Do you have a strategy to help you allocate your time per donor?
The reality is, you only have so much time in a day. And you need to be a good steward of that time. So, while we value all donors as people, the impact they have is not equal. Some will give much more than others, and those donors need a bigger investment of your time and energy.
On this episode, Jeff is joined by Lisa Robertson, our Director of Client Services, to talk about the idea of tiering donor caseloads. This is a core component of the system and structure we follow as part of The Veritus Way. Join us for this conversation about the process of tiering and how it works to help you focus your time where you can make the most impact.
Show Highlights: In this episode, you’ll learn about…
- The process of tiering your caseload donors A-C
- Misconceptions about what it means to tier donors and engage them at different levels
- Challenges that arise when a caseload isn’t tiered
- Differences in tiering a major gifts caseload versus a mid-level caseload
- How tiering helps fundraisers to better engage their donors
Veritus Group is passionate about partnering with you and your organization throughout your fundraising journey. We believe that the key to transformative fundraising is a disciplined system and structure, trusted accountability, persistence, and a bit of fun. We specialize in mid-level fundraising, major gifts, and planned giving, helping our clients to develop compelling donor offers and to focus on strategic leadership and organizational development. You can learn more about how we can partner with you at www.VeritusGroup.com.
Additional Resources:
- [White Paper] Tiering Donors to Create Focused Caseloads
- [Blog] You Can’t Spend All Your Time With a Donor Just Because You Like Them
- [Video] Why “Tier” Donors in a Major Gift Caseload?
Read the Full Transcript of This Podcast Episode:
Jeff Schreifels
Here’s a question for you. How do you allocate your time per donor? The reality is you only have so much time in a day, and you need to be a good steward of that time. So while we value all donors as people, the impact they have is not equal. Some give much more than others. And those donors need a bigger investment of your time and energy. Today’s episode is all about how to manage your caseload by tiering your donors and creating appropriate strategies for each giving level.
Jeff Schreifels
But before we dive in, I want to tell you about a show I think you’ll love called Giving Done Right from the Center for Effective Philanthropy, and co-hosted by Phil Buchanan and Grace Nicolette. Giving Done Right covers everything you need to know on how to make an impact with your charitable giving. And whether you’re giving a few hundred dollars a year, a few thousand, or a few million, each episode, Phil and Grace welcome non-profit leaders, inspiring donors, and experts to tackle burning questions from donors. Together, they bust some myths that have long plagued donors and non-profits alike, talk about what makes for effective giving, draw connections to how giving can truly make a difference, and explore the roles of family identity and faith and giving. They keep it real, honest and personal. Because giving is personal. Subscribe to Giving Done Right wherever you listen to podcasts.
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 Richard is off today. So I’ve invited Lisa Robertson, our Director of Client Services, to join me for today’s episode. Now, if you’re familiar with our work, then you probably heard or read about the idea of tiering your caseload. It’s a core part of our system and structure, what we call The Veritus Way. And we’ll be diving deeper into this topic in our conversation today. So to kick things off, Lisa, I’d love for you to give our listeners a brief overview of what tiering actually is and how we use it in our system with our clients.
Lisa Robertson
Sure. Thanks, Jeff. Glad to be here today. Well, we typically think about tiering after we qualify. So in major gifts, we don’t do this until we’ve figured out who wants to relate to us, and we’ve qualified them. And then in mid-level, we do it a little bit differently. But for both, it’s all about figuring out which donors have the greatest capacity and inclination, in other words, who you need to spend the most time with engaging and connecting with to make sure you’re getting the most return on investment for the organization. And what that does is it helps you create this focus within your caseload. And then that level of focus and attention that you should give to each donor is sort of dictated by those tiers. And it really helps you on all those things as far as engaging and then making sure you’re having a good ROI.
Jeff Schreifels
Okay, good. Now, I know that sometimes when we talk about this, we get some pushback from people around this idea, right?
Lisa Robertson
Yeah, we do. And you’re totally right about that. And I think when sometimes people hear this, they start feeling like, well, it’s unfair to certain donors, or makes my caseload management more about the money and not about the donor. And it just feels kind of icky. Like I’m ignoring, like lesser people, in a sense. And that’s not what we’re doing. So I think today, what we’re trying to do is like, debunk those ideas, and then talk about some of those things like, where are the root concerns that people have? And how can we address those as we talk about tiering a little bit?
