The Basics You Still Don’t Have Down

Jeff Schreifels

With so many fundraisers taking our courses and engaging in our community, we see a lot of people asking the same questions. And most of those questions are really about the basics of relational fundraising: the system and structure of The Veritus Way. For today’s episode, we’ve collected some of the most common questions that even the most seasoned fundraisers sometimes need a reminder about. So stay tuned and make sure you’ve got the basics down.

 

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. In our work at Veritus, we get to interact with hundreds of fundraisers through consulting, our online academy, and our community hub. While we get a lot of questions that we would deem advanced, many are really about the basics. And Richard, you know that if you don’t have the basics down, it doesn’t matter what kind of new strategies you want to put in place, it won’t work without implementing those basics. So today, we’re going to talk about some of the basics we consistently get questions about, and at many organizations where they’re still struggling to get it down.

 

Richard Perry

Yeah, we know that it’s really hard to stay on track with a system or a structure. I mean, it is. You kind of get off track. But even if you have all the resources you need, keeping yourself accountable and focused is challenging for the best of us. And while this really isn’t rocket science, there are a lot of components that require a very, very disciplined approach.

 

Jeff Schreifels

That’s exactly right. It isn’t rocket science. But it’s hard work to keep focus and discipline, as Richard just said. So let’s get started with the first basic question our team has heard in the field many, many times. And here it is: “Veritus always recommends keeping donors in direct mail. Does that mean you shouldn’t be directly asking donors for money?”

 

Richard Perry

Well, here’s the thing. Why do we say keep the donors in direct mail? Why do we recommend that?

 

Jeff Schreifels

Well, because most of the donors who are now major gift donors, have come from direct mail. They gave their first gift through a direct mail piece. They were cultivated that way. And they’ve been giving that way. In addition to, perhaps giving larger gifts, one on one, but you know, that’s what they’re used to. And in many cases that we’ve heard from donors, they like getting it because it gives them a clue of what’s going on at the organization.

 

Richard Perry

Exactly. I think the other point, Jeff, is like when you, and we’ve experienced this a lot, you take a donor and you move them out of direct mail. Because why? Because you’ve put them on a caseload. And then the caseload strategy doesn’t actually start, you know, kind of engaging with the donor for two or three months. Yeah. So now there’s this gap of communication between the organization and the donor that they’re used to. I mean, we’ve actually seen revenue go down, because we’ve taken people out of direct mail.

 

Jeff Schreifels

And huge amounts, too.

 

Richard Perry

Yeah, big amounts. So I mean, oftentimes the whole business of, well leave them in direct mail, and then they’re on the caseload as well… isn’t that a duplication of effort? I mean, how would you answer that?

 

Jeff Schreifels

No, I would say it’s something that you’re enhancing. So you’re still allowing the donor to give through those ways if they want to. But you’re at the same time, deepening that relationship with a donor, you’re finding out specifically, what are the things that they’re passionate about and what are their interests, so that you can, you know, figure out all the different programs and projects you have and match that up to ultimately ask for a large, very large gift. Which they’re most likely not going to do through direct mail. No one’s giving a million dollars, I shouldn’t say no one, because I’m sure it’s happened. Very few donors give very large gifts through direct mail. It’s through that personal one-to-one outreach.

 

Richard Perry

Well, but I think the big point there is if you take them out, they’re probably not going to hear from you. And that’s the big point. Right there. Now, here’s another basic you have to ask for a gift. Remember that one guy, the development director? Was it the development director or the major gift officer?

 

Jeff Schreifels

Yes, it was the development director.

 

Richard Perry

Of a very large organization. I mean, it was probably $20-$25 million. What did he say?

 

Jeff Schreifels

He said, “I just want to start this meeting by saying, I’ve never had to ask for a gift.” And like, he was really proud of that. Like, for 25 years, he’s been in development. He said, “I’ve never had to ask for a gift.” And we’re looking around at each other going, “And that’s a badge of honor?!”

