How to Meaningfully Transition a Donor Relationship

Jeff Schreifels

When you have a healthy donor pipeline, there will come a time when you need to transition a donor from mid-level to a major gift officer’s portfolio, from a major gift officer to a planned giving department, or even from a higher level of giving back into mid-level. It can be hard to know what to say, or even know how much to communicate about it when a donor is going to be managed by someone else. If you’re looking for a seamless process for any of the above scenarios, stay tuned. For this podcast episode, I’ve invited Kara, Diana, and Karen to take over the podcast and share some strategies on how to gracefully transition your donor relationships in a way that feels honoring and respectful to the donor.

 

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.

 

Karen Kendrick

Welcome to today’s podcast. I’m Karen Kendrick and today I’ve got Diana Frazier and Kara Ansotegui. And we’re doing a little podcast takeover. One of the fundamental philosophies we have is that your internal systems and structures should allow the donor to give to their potential and land in the right place within your donor pipeline. There are a lot of factors that make this happen. But one of them is setting protocols for how to transition donor relationships. So I’m excited to have Diana and Kara here to share their tips and tricks on how to meaningfully transition a donor in a way that honors the donor and maintains the relationship. But first, Diane and Kara, why don’t you each give a quick introduction and just share how many years you’ve been doing mid-level work.

 

Diana Frazier

Boy, that’s a good one, Karen. First, I love that it’s a takeover of the podcast. That’s kind of fun. So I’m Diana and before I joined Veritus, I spent 32 years in the non-profit sector as a frontline fundraiser, including a major gift officer. And when I was last in the university environment, I helped set up our first mid-level program there, out of the Annual Giving Program. But in terms of working with Veritus in the last 10 years, I don’t even know how many mid-level programs I’ve been involved with to help set up and maintain, ongoing. But I’m involved with three right now.

 

Karen Kendrick

Fantastic. Kara.

 

Kara Ansotegui

Yeah. Hi, everyone. I’m Kara Ansotegui, Director of Client Services with Veritus. And I love that we’re doing this podcast today because it is a question I feel like we get, this conversation, we get questions about this, really with our clients, and then a lot whenever we have open webinars. And so I think this is such a great subject for us to be having and discussing. I’ve been with Veritus for just a little under three years. And in the mid-level space for probably about 10 years now. I ran a large national mid-level program for a non-profit and before that had worked with two different organizations in both the mid and major space.

 

Karen Kendrick

Thank you. Great. We’ve got so much expertise in the room. All right. So let’s get started by talking about what kind of transition you may need to develop that protocol around?

 

Diana Frazier

Karen, there’s a couple things to take into account. First, let’s look at from mid to major, and then also into planned giving, because that’s often where the first conversation happens. Mid to major is often about either hitting a giving revenue or level. Maybe it’s a threshold of say $10,000, is the bottom of your major gift portfolio. But whatever that bottom of your major gift portfolio, that kind of becomes a tipping point to really take a step back and think through, “Should this donor be moved?” But there are other things to take into account. If you’re a mid-level officer and you’re talking with a donor and you learn they have a donor advised fund, and you didn’t know that previously, they hadn’t given that way to your organization, so they’re giving under that giving threshold, but there’s potential for greater. Or you found they have a family foundation. Or maybe they want to sell a business, or there’s other wealth indicators that make you think, “Ooh, there might be more possible here with a deeper connection.”

 

Diana Frazier

Just as an example, I worked with a mid-level officer who learned a donor she was connecting with did in fact want to sell a business. And they were interested in the charitable aspect of that. And that can be pretty technical. So it was beyond her skill level in terms of giving advice. Bottom line, the donor has to have their own financial advisor. We don’t mean ever for a staff member to take that role. But she connected the donor with the major gift officer in that region as well as their planned giving team member. And that resulted in a $350,000 gift following the sale.

 

Karen Kendrick

Wow.