Jeff Schreifels
Okay, well, let’s get into it.
Lisa Robertson
All right. Well, so great. So Jeff, what does it look like when we have a caseload and it’s not tiered? So what are the challenges that arise from that?
Jeff Schreifels
A lot of problems. So first, you know, we see gift officers spend way more time with the people that they like, or they’re easy to get ahold of, rather than the people that they should be focusing on. So we hear story after story of major gift officers are like well, I don’t like this tiering thing because I you know, I’m I’m really developed some good close friendships with these donors. And you know, I scheduled my weekly call or monthly coffee with this one donor. And then when you get into it, you realize, so you’re spending this monthly, two hour coffee time with a donor who’s giving $1,000. And you’re not spending time with these two other donors that are have the capacity and are giving at the $100,000 level? Because it’s not as easy to get a hold of, and maybe you don’t like them as much. Yeah, yeah. So that’s one thing we see them, you know. And so what happens is that those donors in their portfolio, that really have that high capacity and propensity get neglected, yeah.
Jeff Schreifels
And then we see fundraisers that are not focused, and that they end up not using the organization’s resources correctly. So what I mean by that is, you know, the, the organization is essentially handing you over these, let’s say, you have your full portfolio 150 donors, and they’re saying, you know, we have this investment, we’re doing a new major gift officer, and you need to be wise with your time and your resources to actually work with these donors in the right way. So with that charge, from the organization to the major gift officer, they really have to be careful, like, where am I spending my time? Where is the highest essential ROI for my organization? And if you as an frontline fundraiser, are spending most of your time with your C level donors, and you’re not really developing relationships with those A and B level people. You’re not using your resources of the organization correctly, you know, and, you know, you’re a non-profit, you have to be…
Lisa Robertson
Yeah, very aware, right?
Jeff Schreifels
Yep. So I want to ask you, let’s talk about what are the economics around the idea of tiering your caseload?
Lisa Robertson
Well, it goes back to what you just said, right? The organization has invested in me as a fundraiser. So when we look at kind of the math of that, on average, we think that for major gifts, organizations invested to about $1,000 per donor, yeah, then we need to ensure that people are giving more than that, and that we balanced the time that we spend, right, so that I’m spending more time with the folks who are giving way more than $1,000, and maybe less time with those who are giving right at or underneath $1,000.
Jeff Schreifels
Now, let me let me stop you there. Because I want people to get this. So when we figure out well, where do you get this $1,000 per donor. So we knew just an average, you know, let’s look at the salary, but we’re paying the frontline fundraiser and the benefits, the travel, all of that stuff at cost. If you have a full caseload of 150 donors, it costs around $150,000 to cultivate and steward those donors over the course of one year. So that’s where we get the $1,000 per donor idea there. So it could be a little less, it could be a little more, you know, depending on your organization, but essentially, that’s what we’re talking about.
Lisa Robertson
Yeah. And it’s just good to be aware of that number, right. It’s does depend on the organization, what you’re paid, what your caseload value is, all those things. But yeah, generally, that’s how we come up with it. And it sounds kind of cold, but we’re not cold about it. It’s not just about the money. Sometimes it helps us think right in terms of investment in time and money. And I mean, I’m sure you’ve heard me say that I always think that fundraisers should get an honorary masters in psychology, because we’re dealing with so much about people stuff and our own stuff. And so we have this like, kind of this desire, right to, to get the win, and to not give up on people and then connect relationally. So all these things kind of come together. And we don’t want to let go.