 

Richard Perry

And especially in light of the analysis we had done on the donor file, which was a total absolute disaster.

 

Jeff Schreifels

So we’re like, “No wonder your file is in shambles. You’ve never asked for a gift.”

 

Richard Perry

It’s so interesting. This whole thing about asking is such an interesting thing for me, Jeff, because it’s like, “Okay. Why aren’t you asking for a gift?” “Well, it’s not necessary,” or, “It’ll dawn on them that they need to give,” or something like that. And what we keep telling folks is, if you buy into the philosophy, which we have been propagating and evangelizing about, if you buy into the philosophy that fundraising is not about the money, the actual thing that you do with a donor in asking for a gift as you’re giving them an opportunity to express their passions and interests. And that’s a gift to the donor. So why wouldn’t you be doing that?

 

Jeff Schreifels

Exactly. I think that holds up people a lot. They think, “Oh, I’m taking something away from someone.” It’s the opposite. You’re enhancing their life. You’re doing something they want to do, and they find joy in giving that gift. So you’re essentially robbing them of that joy by not asking a donor to give.

 

Richard Perry

So maybe we ought to say that the reason you need to ask for a gift is because it’s a gift to the donor that you’re going to give them, and by not doing that, you’re taking something away from them. I mean, that’s a huge thing.

 

Jeff Schreifels

You know, some other points about the direct mail thing is you can use direct mail as part of your overall strategy of cultivating and stewarding those donors. You know, especially around newsletters, that they send out, you can personalize those with notes. You can call the donor ahead of time or right after they receive it saying, “Hey, I just wanted to give you a heads up about an article in that newsletter that I think that you would like because you’re interested in x, y, z.” Now, some of the things, you know, one of the things I’ve noticed Richard, from organizations who have essentially grown up or built their donor file through direct response, so they’re really, you know, they spent millions on acquisition and cultivating those low dollar donors, and now they are starting… and then they have like a fledgling major gift program, is that they do rely on direct response, or direct mail, or emails to have their donors give. And basically the MGO is kind of just, you know, stewarding or thanking. They’re not actually trying to get to know them much. They’re just, you know, being nice and like, “Oh, you’re such a wonderful donor.” And they just rely on, “Well, every November that donor gives. And they give through this appeal, so I’m not going to…”

 

Richard Perry

Which means they’re missing a number of gifts from the donor, as well.

 

Jeff Schreifels

Yeah, exactly. And we see it in the files. You know, when you see a donor give $1,000 every year, the same amount. Or $2,500, $5,000, even $10,000. There, that means that somebody is not reaching out to them. It means the donor is just giving that same amount and because we’ve been so happy that they’re continuing to give and that they’re loyal, we don’t get in there and try to really figure out the donor’s passions and interests, and just rely on the direct mail piece to bring the $5,000 or $10,000 they’re going to do in November.

 

Richard Perry

Alright so, so far we’ve done: you’ve got to leave them in direct mail. Secondly, you’ve got to ask them for a gift. The third thing is, this is so, so basic: pay attention to the donor’s preferences and interests and passions, and communication preferences. Pay attention to that. Now why?

 

Jeff Schreifels

Because it honors the donor, number one. We know that if we… the donor knows then we’ve heard them. If you honor how they want to give, they’re more apt to engage with you, right?

 

Richard Perry

I mean, I know, exactly. I mean, the experiences I’ve had, I remember this, and it happens way too often, where you give to something and you express an interest. So you give something to category number one, and you get information back on categories two and three. And you’re not interested in two and three, you’re interested in one. But they aren’t paying attention. So that immediately is a very clear signal that the organization is just interested in your money, they don’t really care about you.

 

Jeff Schreifels

Exactly.

 

Richard Perry

So paying attention to those donor preferences and interests is so important. Now, we’ve already touched on this one. But just to reiterate again, the basic thing is thinking properly about money and fundraising. The fundraising thing is not about money. And that’s a basic. Now, I think the reason that it’s not basic in most philanthropic circles, in most organizations, is it seems counterintuitive. Because when you say development, or fundraising, that sends your mind down to money. Now, how to get out of that? I mean, how would you suggest we get out of that kind of thinking?

