BEYOND THE TRANSACTION | PART 1
Building Relationships That Lead to What Comes Next
By Angie Thompson
Organizations spend considerable time thinking about donor acquisition. We look for ways to expand mailing lists, increase social media reach, attract people to events and introduce the mission to new audiences.
Personal conversations remain one of the most effective tools in major-gift fundraising, and your current donors may know other people who would have a reason to care about your work. When donors have a meaningful experience with an organization, they may naturally want to share that experience with people in their own circles.
That doesn't mean asking a donor for the names of wealthy friends. It means creating a donor experience meaningful enough that someone wants to share it.
Dr. Russell James and Dr. Eddie Thompson discussed this idea on the Fundraising Pair-a-Docs Podcast. Their conversation raised an interesting question about whether people making significant gifts are having an experience with the organization that they would want others to experience.
That question places stewardship directly inside the fundraising pipeline rather than treating it as something that happens after fundraising is finished.
The Relationship Continues After the Gift
Jerold Panas and William Sturtevant included post-gift stewardship as an essential component of moves management. [1] The relationship does not reach its conclusion when a donor says yes.
A donor makes a gift and receives a receipt. Perhaps there is a thank-you letter, an annual report and periodic newsletters. Those communications serve a purpose, but they do not necessarily deepen the donor's understanding of what the gift accomplished.
For a significant donor, we should be asking whether that person understands what happened because he or she gave.
What changed? Who benefited? What was the organization able to do that it could not have done otherwise? What is happening now because resources became available?
Then we need to ask whether we are communicating that impact in a way the donor can clearly see and understand. If not, we may need to change the message.
Blackbaud's major-donor guidance recommends sharing impact reports and beneficiary stories that correspond with a donor's known interests. It also cautions organizations not to rush subsequent asks before establishing the underlying relationship. [2]
The information we learned during cultivation should continue to shape stewardship.
Listening Shouldn't Stop After the Ask
Panas was well known for emphasizing listening in donor conversations. The Institute for Charitable Giving preserves a series of conversations in which he discusses the importance of spending more time listening than talking during fundraising visits. [3] That principle remains important after a gift.
A donor's interests can develop. Family circumstances change. New philanthropic priorities emerge. An experience with a program may create an interest that wasn't there previously.
Continuing to listen allows the organization to understand those changes instead of assuming that the donor relationship can be managed through a predetermined communication schedule.
For a major donor, stewardship should continue to be a relationship rather than a distribution list.
Five Ways to Strengthen a Current Donor's Experience
1. Learn why the donor cares. A donor record tells us when and how much someone gave. A conversation can tell us why. Ask what first connected the donor to the organization, which aspects of the mission matter most and what the donor hopes philanthropy will accomplish.
2. Connect the gift to an outcome. Generic organizational updates are useful, but they should not be the only communication a significant donor receives. A personal call, short story, photograph, program update or conversation can connect the donor's investment with the work it helped make possible. Social media may help tell the organization's broader story, but it should not substitute for personal communication with a major donor.
3. Let the donor's interests influence the experience. If someone cares particularly about education, access or another aspect of the mission, future communication should reflect that knowledge. Personalization demonstrates that the organization listened.
4. Provide appropriate access to the work. A program visit, conversation with leadership, meeting with staff or other personal experience can provide understanding that mass communication cannot. AFP identifies these substantive experiences as part of major-gift cultivation and relationship development. [4]
5. Give donors an opportunity to share the experience. When appropriate, invite a donor to bring someone to a program, tour, rehearsal, small gathering or conversation. The purpose is not to obtain a list of wealthy acquaintances. It is to allow someone who already understands the organization to introduce another person who may have a genuine reason to care.
This final step can help stewardship become part of donor acquisition without turning the existing donor into a salesperson.
The Introduction Is the Beginning of Another Relationship
A trusted introduction can create an opportunity for the relationship to begin.
The person who attends with a current supporter still needs an experience of his or her own. What interested the person? What questions emerged? Was there something in the mission that connected with a personal experience, value or philanthropic interest?
Some people may make an immediate gift. Others may remain occasional participants. Some may begin a relationship that develops over several years, while others may decide that the mission simply isn't among their philanthropic priorities.
All of those outcomes provide useful information.
Blackbaud reports that major-gift development commonly requires two to three years from first contact to a new major gift, with some first-time major gifts requiring longer. [5] That means an organization should resist measuring every new relationship by whether a contribution appears within the next few months.
Sometimes the appropriate next step is another conversation.
Fundraising Events Help Build the Pipeline
Fundraising events may generate important immediate revenue, but they can also introduce new people to the organization. When an event gives us no way to learn who attended, who engaged, who brought a guest or who expressed interest, we may be missing an opportunity to develop future relationships.
Pay attention to who your donors bring with them. A guest at a table, a friend invited to a concert or someone who attends because a colleague bought the tickets may be encountering your organization for the first time. The event provides the introduction. What happens afterward determines whether that introduction develops into a relationship.
This doesn't mean every attendee becomes a prospect. It means the organization has created an opportunity to notice who may have a reason to continue the relationship.
Story Helps People Understand the Possibility
Storytelling can be particularly valuable in both stewardship and cultivation because it gives meaning to organizational results.
The purpose is not to cast the donor as the hero of someone else's story. It is to accurately show the connection between philanthropic resources and mission impact.
For a current donor, that may mean demonstrating what a previous gift accomplished. For a prospective transformational donor, the story may also help reveal what has not yet been accomplished.
What remains unresolved? Who else could be served? What could be expanded, created or strengthened? What would it take?
Panas's teaching about major gifts repeatedly returned to the importance of ideas large enough to capture a donor's imagination. He argued that donors want to understand how their resources can help make meaningful things happen. [6]
Story can help make that possibility understandable.
Stewardship Can Become Part of the Future Pipeline
We should continue asking how to acquire new donors. We should also pay attention to what happens to people after we acquire them.
A donor who understands the impact of a gift, feels known by the organization and develops confidence in its leadership may eventually deepen his or her own involvement. That donor may also be willing to introduce someone else to the work.
The new person still needs to be qualified. The relationship still needs time. Capacity without affinity is not enough, and a trusted introduction should never be treated as permission for an immediate major-gift solicitation.
The quality of the donor experience can therefore accomplish more than retention. It can create a natural connection between stewardship of the people who fund the mission today and development of the people who may help fund its future.
Sources
[1] Jerold Panas and William T. Sturtevant, The Moves Management Manual.
[2] Blackbaud, “Major Donor Fundraising: Tips for Securing Large Gifts.”
[3] Institute for Charitable Giving, “Conversations with Jerold Panas: The Art of Listening.”
[4] Association of Fundraising Professionals, “Major Gift Solicitation: A Practical Guide for Fundraising.”
[5] Blackbaud, “How to Use Data to Improve Prospect Identification.”
[6] Jerold Panas, ASKING; Institute for Charitable Giving, “Donors Give to the Magic of an Idea.”