I need to do to thank the donor to steward them? So it really is that simple. And yet it's that involved. Create a plan.

Jeff Schreifels
And when we say create a plan, if you're a major gift officer, you want to plan for every one of those donors. And that plan would include

you know, a touch point, at least one touch point per month, it would plan out when are you going to solicit that donor? When are you going to send them updates or birthday or all everything for the course of the year so that you're set up properly and you know exactly what you're doing every day

Diana Frazier
No.

Exactly. And if you take the ask as the anchor, so to speak, I don't mean, I don't actually mean that in a sense it's the most important event of the year, although we are fundraisers, so I don't want to take away from that. But it's, that's kind of where you're aiming and then you want to reflect back to, and then you mentioned personal touch points, like a birthday card. Are they going on a cruise? Do they love cigars? What do you know about them so that you're engaged with them as a real person, not just as a donor? Like that's their only reason for existing in the world.

Jeff Schreifels
Right, yeah. So having a plan, if you spent that time, now maybe you can dispel some myths around creating a plan. I know it's not an easy thing, but it also isn't so hard that you shouldn't do it. Because I think that's what, you know, fundraisers are like, how can I have a plan for every donor?

Diana Frazier
Yeah. Well, I mean, if you're working directly in a CRM, there's some physical physicality about that's hard. So we would recommend that you export it to Excel so you can think in a linear manner. If you're using the veritus Donor Engagement Plan, it's helpful. But really, it's getting them all lined up there and start with the donors that you know the best or start with the donors with the highest potential for giving and spend some real creative time there. You're going to find that those ideas translate to other donors as well.

So if you do your, say your 15 most intense plans, step back, cause if you're in Excel, now you can work left to right through the months of the year, or you can go vertically up and down in a month. So if you're doing something for John Smith in April, maybe something that or something similar applies to 12 or 15 or 20 other donors. So you can maximize your, leverage your creativity, if you will, your energy around the hardest ones or the most intricate ones and apply to others.

Because if you know the donor interest, you're going to be able to kind of plug and play is like kind of cavalier way to say it. But there's a sense in which you plug and play because you've got ideas and you just want to make sure that each donor's plan is customized to them, their interests, their timing, their tools that they use. They use stock, they use gaps, whatever they do. Knowing all those pieces actually starts making it easier.

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Yeah. You know, when I was back doing the seat, your work with clients, and we would go through the planning process, one of the things that we did, we took one day, right? And then I would sit down with a ⁓ major gift officer and I'd say, okay, let's first start out with what is everything that your nonprofit is sending out to donors right now?

Diana Frazier
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Schreifels
Let's have a list of all those things that your organization sends out, like for example, newsletters. Okay, four times a year you send a newsletter. That's definitely something that you're going to want to send to your donors. Now, let's do this by tier level first, ABC. So you have your ABC. You're sending a newsletter to everyone, right? But you're personalizing it more on the A than B than C level. And so you'd have that planned out.

Okay, and then you would look, are some other, well, we always do this end of year thing, or we always send this one little touch. Okay, so that would be personalized different by tier as well. Then we would go down to the individual level to say, okay, when do they normally give? Okay, they usually give in November, that's when we're going to make a solicitation. Then let's work backward. So that's, and we were able to do all of

fairly easy to, you know, after we were done, like, hey, we're done now. We have the whole year, but it basically took a full day. And once we concentrated on that, it really, and then it set the major gift officer in a sense free because now they had the overall view of what they were doing with their donors.

Diana Frazier
I've worked with teams that have come together in a conference room with huge whiteboards. as they came up with ideas, they were popping up and putting on whiteboards so other people could see it and then, you know, weave it into their plan. The thing, you don't want to get into all that conversation because you won't get the work done, but enough conversation to be stimulating and interesting. Yeah, you can do it in one day. You can do it in two half days. You can do it in one week, two hours a day. It takes some discipline, but you know, it...

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Yeah.

Diana Frazier
It doesn't have to, this isn't something that has to take a whole week, like 40 hours. It really shouldn't. If that's true, then maybe you don't know your donors and go back to step one. Are your donors qualified?

