The Art of the Handoff

Jeff Schreifels 

You know, it’s not easy to let go of certain donors. But there comes a time in every fundraising cycle when you’ll need to transition a donor relationship to someone else. Whether the donor is moving from mid-level to a major gifts portfolio, or from a higher level of giving back into a mid-level or direct response program, you need to have protocols in place so that the transition feels seamless to the donor. And today, we’ll be sharing everything about donor handoffs, ways to shift your mindset, and best practices for transitioning donors. Thanks for listening.

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 today, I’ve got my colleagues Matt Gill and Theresa Tapocsi joining me to discuss something that is vital, that’s a very vital part of donor management. And that’s how to move donors to other fundraisers. Now, I know you might be thinking that’s a little odd to focus on something like giving away your donor, but transitioning donors well is such an important part of building a long-term partnership. Because, remember, as major gift officers, it’s all about nurturing the donor for the organization, right? This is the organization’s donor, and as much as we want to have donors love us and talk about how they’re our donors, it’s really the organization’s donors that we’re caring for. So today, we’re going to talk about donor handoffs and how to shift your mindset and the best practices in transitioning donors. But before we get started on this, let’s give Matt and Theresa an opportunity to introduce themselves. Matt, let’s let’s start with you.

Matt Gill 

Hey, thanks, Jeff. And hey everyone. My name is Matt. Coming at you from Minneapolis, Minnesota. This is my third year with Veritus. Spent a bunch of time before Veritus in major gifts and fundraising leadership. Spent some time in the Navy as well, in doing special operations and public affairs. Still in the reserves, and just thrilled to be walking alongside fundraisers making a difference all over the world.

Theresa Tapocsi 

Great and I am Theresa Tapocsi. I hail from Cleveland, Ohio. I have been lucky to work with Veritus for the past six years as a Client Experience Leader, working with MGOs and MLOs from all over the world and just really connecting them with their donors and helping to make a difference. So love it.

Jeff Schreifels 

Awesome. Well, thank you for both for being here. Now let’s start talking about what a donor handoff is and why this comes up.

Matt Gill 

Yeah, Jeff, you know, as you mentioned a little bit in your intro, like, every relationship manager should be prepared to hand off donors, either from mid-level to major gifts or from, you know, one MGO to another. You know, major gift officers, you know, start preparing for that handoff from day one. Yeah, and I think it’s worth lingering on this, because you are just a part of this donor’s journey with the organization. And, even if we’ve been with the organization for a long time. I mean, donors can be with organizations for decades and decades. At some point, we will all leave the organization, whether we retire or move on to a different opportunity.

Matt Gill 

I mean, gosh, this, you know, this kind of thing can happen, this kind of thing can happen unexpectedly, right? You know, we can leave for any number of reasons very quickly, but you know, the donor is going to continue to stay with the organization and continue on their journey with the organization. So, I would urge everyone to get your head and your heart right about who these donors are and who’s these donors are, you know, and we as relationship managers are merely stewarding this long-term relationship that should far outlive our role or tenure.

Matt Gill 

So what does that look like? I mean, you know, we want to serve our organization. We want to, you know, we both we and the donors care you know about the organization an awful lot. We want to serve the organization. So this looks like, you know, keeping notes in a database, keeping plans and goals documented, so that if you don’t come into the office tomorrow if you’re not here to pickup where you left off today, that someone else can come behind you and they understand what the donor cares about. They understand what the donor needs, and they understand where you were going with the donor. And so you gotta enter any relationship with your donors with that in mind, with that high level understanding that the donor is journeying with the organization, and you’re along for part of that journey.

Jeff Schreifels 

Very well said, very well said. So we know these handoffs can happen in a variety of ways, right? So let’s talk about those, starting with moving a donor from mid-level to major gifts.

Theresa Tapocsi 

Yeah, absolutely, and obviously that’s something we’re aiming towards in major gifts. That’s one of the three key metrics, is we’re moving people up to major gifts. That’s part of keep, lift, move. So you know, when you think about moving those, the first thing to make sure you have your head wrapped around is, is this donor truly ready to move to major gifts? So thinking about, first off, are they giving at a major gifts level, and not just that, but are you confident it’s not just a one time gift, making sure we don’t see one of those cases where a donor’s had a windfall or something, and they give at this higher level, but they aren’t really in a position to sustain that higher level of giving. We want to make sure we’re confident in that.

