Creating change in your organization can feel like a daunting task. Where should you start? How do you stay on track?
In this podcast episode, Richard and Jeff interview a special guest, Ruth Ann Dailey, the Senior Vice President of Philanthropy at the American Cancer Society. Ruth Ann played a critical role in championing change in how ACS approached major gifts. And the result? They were able to double their major and mid-level revenue in just three years. Join us for an inspiring conversation about how ACS did this and how you can advocate for and influence change in your organization.
If you want to champion a change in your organization’s fundraising strategy, the first step we recommend is to get started with our free donor file assessment. There is no obligation to work with us when you do this assessment, but it will give you actionable information about the health of your donor file, problem areas, and your potential revenue over the next 5 years. Get started on the Free Donor Assessment here.
Show Highlights: In this episode, you’ll learn about…
- The problems ACS identified that made them realize they needed to change, and how they found the right approach
- The process for developing leadership buy-in, as well as advice for someone at an organization where leadership is not supportive of major gifts or changing strategy
- How ACS shifted their fundraising culture to create a disciplined approach to mid and major gift fundraising to build meaningful donor relationships
- How any size non-profit can learn from ACS and achieve a greater impact for their organization
- Ruth Ann’s advice to other leaders who are looking to champion change within their organization
Veritus Group is passionate about partnering with you and your organization throughout your fundraising journey. We believe that the key to transformative fundraising is a disciplined system and structure, trusted accountability, persistence, and a bit of fun. We specialize in mid-level fundraising, major gifts, planned giving, developing compelling donor offers, and strategic leadership and organizational development. You can learn more about we can partner with you at www.VeritusGroup.com.
Additional Resources:
- Webinar Recording: How ACS Doubled Their Major and Mid-Level Revenue
- Leadership Is About Influencing Culture
- Use Major Gifts to Bring Your Organization Together
- What Can You Change?
Read the Full Transcript Here:
Jeff Schreifels
Creating change in your organization can feel like a daunting task. Where should you start? How do you stay on track? In today’s podcast, Richard and I have the pleasure of interviewing Ruth Ann Dailey, the Senior Vice President of Philanthropy, at American Cancer Society. Ruth Ann played a critical role in championing change in how ACS approached major gifts. And the result, they were able to double their major and mid-level revenue in just three years. Join us for an inspiring conversation about how ACS did this, and how you can advocate and influence change in your organization.
Recorded
Welcome to the Nothing But Major Gifts podcast from Veritus Group featuring Richard Perry and Jeff Schreifels. Twice a month, we bring you the latest and best thinking about major gift fundraising so you can develop authentic relationships with your major donors. Here are your hosts, Richard and Jeff.
Jeff Schreifels
Welcome to the podcast today. I’m Jeff Schreifels. Richard and I are really excited for this episode, because we’ve got a special guest with us today. We’ve been working with the American Cancer Society for the last three years. And they’ve done an incredible job of developing buy-in, staying committed to our system and structure, and they’re seeing tremendous results because of it.
Richard Perry
That’s right, Jeff, I tell you just earlier this year, we heard that they had doubled, doubled, let me say it again, doubled their major gift and mid-level revenue over the last three years. I mean, it’s unbelievable.
Jeff Schreifels
I know it is. And a major factor in that success is that they had a champion who helped to make the case for this change, and was the force along with others to help ACS start shifting their thinking as it related to mid and major gift fundraising. And that champion was Ruth Ann Dailey, their Senior Vice President of Philanthropy and our guest today. We’re so glad you’re here with us Ruth Ann. Welcome.
Ruth Ann Dailey
Well, thank you. Thank you for having me today.
Jeff Schreifels
Of course, we’re excited about this. Now, if you want to hear the whole story about how ACS doubled their major and mid-level revenue in just the last three years, head over to the show notes after you hear the podcast, where you’ll see a link to an interview I did with Ruth Ann to talk about this process. But today, we’re going to focus on how ACS realized they needed to change and how they found the right approach. So Ruth Ann, let’s start by having you share what was the problem you’re trying to solve? And how did you realize you needed a partner to solve it?