Lisa Robertson
And I’ll give you a great example. I had an MGO and she didn’t want to let go of a $750 donor, because they gave many years ago, and they had capacity. And they were fairly cool in their relationship. They weren’t like, you know, sometimes we hear that and they’re like, but they love us. And they’re great. And I really no, this was kind of like, cool, right? But she did not want to release them because of that whole psychology of, “But they’re mine. And I think I can do this,” and all these things. And so finally, what I had to say to break that was to ask her, like, how much are you willing to invest of your organization’s money on this donor? Because now in a sense, she was losing $250 per year, right. And I’m putting that losing in quotations. But you know, essentially, she’s investing more than she’s getting out. And it wasn’t that we sort of like, get rid of them now. It was like, how long can you do this? And she’s like, You know what, okay, I can try this for three more months. It just helped change her mental mindset to realize I’ve got to be investing where it’s really going to do the best good and not keep thinking only the best will come with this and not thinking about where to invest in tiering.
Jeff Schreifels
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so let’s see, we’re talking about major gifts now. But let’s also then, what’s the difference between tiering in major gifts versus the mid-level caseload?
Lisa Robertson
That’s a great question. So, you know, with tiering for either one, we always start with kind of the amount that donors who’ve given, they have the capacity and the inclination, and what we know about them, right. So it’s a little bit of an artistic science. Yeah. But in mid-level, we really focus on the amount they’ve given very heavily. So in major gifts, because there’s fewer people, we might know a bit more. So we might see larger gifts, or we might have some good research on them on what they’ve given other organizations or a longer term relationship. But the key for both major gifts and mid-level is that I can adjust those as we learn more, right? So in mid-level, I may adjust based on giving, right because I put them at a tier of like, maybe they’re $1,000. And that’s low into my scale. So I put them into Tier C. We don’t connect, but then they give $5,000. Well, all of a sudden, now I see that they have more capacity. So I move them to a Tier A or B. Why, because then I can be more intention about reaching out, they’re gonna get more personalized attention, that sort of thing. I’m paying more attention to them.
Lisa Robertson
And it’s similar in major gifts, except that remember, here, they’re all relationally qualified. So I’ve already connected with them. But for instance, like I may call you, Jeff, right, and you sort of play cool, and you’re that same $1,000 donor in major gifts. But then after I spend time with you, and I share information with you that you said you were interested, and you call me for more information, you start to warm up a bit, or in subsequent conversations, I hear that you mentioned capacity, maybe your home or your vacation style or your retirement plans, something of that. And so I might move you to to me because I hear inclination. And I’m thinking more about that connection and the specific ask and I can move you to a higher gift. So it’s just a little bit more nuanced in major gifts, and more about what we kind of gain and hear and learn. Not that that won’t happen in mid level. It’s just more likely to happen in major gifts.
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, got it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So how does tiering actually helped the fundraiser engage with the donors in a better way?
Lisa Robertson
Yeah. Right, right. So it helps because then we’re approached right now, if we don’t hear, I think I’ve got to treat every 150 people on a caseload for major gifts, or five to 700 people on the caseload for mid-level, the exact same. And so what happens is, I’m doing one-to-many or one-to-some, right with tiering, I’m thinking more about how best to use my time. So it’s no different than you and I right, when we’re going through our day, we schedule our days. And if we don’t put what’s important first, we may attend to the urgent but the less important, right? So really, this is kind of the same way most people manage their days, which is we’re kind of ensuring that 80% of our efforts, go to the 20% who can really make a difference. And then by engaging those folks, we find those few who are next transformational donors or mid-level who are gonna move through major gifts and that sort of thing.
Lisa Robertson
Plus, with tiering, I’m not going to miss my lower donors, right, like you talked about at the top of this, that people just tend to go toward who is nice and easy connect with, right. But if I don’t have my tiers, I’m likely to kind of miss those lower-end donors. And they’re still important. So I still need to set aside the time to ensure they’re communicated with well. And then honestly, what’s really great about this is it just feels better as a fundraiser to know like, Okay, I’m getting this done. And everyone’s getting my attention, not the same attention. But everyone’s getting my attention.
Jeff Schreifels
I want to talk about that first. A little bit like, what what the attention level and the differences, just give a broad overview of what you would do differently with an A-level major gift donor versus a C-level?
