How to Talk About Fundraising Within Your Organization

Jeff Schreifels

Do you feel like other departments at your organization don’t really get the role of fundraising? Like they just see it as taking other people’s money? Or maybe executive leadership doesn’t understand the value of staying focused on your donor caseload, so you and your team can get pulled in all these different directions. If you’ve ever felt frustrated by this kind of situation, then you’re in luck. Today’s episode is about how to educate your colleagues and other partners about the value of fundraising and what it means to build relationships with your donors.

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. And I’ve got Diana Frazier and Kara Ansotegui with me here today. One of the greatest barriers to your success in relational fundraising is whether or not the rest of your organization understands and supports your work. We hear stories all the time from frustrated fundraisers who aren’t able to get important program information, can’t easily share the impact, and don’t have donor offers to present. I’m sure you’ve felt similar before. So today, we wanted to give you some guidance, tips, and language to start talking about fundraising within your organization so that you can get everyone on board and moving in the same direction. But, before we get started, Diana and Kara, I’d love for you to introduce yourselves.

Diana Frazier

Thanks, Jeff. I’m Diana Frazier. And before I joined the Veritus team, I spent 32 years myself in the non-profit sector. I did a lot of different fundraising roles, including major gifts, as well as being a top development officer.

Jeff Schreifels

Great, Kara.

Kara Ansotegui

Thanks, Jeff. Hi, everyone. I’m Kara Ansotegui, Director of Client Services with Veritus. And it’s a real pleasure to be with you all today.

Jeff Schreifels

Awesome. Okay, let’s kick things off by talking about some of the problems that come up when fundraising is not well understood or valued in an organization. So, Diana, let’s start with you. What are some of the top things you’ve heard in your work as a coach?

Diana Frazier

You know, Jeff, I think number one is always other departments don’t understand why fundraisers need things. Like financial information or program updates, or whatever it is that they’re asking for. I have a fresh example, just happened a few weeks ago. A public relations department missed the deadlines for the annual report. This is partly due to a lack of understanding of the strategic timing of reporting back before moving into solicitation, especially now in Q4. They just didn’t understand that reporting back is the foundation for moving forward. And it’s a costly mistake. So that’s a big one that I hear again, and again, and again.

Diana Frazier

Another is there is a perceived ick factor around fundraising, which affects the entire culture. I had a fundraiser completely demoralized by colleagues making disparaging comments about fundraising. Get this… it was while they were driving together to their major donor weekend. She left the organization a few months later, and her position has never been… has not yet been replaced. That was a huge loss to the organization, because this is somebody who had been doing this work for over seven years. Such a big loss.

Diana Frazier

Another is an organization that just doesn’t invest in paying fundraisers more so they have significant staff retention issues. I know of two fundraisers who recently left a team just within the summer, because they were offered higher compensation at another non-profit. And get this… these two fundraisers weren’t even looking for another job. So that was pretty amazing.

Jeff Schreifels

Yeah, and it was probably… was maybe like, what, $5,000 or $10,000 more and the organization who’s, you know, that they’re there at… “Oh, no, we can’t pay that much.” And there’s all these stupid reasons why. These are the people that are bringing in revenue, and they don’t understand the long-term cost of replacing, training, all of that… potential loss of revenue from the donors that they have relationships with. It’s crazy.

Kara Ansotegui

And I would say, Jeff, a lot of times, it takes two or three people leaving and then all of a sudden they’re able to find that extra income to pay people more for these new people that they hire, when the reality is if they would have just taken care of the people there, then they wouldn’t be in that position.

Diana Frazier

Right. And in both of these cases, these positions have been open for three or four months already. And we’re going into Q4.

Kara Ansotegui

So think about the revenue that they’re going to lose.

Diana Frazier

Yep, actually, in Q4. The last one I would say Jeff, is there are no clear cost equivalencies relating program cost to donor donation levels. Those financial links aren’t clear to the organization or the fundraiser most times, they just don’t have any sense of that. But not being able to give a donor that kind of scope of how a gift meets the needs, impacts the front end of a relationship with a donor. Think about when you’re trying to have that first call or that first meeting, and you’re trying to deliver value as to why to meet the donor, that would really help a lot. But also, obviously, it helps with solicitation. So those are four things that come to mind for me.