Jeff Schreifels
Okay, all right, so that was the next thing I wanna like, so okay, after creating your plan for each donor, if you're a major gift officer or by tier, if you're a mid-level officer, what should you be focused on next?

Diana Frazier
Well, so building off the plan concept, you know, making sure your donors are qualified, ⁓ meaning they've agreed to two-way engagement with you. They want to go further and taking into account those interests and the tiers and the giving range. What I often do, what I coach people to do is think 30, 60, 90 days, Jeff. Always think 30, 60, 90 days because if you do that, you're never going to be surprised. So if you know you're going to make an ask, this is the middle of January, if you know you're going to make an ask,

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Diana Frazier
in the middle of March, you really should be working on that now. So you're looking 90 days out and then you're thinking, okay, what's happening 60s out, what's February? And then January, you're doing it, right? So doing planning, thinking kind of thing. And if you take that approach, you're not gonna be caught off guard, plus you're able to adjust your plan as things happen. Because the next thing you do after you create a plan is work the plan. ⁓ And then I think another thing that...

you want to do right away if you don't already have this is get an accountability partner. ⁓ If it's the person you report to, maybe it's a senior colleague or maybe it's somebody you just trust. Someone you're gonna meet with on a weekly basis. This is a really important part about structure. Somebody you're gonna meet with on a weekly basis. Someone who's gonna say, okay, what are you doing? What are you gonna do? What didn't you do that you didn't do and how do we fix that kind of thing? No judgment, right? Somebody who's gonna help you move.

and keep you motivated. Because truthfully, you and I know this, Jeff, because we have accountability within veritus and we coach so many people. If you're going to meet with somebody, there is a motivation to keep moving through and get things done. So there's that part of it. There's also the excitement. I get to talk to someone about strategy and moving things forward. right now in 2026, get an accountability partner if you don't already have one.

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so yeah, okay. first the thing is after you know is Everyone in your plan should be qualified so if they're not that's the first thing and Because if you don't qualify you're going to be tearing your hair out of donors who don't want to get back We know this process that if you don't have qualified donors in your portfolio. It will make your job so much harder

Diana Frazier
Yeah.

Jeff Schreifels
So qualifying, and if you don't know how to qualify, we have a white paper on that. Go to our resources tab and find how to qualify your donors. It will be one of the best things you do for yourself as a major gift officer. then have a plan. donors should be tiered A, B, and C properly. You should have a revenue goal attached to every donor. That should be cash flowed.

Diana Frazier
Yes.

Jeff Schreifels
when you're first doing this, you have to take your best guess when that gift will come in. And then over time, you'll know your donors more and you'll be able to do that better at year over year. But the cash flowing thing is important because it helps you know what to expect, but also it helps your manager know when things are supposed to come in. And then you can have better conversations with your manager around that.

Diana Frazier
Yes.

Jeff Schreifels
You know, is it going to is that 50,000 going to come in from this donor in March or is it going to be pushed to May for some reason? You can have those conversations.

Diana Frazier
Yep. Yeah. And that's,

that's part of that 30, 60, 90 day thing, right? So you have your goals and they are cashflowed out through the year and you're anticipating something to happen in April, but you learn in February, it's not going to. Now you can, you can create a plan around that and you definitely want to manage up. want your supervisor or managers to know a change, but if you don't ever plot it out, 30, 60, 90 days means nothing. It's just the same list every month. I got to, you know, you

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Diana Frazier
and be as custom as you can and as specific as you can.

Jeff Schreifels
Yep. Okay. So let's talk about development directors and executive directors and what their priorities should be this year. So what would you say is the number one priority you see?

Diana Frazier
I think of the leadership, whether it's a direct manager or even above that, their role is to support the whole process, to support the fundraisers. So there's a lot that they need to do around removing any barriers that the fundraisers are encountering. And that can be looking at the whole donor pipeline, from acquisition through direct response, including monthly or sustainer programs, through to relationship management in major and even plan giving.