Theresa Tapocsi 

Do you have a two-way relationship with the donor? So that is really key. We would never even consider moving a donor to a major gifts portfolio unless they are relationally engaging with you as a mid-level officer. And that’s a really, you know, strong indicator that they want to continue to engage. If they filled out your lovely survey or questionnaire, that’s wonderful. But if that’s the only time you’ve ever heard from them, it sounds like your caseload in mid-level might be a better position for them for now. And so beyond that, are there other indicators that more time and attention will yield greater results? So are they interested in having in-person meetings or more in depth conversations? In the conversations you have, are you seeing indicators of bigger inclination? Indicators of capacity? We have a whole webinar that hopefully a lot of you have listened to around all those different triggers. So just kind of thinking about that and paying attention there.

Theresa Tapocsi 

The big thing is that you want to move people to major gifts who would actually truly thrive there. We want to make sure we’re, you know, you’re doing a service to the donor. You’re doing a service to your colleague as a major gift officer, to make sure that this is a person who actually would continue on that donor journey in major gifts. What we don’t want to do is move someone up to major gifts because, oh well, they crossed the threshold, and then they end up ping ponging back and forth between caseloads. That’s not doing the donor’s relationship with the organization any good, right? So you gotta think of all that just to decide if you’re moving them right?

Theresa Tapocsi 

And once you’ve decided that they’re a good candidate, take a little time and wrap your head around everything you know about your relationship with the donor, organize your own thoughts, because the plan here is you want to have a strong recommendation for a handoff plan, and have kind of downloaded all your thoughts to share with your colleague. So what has your relationship been with them? Not just what are their communication preferences, but what kind of things have been getting them really engaged? Which kind of communications really get them excited and get them responding to you?

Theresa Tapocsi 

You know, actually, if you think about all those lovely teal columns in the DEP that track interest and communication preferences and how they like to give and when they like to give, and just all of those key pieces we know you have it in the DEP. We know you have it in the database because you are honoring your organization and you’re doing that. But just think about that, because there’s also a little extra nuance. When you’re able to talk with your colleague about it, you’ve prepared your thoughts. Then you want to have a meeting with your colleague who is going to take on this donor.

Theresa Tapocsi 

So during this meeting, you always want to accomplish two things. First, download all that information to the gift officer; make sure they understand everything you just kind of assessed about that donor. And then second, agree upon a plan and a specific timeline and deadline to do this handoff, and make sure that that plan makes sense for each individual donor. No two plans should look 100% exactly the same, because no two donors are exactly the same. So make sure you have a plan that makes sense for all of those.

Theresa Tapocsi 

Everything I just said, we haven’t even handed off the donor yet. All of that is just the prep. Just like we say, the ask is in the prep. It’s the same thing with the handoff. Everything is in the prep. When you’re actually thinking about the handoff, I’d say there’s probably two main strategies we see, right, Matt? Like the primary one, which is usually the easiest, is sending an email or a letter to the donor from the mid-level officer, the person who has been engaging. That communication says, “Hey, I have a new colleague. His name is Matt. He actually has a little bit more time to connect with donors,” or perhaps Matt and I work for a national organization, and I can say, “and Matt actually travels to people in your area and connects with them personally, you know, and so Matt’s going to be your point of contact as we move forward.”

Theresa Tapocsi 

You want to take a moment and really position your MGO as the expert there, you know, showing the donor it’s to your benefit to hear from Matt and everything he can share with you about the organization, you know. Then you could say, you know, “I’ve shared with Matt what you’ve shared with me about, you know, your connection, but I really invite you to share that story personally with Matt too.” So you want to make sure you’re really kind of establishing that relationship and setting Matt up for success.

Matt Gill 

Yeah, let me jump in there. I think that’s, I think that’s spot on, right? Position Matt, you know, this new person who you’ve not met, and who you’re not used to hearing from. You know, this new person is an expert. You’re going to have an even better time with them than with me. It’s going to be even better for you. And so you know this person’s an expert in connecting donors with the impact of their gift. This person is in your area and you know, and travels there frequently, and you know, and can bring the story of your impact right to your doorstep. You know, these kinds of things that make it clearly in the interest of the donor to have this relationship transition.