Jeff Schreifels

Yeah, good stuff. Kara, how can a fundraising leader or frontline fundraisers start to educate their internal team about fundraising?

Kara Ansotegui

Yeah, you know, Jeff, I think some of it is just starting to have those open conversations, right? Understanding the value of fundraising and what it brings to the organization. I think, starting those conversations by asking questions. We talk about permission-based asking in fundraising all the time. But here’s a way that they can use that with their team to ask questions and uncover history, or issues that have existed in the past and why fundraising hasn’t really been prioritized. You know, one of the things I recommend happen regularly, especially with fundraisers who are working with program staff, or leadership, who don’t really understand the value is they start forwarding those emails from donors about how inspired that donor was from what they read, or they share giving updates when donors increase their giving. I feel like those things, ultimately, steward internal staff just like we want them to steward their donors, right? And then people start getting a little more bought in. And then I would say, start involving your team in donor events in the introduction. So they know these people as people, not just as names on paper. And, Jeff, I remember you told a story about including donors with one of the organizations you worked with. I think that’d be great to share if you’d be willing to.

Jeff Schreifels

Yeah! This was a few years ago, but I worked with this major health organization. And it was a hospital. And what they did once a month was bring all of their staff to an all-staff meeting. So they had a big auditorium that they all came to. And then they had, like, I would guess what you could say like, an organization show in a way. They talked about what they were doing at the, you know, different research they were doing; they highlighted different things. And then they had a whole time where they talked about philanthropy. And they had donors come to this meeting and tell their story. And because it was a children’s hospital, of course, they had amazing stories from parents who talked about having their kids there and what it meant. And you know, there was never a dry eye. But what happened there was that the staff from all areas, not just development, got to see the power of giving, and people’s philanthropy, and why they wanted to give and it brought the place together. It was really cool.

Kara Ansotegui

I loved that story when you shared it with us. I think it’s such a great example of really creating that culture of philanthropy in your entire organization.

Jeff Schreifels

It really was. It was so inspiring to go to those things. And I loved it. I always tried to plan my meetings to be there that month, so I could listen to that. It was just really amazing. All right, so we know how important partnering with program and finance are for fundraisers. What tips do you have for talking about fundraising and what donors need with these departments specifically? Diana, why don’t you go first?

Diana Frazier

Well, I’ll tell you an experience of my own. More was with the graphics than finance or program. But bottom line, you need to help them understand the impact of the financial details or program updates when you’re meeting with donors. So how did the donor respond? What was the result of the discussion? You want to bring your colleague into the joy you experience with the donor. Again, my personal experience while I was at a university was that there was a very chilly relationship with the university relations which did all the graphics for all the work that we did. I did two things in particular with them and then I tried to apply the similar kind of thing with others when I met with faculty or occasionally with the finance department, less so for me in that environment. After I met with a donor using anything that was designed for me that was created for the solicitation, I called the designer on the phone and told her, or him in some cases, that donor’s reaction and the result. They got so much joy out of that and they… because they often thought, “Oh we create these things and nothing ever happens,” right, and, “All this work I put into this design, whatever happened?” So I did show that to her. And then I always faithfully tried… if they created something for me for one situation, I tried to use it as much as I could and let them know that.

Diana Frazier

The other thing that I did in particular, when I was working with, again, the design department, but I did this with finance from time to time is, when I needed to review something or discuss something, I physically got up and went to where they were, their office, to talk through a project, rather than having them come to me, or doing it via email. Because with email, you think you’re saving time, but you’re really not. So I built a relationship with my colleagues that way. And I did, you know, we talked about our donor engagement plan. I did open up a spreadsheet, and I did try to pay attention to who my colleagues were and what I was reaching out to them with. So they, you know, were hearing on a regular basis, what was going on in fundraising. So that’s one thing I did.