 

Diana Frazier

Which is pretty amazing. And it started with her listening to what they said and asking a few questions, and then being able to move forward. So that’s a great example of mid to major, including pulling in planned giving.

 

Karen Kendrick

So basically, just quickly, you provide training for mid-level officers to be really clear on what those indicators are. They have a list, they know how to listen for them, they know what to say when they hear them.

 

Karen Kendrick

Awesome.

 

Diana Frazier

 

 

Diana Frazier

Yep.

 

Diana Frazier

Yeah, there’s a whole list of capacity indicators you want to pay attention to. Do they have multiple houses? Do they travel extensively? You know, that kind of thing. That’s enough to listen and start paying attention to. Now for transferring to planned giving, it’s a little different, because it’s not really about large gifts, right? That’s about how long the donor has been engaged with the organization. Possibly they’ve expressed an interest in legacy. So you might want to pay attention to that. They may have brought up that they’re interested in something more complex, like a charitable gift, annuity, or trust, which are technical instruments. And you definitely need expertise for which. You also want to learn maybe what’s going on in their family life. Maybe they mentioned they don’t have children, or their adult children are well-established, and they don’t have any intention of leaving them much in their estate. Or they’re interested in exploring leaving something to charity in the estate. Those are all things to keep in mind. But that said, I want to say particularly when it comes to planned giving, it’s wise to keep the mid-level or the major gift officer in the relationship as a partner with a planned giving officer because once the PGO is done with the technical and the subject matter expert information they bring to bear and assist the donor through that instrument they might set up, you want to have an ongoing connection for the current giving. And you don’t want that to have fallen completely by the wayside. So in terms of the protocol, maybe the PGO becomes primary and the MLO or MGO becomes secondary. And then when that’s done, you reverse it back, something like that.

 

Kara Ansotegui

Diana? I was just gonna say I think the other thing I would just note in that is that, yes, absolutely, and I think the reverse can happen where when they don’t have a relationship, they both are sending too much stuff to the donor, and/or the same thing to the donor. And so that partnership and that conversation, I think is so important. So that you can make sure you’re really putting the donor at the center of the work you’re doing, whether it’s major gifts or planned giving.

 

Diana Frazier

Yeah, absolutely. Now in some databases, you can have a commingled plan. Like in Raiser’s Edge, you can see both people’s plans. But some systems, like ROY, if you’re using a high-touch plan, they’re actually two separate plans. And you have to click to the other to see what the other person is doing. So, what Kara said, absolutely right. Have a conversation; you don’t want three people sending Thanksgiving cards, right? That’s kind of a typical thing; everyone’s going to do the Holiday Card or Thanksgiving card. So take some time to map that out: who’s going to do what or what you might be able to do together.

 

Diana Frazier

The other side is transitions from major to mid. And this can be tied to a number of things, like the donor does not want much contact, or the donor said their current giving level is where they’re comfortable staying, so there’s no ability to go up. But it can also be things like if the donor has become unresponsive, and you want to be sure that touches are still going out. Or maybe the donor has reduced their giving to the mid-level range since you started working with them two to three or four years ago, so it makes sense to make that transition. What’s important here is the major gift officer needs to have room in their caseload to connect with donors where there’s greater potential of support. So they need to, from just a return on investment for the organization’s investment of time, to put the donor into the right category. And then once a good transition is made, the donor is going to have a better experience at the mid-level with consistent touches than at a major gift level where the donor has fallen down low, and maybe it gets real sporadic. So those are things to think about.

 

Karen Kendrick

Well, I know right now people listening are thinking, “But, but they love me, and I love them. And they’re my favorite donor. And how would I transition them?” And that conversation is to come. We’re going to address all of that shortly. So, Kara, what are some of the common things we see in non-profits that cause this transition to be turbulent? Where it doesn’t flow back and forth, as it should?