Ruth Ann Dailey
Yeah, well, but candidly, I think that the challenge we have is what a lot of organizations, non-profit organizations have faced, and that’s the desire to diversify our portfolio. We had a really heavy reliance on peer to peer fundraising, that event revenue, and we still have, you know, a healthy portfolio of event fundraising, but we knew that we needed to have a balanced portfolio where we also had corporate as, as a larger piece of our fundraising, but major gifts. And, and I’ve been, you know, I’ve been in fundraising in a variety of roles for over 20 years, and I spent, you know, a good 10 years of my career doing major gift fundraising where, you know, you just look for rich people, like, you know, that, that was pretty much it, and we were just really never able to crack the code. You know, we would, you know, occasionally you’d have, you know, a really great gift. It could be a game changer, but it wasn’t sustainable. We couldn’t see consistent year over year growth. We often struggled with us, quote unquote, owning or managing the same donor. And we looked at other organizations, particularly health systems and university, it’s and we knew like this, this should be able to be done, we have a huge, huge donor file, like what is it that we’re not doing that we need to be doing differently? So we decided we really wanted to, you know, double down on this and, you know, figure out how to do this well, and for us, that really meant kind of doing a level set from a training perspective. And that’s kind of how we came to know Veritus.
Richard Perry
So okay, so you’ve identified the problem which you’ve articulated really well now, so like, can you just talk about the process Ruth Ann? Like, what’s the process for moving forward? How did you do that?
Ruth Ann Dailey
Yeah, I mean, so at the time back in 2018, I was overseeing specific fundraising, major gift fundraising, corporate fundraising and distinguished event fundraising for the northeast part of the country for major gifts. And at that time, major gifts was this not the largest component of that, that area. And we had people doing it in all different ways, people around the country doing it in all different ways. And we decided we really wanted to just get a training partner so that we were all talking the same language, using the same process, had the same vernacular. And we knew that it would be really hard to scale on a nationwide basis, but that we could, our Northeast part of the country, about a half a dozen folks across the nation across the Northeast working on this, we can pilot this. And so that what we decided to do.
Ruth Ann Dailey
And we were committed this group to, to execute the Veritus model, with fidelity, really holding ourselves accountable to this process. And it’s, that’s the thing like this is a very disciplined approach. And if you’re not going to completely and totally buy in, it’s not going to be successful. So this was a good way for us to test this. And, and I will tell you, the other thing that was critical is that we had the right people in the northeast. We had people that were fully committed, senior director that was, you know, really experienced, knew the value that this process could bring fully bought into Veritus and had credibility with her colleagues around the country. I think that made a big difference. And I think that year that we did it in the northeast, we, I mean, honestly, we might have even doubled it that year, I think we might have gone from four to 8 million, something like that. It was really, it was significant. It was very significant.
Ruth Ann Dailey
And so we were able to then turn around in 2019, and say to our colleagues, our peers in the other parts of the country, there were six regions, you know, this is what we did. This is how it worked. You know, let’s all buy into this. Let’s everybody get on board. And I would say the game changer, there was the data that Jeff, and your team did an assessment where you really took a deep dive and the thing about our fundraising data is that, you know, we’ve pretty much been able to, you know, raise the same every year, but we were losing a lot of donors. We’re not retaining them. And but it was kind of masked by the fact that our year over year data or year over year, fundraising was pretty consistent. Yeah. So I would say that was the key.
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah. So, Richard, this is interesting, because here Ruth Ann, she’s, you know, the whole ACS is, I mean, it’s a massive organization. She took her one little part of the northeast at the time, not too little, but it’s well, no, but it’s, but you know, compared to the whole, right, right, says, Okay, let’s do the training first. So they actually went to help the MGOs could do with the training, and then do the pilot to really figure out okay, does this really work? And so, we went through the whole thing, you know, all the stuff that we do with The Veritus Way we, you know, we we made sure we had qualified donors, we, you know, put revenue goals for every donor, they hadn’t goals they had, they had strategic plans, we teared the donors, and then we met every week with the major gift officers to ensure that they were possible. So we proved proved it. And then Ruth Ann have had all she needed to go out to the rest of the regions in the country. And I remember Ruth Ann when we did that data assessment, what a game changer that really was, because, you know, before everyone kind of knew that, there was some problems around retention. But when you saw it over the last four years, and you saw like maybe 60 to 80% value attrition going on weigh, it was really stark, and everyone was like, wow.
Ruth Ann Dailey
Yeah. And it was good because we looked at it across the organization, and then you looked at it by region. And I think folks kind of thought, yeah, maybe that’s nationwide, but I don’t know, I think our region does a pretty good job. And you look pretty consistently poor, I would say. And we knew we needed to make some changes. I mean, it was closing in on an 80% average of donors that were leaving year over year, and when you looked at the potential, if we kept that donor from, you know, two years down the road, three years down the road, and so and we do we get the proof of concept in the Northeast, and you’re right, Richard, it’s not a small area, it’s definitely was the largest area doing major gifts at the time. And so it was good to, you know, there was a lot of credibility that came with us being able to be successful there. But it doesn’t come without, you know, being completely bought into the process. So, so I think what people, you know, when you look at some of the challenges, people would say, Okay, we’re gonna do this, but we’re also going to have some of the major gifts staff, you know, work some events, or they’re also going to make calls for, you know, different recruitment efforts. And, you know, because that’s how we’ve always operated here, you know, hands on deck, and we’re, you know, in this event season, and this is what we have to do, and it’s you really have to carve out this role is something that is exclusively focused on building relationships with these key folks that are in your portfolio, that’s it.