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Diana Frazier
Their job is to keep their eye on that pipeline and to remove the things that just kind of muck it up. know, Jeff, where we see things get really muddy is when there's confusion between strategy and departments, right? Things like membership or sustainable programs or even events, they're strategies. And they turn into these standalone departments that it functionally creates a silo and now everyone's tussling for ownership of the donor. It's my donor, no, it's my donor.

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, yeah.

That's right.

Yeah.

Diana Frazier
or credit

and all that crazy things, or where major gifts and plan giving don't work together, but they kind of compete to who owns the donor. So that's the number one thing I think a manager does, a supervisor does, a leader does, is look at the barriers. And now that's just like getting stuff done, but what about donor offers? I think that's a huge barrier. ⁓ Fundraisers need clearly identified opportunities to bring to a donor

Jeff Schreifels
Yes.

Yes.

Diana Frazier
that maps to the donor's interest. That you just can't say support the general fund.

Jeff Schreifels
Exactly.

Diana Frazier
And we're not talking about

restricting it. It doesn't have to restrict it, but we have to be able to talk about program and the things at the end, the results of the work that you do in a way that motivates a donor to support.

Jeff Schreifels
Right.

What development directors and executive directors need to understand, because they're always telling us, why aren't we getting more six and seven figure gifts? And then I ask them, do you have six and seven figure offers? ⁓ because a lot of times non-profits haven't been thinking about that. They might be really direct response focused and they're not thinking of, well, what about our projects that are higher level that

Diana Frazier
Exactly.

Jeff Schreifels
They don't think that way. And so having those donor offers, if you don't have big donor offers, you're creating a barrier for a donor to give to their heart's content. You know, some, yeah.

Diana Frazier
Yep.

And along the lines, the supervisor, the leader should know what the funding gaps are, right? Like here's this project, but here's where we are, this is what we need and getting those gaps back to fundraisers so they can bring them to a donor is key. And we're not talking about like figuring out six months after the fact, in as close to real time as you can, always know the gaps. That's a huge part of it. And one other kind of barrier area I see a lot

and this is where leaders can solve things, is around the systems. Just resolve those niggling issues in the CRM that makes things more complicated than they need to be. Solve the problems in gift processing. You really have the authority to do that. Your gift officers don't. I see a tendency to see, to regard it as whining on the part of the gift officers. Yeah, okay, fair, some of it is. But truthfully it's that stuff. just tears people down.

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Diana Frazier
It just breaks them down as maybe a better way, little by little, like, my gosh, I can't get anything done. And when you're in the position to fix those things, fix them.

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, it would be great if all of you directors and executive directors would just sit back for a second and look at your donor pipeline and say, are we making it as easy as possible for donors to give at their level of giving? Are we investing in new donor acquisition properly? Are we investing in plan giving major gifts, our cultivation and then

Diana Frazier
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Jeff Schreifels
You know, another barrier is many non-profits don't have a mid-level program. And so you see a lot of donors who have a lot of capacity giving way below that capacity because they're only getting direct response, ⁓ fundraising appeals, either online or through the mail. And they might be loyal donors. You might see this, we see this in the data where they might be giving, you know,

Diana Frazier
you

Jeff Schreifels
$2,500 every year, the same amount. That shows no one's really reached out to that donor personally to ask them to do more because they don't have a mid-level program. They're stuck there. And we know they're giving a lot more somewhere else. tell me why you, besides, why is it so important now, mid-level? And yeah.

Diana Frazier
Yeah.

Yeah, I really think, I think

it's must have rather than nice to have. And I do want to specify there's mid-level programs. We're not really talking about the direct response part of it, heightened packages and things like that. I think they're helpful to have. We're talking about relationship management. So going to that mid-dollar range you have and begin to create caseloads of donors and have a gift officer work with them. They can work with as many as 600, honestly. It is a way to... ⁓

You know, what happens effectively is they're triaging in a certain sense of it. They're identifying donors that don't want personal engagement. I just talked to a mid-level officer yesterday, no, yeah, yesterday, who had disqualified 26 donors, meaning 26 donors had told them within the last three weeks or so, they just didn't want this level of engagement. And his first response was to kind of be discouraged. And I said, but you're honoring the donor's wishes. First of all, you ask them.