 

Jeff Schreifels

Well, what we’ve been preaching for years, is you need to develop that relationship. Out of building that relationship, figuring out that donor’s passions and interests, their communication, all those things, figuring that out, deepening the relationship, getting to know that donor, will result in the money. Rather than going after the money first, you may actually get a gift.

 

Richard Perry

No you will, probably.

 

Jeff Schreifels

Donors need to feel like they can trust you. If they’re going to give six, seven figure gifts to your organization, they’re only going to be able to do that if you’ve established a level of trust, that they feel like, “Oh, I can do this with them, and I feel good about it.”

 

Richard Perry

I mean, the other thing about this whole philosophy is that it’s truly a… it has a spiritual dimension to it. And we mean that with a small “s”, it’s not a religious spiritual. There’s an intangible to that whole thing. It’s about the donor’s journey. It’s about them feeling fulfilled. It’s about affirming a portion of the reasoning as to why they’re even on the planet, right? It’s like, “Wow, I’m helping somebody else out,” or “I’m saving a forest or an animal.” Or, “I’m dealing with this, solving this cancer problem,” or whatever. So, so important.

 

Richard Perry

Okay. The next basic thing is this: the importance of telling the donor that she made a difference. Wow, Jeff, this is a huge one. What is that most of our attrition analyses show that proves that this isn’t being done well?

 

Jeff Schreifels

Well we see anywhere between…. a donor gives one year, at the next year, we lose like 40% to 60% of the value in the next year. You put that with all the hundreds of donors that are giving, that’s a huge amount of revenue being lost year over year. Why? Because that’s the number one reason why donors go away. They don’t know how their gifts made a difference. They don’t know the impact of their gift. And that’s important. And when they don’t ever hear back from you what happened… Now think about this, because this happens all the time. Someone gives a $50,000 gift. And then they never hear back from the organization about what happened. You know, they might get a thank you. You know, thank you for the gift and all that, then they never hear back again. Like what actually happened? What did it do? You know, donors, typically are not that picky as far as how you report back. You know, it’s like, just get back to them and say, “Hey, I just wanted to follow up with you on that gift. Here’s what it’s doing.” It’s not like you have to have a 10-page report on exactly what that gift did. I mean, it could be even a video just saying, “Hey, I wanted to show you the impact of that gift.”

 

Richard Perry

Yeah, something simple.

 

Richard Perry

I know. I’ve likened this whole thing to how it affects me personally. For instance, let’s say I’m sitting here in my home in North Carolina and my friend Bill up the street asked me to come help him with a project in the garage. And it’s a fairly complicated project, so I go up and I help him. It takes three hours. I’ve taken a bunch of time out. I even went to Lowe’s and bought some stuff and, you know, and gave it to him and transported it. And then we’re done. And I never hear from Bill. “Hey, Richard, boy I tell you, the thing that really made a difference, and I really…” You never hear a word. You just feel bad. And everyone listening to this podcast right now has been through experiences like that. Where you do something for somebody, or you think something’s going to make a difference, and you hear total silence. And, then you wonder. Are you going to come back and do it again?

 

Jeff Schreifels

People don’t do it.

 

Richard Perry

Even if you do that Richard, and you go, “I don’t need to hear from them.” You know? And most people who give say, “Well, you know, I’ve…” But even if you feel like “I don’t need to hear back,” when you don’t hear back, there is this little niggle, right?

 

Richard Perry

Of course there is.

 

Jeff Schreifels

Like what’s going on? What happened there? Don’t they care? Don’t they care about this? So this is an area where non-profits who really want to stand out could do so much. If they could just report back the impact, they’d be well above all the other organizations out there. And they would get a larger donor share of their gifts if they did this well. We have story after story of donors, who have said, “You know what, I was going to give another gift to my alma mater. But, you know, they never talked to me. You talk to me, you tell me what… and therefore, I’m going to give you what I was going to give them, in addition to what I was going to give you.”