 

Kara Ansotegui

Yeah. Well, I will tell you Diana’s last example of moving from major to mid. This is an example of that. Donor moved from mid to major, okay? And found out in that process, well, they only gave that big gift because they sold a business. So now they’re gonna have to move back to mid eventually, because they don’t have that capacity. And this was really one of those, this is why it’s so important to understand the donor, why they made those gifts, before you make those moves, right? Because there might be a reason not to. And we’re going to talk about that in a little bit, not to make that move, and that would have been one of the cases so that the donor would have felt good about that journey. And so I just think there are a lot of situations where it can feel turbulent. That is one example.

 

Kara Ansotegui

I would say another is really when there aren’t protocols in place for a handoff. In this case, typically organizations really don’t have parameters built for how frequently, you know, those handoffs should happen. And we get that question all the time: “When should I do this?” You know, here at Veritus, we review caseloads every six and twelve months to make large transitions. And I want to be really clear. If a donor comes in, in mid-level and makes a really big gift, and we’ve had a connection with them, we would consider them qualified for major gifts, right? We’ve had that two-way connection. We’re going to make that transition immediately if it’s the right thing for the donor. But there’s a lot of donors that kind of move up throughout the year and they get to that point, we really evaluate those at the six and twelve month mark of the fiscal year.

 

Kara Ansotegui

Another issue really can be seen in silos, right? We talk regularly at Veritus, about breaking down silos, excuse me. Similar to the issue above, there’s a lot of times when people have a sense of ownership based on organizational silos, and they think the donor won’t get cared for, you kind of just alluded to this, Karen, if they’re moved to someone else. Or they just don’t know how to make that move in a thoughtful way. You know, this is an opportunity to really serve the donor. And this is what I talk about, when I talk to my clients. This is about making sure the donor always feels that they’re at the center of the conversation and always feel served. For example, saying something to a donor, like, “I’d love to introduce you to my colleague, Judy. She’s local, she’ll be able to serve you and your relationship with our organization in a really meaningful way.” That feels good to a donor, right? It feels thoughtful. It doesn’t mean you have to go away completely. You can still be there occasionally and check in and see how that donor is doing. But really, it’s about serving them. Or another example is, you know, “My role is changed here. But my colleague, Jorge, is going to be able to better assist you and continue serving you in the way that I’ve been serving you.” It’s really about reinforcing that donor, and the value that donor has to your organization. Metrics. Metrics often become another challenge and sticking point.

 

Karen Kendrick

“But like my goal depends on this donor giving to a certain level. So how can I pass them back to other folks?” Yeah.

 

Kara Ansotegui

This one gets me every time. Because I think organizations get so worried about credit, they lose sight of what’s really best for the donor. Diana, that example you just shared a little bit ago, with that $350,000 gift that they moved to major gifts. I know you have a really great example of credit in this situation that made it valuable for both. Would you be willing to share that?

 

Diana Frazier

Sure. In this case, and their database, or CRM supported it, they were able to give 1/3 of the credit to the mid-level officer for that work. So yes, the donor moved, but she did receive from a KPI performance evaluation 1/3 credit for that. Which was incredible. So that’s paying attention. It can happen. It takes extra work on the CRM side to do that, but it can work.

 

Kara Ansotegui

Yeah, and you just mentioned KPIs. I think that’s one of the key things we have to think about here is making sure the organizational KPIs support movement, right? So how are we moving donors from mid-level to major gifts? What is our KPI in moving those donors? And really knowing attrition rates and how mid-level is serving donors and helping with those attrition rates. And then the last point I want to make here and just what can be sticky sometimes is grabbing donors. I’ve seen this so many times. And it really usually goes back to metrics. When the organization isn’t working together, and they’re fighting over that credit, we tend to see people grabbing donors to boost our portfolios. And that is not the right reason to grab, you know, to have a donor in your portfolio. It is to serve the donor.

 

Karen Kendrick

It’s so interesting how we can create a fear-based, grabby, not “sharey” culture so that everyone feels like they can succeed, which then results in donors not being able to flow through the pipeline, being able to give to their capacity, to really engage. And so we basically block them.