They told you you're going to do what they ask. You're building trust. Who knows what that will result in because you're going to make that difference for them. You're not going to pursue them. And now your organization isn't spending time and money on something that the donor doesn't want. Now the positive, that is a positive. I don't want to make it as negative. The other side of that is you're finding the donors that do want engagement. And over time, more and more of your donors say yes to engagement. And from that group,

the giving starts increase. And from that group, you can move as many as 3%. That's a good target every year to move from mid to major gifts. Now think about that from the major gift side of things. They're coming in pre-qualified. They're already engaged. You already know the donor's interest. They've already increasing their giving. And now you're the mid-level officers moving into major gifts for somebody who can really drill down more. Because if you're working with 600 donors,

There's only so much you can do in a week, but if you're a major gift officer and you have under 50, you have more time for that. So that's part of the essential piece. That's Jeff, you mentioned we look at the files and we see the donor giving 2500 year over year over year over year. It's probably because they've never actually been asked to consider increasing their support. And we have seen organizations realize five to 15 % increase year over year in the mid-level range. And

If you put back in the donors who gave the major gifts, but we moved them. I just last year, I saw one at 26 % year over year increase Must have, not nice to have.

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

This is, this is the most I

know, or, know, mid-level programs started around 12, 13 years ago, really. And it was kind of unknown. In fact, I think you and I were the one of the first to go out and do a webinar or a seminar presentation at DMA long time ago. And people were packed in there because this was something new. And it was like, this would be nice to have, you know, and now it's a must.

Diana Frazier
Yeah. Yep.

Yep.

Jeff Schreifels
You know, now you see all kinds of things on mid level, you know, so this is a must have for now. ⁓

Diana Frazier
The other

gets related to it. You'd be amazed at how much planned giving gets uncovered. Either the donor now reveals that the organization's in their estate plans or they say they're interested. And they're willing to say that to this person who's reached out several times and they're starting to get to know.

Jeff Schreifels
Yes.

Yep, good. Okay, and now on this next one, I know you have a lot of energy around this. This is around DAFs. Why does every non-profit need a strategy around DAFs this year?

Diana Frazier
Well, for starters, the last report we have is through 2024 giving. takes a while for us to get this data all together. Not us personally, but we get it from another source. Nearly 23 % of all individual giving is now coming through DAS, whether it's a large gift a couple of times a year or monthly. And that's up 11 % over the prior year. So 23 % of all individual giving. This has huge implications.

Jeff Schreifels
So.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

That's huge.

Diana Frazier
It's almost a quarter of your giving and you have to pay attention to not only the donor part of it, but there's back office stuff. use of DAFs just is like, know, the fact that it's 23 % is huge. Hear this stat, DAFs now account for 3.5 million accounts, 3.5 million DAF accounts out there. So that's a lot of donors.

Jeff Schreifels
So how do they do that?

Yes.

Diana Frazier
And these are probably your most philanthropic donors, aside from the private family foundations and things like that. The amount they put in DAFs in 2024, how much they put in them was 89.6 billion added to a DAF. And they gave out of DAFs in 2024, 69 billion and a little bit more. So more went into the DAF than came out. And then this is this last stat, there's a reason for all these statistics. The amount remaining in accounts.

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, right, right.

Diana Frazier
in DAF accounts not yet directed to charities at the end of 2024 was $326.45 billion.

Jeff Schreifels
Wow. So these are people that have already given the gifts. They're just sitting there waiting to be dispersed. That's what's happened.

Diana Frazier
Yep.

Yeah. So the point here is there's a lot of opportunity. That's why I gave you the data to get you to get your head in the space to realize, wait a minute, I can't ignore this. ⁓ If there's, if there's over 3 million DAF accounts, your organization is receiving gifts that way. You statistically have to, but the most important thing here really is have conversations with donors. These are philanthropic people.

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Diana Frazier
Ask them those big questions. What do they want to achieve through their donor advice fund? What keeps them up at night? What changes do they want to see? What is it about your organization, what you're doing that resonates with them? These are philanthropic people. Have these conversations as early in the year as you can, and even ask questions like, when do you want to hear from me specifically so that your family can make a decision? How do you want to hear?

