BEYOND THE TRANSACTION | PART 3
Why Developing Relationships Matters Before the Gift or the Sale
by Angie Thompson
Nonprofits understand the pressure to raise money now. We need to meet the annual fund goal. We need sponsors for the event. We need to fill the tables. We need people to respond to the year-end appeal.
Those needs are real. Organizations have programs to fund, people to serve and bills to pay.
But when most of our fundraising activity is designed around the money we need today, it can be easy to overlook the people who may become important donors tomorrow.
Throughout my development career, I have learned that donor relationships do not all develop at the same speed. Someone may have the capacity and affinity to make a significant gift but still need time before an ask is appropriate. Another person may attend an event, become interested in a program or begin giving at a modest level before we recognize that there is a reason to know them better.
They may both belong in the pipeline, but they are not in the same place.
This is one of the fundraising principles I have carried into my consulting work, and I have discovered that it applies to business development, too. Someone may know about my work for months before there is a reason for us to have a business conversation. Another person may meet me, recognize an immediate need and be ready to talk about working together.
Whether we are developing donors or prospective clients, the question is similar:
Are we building relationships only with the people who are ready to say yes today, or are we also developing the people who may have a reason to say yes later?
Immediate Revenue Is Easy to See
One of the challenges I have encountered in fundraising is that the most visible activity can easily become the activity that receives the most attention.
A fundraising event is easy to see. Board members can see the room filling up, the tickets and sponsorships being sold and the amount of money raised at the end of the evening. There is a beginning, an end and a number attached to it.
The work of a development officer can be much harder to see. A board may not see the conversations I am having with major donors, what I am learning about their interests, the visits I am making or the relationships I am strengthening over time. There may be no immediate gift to count after any one of those interactions.
That is why I think the word development matters. We are developing relationships. Some will lead to significant gifts. Some will take years. Some will lead somewhere we did not anticipate, and some will never result in a gift at all.
Grant writing is one visible part of development, but it is only one part. Some of the most valuable work may be happening in conversations and connections that don't yet have a dollar amount attached to them. Finding the connection that eventually becomes a new prospect can be hidden work, but it is an important part of building a pipeline.
Major-gift practice recognizes this distinction. The Association of Fundraising Professionals describes solicitation as part of a longer sequence of qualification, cultivation, asking and stewardship, with much of the work occurring before the visible ask. [1]
The same challenge exists in business. A registration, purchase or signed contract is easy to count. It is much harder to measure the value of someone reading your articles, attending a presentation, following your work or having several conversations with you before deciding to become a client.
It can look as though nothing is happening when, in fact, a relationship may be developing.
Research into business buying supports the need for this longer view. The 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report focused specifically on reaching prospective buyers who are not currently in the market and found that useful expertise can influence how people understand a problem and perceive a potential provider before they are ready for a sales conversation. [2]
But “Not Ready” Isn't Always the Answer
There is another side to this.
If people are paying attention but aren't moving toward a decision, I don't think we should automatically conclude that they simply need more time. Sometimes we need to examine the experience we are creating for them.
I recently had coffee with a colleague who owns a small business and wants to grow. People were visiting her website, but they weren't taking the next step. She had one idea about what might be keeping them from making a decision.
When I looked at her website, I saw something different. There was a great deal of information to read before I could get a sense of her, what she particularly enjoys doing or why someone might want to work with her.
We started with three things she most wanted to sell and three things she was already doing but wasn't talking about very much. From there, we developed a page full of ideas. We talked about simplifying her website, using more photographs and clearer calls to action, sharing more of her story and finding opportunities to connect with prospective customers in person.
The question changed from “Why aren't people buying?” to “What are we giving people that helps them want to know more?”
There is research behind some of what we discovered in that conversation. Nielsen Norman Group's usability studies found that people tend to scan web pages rather than read them word for word, and that concise, scannable writing improved usability substantially. [3] Gartner has similarly found that buyers rely heavily on supplier websites during the buying process, making the digital experience part of helping someone move toward a confident decision. [4]
Sometimes a prospect truly isn't ready. But sometimes we have made it difficult to quickly understand what we do, why it matters or what makes working with us different.
Those situations require different responses.
Familiarity Can Create Another Challenge
There is another problem I see among people building businesses around their own expertise, particularly in a smaller market.
Sometimes people already know us.
That sounds like an advantage, and it can be. Familiarity can create trust. But it can also mean people have already decided what we do.
I experience this in my own business. Many people in my community know me as a grant writer. Grant writing is part of what I do, but it represents only a small part of the work I have done throughout my career.
My background includes composing music and writing songs, producing audio, developing stories that help people understand why something matters, leading workshops and finding creative ways to connect people with ideas and opportunities. Those experiences have taught me to look at development as much more than writing grants. It includes telling the story, building relationships, creating connections and finding new ways to bring people closer to the work.
Someone who thinks of me only as a grant writer may never think to call me for any of those things.
