Mapping the Donor Journey: A Pipeline Health Checklist

Jeff Schreifels 

Most donors don’t start out by giving major gifts. They may come in through direct mail, through an event, or as a volunteer. So when you think about the donor pipeline, and how you’re moving people from acquisition to major and planned gifts, you need to structure your processes to help make that a smooth journey for your donors. In this episode, Richard and I are sharing a Donor Journey Health Checklist that will help you understand whether your organization’s structure is really aligned to the donor’s experience, and how you can improve that flow to seamlessly transition donors throughout their relationship with 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, here today with Richard Perry, and today, we’re looking at what makes up the donor journey. And we wanted to put together a checklist for all the different elements you need in place to have a healthy donor pipeline. So Richard, what do people need to know about the donor journey journey, so that they can start to evaluate the health of their pipeline?

Richard Perry 

Yeah, well, this this is this is such an interesting topic, Jeff. I mean, it’s actually, very few people are talking about it, and or even trying to understand it. And what I mean about the topic is, is how an organization’s structure and division of labor affects the donor journey and revenue. I mean, it seems like —

Jeff Schreifels 

Well hold on, so what do you mean by that? Because I thought we were talking about donors and getting into donor stuff. So it seems like you’re talking about structure, you’re getting off of donor stuff?

Richard Perry 

No, no, no, not really, you see what the donor experiences as she journeys in her relationship to the organization, how she experiences the organization itself? It actually affects how she thinks and how she feels about the organization. And then that in turn, directly affects your giving. I mean, it just every single time.

Jeff Schreifels 

Okay, I get that. So, how an organization treats his donors will determine whether they will stay with the organization or give more. But let’s drill down a little bit on this. So where does it start to go wrong?

Richard Perry 

Well, it really starts to go wrong when the staff, the leadership, and everybody has the wrong philosophy of giving. And you and I’ve talked about this a lot where you know, where you think the donor is simply just like a source of cash versus a true partner. Right? Now, if that way of thinking sits in the organization, it can’t help but create a hostile environment for the donor. I mean, you remember the stories we’ve told about how, or I’ve told you about, how going into one organization where there was just a stack of envelopes that were all from donors, gifts from donors, where all the checks had been deposited. This stack of information had come from donors a month prior one month prior. The checks had been taken out, but the donors had not been actually processed, thanked or anything. That kind of treatment, and you have other stories, I mean, we both have experiences, that kind of treatment, sends a message to the donor that well, the only thing you’re good for is the money.

Jeff Schreifels 

Yeah, I feel like non-profits have some kind of story, maybe it’s not that particular one, but another one, where donors are just not respected. And, you know, the organization comes first. And then it’s all about the donor.

Richard Perry 

I know, it’s just not good. And so that’s why we have these huge attrition rates, value attrition rates. I mean, the non-profit world compared to the commercial world is so so behind in terms of customer retention, because of treatment.

Jeff Schreifels 

Yeah, and I mean, that’s why we here at Veritus are constantly talking about this. Before we get into all the strategy and the messaging, mid, major, and planned gifts. You must have your heart and your thinking right on this very point, right? Because if you don’t, then the organization is going to suffer economically.

Richard Perry 

That’s exactly right. And so that’s the first step. So the first step in the whole process of checking the donor health index journey, I mean, all that stuff is checking to see if that everyone in the organization, including including non-fundraising personnel, are thinking right about the money and thinking right about the donor. And then the second step is to analyze how the organization treats the donor through the various phases of fundraising, which, you know, in a very simple form, are: acquisition, cultivation, mid-level, major giving, and planned giving.

Jeff Schreifels 

Yeah. Okay, so why is this so important?

Richard Perry 

Well look at it this way, Jeff, if the managers of fundraising in the organization and all the staff for that matter are just focused on getting the money, then what’s going to happen is they’ll design strategies, tactics, processes, systems to do just that. Yeah, strategies and tactics that quite honestly, they bruise the donor.

Jeff Schreifels 

That’s like biasing the messaging towards asks versus telling the donor he or she made a difference or ignoring that donor, who by the frequency and amount of their giving his signaling as desire to give more involvement, but continues to be treated as a donor that’s not interested in more involvement. So you, in other words, you can have a donor that really wants to give, but you’re not doing anything to ask, to solicit the donor or you, you know, like some, like, if you’re looking on the direct response world, there are a lot of donors that want to give more, but you’re only sending them one or two appeals a year to them. Yeah, we could be sending so much more because they want to get involved. Or it’s a major donor that’s on your C-list. And you’ve just kind of put them to the side, because well, they’re not going to give more. They want to do more, but you’ve never actually tried to reach out to them to really get to know them.

Richard Perry 

Exactly. That’s exactly what happens. And then you know, the result of this kind of behavior is that the donor feels used and abused, which is why he or she, they just give less, and they even go away. Yeah. So strategies and tactics that are off point, because the person designing the fundraising does not understand that the main thing here is the donor and his or her journey, not the money.