 

Richard Perry

We’ve seen that happen so often. I mean, these are huge amounts of money. Do you have any other top points that you want to comment on Jeff?

 

Jeff Schreifels

Well, I think on that point, that’s the big one. We get this other question a lot around building strategic plans for donors. One is… a basic one is, “Do you actually need to have a plan for a donor?” And our total thing about The Veritus Way is yes, you have to have a plan for every donor.

 

Richard Perry

Exactly.

 

Jeff Schreifels

Because you’re trying to fulfill the passions and interests of the donor. And to do that, you need to have a plan for how you’re going to develop that. How are you going to understand that and then how you’re going to execute on that. And then similarly, in their planning, they’re always asking, like, “How many touch points do you need to send to a donor every year?” And then, “Should you have to personalize those touch points by each of those donors?” And we respond to that by saying, “Yeah, you need to have at least one touchpoint a month planned. And yes, you need to personalize those based on the donor.” Now, there can be some things that… Well okay, everyone gets a newsletter. But the personalized side is that, well, maybe your A levels get a handwritten note, maybe your B and C just get a little sticky note. But there’s something personal to each one of those things that everyone is getting. But then there are other things directly related to donors’ passions and interests that you need to think about. Like, if this donor only cares about feeding and meals, then you’re going to develop a plan around that. And those touch points are going to be around those issues.

 

Richard Perry

So, you cannot send the same thing to everyone. I mean, even if you have something like an annual report that you want to send to the whole caseload, you can add personalized notes, and call out key things that the donor is interested in. And that’s a mistake that’s often made, probably because it’s like, “Well, I want to be efficient here. I mean, it’s easier. So I’m just going to send the same thing to everybody.” Well, you can’t do that. So, and I think the other thing is…

 

Jeff Schreifels

This is the beauty of major gifts is that it’s… you only have 150 people so that you have the time to think about this and do these personalized touch points, because they’ve you know, if your organization has been just sending out mass stuff to them for years, now they’re in a portfolio, this is when you start to get personal. This is the beauty of major gifts.

 

Richard Perry

Here’s another thing about touch points, and it’s a quick point I want to make, is a touch point doesn’t necessarily equal a mailing. I mean, it really doesn’t. I mean, touch points, what we mean by that is that there is a thoughtful, meaningful, relevant opportunity to connect with donors and share about their impact, their passions, and their lives. So it’s an… and a touch point doesn’t have to be some highly produced… I mean, that’s the other thing. It’s like, “Okay, we’ve got to have a collateral piece, and it’s, you know, the coloring and, you know, blah, blah, blah,” and it goes on and on with all these details. And it’s just not necessary. It could be a handwritten note or a letter. All of that stuff.

 

Jeff Schreifels

Yeah. All right. Well, here’s another one that we get. This question is, do you need to do all seven steps of the qualification process if you don’t get a two-way interaction with your donors? What do you say about that?

 

Richard Perry

Well you’re not going to annoy them by doing the seven steps. And the point really is to give them the space to tell you exactly what they want from you. I mean, the reason we have the seven steps is because well, first of all, we’ve proven that it takes that much to kind of actually get to the bottom of it and give people the time to respond. But the other thing is, you got to think about this is, from our point of view, the seven steps seems like “Oh, my goodness, this is just like, huge amount of effort.” From their point of view, well, the first two steps… I was out on vacation over in Boston and the other step I was in a business meeting in Atlanta. So I didn’t get that or I ignored it, or I filed it or…. so there’s all these dynamics going on. And I think the thing is, you just have to realize you’re not going to annoy somebody by giving the donor enough opportunity to say that they want to engage or don’t want to engage. I mean, that’s the point.

