It’s Time to Move on From Moves Management

Jeff Schreifels

When moves management was first introduced as a strategy for donor management, it was very helpful in putting some much needed structure around the donor pipeline. I mean, really, before moves management, it was the wild west out there. But now some non-profits have taken the idea way too far. The rigid definitions of what stage a donor is at… that just doesn’t reflect the reality of how donor relationships actually evolve. In today’s episode, Richard and I will be talking about how we evolve your thinking around the caseload management, and move your focus back 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.

Jeff Schreifels

Welcome to the podcast today. I’m Jeff Schreifels. And I’ve got Richard Perry here with me. So recently, a few team members were talking on our Slack channel about the idea of moves management. Because we have this client that was getting stuck in their thinking about each stage of the moves management process and how to track that. And there was some great discussion there. But ultimately, it left me feeling like it’s time to move on from the traditional concept of moves management, where you’re in stewardship, you’re in cultivation, you know, that kind of thing. But before we get started, let’s set some context about what moves management is, and some of the history of it.

Richard Perry

Yeah, you know, the whole idea of moves management when it was first started, was actually revolutionary. I mean, it helped a lot of organizations, you know, start thinking about donors, and the different ways you could approach those donors and those relationships and so on. And this approach brought the idea that by creating a focused plan of different kinds of touch points, you could move the donor into higher levels of giving. And, you know, a lot of organizations saw some great results from this approach. I mean, it actually worked.

Jeff Schreifels

Yep, that’s true. But there’s also a downside, I think, because as you know, a lot of organizations get stuck in the movement, and knowing exactly what move the donor has at that time. And it’s created these rigid metrics that have caused non-profits to forget about actual relationships and how they work. So, for example, I was working, this is a few years ago now, but I was working with some frontline fundraisers at a major health system. And many of their donors were in multi-year gifts. So they had made pledges of three or five years. And so what I found was that when we first started working with them, a lot of those donors in those portfolios were put in stewardship. And, basically, that meant, because they had another separate stewardship group of people that were, you know, sending them thank yous and that kind of thing. The major gift fundraiser wasn’t really doing anything with those people. So think about this. And, there were like, 30 to 40 donors, of the 150, that were in stewardship. So if you think about this, a major gift fundraiser is trying to always deepen a relationship with a donor, right? How do you do that? When you’re not connecting with those 30 to 40, who are some of your best donors? Right? I mean, you can’t.

Richard Perry

You can’t. That is such an important story, Jeff, and you know, we see versions of this all the time. So what do you propose instead of using the moves management approach, or the traditional concept of… how would you change that?

Jeff Schreifels

Well, I would say, instead of seeing these groups of donors in some kind of stage or relationship, the fundraiser should always have the mindset that you’re always cultivating donors, right? Even if they’ve just given a gift, you’re still cultivating them. You’re thanking, obviously, you’re thanking and doing all the reporting back, but that’s part, in my mind, of cultivating the donor for the next gift.

Richard Perry

Yes.

Jeff Schreifels

Right? So always having the mindset that you’re cultivating donors. The other thing is to shift your mindset to working your strategic plan with every donor. That’s really what it’s about, and that’s why I’m thinking like, “Okay, we work with these clients, with our clients, they all have a strategic plan attached to their donor. We know exactly what we’re doing with them for the whole year. We’re working on that.” We’re not looking at, okay, they’re in the stewardship stage or they’re in the cultivation stage.

Richard Perry

Exactly.

Jeff Schreifels

No, we’re looking at them as individuals.

Richard Perry

Well, that’s the important thing, isn’t it? Right there.

Jeff Schreifels

So this moves you into thinking less about what stage the donor is in and focuses on the donors’ passions and interests, and aligning those with opportunities to partner to solve a problem your organization is working to address. Now, I know, focusing on donor relationships has been a core part of your philosophy since you started Veritus, Richard. So why don’t you tell us… why is that so important?

Richard Perry

Well, it’s so basic, isn’t it? I mean, it’s like, where does money come from? From donors. I mean, so institutional donors, or individual donors. Money comes from donors. So it’s, I mean, it’s sort of logical, isn’t it, that you focus on the donor?

Richard Perry

And I think the additional thing that you and I have discovered over the years is, well what does focus on the donor mean? It does not mean focusing on the donor’s money. It means focus on the donor and what they’re trying to accomplish on the planet with their resources.

Jeff Schreifels

Exactly.

Richard Perry

That’s what we mean by focusing on the donor. You do that, and the money will follow. So we’ve always said that money is not the objective; securing the money is not the objective. It’s the result of doing the right thing with the donor. And of course, that has that basic foundational point of you need to know the donor’s passions and interests, because that will actually lead to transformational gifts if you’re talking properly. I mean, I’m constantly talking about this with people. And almost to the point where it’s like, “Well, why do you keep saying this?” Well, the reason we keep saying it is because people are not doing it. They’re focused on the money. And not helping the donor to do what they want to do on the planet. So I mean, Jeff, why don’t you share how we incorporate this kind of thinking into our coaching with clients?

Jeff Schreifels

Okay. This is how we coach a client; a specific MGO around their portfolio. First of all, you have to have a qualified caseload.