 

Kara Ansotegui

To feel joy, right? We are robbing a donor from feeling their full joy if they’re a mid-level donor who has major gift capacity, and they want to help solve a problem and make a difference, and we don’t move them. We are robbing them of an opportunity for greater joy.

 

Karen Kendrick

Beautifully said. Beautifully said. So we don’t just talk about that you should do something. We actually do all the systems and structures so that you can do something. So Diana, talk a little bit more about how we build those protocols for transitions from mid-level to major or planned gifts.

 

Diana Frazier

Sure. And I touched a little bit on this earlier. First, you want to understand the giving ranges for each program, and agree what your tipping points are, what the dollar points are. But, in addition to dollars, because it’s not just about the money, you’ll hear us say that all the time, is there two-way engagement with the donor? Kara mentioned that before. Here’s one, believe it or not, be sure there’s good contact information. It really does not help to move a donor from mid to major if there’s no email or phone. That’s not going to be very helpful for the major gift officer, and if the research person has already tried to find it, and hasn’t, you know, don’t bother at that point. Those are things you want to think about when you’re doing those giving ranges. Be flexible if there’s a strong relationship with the mid-level officer, and the move could truly hurt the organization. Now that’s putting our feelings aside, not like, “Oh, I want to keep the donor,” but what is the relationship like and could that hurt the organization, well the donor’s connection with the organization. And then maybe you can still plan a transition further out. But you know, just be careful there.

 

Diana Frazier

One thing I should have mentioned before, and Kara alluded to it too, make sure this isn’t a one-time event. So this goes to knowing your donor, right? If that big gift was because of a sale of a property or an inheritance or something like that, you want to know that and note that in your CRM, so you know why you’re keeping in mid-level in that case.

 

Diana Frazier

Another thing I think is super helpful is to agree on setting regular meetings to discuss and execute relationship changes. You know, how will the transfer be made? What’s the language? Who’s going to do what? Is the MLO going to introduce a new colleague? Or if there isn’t as strong a bond but some maybe the MGO works as a… “I know my colleague, Colette, was reaching out to you. I’m going to step in.” What you want is, you know, what you don’t want is the donor to go, “These people are stupid. They don’t even know that George was talking to me. And now Sam’s reaching out to me.” That’s what you want to do. Make sure that the donor is clear on that. So you want them to know a transfer is being made. And if you can do this in your meeting, get it coded in the CRM right then and there. Because if it delays, all kinds of havoc ensues, honestly, just the delay in getting things into your CRM.

 

Diana Frazier

The other thing is, agreeing on checkpoints to ensure that the handoff happened the way you thought it would. Remember, mid-level is one-to-some and major gifts is one-to-one communication. So you have different rhythms and strategies and you don’t want the whole thing to fall apart because you didn’t do things in a timely manner. And so they’re still getting communication in mid-level while the major gift officer is stepping in. And one of the reasons you might want to move a donor up is, at major gift, they can do things like proposals tied to specific donor interests. In mid-level, that’s very difficult to manage because as I said, you’re one-to-some. You’re dealing with 600 donors. It’s hard to craft personal proposals for someone when you’re managing that many donors. So those are things you want to pay attention to so you can better meet the donor where they are with their passions and interests.

 

Karen Kendrick 

So Diana, I can imagine, I’m a mid-level officer, I have a tier A donor, we’re in a great conversation. They’re talking to me. And I’m supposed to pass them on to this MGO that they’re going to be a C tier donor, and they’re really busy. So I’m worried about them getting all this communication and connection, and then dropping off. So what should I do in that case?

 

Diana Frazier

That’s where that conversation is critical. That it’s a clear handoff. One organization I work with, they actually, on the phone, mapped out the next couple of steps for the major gift officer to take over. Because, the plan was in there, and they changed the owner to the new person, so the new person had the assignment. And that made it go better and the mid-level officer felt better. But that’s why I say have some checkpoints. Because if it’s not happening, the supervisor of the program needs to know so that they can work with the other team and make sure it goes forward.