Theresa Tapocsi 

Absolutely. And that sets up the donor, that sets up Matt, to now be in a better position to take on that relationship. And so logistically, if you send this as an email, copy the MGO, they can follow up. They can start the connection from there. If you send it as a letter, the major gift officer, can follow up with a phone call, really kind of qualification, all over again, you know, reaching out until we connect. And I would say, probably a good majority of donors, this is the process that we handle most of the time, especially moving from mid-level to major gifts.

Theresa Tapocsi 

Now, you might have donors on your caseload that need a little more love and attention, and you might decide a more in depth approach to the handoff is appropriate. So maybe that starts with a coffee together: me, Matt, and the donor. Maybe that makes sense. And then maybe a few months after that, there’s tag teaming of touch points, where I send a touch point one month and then Matt sends it the next month, and vice versa. The aim is for the mid-level officer to kind of slowly fade out of the relationship, while the major gift officer fades into the relationship.

Theresa Tapocsi 

So we also know, Matt and I both know this, that some donors get emotions around moving to a new person. So I think it’s really important, especially as you build these kind of slow plans, that you honor those emotions. You can make sure you reiterate things like, you know, “I’m not going away. You could still reach out to me. I just, you know, Matt will be your primary point of contact for all of the important bit of information.”

Theresa Tapocsi 

So, you know, a lot of handoffs do also happen during our caseload refresh period too. We know we’re looking at donors and we’re looking at our caseload, so that makes a lot of sense. But if you’re a mid-level officer, that should not be the only time you’re looking for opportunities for handoffs. If you have somebody that is kind of on the cusp for you and they ask for a tour, for instance, can your major gift officer join you on that tour? Bring them along, have that experience. Or maybe the donor is going to an event, and you could invite, you could take the mid-level officer or donor and walk them right over to your colleague and make that introduction, and then maybe that’s step one of this kind of multi-step handoff process. Always be looking for those because that feels so much more organic than anything that we have to force at a specific time of year.

Theresa Tapocsi 

But I think the one thing to remember to make all this work, all those logistics, is trust and communication between the teams.

Matt Gill 

Yeah, so important.

Theresa Tapocsi 

If I don’t trust Matt to handle donors as well as I think I’m handling them, I’m not going to feel comfortable moving them to him, especially if we think about we’re taking an A level donor from a mid-level caseload, and now they’re likely becoming a C level donor on a major gifts caseload. So if there’s not trust and communication between these two programs, we can’t ensure that the quality of the donor experience is sustained between when they were on a mid level caseload and when they’re on a major gifts caseload. So that is key. You need to be building up that trust and really make sure you’re communicating between the teams regularly.

Jeff Schreifels 

Yeah. All right. So that is great. So mid-level to major gifts, we just got a great download there. Now another scenario we often see is when a donor or a caseloads are transferred from one MGO to another. So why don’t you walk us through that process, Matt, and what does that look like?

Matt Gill 

Sure, and I think you know a lot of what Theresa just said can apply here as well. The deliberate approach to what does this donor need? You know, is it a letter? Is it a face to face meeting? Is it a phone call with a warm handoff? You know, what’s the right way to make this transition? You know, we’ve got to think about the various options in front of us. You know, different processes that could work and just be methodical.

Matt Gill 

And I think, Theresa, you said something really important. Donors have feelings too, right? Donors get it. We do this work with so much love and we love our donors, a ton, and our donors, I think, love us as well. They love to hear from us. They’ve developed a relationship with us. They care about what our kids are doing. They care about our pets. They care about our career progression, even like they’ll, you know, there’s an, oftentimes, a scenario where a major gift officer has gotten promoted within the organization, has to make a donor transition, a bunch of donor transitions, and the joy in those meetings as the donors are like, “Congratulations! I’m so excited for you. You’re going to be, you’re going to do great!” You know, and meeting the new person, and thinking about the donor’s feelings too. Are their feelings going to be hurt that they didn’t get to come with you now that you’re the VP, and they’re in there, they have to be transitioned to another relationship manager. That’s all going to be taken into account.