Diana Frazier

The other thing is talking to them, program people in particular, about how additional revenue will support their ability to provide through their program. Now, we understand the importance of funding operational needs. So we’re not talking about taking money away from that, trust me, we get that. But if you explain how strong operational revenue helps the whole organization, that helps develop a deeper understanding for the program person. And where it makes sense for the program and the donor’s interest, raising designated support allows for stability and growth for a specific program. I had a fundraiser include the program director in a solicitation, and that resulted in a three-year commitment to a specific program. And that was a program that was under review every single year: is it on the chopping block or not? So that was a fantastic experience. And then that program director talked to other program directors and you know, you tell two friends and they tell two friends and it goes on and on.

Diana Frazier

The other thing is, and Kara touched on this too, to create opportunities for program people to interact with your donors. If you have an open house or tour, and you’re bringing donors around, make sure you connect the donors with the program staff where the donor has the most interest so that that’s a really engaging conversation they have there. And the program person comes away thinking, “Wow, okay, that person’s got some great ideas.” And ask program people to join you on a donor visit as a subject matter expert. This can be a part of the cultivation process, or it can be for the actual solicitation. If it’s possible to create an advisory board with donors, be sure to foster real engagement between the donor and the program staff through that work. It’s not something they just go to and people talk for 45 minutes and run away. You want to build some relationships there. So those are some things I think of when I think of, you know, going further.

Kara Ansotegui

You know, Diana, when you were telling that first story about thanking them, and engaging them, it reminded me of an organization I worked for. I traveled internationally and I visited a project some donors funded. And I took pictures. And I came back and I put a PowerPoint together for the fundraiser of all the pictures I took and the way their money was being used. And she went and took it to the donor and the donor gave $30,000 more for that project. And she told the story in front of everyone organizationally, because it really created buy-in for our organization to see the difference one person can make in philanthropy.

Diana Frazier

That’s fantastic. Great.

Jeff Schreifels

Love that. Now, one other area I know we’ve all heard before is about when you have a leader who doesn’t come from a fundraising background, or at least doesn’t have a great experience in more relational fundraising. So what are some ways you can talk to them about fundraising and create buy-in from leaders in your relational fundraising strategy?

Kara Ansotegui

Yeah, well, you know, I will say, I’m a little bit of a data nerd. And so I think data can be an incredibly powerful tool, Jeff. We have our donor assessment. And I’ll tell you, when I worked for another organization, the way I got buy-in was to have Veritus do a donor assessment for me. And what we were able to see through that donor assessment were extreme attrition rates. And those extreme attrition rates are really what sold the organization on investing in Veritus, because they knew how much more revenue they could have if we actually were starting to retain some of those donors. So I just, I think data really helps you see how acquisition is covering up, sometimes, your loss. And so that, to me, that’s one of the first things you can do… is really have your data assessed and look at how you’re performing from a data perspective.

Kara Ansotegui

I would also say talk to them about their role in fundraising. Right? Much like support staff, I think it’s really important for leaders to see themselves in the organization’s culture of philanthropy. So how can they help support the important work of your mission? Right? Let’s never forget about the mission being the heart of this. And then talk to them about the value of fulfilling your donor’s passions and interests. I don’t know that everyone realizes donors want to give, right? We tell our clients that all the time: “Donors want to give.” And if you can share the impact and honor them, by sharing that impact in the area that they’re most passionate about, we are fulfilling their desire to make an impact. And so it’s really a win-win for the donor and the organization. I think leaders need to hear that.

Jeff Schreifels

Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you, Kara and Diana for joining me today for this episode. We hope this has given you lots of ideas and solutions that can help you start to talk about fundraising with your internal team. If you’d like to learn more about the donor file assessment that Kara just talked about, you can head over to our website to get that process started. This assessment provides some incredible information, right Kara?

Kara Ansotegui

Incredible.

Jeff Schreifels

About value and donor attrition, where you have clogs in your donor pipeline, and what you could be raising if you implemented a data-proven system and structure. Just head to our website or the show notes below to get started and see if you qualify for our free donor assessment. 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.