 

Diana Frazier

I’ll tell you one thing we did with one large non-profit that had 12 major gift officers and eight MLOs… they were just creating their mid-level relationship program. They already had mid-level, but they didn’t have relationship management. What they did to help through this whole thing and talk about credit and all that, is they decided for two years, the first two years of the program, to count major and mid-level giving together as a whole. And see how, as a whole, how it went up and not worry about each individual piece so much as what’s happening to the whole cohort, if you will, all managed donors. That’s something leadership can do. Yes, it’s a little tricky, but it takes away some pain points. They’re just not necessary, particularly when you’re new to this.

 

Karen Kendrick

Love it. You know, I’ll never forget when I started at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, my boss said, “You know, donors are not your friends. You’re here to connect their heart to our mission.” And I think that’s really good advice to add to this, is that we have to watch out. You’re going to have certain donors you really care about. But you need to always keep in mind, you’re helping them to have a relationship with the organization, not you. And that really helps in making those transitions.

 

Kara Ansotegui

And you know, Karen, I would just say that that’s why we also talk about that whole point of sitting and seeing. What do you do in that case? That’s why when it is mid-level, we don’t move them unless they’re qualified, right? Because we don’t want them to go to major gifts and sit in a pool because that major gift officer doesn’t have time. So that’s why that two way connection is so incredibly important. And, you know, I know I’m going back a little bit on that. But I will just say to your recent point, we tell our clients that regularly. They don’t necessarily have to be your friends, you want to be friendly. But they’re your donors. And they’re the organization’s donors. And that’s really what you have to keep in mind.

 

Karen Kendrick

Thank you. So Kara, jump into a little bit more on the protocols and that transitioning. Add to that conversation.

 

Kara Ansotegui

Sure, you know, I think Diana really covered it really beautifully. And I’ve touched on it a little bit as well. But those protocols really are going to be based on the timing we talked about, the six and twelve month mark for your fiscal year, right? Not necessarily the calendar year, but your fiscal year. And then of course on qualification. Reminder, everyone in mid-level is qualified. So we talk about that. But when we say qualification, in this case, from mid-level to major gifts, we mean they’ve had that two-way connection with the mid-level officer and we know more about their passions and interests.

 

Kara Ansotegui

So an example may be, you know, I have a client currently that I work with on both mid and major. Their giving threshold is $5000 for major gifts, and their fiscal year starts in July. So that means in January, they’ll have just finished their six month mark on their fiscal year. So we review all donors who are at that $5000 plus level for mid-level that have had a two-way connection. And that’s when we then start working with a mid-level officer to introduce the major gift officer to those donors. We do that based on the donor’s preferred method of communication. So whether that’s email, phone, text. And then it’s a warm handoff. And that ultimately sets the major gift officer up for success in building a stronger relationship. This client in particular, they have a lot of donors who respond really well to Gratavid and so they do a dual video.

 

Karen Kendrick

Cool!

 

Kara Ansotegui

Right? And so they say, “Hey, my name is you know, Joe, and I just want to introduce you to your new mid-level officer or major gift officer,” and that person comes on and says, “I can’t wait to connect with you.” And it’s just this “put a face to a name” opportunity. Really warm. And then it just really helps them when they’re building that next connection.

 

Karen Kendrick

And I’m assuming they don’t say mid-level officer or major gift officer there.

 

Kara Ansotegui

No.

 

Karen Kendrick

Just to be clear.

 

Kara Ansotegui

Your contact. Your representative? Yes.

 

Karen Kendrick

Yeah. So, “You were with a major gift officer, you’re now with a mid-level officer.” And it’s not moving donors down. You’re putting donors where they belong in that pipeline, right? Where you can best serve them.

 

Diana Frazier

As a quick aside there, you don’t use mid-level officer/major gift officer anyway, communicating exterior to your organization. Hopefully your front-facing title is “Donor Relations Manager” or “Philanthropy Director” or something like that.