Jeff Schreifels 

Yeah, this is so interesting, Richard, because there’s so much we do in our planning and execution of those plans that has us totally forgetting this point. If we viewed everything we do, to the donor through the eyes and experiences of the donor, we would affect how we do those things. Right.

Richard Perry 

Yeah. And that’s the second big point, Jeff. So let me back up and summarize. So first, we’re wanting to know that everybody in the organization, everyone is on the same page as to how to think about fundraising, the money and the donor.

Jeff Schreifels 

So that’s kind of like the whole culture of philanthropy, you need to have a culture of philanthropy.

Richard Perry 

Exactly. So that’s the first point. And then secondly, we want to be sure that our strategies and tactics are donor supportive and sensitive. So that when they are seen through the experiences of the donor, they’re positive, constructive, and helpful. Yeah. So then the third part of the work is in analyzing the donor journey is, do we have something to present to the donor who wants to help more?

Jeff Schreifels 

Exactly. Yes. And this is the whole thing about donor offers. How to package the organization’s budget into meaningful, incredible projects and programs that a donor will and can support. And this is so important.

Richard Perry 

Oh it really is, how many times Jeff, have we seen situations where a donor wants to help more, but that need and want is really not satisfied? Because the organization has not done the work? To prepare something for the donor?

Jeff Schreifels 

No, see, most organizations are like, well, we just need operating funds. And so you know, the donor just loves us. We don’t need to talk about specifics, because, you know, we don’t want to have anything where they are honed in on just one thing. So what we do is we just say, hey, to these fundraisers, just go out and get money for the general operating fund. And so that might appeal to some donors. But if you’re going to ask a donor to give large six, seven figure gifts, that’s not going to cut it. And that’s why we see in the data from many organizations that really haven’t figured this out, where you get a donor that’s giving $5,000 every year or 1$0,000, even $25,000, every year, because that’s what they do. They just give that one gift at that level, because the organization has never challenged, or asked the donor to do more, but they also don’t have a specific project that matches the donor’s passions and interests.

Richard Perry 

I mean, it’s just so basic, I mean, then this is why the organization needs to be ready to give the donor the options for greater involvement when the donor signals that he or she is ready to do that. So like, you remember, I mean, we have scores of these examples, but the donor there was giving $5,000. And then they were given an offer that matched their donor passions and interests, and they gave $250,000. Or the donor that was that was giving far less and gave $9 million. Yeah, I mean, it’s like, there are donors in your file, as you’re listening right now, donors in your file that want to do more. So you’ve got to actually give them something to do, to give to.

Jeff Schreifels 

Here’s one that I’ve been dealing with a lot recently is, we have an organization that is expecting that the entire fundraising work all the way, you know, all all the stuff from individuals, they want to raise, like $50 million a year, and they call it their operating fund or whatever. Right? Right. Okay. And so they hired, they brought us in, you know, they’ve noticed that their donors could give a lot more, and they just haven’t been, you know, they’re loyal donors, but they haven’t been giving a lot. They bring us in to help them put the structure together for the organization for mid and major gifts and planned giving. So we’ve got this beautiful structure now in place, we’re working with these major gift officers. But the problem is we don’t have the offers. We don’t have the big offers. We still have the small $5,000, $10,000 just general operating. And we’ve been saying, “You’ve got to be able to figure out all of your programs and projects under your full umbrella.” Yeah, that’s fine. But what are they in, codify them and then put a dollar figure to them, so that donors can start giving $25, $50, $100, $1 million dollars. And that’s what it’s going to take. And they haven’t yet fully grasped this yet, until the day that I’m going to have to finally speak into their leadership and say, look, if you want us to come in and help your fundraisers raise big large gifts, you’ve got to empower them by putting together the offers that are going to match the needs of donors.

Richard Perry 

Well we’ve said it over again, we’ve likened the situation to a company that has a retail store, and you go into the retail store, and there’s nothing in there. Exactly, just empty shelves. So what do you expect the customer to do, stay in there and be happy? They’re not going to do it. And that’s what happens with the donor. They go into the organization’s retail store and find nothing. It’s pretty sad. Pretty sad. Now, there are two more points in reviewing the donor journey here. One is reviewing the amount of investment the organization makes in each phase of the donor journey. Yep. And the last one is constructing a vision for where we’re going with the donors on a journey together. So let’s briefly look at each of these. Okay, so on the investment side, you’ve got investing in donor acquisition, which as you know, is usually in the first cycle. Yeah, first phase a loss. The loss of I mean, you put $1…

Jeff Schreifels 

You lose money at the point of acquistion.

Richard Perry 

You lose money, right. And then in the next phase of cultivation, it’s we you know, we invest one, you get three to four, mid-level, it gets better, major gifts is better, and so on. Well, all of that together needs to be balanced. It’s a very delicate ecosystem, as you know. How many organizations have we looked at where the thing is out of balance? Where too much money is spent on acquisition? Not enough for mid and major, which is why mid and major are starving, and not able to contribute a high net revenue to the organization, or the other way around.