Matt Gill 

So be methodical, right? Be be deliberate. Be thoughtful. Take your, take the donor’s needs and feelings into account. But don’t delay in the process either. You know, there’s this phrase like, clear is kind. Sometimes you got to rip the bandaid off and just say, like, look, we gotta, we gotta make this happen, and we gotta, and we gotta do it now, you know. Especially if say, Theresa is getting promoted to being the VP, and she is handing donors to me, and I’m brand new at the organization, and I’m over here languishing, just waiting to get my caseload, and Theresa’s trying to start her new job as the VP and maintain these relationships and, like, try and get everything together for the transitions, and try, you know, and answering the calls from the board and the CEO, and there’s all this stuff that she’s trying to manage. Like get those donors transition, so that their journey can continue, so they can be cared for, and so that your new MGO isn’t sitting there twiddling thumbs and waiting for the job to start.

Theresa Tapocsi 

“Man, I’m really busy. Sorry about that, Matt.”

Matt Gill 

“I know Theresa, you got a lot on your plate. You know you’re very capable, but let me help you out here.”

Matt Gill 

All right. So, again, not everyone needs this face to face handoff, right? I think taking every donor’s needs into account is important. And like I think we know the person who most needs to go to lunch and spend an hour with the old and the new relationship manager? And it’s not everybody, right? You know, it’s just a hint. You know, it’s the A folks, it’s the most engaged, it’s the people that you’re working towards transformational giving with. It’s the people that you know that’s, we know who these folks are. And most of the donors, even qualified on a major gift caseload, is that, you know, we can make these transitions relatively smoothly and swiftly; be deliberate, sensitive, and swift. I think absolutely a good rule for that. Now there’s also other scenarios. Theresa, you didn’t get promoted to be the VP. You left rapidly.

Theresa Tapocsi 

Oh, okay.

Matt Gill 

Why did you leave? Did you get your dream job somewhere else?

Theresa Tapocsi 

Won the lottery.

Matt Gill 

A health or death situation? Did you get notification from the Navy Reserves of a deployment to Afghanistan at a time of the Navy’s choosing? That’s one of those scenarios, right? Where T.S. Eliot says the time of death is every moment, right? You’ve got to be prepared for something unexpected to happen, and someone to have to come through the manager, to have to come behind someone who left unexpectedly and pick up with the donors where you left off, right? And so that’s that information up to date. The database up to date. Your plans are up to date. You’ve communicated your plans with your manager; that the manager has access to what the next steps in that plan were, that they can pick up where you’re going with the donor, and they can continue to care for that donor as the donor needs in that scenario, right?

Matt Gill 

The relationship manager is gone. There’s no face to face handoff. There’s no warm handoff. There’s only the manager reaching out to the donors and letting them know about the change, letting them know who the interim point of contact is. It’s usually the manager themselves. And then, in time, as we hire behind the gift officer, as we hire behind and bring that person up to speed, then making that transition to the new person, almost in the same way that we just described before, where it’s, you know, there’s a few people that have been engaged with that manager. There’s a few people that need that really warm introduction, that warm handoff, but really that new gift officer comes to this caseload that was previously qualified for a gift for the the old MGO, and they have to approach it almost like qualifying again, where they’re doing their intro letter, they’re reaching out, they’re following up, and they’re trying to establish two-way communication with all of these donors again.

Theresa Tapocsi 

I call those people pseudo qualified, because at some point in time they were qualified to your organization. But right now, you’re still in that qualification phase again.

Matt Gill 

And taking the donor’s feelings into account: there’s likely going to be some feelings, right? Maybe you’re coming into a scenario, and you’re the fifth relationship manager in three years and that becomes a fraught situation, and you have to start the relationship. And managers should be aware of that as they’re bringing new folks into that situation.

Theresa Tapocsi 

You know, you bring up a good point, Matt, because one of the key pieces that I coach on is, if you are that person in the scenario, and you are now relationship manager number five, make sure you are showing the donor that you’ve done all your homework, because they don’t necessarily want to have to tell their whole story again. So saying something like, you know, “Matt, you know I was reading in the notes that you had shared previously that you really care about x and, you know, that’s really wonderful. Would you be, you know, interested in sharing a little bit more about that with me?” So being permission-based, but also showing them, you know, you don’t have to start from point zero. I at least have something to go on.

Theresa Tapocsi 

That’s a great point, Theresa.