 

Karen Kendrick

Thank you, Diana. So starting with Kara, and then Diana add in as well, talk a little bit about creating efficiencies when you don’t quite have enough for major gifts, or do you have a good amount for mid-level donors, but no MLO? Like, you don’t always have full caseloads for everyone. How does it work?

 

Kara Ansotegui

Well, I think we’ve seen a number of things be successful. What really is going to matter is that you have those protocols built for what your success is. You know, I see situations where there’s a mid-level program leader, and they only have a partial caseload because they still need to be able to be a leader in that work. And that has been very successful because they’re still in, they’re doing the work every day, they understand the value of the work, they’re able to translate the value of the work to leadership even higher, when they are holding that small portfolio. In addition to that, we have some clients who maybe are in a small territory, and they hold a hybrid caseload. So it’s maybe half of a major gift caseload and a small portion of a mid-level caseload. So as they are qualifying those mid-level donors and building relationships and seeing those upgrades, they then are able to build those monthly strategic plans for a major gift caseload because they now know the donor has value. So there’s a few different ways that we can really see this work. Diana, I’m sure you’ve seen it work in different ways as well.

 

Diana Frazier

Yeah, with hybrid caseloads, when you have a major gift and mid-level, just make sure you get your ratios of how many in each category to fit with your workload. So just think that through. But where I’ve seen some incredible success, and I know we talk about this, if you don’t have a full-time person to do this, and say it’s your CEO who’s doing it, you want to make sure you understand how much time is really available and right size the number of donors they’re working with. We say all the time we believe strongly, and we’ve seen it, you will raise more money from fewer donors because you have the right focus and strategy, right?

 

Diana Frazier

So I worked with the CEO of a small non-profit. Initially, he had 92 donors he was trying to manage. He was the CEO of the organization. He had a lot of responsibility. And those 92 donors gave $1.9 million. After he started working with Veritus, I got him down to 60. He raised the same amount of money from 30% fewer donors. And then again, he grew it up a little bit to 65, and he raised $2.5 million. But what happened was he had the right focus, right strategy, he was letting go of things he didn’t need to deal with. And they eventually did hire a major gift officer. And then he carved even more donors to that person.

 

Diana Frazier

I had another executive director, she started working with us two years ago. She reduced her caseload down to 40, and in her very first year of doing that, she increased her giving year over year by 45% from those donors. So she was seeing more from the 40 than she did from… I think she had like 80 before. It happens again and again. And it goes down to right focus, right strategy, using your time well, not having all the fear building up in you, “I’m not getting to these people, I’m not getting to these people.” And so with that fear of now you’re not actually doing the things you couldn’t be doing, because you’ve got this constant churn in your head. So the right size really does matter.

 

Karen Kendrick

Thank you. Kara, anything else you want to add before we close out? This has been a great discussion.

 

Kara Ansotegui

Yeah, this has been great. I think… I said it in the beginning and I’ll say it again, because I think it’s so important. Making sure your donor is at the center of all of your conversations. This isn’t about the mid-level team and this isn’t about the major gifts team. This is about the donor, and serving the donor, so that they know the difference they’re making in your organization. And determine who the right person is based on that donor, what they’re capable of giving, what they’re currently giving. And do it in a thoughtful way to ensure that they are your donors for years to come. And that they really feel the joy that they deserve for helping you in your mission.

 

Karen Kendrick

Love it. Thank you. So thank you, Kara and Diana for joining me today for this episode that we snuck away and did on our own. And we hope this has helped you all get some great tips for how to meaningfully transition a donor relationship. And if you’d like to learn more, because we have a whole lot more than this to share about developing protocols, systems, and structures to support a relational fundraising program, check out our online Certification Courses and Master Class programs in mid-level and major gifts. You can find all our training programs at the link in the show notes or by heading to our website veritusgroup.net and clicking “Training” in the menu. Take care and we’ll 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.net. Please join us again next time.