Jeff Schreifels 

That’s right. Yeah, we see some that are just focused on the upper end, and nothing’s coming up the pipeline, right. And so they’re like, oh, we got to really focus on that, so that that pipeline is healthy, because we’re running out of donors, in a sense, because nothing’s coming up. But we all and then on the other side, I mean, we’ve seen organizations who have spent millions and millions of dollars on new donor acquisition to get these $10 donors, or $10 a month donors, which is great. But then they have nothing nowhere for them to go, no mid-level, no major gift program. So they’re always churning and burning these donors and not looking at how do we bring them along in their journey? You know, it’s just like they’re stuck at giving that small gift.

Richard Perry 

And all that money they invested in acquisition is wasted. So we’ve seen two types of situations in this scenario. No money is put into or very little money is put into acquisition because the leaders managers think that mid and major donors are just going to pop out of the ether somewhere. Or the reverse.

Jeff Schreifels 

Or the other one is in the middle, there’s a lot of organizations that don’t have a mid-level program. So they got the acquisition, cultivation thing over here. They’ve got major gifts, planned giving over here, they never talk. You know, and then major gifts is like, you know, we need more major donors. And they’re sitting there in the cultivation side. No one’s doing anything to kind of move them up and started introducing them to a relationship. And so that’s another area where many organizations are not bridging that divide between the direct response program and the major gift program.

Richard Perry 

And this is where structure and division of labor and authority gets everybody in trouble because you’ve got strong managers who care about their silo. And they’re all pitching their budget, and so on. And there’s not enough strength and oversight to look at the entire thing as a whole. It’s a delicate ecosystem that needs to be balanced, and managed. So that’s the whole investment thing. Now, the last one is asking if the organization has a vision for the future of each donor. And what this means is that someone in the organization is watching the donor’s behavior in the journey, and is the equipped by the organization to respond to that donor as they travel with the organization. So for instance, if a donor is expressing interest in program X, the organization pivots to providing donor with program X information, so that the organization can help that donor be involved more. Or if the donor wants a kind of certain involvement with the organization, as best as it can, it provides that involvement, etc, etc. So all of this sort of sensitive treatment of the donor, because we are now aware of the donor’s needs, and it just means more revenue, which in turn affects our forecasts for the future. I mean, it’s just, this is just basic stuff. Instead of just like, oh we’ll just do a forecast, well, if we know the donor, we can actually understand what’s going on with the donor, and our forecasts are even going to be better. I mean, they are.

Jeff Schreifels 

So Richard, this is powerful stuff. And I can see that helping an organization look at how they are doing all of this, looking at it through the donor’s eyes and experiences, can help the organization become much more helpful, caring, and tuned in to the donor and their journey. So this is good stuff. So just before we close, why don’t you go over the main points again.

Richard Perry 

Alright, so there’s five of them. Number one is look at the philosophy of fundraising. So is there a culture of philanthropy? Are we focused on the donor? Secondly, do the current strategies and tactics support the donor journey? Thirdly, do we have something to present to the donor if they want help more? That’s that whole donor offers thing. Fourth, is there a balanced and productive and effective investment in each phase of the donor journey? Acquisition, cultivation, mid, major, planned, and so on. And then lastly, is constructing kind of a future vision for the donor, which then affects our revenue and our forecasting. That’s the work that we are doing in terms of measuring the health. In other words, is the health of the donor through your organization? I mean, is that journey healthy, or is it not? Because if it’s not, then you’re not going to be developing the level of revenue and donor retention and value retention, which is, that’s the point.

Jeff Schreifels 

Yeah. And you can do this, you’ve done this yourself, Richard, you can go into an organization and look at all these stages, right? And determine if it’s healthy, where there’s areas of opportunity, how they should be investing, right, talking to the people, internal people, and finding out, you know, just how well they’re set up for the donor to move as easy as possible through that pipeline in their journey up to major gifts.

Richard Perry 

And that’s the whole point. It’s not to mess around with the organization and get political. It’s about creating an environment that’s safe, that’s effective, that’s warm, inviting, and comfortable for the donor, which in turn helps the organization financially.

Jeff Schreifels 

Yeah. Well, thank you all for joining us today for this episode, and I hope that you get some valuable takeaways that will help you to better support your donors at different stages of their journey. And if you’d like to learn more about how to improve what you do inside your organization that results in a more positive donor journey, and more net revenue for your program, then I encourage you to reach out to us to inquire about our organizational development services that we just talked about. You can get that process started by reaching out to my colleague, Amy Chapman at achapman@veritusgroup.net, or by starting our free donor file assessment process, because that’s part of that donor development services is looking at the donor file assessment first, which is really that first step in uncovering those opportunities for improvement. And you can find these links in the show notes or on our website. So take care, and we’ll see you next time.

Richard Perry 

We’ll see you. Thank you.

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.