What method do you want me to use? Do you want me to email, text you? Do you want to report? What do you want? So I can help you and your family, because often, dafs have a family component to it, can realize the most joy out of your giving, because I'm partnering with you.

Jeff Schreifels
right.

This should be part of the strategic plan you're creating for every donor. You know how not only do we have a plan, a goal, a preference for communication, but how do they like to give? Knowing that, so that everyone, you've had the conversation, do you give through a DAF? That should be like a natural thing because it really does come, as you said, down to the relationship.

whether they give cash out of their checking account or a DAF, it's still the same thing. You're building that relationship and they're giving those gifts. It doesn't matter if it's checking account or a DAF, right?

Diana Frazier
Yeah, at the end of the day, it's still a person behind that or a family behind that making that decision. And they have interests and things they care about. And how does that relate to your organization is what you need to

Jeff Schreifels
And if you think about it, one of the nice things about knowing that they give out of a DAF, if something's happening financially today, those gifts have already been given. So they don't have to worry about, well, I'm not feeling really good about my business right now. ⁓ wait, I do have a DAF that's already got a money in it. I can use that to give.

Diana Frazier
Yeah, yeah.

So they're putting the money in the DAF when it's convenient or tax efficient for them to do it. And then they direct it over time. So it could be a large inheritance. It could be a bonus. It could be gradually building it up over time. So there's a significant portion. That's all the tax side of it. That's already happened. Now it's down to where do I want to get this?

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Diana Frazier
where do I want to invest? And that's got to align your mission with what they care about. That's what you're looking for. I often talk about that the Venn diagram, right? Where does that all come together?

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. The final thing I want us to have everyone focus on this year is around AI. So it's on everyone's mind. But at this moment in time, what do you feel is the best way for non-profits and frontline fundraisers to use it properly and effectively at this point?

Diana Frazier
Yeah, and I'd like that you use the word effective because there are efficiencies that come with it. But any time you're looking at a new process, you want to see if it's going to help you be effective over time. And I think as a relationship manager, there are things you can do with with AI tools to help you with your workflow or building strategy or writing. Now, if you're thinking bigger picture, your CRM, look for tools that work within your CRM. Now, this is not the manager, the gift officer's role. This is the leadership.

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Right.

Diana Frazier
Look

for things that work within your CRM rather than requiring exports to get what you need and creating yet another repository of information that's not integrated back and gets, you know, everyone's hot on it for 90 days and then it's like, you forget it because you have to go somewhere else for it. So ask what native AI tools your CRM has that you could use if it's available. Some of the things they do, and you can do this.

by gathering your own information and throw it into Claude or chat gpt too. But if it could be done within the CRM, it can pull together information into effectively a donor profile from your phone and meeting notes that are in the system, the giving history that's in the system, capacity scoring if it's in the system. ⁓ If you're tracking volunteering, event attendance, email open, social media engagement, some are importing that back into their CRM. If that's all there, you can get through an AI tool, an incredible profile.

Jeff Schreifels
Yes.

Diana Frazier
And that's gonna help you think strategically and holistically about the donor. That's the purpose of something like that. ⁓ If you have to cobble that together, that does take quite a bit of time. So if there is a tool to do it, that's fantastic. If you don't have a tool, you can still grab some of your more recent notes and some information, pop it. Not putting any personal information, donor name, address, email, none of that. Never put that into ⁓ an AI tool. You can pop those other things in there and say, the prompt, summarize this with key,

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Diana Frazier
and identify some key strategies. And it's going to give you some things to do. So that's a fairly simple thing. There are some examples that are out there that you may not even be aware of. Salesforce has something called workforce that does that very same thing. Maybe your organization is thinking of exploring it and you need to have a seat at the table in the relationship management side. Don't leave this just for direct response. AI can be used with what you're doing. Blackbaud CRM products are inclusive.

increasingly making available something called Chat for Blackbaud AI that gives AI assistance to draft content, generate ideas, provide actionable insights. So Blackbaud got that going. And then if you use donor search, and that's integrated into your CRM, explore what they call the enhanced core. ⁓ Enhanced core, that's not easy to say. And they give you an MLR score, which is most likely to respond. And again, look at all these data points.