Richard Perry

You’ve got to talk to the right people.

Jeff Schreifels

I know that if you’re listening to this, you’re probably like, “Oh, my gosh, I’ve heard this 1000 times from you guys.”

Richard Perry

Here they go again.

Jeff Schreifels

Yeah. But this is absolutely the key point: you have a qualified caseload, meaning you have two way interaction. You know they want a relationship with you and the organization. That’s key. And I’m not going to go into all like, how do you do that? But once… you have to have a qualified caseload. That’s number one. And then from there, you have to tier those donors A, B, and C. Why? Because we want to focus the major gift officer’s time properly to the right donors. Because whether you like it or not, there is an economic reality to every caseload. Some donors give a lot, some give less. You’re going to spend more of your time with donors who are giving more. And those donors usually take more time to deal with, as well.

Jeff Schreifels

Okay, so now you have them tiered. And then we work with the MGO to create a revenue goal for every donor.

Richard Perry

Very important.

Jeff Schreifels

A revenue goal, so that we… and we cashflow that throughout the course of the year… so that we know exactly at what month what is going to come in. And so for their manager, for us, for them, we can look at, you know, “Hey, in this month, we expected $200,000 to come in. It’s now half the month has gone through and we only have $75,000.” Then we can have some proactive discussions around that. Like, “Do we need to move that?” You know, maybe there are a couple of donors that aren’t going to give in March, but they’re going to give in April. That kind of thing. All right. So a revenue goal. And then attached to that revenue goal, we have a strategic communication plan for every donor that has that goal.

Richard Perry

That is based on their passions and interests.

Jeff Schreifels

Exactly, which is basically saying, “This is how we are going to achieve a goal: by doing all of these planned communications.” And that’s really the crux of the structure. And if you have that, in my mind, there’s no need to understand, like, “Okay, this donor is in cultivation mode,” or “This one is…” because we have a plan for every donor.

Jeff Schreifels

Now, I know that sounds pretty basic and may sound nice, but you may be thinking, “You know what my leader will never buy into that.” So, Richard, why don’t you share with our listeners, how they could advocate to leadership about that change in approach?

Richard Perry

This is such an interesting point, Jeff, because it’s like… I mean, sadly, the only thing that gets a lot of authority figures’ attention is revenue or lack of revenue. Right?

Jeff Schreifels

Right.

Richard Perry

And it ought to be, in our minds, more of a concern for the donor, which should drive one to… be the motivation to change things or make things better. But the reality is, and I understand that at some basic level, but every time we do an assessment of these files, where the system that you just described is not in place, we do the assessment, and what do we find? We find losses from current donors, not donors that went away, but from current donors, of between 40% and 60%. Which in many cases is hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. I mean, for one organization, I remember that just a cohort of 66,000 donors they had, that were on the mid to higher end, they lost $148 million. Just from that group. And it is always shocking to an authority figure to see their data and see how much money they’re losing, because they’re not treating the donor properly.

Jeff Schreifels

I mean, we’ve been in that room, when we show them and they’re like, “Oh, my gosh! I had no idea.”

Richard Perry

It’s shocking. So when you as a listener are saying to yourselves, “Well, my leader will never buy into that.” Well, believe me, they will buy into it if you do the assessment. And you show the losses. And we’re not just negative like, “Oh, here’s the problem, the sky is falling.” No. We actually will do the assessment and tell you, “Here’s what it could be.” And that is hopeful. And that is visionary. I mean, it’s exciting, those kinds of numbers. So that’s the first thing.

Richard Perry

And then the second thing is, presenting the problem very clearly about what can be done in the organization in terms of treating these donors properly. And then sharing the solution. Here’s how you do it, you move to this kind of system. So we’ve been doing this for years. And it actually works, from the point of view of treating donors differently, and treating and servicing their passions and interests and their communication preferences. Which then results in more retention of revenue and retention of donors, which then increases net revenue, which makes everybody happy. And this relational approach, I mean, actually works. I mean, our clients, in the last year, saw a growth on average of 22% in major gifts when the market was down by 4%. So this is not just sales stuff that you and I are talking about. These are real numbers. So leaders need to hear that if they don’t change to a system that has as its basis, this kind of thinking, they are going to keep losing major, major, major revenue and donors over time.

Jeff Schreifels

Oh, man. It’s so simple, in our minds. But it’s not easy. But you’re right. If you do the steps, as Richard pointed out, you can change the mind of leadership. We’ve seen it happen because we’re in those rooms when we present the assessment, and then we show a forecast. A lightbulb goes off; it makes sense. But many times leaders just don’t understand. They don’t know how it all works. So.

Jeff Schreifels

Well. Thanks, Richard, for joining me today for this episode to talk about moves management and how to advance that thinking. And I hope this has helped you reframe how you think about your donor relationships. If you want to learn more about our data proven system and structure and get all the pieces you need to create a robust major gift strategy, then I highly recommend joining our Certification Course for Major Gift Fundraisers. You can find the link to learn more about this course and sign up for the upcoming session by visiting the show notes or heading to our website under Training. And if you want to learn more about the donor assessment Richard talked about, we’ve got that link in the show notes too. So, take care and we hope to see you next time.

Richard Perry

See ya! Thanks.

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.