That is the challenge familiarity can create. People may know our name, trust our work and still have an incomplete picture of what we can help them accomplish.
Repeating the same description of what we do won't necessarily change that. We have to give people opportunities to see another part of our experience. That might happen through a story, a workshop, a conversation, a collaboration or simply by sharing an idea they haven't heard from us before.
Research on thought leadership points in a similar direction. Edelman and LinkedIn have found that strong thought leadership can cause prospective buyers to reconsider assumptions and recognize challenges or opportunities they had not previously considered. Their 2025 research also found that useful expertise can help lesser-known providers compete by demonstrating how they think and what they understand before a sales conversation occurs. [5]
Sometimes the challenge isn't getting people to know who we are. It's giving people who already know us a reason to look again.
Relationships Can Extend Beyond the Prospect
A pipeline can sound linear, as though every relationship should eventually move toward a gift or a sale. I haven't found relationships to work that neatly.
Sometimes the person we are getting to know becomes the donor or the client. Sometimes that person introduces us to someone else. A donor brings a friend to an event. A client recommends us to a colleague. Someone who hears us speak invites us into another conversation. A person who may never need our services understands our work well enough to recognize someone who does.
Relationships can move forward, but they can also extend outward.
That is another reason I don't measure the value of relationship development only by whether a particular person eventually makes a gift or signs a contract. One relationship can create another relationship, another audience or an opportunity we could not have predicted when the first conversation began.
This doesn't mean every conversation needs to produce something. It means we should recognize that the value of a relationship may be larger than the transaction immediately in front of us.
The Transition Can Be Hard to Measure
Living in the transition rather than the transaction can be uncomfortable.
Board members, business owners and investors have legitimate reasons to look for measurable results. We need to know whether the work we are doing is accomplishing something. Revenue matters. Gifts matter. New clients matter.
But relationship development often happens before those outcomes can be counted.
A donor conversation may not result in a gift, but we may discover what the donor cares about. A client may not be ready to hire us, but may introduce us to someone who is. Someone may attend a program, begin following our work and eventually invite us into an opportunity we could not have anticipated when we first met.
That doesn't mean we stop measuring. It means we become more thoughtful about what we measure along the way.
Instead of asking only how much money an activity produced, we can also ask: Did we meet people we need to know better? Did someone move closer to the mission or understand our work differently? Did we learn something about a prospective donor or client? Did someone introduce us to another person? Is there an appropriate next conversation?
Those aren't substitutes for revenue. They are indicators that development is happening before the financial outcome is visible.
There Is a Difference Between an Audience and a Pipeline
A large email list is not automatically a pipeline. Neither is a large social media following.
An audience tells us who is within reach of our communication. A pipeline requires us to pay attention to what happens next.
Some people have made a gift, purchased something or asked questions. Others attend our programs, respond to our emails, refer people or tell us about something they may need in the future. Those actions can help us recognize that a relationship is developing even when there is no immediate transaction to record.
The goal is not to push everyone toward a transaction. It is to notice who is moving closer, who isn't and what we might learn from both.
Sometimes the appropriate next experience is a conversation, another resource, an invitation or a follow-up. Sometimes we need to change how we are communicating the value of what we do. And sometimes the person simply isn't ready or isn't the right prospect.
This is one of the lessons I carry from fundraising into my work with businesses. Relationship development is not wasted simply because it doesn't produce an immediate transaction. But development isn't passive waiting, either. It requires us to listen, observe, learn and decide what should happen next.
We cannot control every outcome. We can pay attention to what the response, or lack of response, may be telling us.
Whether we are raising money or building a business, the transaction may be the result we can count. But much of the work happens in the transition: the conversations, experiences, introductions and connections that help one relationship develop into something more.
The transaction is measurable. The transition requires us to notice what is developing.
Sources & Further Reading
[1] Association of Fundraising Professionals, “Major Gift Solicitation: A Practical Guide for Fundraising.” AFP describes major-gift work as a sequence of qualification, cultivation, solicitation and stewardship and notes that much of the work occurs before the visible ask.
[2] Edelman and LinkedIn, 2024 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report: Reaching Beyond the Ready. The research examined how thought leadership can influence prospective buyers who are not currently seeking a product or service and how useful ideas can help buyers rethink business challenges.
[3]John Morkes and Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group, “Concise, SCANNABLE, and Objective: How to Write for the Web” and Jakob Nielsen, “How Users Read on the Web.” Their usability research found that web users typically scan rather than read word-for-word and that concise, scannable web content performed substantially better in usability testing.
[4] Gartner, “Optimize Websites to Support B2B Buying Journeys,” 2024. Gartner reports that buyers interact extensively with supplier websites and emphasizes designing the website experience to help prospective customers progress through buying decisions.
[5] Edelman and LinkedIn, 2025 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report: Invisible Influence. The study of nearly 2,000 professionals found that high-quality thought leadership can help people recognize previously unconsidered challenges or opportunities and can help demonstrate a provider's expertise and value before direct sales interaction.