Lisa Robertson
Yeah, so in major gifts, my A donors are those who are gonna give the most have the most capacity inclination, given the most in the past that sort of thing. And want to connect with me more. So you know, a great example, Jeff, is we one time had a major gift officer with a donor, and between the two family members and foundation probably gave a million dollars. Yeah, they literally said, we want to see you one time a year. You can ask all three of us at once. Oh, you want a gala invitation? Yeah, I couldn’t in good conscience, say make them a Tier A, like the gave a lot of money, but they don’t want a lot of time. Instead, I’d almost rather put a $250,000 donor who wants to connect with me who has the capacity to become the next million dollar donor, as a Tier A, because I’m going to be able to talk to them, connect with them in the way they want. Give them great offers, that sort of thing.
Lisa Robertson
And it’s not that we weren’t trying to move that million dollar family. It’s that they sort of didn’t want engage with us. And so we kept working to try to engage the individual family members and that sort of thing, but not as much. And then the difference with the C-level donor is they they’re kind of those folks who we’re just not sure about. Yeah, like, I always say that your entire caseload is still in discovery, right? So kind of the example I used earlier, if I talked to Jeff, and he’s like, seems cool, maybe he’s just kind of shy at first, or maybe he’s a little bit suspicious in my phone call or my connection. And as that develops, then I can learn more. But as a C donor, initially, I would be still reporting back telling Jeff about his impact. But I’m going to do it in ways that maybe are not quite as personal. So my, you know, $400,000 donor that wants me to come to their office, I’m going there in person, like they asked me to, and my C-level donor who’s been a little bit like, Well, yeah, you can reach out, I’m going to try, if they said, email, I’m going to try email. But I’m going to ask really good questions. And I’m going to really try to develop that relationship.
Lisa Robertson
And then in mid-level, the way it differs is my tiered donors, I’m going to be very specific. So I’m going to find things in the database. If I haven’t connected, be like Hey, Jeff, you know, thank you so much. It was great talking last month. And you know, I have a really nice personal note to Jeff on this year’s annual report. But it’s your C donor, it might just say, Jeff, I thought you’d enjoy this personal copy of the report. So there’s almost very little personalization, right? There’s a nice personal note has Jeff’s name, but doesn’t have stuff out of the database, whereas Tier A is going to be about things I know about Jeff, like, “Thanks for giving since 1975.” Or: “Do you know you’ve given $100,000 over your lifetime to this organization?” That sort of thing.
Jeff Schreifels
Awesome. Yeah.
Lisa Robertson
Yeah. So okay, so we talked about this, and it’s kind of like the, you know, feels sort of like, oh, this is about something very cut and dry in the sense. And then we talk about relationships. So Jeff, how do you balance that dual purpose of fundraising, right, so we’re always looking at, we want to earn revenue, we want to tap in people’s passions and interests, so that we aren’t just seeing the donor as a source of cash. And we aren’t focused on just something other than developing a meaningful relationship.
Jeff Schreifels
I think the way to do that is, through these three ways to green, creating a goal for every donor, and a strategic plan for every donor, so you know exactly what you’re doing with every donor in your portfolio. That structure allows you to develop the relationships with the donor, because now you have a roadmap on how to do that. And you already know what kind of revenue goals you set out with that donor. So you don’t really have to worry about that. All you have to worry about is developing that relationship, finding out what their passions and interests are. And out of that will come the revenue that you desire, we have works every time. So having that that’s why we’re so big on structure is because the structure allows you to develop the meaningful relationship. Without that structure, you’re all over the place, you’re not really able to spend the quality time that you need with the donor, the right donors, on your portfolio. So that’s really how you balance that. Yeah. So that’s why I love tiering. I love the structure. Because it really allows the major gift officer to do what they need to do to develop that relationship.
Lisa Robertson
Yeah. And mid-level. And we see that right. Yeah, absolutely. Where there are folks who come through VGA and tell us like the structure does work to build relationships. So I agree with you, Jeff.
Jeff Schreifels
I love that. Well, thank you so much for joining me today on this conversation with Lisa. And it’s been really informative, and I hope it has inspired you to implement tiering as a part of your caseload management strategy. And if you’d like to learn more about how to tier your caseload, download our free white paper on Tiering Donors to Create Focused Caseloads. You can find this white paper in the show notes or by heading to our website at VeritusGroup.com and going to resources, then white papers. Thank you again and Lisa, thanks for joining me, 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.com. Please join us again next time.