Richard Perry
Yeah, and you bring up a topic that’s, that’s really interesting to me, and you and I were talking about it earlier, it’s this whole business of having to shed the old, like, move away from the old paradigm, and adapt or adopt some new thinking and new ways of doing things. It’s very hard for people to do I mean, how did you develop leadership buy-in, in that kind of comment in that kind of context?
Ruth Ann Dailey
Yeah. I think proof of concept, being able to say, you know, this is, this is what worked, this is how we did it. I think building a lot of the stewardship, a lot of the best practices that we use with donors, I used with my peers, and my colleagues and I really managed up. Really worked hard to, you know, consistently share what the results were anecdotally be able to turn and share different examples. I mean, there was an example of a specific donor that had been just in the mid-level space giving in the Northeast for probably 22 or 23 years, like $2,500 a month, $3,500 a year, $2,500 a year, $3,500 a year, you know, just every year between two to $4,000. And whenever no one ever called him, no one ever called had any conversation and received acknowledgement, but that was it. So we, we start this process of having, you know, the mid-level person reach out, and we come to learn that, you know, he gives that amount of money to maybe a dozen charities every year and it just made $100 million gift to another organization. And you know, we ended up connecting with him and, you know, immediately made a $50,000 gift, then did a pledge, a six-figure pledge to our Hope Lodge. Like there are these gems within our world we never made a connection with, and so in that we’re losing year over year, because we’re not talking to them.
Ruth Ann Dailey
So you just share those, I would share those stories and continue to manage up and talk about it and ask what are your challenges? What are your concerns, you know, how can we, what can we do to make you feel more comfortable with this or, and you know what, it’s not perfect, like you’re talking about an organization, we’ve lived off of transactional fundraising, and really, really successfully, right, like, really successfully and the world has changed. Certainly post-pandemic, but pre-pandemic I mean, we knew we had about a 10 year period where we were really focused on what we were going to do to to diversify our portfolio and we just weren’t ready to fully pull the trigger and buy into this and it’s leadership, having confidence that this can be done, that this can be done successfully.
Ruth Ann Dailey
And there’s still, you know, we still face challenges with folks who, you know, aren’t fully on board or want to do a shortcut for the process or want to, you know, build the portfolio a specific way. And I would say we are extremely vigilant and in, in working to keep folks accountable to this, I would say, we really celebrate successes, so that we can point to how this can work. Listen, and really, I have worked hard at this, like hearing feedback. And really processing that and responding to it in a way that gives people a comfort level to what we’re doing helps people see why this can work why, and having difficult conversations. And it’s, I mean, when I think about us, even a year ago or two years ago, like just the language, the way we talk about donors, the way that we talk about relationships, it’s just, it’s shifted, it’s different.
Richard Perry
Well, that’s good.
Ruth Ann Dailey
It is, it’s exciting. I mean, it’s, I feel like, I mean, I’m a fundraiser, so I feel like I’m always worried, you know, but I feel like we we are, we are really an organization that is shifting our culture. And it’s totally leadership driven. I think our we have a new CEO who started last June, who comes from a space that had a really strong major gift program completely supports this effort and knows the value to it.
Ruth Ann Dailey
I would also say the game changer are the people on our team. I have been so fortunate that the people that I have worked with in this space are so talented and so smart. And you know, when you bring people on, you’re already doing this, you’re not convincing them, because this is what we’re doing. Know that, you know, so as you’re growing the team, and you’re building what you’re doing, and you’re seeing that success, but you know, it started in 2018. It doesn’t happen overnight, it’s a long process, and you have to be committed to it. And you’re gonna have some missteps and things that, you know, you could do better or differently. But it works. If you hold fidelity to the process, if you hold yourself accountable. If you are a partner with your coach from Veritus, who’s talking you through this process, if you have a great relationship with that coach from a leadership level, so you can address and work on any challenges, but you have to be all in.
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah. So I am sure there are many major gift officers, some development directors, VPs of major gifts, who are all thinking, “Gosh, I know we need to change. But our leadership is just not supportive, like the CEO or Executive Director. They just don’t want to change major gifts, or change any kind of strategy. They just like the status quo. They’re afraid to invest.” What would you say to those people who are listening? How to get past that?