Jeff Schreifels 

I can just, I mean, if you put yourself in the donor’s shoes, because this happens, because, as we all know, you know, turn around happens a lot, like 15-18 months on average. So it’s very possible that a donor who’s been there a long time has gone through many relationship managers, and it could be really frustrating. So taking that time to really understand who the donor is, and that’s why, again, it’s so important to put all those notes in, that you hate doing, right? But it’s really important because it will help the donor feel at ease that somebody knows who they are. So really good point.

Jeff Schreifels 

Now, okay, we can’t forget to touch on when a donor needs to move from the major gifts, maybe back down to mid-level, which is a really delicate balance. So, Theresa, how do you handle that?

Theresa Tapocsi 

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we know over time a major gift officer’s caseload, that we always say that the quality of the caseload improves over time. Yeah, part of that is there will be donors that we figure out as they’ve been in a major gift caseload, but that is not the place to serve them best. That really a mid-level caseload would serve them better. And there’s a few different groups that that may fall into.

Theresa Tapocsi 

One is the donors who are non-responsive from your pool. So you have done your due diligence, you’ve gone through all steps of the qualification process, and they never responded at all. They never relationally qualified. So the good news is, those ones are really easy. All you really need to do, if everyone’s read our qualification white paper, the last step of that is a personal handwritten note. So if you have a mid-level program that is ready to take on donors, you can just use that handwritten note as introducing the mid-level officer. “Hey, it’s been, you know, I’ve been sharing things with you. You know, as we move forward, Matt’s going to be reaching out to you from now on.” Very simple, because we know they’re not responding, and mid-level might be the place now. Ten months from now, after Matt’s been engaging with that person, if they, you know, come out of the woodwork, and now they’re the most chatty, talkative, wonderful, engaged donor ever, we can consider at what point in time do we then reintroduce the major gift officer? But we’d take that all, think about the timing for that.

Theresa Tapocsi 

Beyond those folks though, you might find other donors in your portfolio who are qualified, but maybe over time, you learned it was really a one time gift, or their circumstances have changed and they won’t be giving at a major gift level, or they really don’t want that much attention. They’re engaging, but they’re a little bit more on the hands-off side. If you have donors in that category who are very engaged, but perhaps we found out after being really engaged with them, that they’re never going to be able to give at this major level.

Theresa Tapocsi 

Again, be extra sensitive to those. You know, as Matt said, donors have feelings. We need to be making a making our plans in a way that’s honoring of them. So you don’t want to dump them right after you learn, hey, they’re not giving at this level. And I say, “Okay, well, here. Heres Matt. Like, he’ll talk to you now.” Make sure you’re just being honoring of the timing of that. Maybe that’s a very slow transition over to a mid-level officer. Maybe that’s that like, fade in, fade out, in the same way. You know, sometimes language you can use in these kind of scenarios is something like, you know, “I’ve taken on some new responsibilities, and you know, Matt is going to be your contact point of contact moving forward.” We’re often a little vague in these scenarios because we don’t want to say, Well, you’re not giving enough anymore. That’s not an appropriate way to be talking with anyone. We would more talk about, “Hey, I’ve taken on some more responsibilities. Matt’s gonna have the opportunity to connect with you in the way that you want to be connected with,” and really honoring that if they’re not engaged, or their givings drop down.

Theresa Tapocsi 

You might not need to do as much of a formal handoff at all. It may be simply that Matt, you know, sends a letter introducing himself and says, “Hey, you may have heard from Theresa in the past, but now you’ll be hearing from me moving forward.” For some donors, if they kind of stopped engaging as much, that might be the simplest solution for them.

Jeff Schreifels 

Awesome. Good stuff. And you know, the main takeaway here is that it’s all about your donor journey, right? Your goal in all of this is to be thoughtful about the journey and the long term partnership you’re building with that donor.

Jeff Schreifels 

Matt and Theresa, thanks for joining me today. And to everyone listening, I hope this has provided you with some practical ideas and strategies you can use with your donors. And if you’d like to learn more about transitioning donors, what indicators to listen for, and how to meaningfully manage your donors once they’ve moved on to your caseload, be sure to check out our Certification Courses in Mid-Level Fundraising and Major Gifts. The next sessions are in February, which means you can get in on our Early Bird rate. When you register, you can sign up by visiting the links in the show notes, or by heading directly to our website. Thanks, 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.