 

Jeff Schreifels

Exactly. It was funny. I was at a recent breakfast in Philadelphia here. And one of our former clients from a public media station, they were there. And they came up to me and they said, “The best thing that we’ve learned from The Veritus Way is this whole qualification thing. And the fact that you have these seven steps,” she said, “you wouldn’t believe how many donors didn’t engage until step six and seven. But you know, you guys preach, stay with it. Stay persistent. And I’m so glad I did, because a huge number of donors finally got back to me after I sent that sixth or seventh touch point.” And so that just was another affirmation that, you know, if you don’t hear from them after the second or third, that’s when most people are like “Ah, they’re not going to respond.” You have to stick with it.

 

Richard Perry

Well it’s the same in direct mail frequency. I mean, we’ve been through this, too. So I recently had a situation where a client was basically saying, “Yeah, we’re probably going to mail just one time during the year.” I said, “What? One time?”

 

Richard Perry

Well, we don’t want to bug the donor (laughter).

 

Richard Perry

So no, you need to mail up to, I mean, some organizations mail up to 24 times depending on which segment is, or 18 times. “Oh, my goodness, that’s…” Here’s the reason, people are busy. Or the topic of what you’re sending out, might not appeal to them. So they ignore it. And so they’re picking. So that’s why frequency is so important. Okay.

 

Jeff Schreifels

That’s right.

 

Richard Perry

Here’s another one that we talk a lot about. Here’s what it is. If your donor has a high wealth rating, do you need to qualify them? And do you use wealth ratings to tier donors?

 

Jeff Schreifels

Yeah. Well, we’re a little tough on those wealth ratings, because they can really pull attention and focus away from the donors who are actively engaging and giving generously. So in other words, there are a lot of organizations that look at this wealth thing as the way to look at what donors they should be cultivating, rather than looking at their current giving of donors, you know. They can have a donor on you know, that is giving $100 or something, but they have a wealth rating, you know, that’s just through the roof. So they’re going to put all their time on that one donor, whereas they have other donors who are giving $100,000 a year, but they’re not cultivating them, because their wealth rating is not as high as the one that was given $100. So there’s all this emphasis on wealth ratings, how the… especially universities, they’re terrible at this. They fill up a portfolio for major gift officers at universities based on wealth ratings, and then say “Well based on their wealth rating, you should be able to bring in $3 million from this portfolio.”

 

Richard Perry

That’s just absolutely crazy.

 

Jeff Schreifels

Crazy! Now they can help give you a better picture of what the donor’s potential is. But really, it’s about their current giving. That’s what we want to focus on, and use because that shows us how engaged they are. Right?

 

Richard Perry

And the other dynamic there is do you want a net worth person of a million dollars who loves to give you $100,000? Or do you want a person of a net worth of $100 million that’s giving you $25? It’s a little counterintuitive, and it feels like you might be missing something. But really that smaller net worth person is more valuable to you. He’s showing inclination and involvement and behavior that is basically… they’re with you. The other person is not with you. They’re not with you.

 

Jeff Schreifels

Not yet, anyways.

 

Richard Perry

Yeah. Not yet, yeah. So I mean, that’s why we think about wealth ratings in this way.

 

Jeff Schreifels

That’s not to say that you don’t keep an eye on that big donor that’s giving $25. And you might create some strategies to see if they would go from $25 to $250 to $1,000. Those kinds of things. But you don’t set up your portfolio based on it.

 

Richard Perry

Or put them in your A Tier or tier them on it. I mean, that’s where the mistake is. It’s like the same thing that we’ve heard so many times: “Hey, you need to go… I met this guy at Rotary, and he’s very influential. He’s on the city council. And, he owns two companies, and therefore you got to spend time with him.” No. No, that’s not a good use of time. It’s the same dynamic.

 

Jeff Schreifels

All right. Well, thanks, Richard, for joining me today on this episode, and helping answer some of these basic questions that people have. And I hope this has helped you be reminded of the basics that you need to have down to be successful in major gifts. And 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 an upcoming session by visiting the show notes or heading to our website under “Training.” Take care and we hope to see you in the upcoming course.

 

Richard Perry

See you soon.

 

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.