Ruth Ann Dailey
Yeah, I am a big fan of the pilot. I think it’s really, I think it is different. And I think it’s, I think it is almost unreasonable to think that you can just have a scale change, massive change in an organization. Without testing, I think that it was, it was a really good process for us to be able to do this pilot in the Northeast, and point to where, you know, because also, we didn’t have total compliance there, either. Right? So we saw where we had, you know, staff that were completely on board, what the difference was, you know, we were able to point to all of those things and be even stronger when we look to roll this out across the country. And so when you have that proof of concept that you can point to this team of people, and you can point to their success, and you can provide anecdotal donor stories, but then you can provide the data.
Richard Perry
Yeah. It seems like the pilot is kind of like you’re biting off a little tiny chunk that everybody can say, well, you know, if it works, then that’s going to be good, but if it doesn’t, it’s not going to hurt us. And so it’s a lot less risk in everybody’s head, right?
Ruth Ann Dailey
That’s exactly it. Yeah, you’re spot on that and I’m a fan of that just in a lot of things. I think that’s a great way for us to approach, not even big change, but things that you want to, that you see others doing, that you know are successful in like organizations and every organization is unique. So you know, you have to work through those things.
Richard Perry
Yeah, it seems like what you’re saying is is, I mean, to kind of put it into a nutshell is like, get a good concept that’s structured and follow it. Do a pilot to put that into, so that others can actually see if it works or doesn’t work. And in this case, it worked. And then bring other people on board with you, like allies. Like, for instance, how did you identify and bring partnering with allies within ACS to help implement this strategy? I mean, what, how did that strategy look like?
Ruth Ann Dailey
Well, there were a couple of things with that one is, so I oversaw, you know, specific, major gift corporate and distinguished event fundraising for the Northeast, but I had five other peers in all those other regions. And we met monthly. And so I would, you know, every month share how it was going and, you know, talk about what we were doing, and share the training that we did, and see if they would just would want to participate in that part. And then, you know, when we were planning for 2019, I said, you know, went with a plan and shared what our results were and talked about what it could be like, if we all got on board with this. And then from a managing-up perspective, first of all, I just, I believe in over-communicating, like I do, I over-communicate, like, this is what we’re doing, look at what this staff person did look at what that staff person did, oh, and to our EVP or CEO at the time, you know, oh, this is a great example of what we talked about what mid-level fundraising should look like, Oh, here’s a great example of how we could, you know, cultivate a donor and have them increase their support, and just continually kind of advancing all of those things.
Jeff Schreifels
So, what kind of give us like, what was the culture? Like, before you went through this whole process? And then, after you, you started this whole new approach? What was the major cultural shift that went on?
Ruth Ann Dailey
Yeah, I mean, we were a transactional fundraising organization, and for a number of years. And I think we talked a lot about being donor-centric. But we were super protective of donors in event spaces. We would eliminate the availability to interact with donors that were giving at events or a CEO. And I’ve used this example, actually, like, for years, we had a really, and have, really a successful major gift, distinguished events. And companies are donating, you know, $250,000, $50,000, great relationships with their CEOs. We have staff that hav built strong, interpersonal, you know, great, great connections. And when the major gift person, my major gift person who came on board, and really was the person, the architect for making this change, asked about talking to these CEOs, you know, I was like, oh, no, you can’t do that. Their company’s giving so much. I don’t want to risk that. And that, when you talk about culture, that was the culture. That was it.
Ruth Ann Dailey
And really, it took, you know, going through this process, seeing how crazily short-sighted I was, and you know, in some of these CEOs had personal family foundations, were making donations, large donations to other organizations, like, wow, that why would they want to be approached and have this discussion? And of course, now we’re doing that, you know, now we see it and it’s happening, but that was just the way we operated. And I know that sounds crazy now to say it now, it sounds crazy, right? But, but it was, and I lived it and I believed it and thought like yeah, we have to go look for rich people because we have these people involved here, making decisions for them right now. Not asking them, you know, and so that would be the big difference is that we’re an organization now that wants to have a 360 degree relationship with our donors. That wants to, meets them where they’re at and isn’t saying, oh, here are your, you know, Joe Smith and you donate to ACS through event and you’re Bob Smith and you donate to ACS through, you know, this, you know, gala or run or whatever it is. And now you can do that and still make another personal gift and contribution. And so that’s I would say is the biggest difference is that we’ve really worked hard to take down some of those silos that we built. And candidly, it’s a work in process, you know, it’s still going on.
Richard Perry
Now, you are the champion to all that. I mean, that was kind of your role, to champion the whole thing to go along. But like, what do you think helped you be successful in advocating for this new approach?