Jeff Schreifels
Yep.

Mm.

Diana Frazier
But I go back to the point, if you're in leadership, think through to the end what you want to have happen. And as much as you can pull this together into your CRM, the more likely your frontline fundraisers are going to use it, because it's built in and it's easy. But apart from that, you can use chat GPT, Claude, to summarize your meeting notes. Like me, when I come back, when I keep coming back from a donor meeting, I just almost vomit it all out.

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Diana Frazier
If I had that at the time, I could have grabbed that, put that into a claude with a prompt and said, summarize this and give me some key next steps from my notes. Right. That then can go into your crm Pop that in. So that kind of thing it can help you draft emails, draft letters. And over time, you'll get better at it and you'll you'll you'll learn the prompts and you'll you'll just do a better job. That's it's it's to help you be more effective. I don't think you need to be afraid of it.

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

That's right.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Diana Frazier
I don't

think it's gonna kick you out of a job anytime soon or ever. ⁓ Fundraising at the end of the day is person to person and ⁓ ChatGPT is not gonna sit down for coffee. ⁓

Jeff Schreifels
Mm-mm.

Exactly.

Exactly. So this has been good stuff. We've put out six major places to focus, ways to focus in 2026. So we'll just reiterate, we'll go through them really briefly. First is make sure you have a plan for every one of your donors. If you're a major gift officer and you have a plan by tier, if you're a mid-level officer. And then related to that, you need to have the right structure. So within that plan,

You have your tiered A, B, and C. You've got a revenue goal for every donor. It's cash flowed. As Diana said, you have an accountability partner, someone that's meeting with you regularly to say, essentially, did you do what you said you're going to do? And what are you going to do next time for these donors? ⁓ And then for development directors and executive directors,

big thing to focus on this year is looking at your donor pipeline and trying to remove any barrier that prevents donors from moving up and giving to their hearts content. I mean, we do so many things, not intentionally, but over time, we just create things that internally seems good, but to a donor, you're stopping them from giving. And then related to that, one of those

could be mid-level. You need to have a mid-level program this year. If you don't have one, this is a must strategy. It's not just something nice to have. And then as Diana so ⁓ rightly put and has a lot of great energy around is around DAFs. Making sure you think about there is a lot of money out there and you need to have conversations with every one of your donors that you're talking to on an individual.

basis, if they have a DAF, if they give through a DAF, that will help you understand how to ask properly ⁓ for the gifts. And then AI. AI is here. It's not going to go away. It's going to continue to be integrated into our lives. And we need to use it in a smart way ⁓ as a good assistant, but also as a way to get more information.

good information on what's going on with your donors and ⁓ to effectively steward and cultivate those donors. So don't be afraid of it. So those are the six things. Whoo, we covered a lot.

Diana Frazier
We did.

Jeff Schreifels
Anything else you want to share about what someone would want to focus on? Maybe a softer side of things?

Diana Frazier
No, I do think it's important to practice gratitude when you're in fundraising. Not only gratitude and thanking your donors, but gratitude for what your organization is doing. When I was at a university, i had to, where our office was located, I had to literally get up and cross over two streets, pretty major traffic. And one light wasn't the best light in the world, let me tell you. ⁓ And get over to campus and go to a soccer game and go to what we call the chat.

Jeff Schreifels
Totally green.

Diana Frazier
which was just a snack area, you know, kind of bar. Go into the library, ⁓ drop into a classroom from time to time with permission. When the seniors did their presentations in the spring, I spent two days going to senior presentations to recharge myself, to remember why I'm doing what I'm doing in that environment. So depending upon what you're working in, get out to program, be present, engage where you can, because it's going to fill you up.

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Diana Frazier
And that gratitude is going to spill back over to your donors and to anybody else in your life.

Jeff Schreifels
It sure will. That's great advice. Well, thank you for joining us everyone. And hey, we'll see you next time.