Ruth Ann Dailey
Yeah, the I mean, the people that surrounded me, there’s no question. And I’ve been at ACS a long time. And I’ll people will say, Oh, why did you end up staying at ACS? And it is because of the people, the team that we’ve built. And particularly on the major gift side, just really strong, smart. Over the course of the last five years, we’ve recruited numerous people with a lot of experience in this space that have seen this process work. Some folks we’ve hired, had done worked with Veritus in other jobs. You know, it’s helpful. Yeah. So you, you bring on people that have done this successfully. And then where you have people that are at ACS that have made maybe come from the event space, they go through this process, and they buy into it, you know, they see a see the results.
Ruth Ann Dailey
And so I think, what helped me to be the champion, it was surrounding myself with and bringing to ACS really strong, smart, talented, major gift folks. And I would say the other thing is just really having confidence in this model. Really feeling strongly. And I will say passionately, that this was what we had to do. I still believe that we have barely touched the surface of what the potential is here, and that the discipline, the model of, you know, donor-centric stewardship and outreach is this, and what we should be doing across the organization, not just, this isn’t just about major gifts, this is how we treat donors to ACS.
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah. Okay, well, all this process and all this change, what have been the results of all of this?
Ruth Ann Dailey
Yeah, I mean, that is that is the fun part, right. So I was just thinking about this, because I’ve been looking at these numbers. So in 2018, we were raising $27 million in major gift fundraising. And this last year, we did 55 million. Wow. And so now, candidly, I think, you know, the pandemic for us, I mean, it was, you know, it was devastating. I mean, we couldn’t do any events at all. So for us, I’m so grateful that we put this process in place in 2019. So then we had a team of major gift officers, who had portfolios and donors, and we could reach out to them and, you know, share our story. For the first time in the history of the American history, we were not able to fund our research budget. So we were able to raise an additional $30 million in 2020 by really working this process across the organization and leaning on some of our, you know, best friends and donors in our videos. So I think that was amazing.
Ruth Ann Dailey
Another thing is, I actually just pulled some retention, staff retention information, because I’ve been thinking about this and we have just, you know, really, really strong retention rates. So our, our staff turnover in 2021 was just 6%. And that’s really good in an organization like ACS, you know, and it’s, I don’t have the 2020 numbers in front of me, but I did I did pull the ’21. So I can even get that after if you want. But so I think that’s been a great result of some of this work, too.
Richard Perry
So what advice would you give to other leaders who are wanting to champion change in their organization? I mean, how would you boil it down, Ruth Ann?
Ruth Ann Dailey
Where you have the opportunity to pilot a proven concept, you should. You should tackle that, I think you should identify and steward your internal constituents, create buy-in for this program with those colleagues and peers. I think you should be managing up, sharing not just at the end of the pilot, throughout the pilot, anecdotally what some of the results are, some of the wins, some of the examples of what you want to be accomplishing.
Ruth Ann Dailey
I think that you should also be surrounding yourself with folks that are committed to this as well as you hire in your on your team, I think that makes a really big difference. And if you can feel really confident, I feel really confident in this process and this opportunity. And, you know, I just feel extremely passionate that this is an opportunity we must execute on.
Richard Perry
Boy that’s good stuff.
Jeff Schreifels
It is. Ruth Ann, thanks so much for all of your insight and tips to help people develop their skills in this area. Well, before we wrap up this conversation, I want to make sure you all know how to get started with getting the tools and resources you need to champion a change in your fundraising strategy. The first step we recommend is to do what Ruth Ann did, and that was to start our free donor file assessment process. There’s no obligation to work with us when you do this assessment, but it will give you incredible information about the health of your donor file problem areas, and give you a realistic picture of how many fundraisers you need and your potential revenue over the next five years. A great tool. You can start this process by heading to our website under Resources to find the free donor file assessment or check out the show notes for the direct link.
Richard Perry
Yeah, that file assessment, the thing that I really like about it, it’s not a consultant’s opinion about stuff, you know, which you can hardly believe half the time. It’s basically the truth. It’s the data, it’s the data-driven facts about your organization. Well, thank you so much Ruth Ann for sharing your wisdom and insight with us today. We really appreciate it.
Ruth Ann Dailey
Thank you. We have you know appreciated and been grateful for the partnership and the evolution of our program, and I enjoyed the conversation.
Jeff Schreifels
And thank you for listening today, and we’ll see you next time.
Richard Perry
See you next time.
Recorded
Thank you for joining us for the Nothing But Major Gifts podcast from Veritus Group, Richard and Jeff also write an ongoing blog that you can subscribe to for free at VeritusGroup.com. Please join us again next time.