Tag Archives: planned gifts

Nonprofit Radio for September 12, 2022: Planned Giving For Eastern Donors

 

Vidya Moorthy: Planned Giving For Eastern Donors

Cultural and familial differences between East and West raise issues for Planned Giving fundraising. Vidya Moorthy from Clural LLC and Bassett Education India, raises our consciousness.

 

 

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[00:02:00.46] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of two targa. I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of a target to turn to 22 to turn to torta no pia, I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of tutor to know pia if I saw that you missed this week’s show planned giving for Eastern donors, cultural and familial differences between east and west raise issues for planned giving, fundraising. Vidya murthy from chloral LLC and Bassett Education India raises our consciousness on Tony’s take to scott stein’s new album. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. And by fourth dimension technologies I. T. Infra in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper here is planned giving for Eastern donors. It’s a pleasure to welcome to nonprofit radio video murthy. She is founder of austin texas based chloral C L U R A L L L C and C. E. O of Bassett Education India Video is a communications specialist. D. Eye specialist and the specialist in cross cultural training, boundary crossing tactics, media relations and interpersonal communication. The company is at chloral dot C. O and you’ll find her on linkedin video. Welcome to nonprofit radio

[00:02:23.84] spk_1:
thank you so much. tony Happy to be here

[00:02:41.56] spk_0:
it’s a pleasure. Glad to have you this is a very interesting topic to me of course, because we’re talking about planned giving, but in a culture that I am not acquainted with, so I’ve got a lot of learning to do from you um before we go into the, all the cultural differences that, that I want to talk about, let’s define the eastern world for folks and for me, so I know what, what regions or what countries, you know, we’re talking about.

[00:02:58.65] spk_1:
Yeah, sure. So I think that’s a great place to start. I think when we talk about the eastern world we’re really talking everything that is east of africa and east of europe. So you’re talking the Middle East and then further on your talking china India sri lanka, um, you know all the way up until Singapore and Japan.

[00:03:21.56] spk_0:
Okay, Alright. So it is, it’s fair to lump japan and India together in our, in what we’re talking about today.

[00:03:45.44] spk_1:
Yeah. And the reason that, that I, that I think it might be okay, tony is uh, you know when you look at it at a, at a granular level is Alabama the same as California. No, not at all. But it is possible to paint all of America in broad strokes and I’m going to try to use those similar broad strokes with reference to the Eastern culture. The Eastern philosophy.

[00:03:54.61] spk_0:
Okay, okay. And Middle East as well you said

[00:03:57.19] spk_1:
yes, Middle East as well for

[00:04:03.79] spk_0:
sure. Alright, so we’ll talk in broad strokes and uh you know if I if I transgress and say something. You know if I try to draw a conclusion that’s inappropriate, you will you’ll cut me off at the knees, right?

[00:04:10.34] spk_1:
I doubt that’ll happen. But yes,

[00:04:20.02] spk_0:
now now there’s a good chance you gotta you gotta lackluster house at best, so you’ll be sure to stop me if I draw some conclusions or something that it’s just wrong. Just dead

[00:04:24.84] spk_1:
wrong,

[00:04:26.63] spk_0:
please. I’m counting on you, I’m counting on you to do that. All

[00:04:29.20] spk_1:
right.

[00:04:43.33] spk_0:
And I’ll of course I will try not to make a fool of myself as well. Alright. Uh I usually I I often I often succeeded that just often. So patriarchy, patriarchy is very important. What what do we need to know about the role of men in these cultures?

[00:05:14.22] spk_1:
Well again with reference to broad strokes, I think patriarchy is a familial structure, it’s an authority structure and it’s an organizational structure and the power of the male voice is not something that can be easily underestimated in the Eastern society. Um I think that it has a significant amount of both influence and control with reference to all kinds of decisions of all kinds of personal and professional decisions and I think particularly with respect to plan giving um I think the male voice kind of dominates those decisions in the Eastern world.

[00:05:38.57] spk_0:
Okay. Yeah, go ahead more more. I hope

[00:06:09.77] spk_1:
just one more point. I also want to kind of set the context that in several Eastern cultures. Um, the daughter in a family tony always gets married and leaves and walks into her husband’s house and her husband’s family. The Sun, however, stays back to carry on the family legacy and the family name and oftentimes his wife moves in with him and his parents. Business decisions, personal decisions are all just continued therefore from father to son and generation to generation. So a patriarch passes on his power and control to his son and

[00:06:26.21] spk_0:
like

[00:06:26.68] spk_1:
it or not, that kind of dictates the preference for the male child within the eastern family

[00:06:33.45] spk_0:
unit. Now everything we’re talking about today is this likely to be, uh, to be continued in folks who have immigrated to the US.

[00:07:32.00] spk_1:
Uh, I think the Western lifestyle is so powerful that it does seep through the walls of homes and it does tend to influence, um, and bring upon Western influences into Eastern homes. Um, I think basically the responsibility and the close knit structure of the family does stay together, but, but our immigrants families, you know, living together with their sons and daughters in law in multigenerational homes as is very common in the East. I doubt it. I doubt it because that’s where work takes folks right. I mean, my son might work in in, in California and, and therefore he cannot continue to live with me. And, and so I don’t see that system being perpetuated in immigrant families when they exist in, in, in Western worlds, but certainly the emotion is there certainly the sense of responsibility and the closer knit family structure is very much intact

[00:08:03.15] spk_0:
and, and still male dominated, you, you believe, but still, so patriarch quickly organized, not, not physically organized around patriarchy with, with the, with the wife of the sun moving in, not physically located, but, but the, the concept still prevailing. You think,

[00:08:31.24] spk_1:
oh absolutely, I think it does prevail. And I think that while I say that I must use a word of caution as well because just as with every generational difference, you know, even in America, even amongst families here, there’s a significant amount of difference in the last two generations. So I think we need to allow for that. Um, and, and, and know that, you know, there are going to be some families which kind of morph into more Western structures, but essentially at the core of it, the patriarchal voice is a very important, controlling, influencing voice.

[00:09:15.89] spk_0:
It sounds like the lesson is, you know, no, no, your donor and know know their family, you know, so we can, we were here raising awareness of what might exist in a, in a, in an immigrant family from, from the east, um, or might not. So, you know, for, for fundraisers, you know, we can raise your consciousness, you need to be aware of what the, what the dynamics are in a, in a donor and donor family that that your your you might be talking to.

[00:09:20.79] spk_1:
Oh absolutely. And I think that once you understand the nuances of the donor family and and whose voice is perhaps the loudest and what their key motivators are for any kind of giving. I think then you are on the verge of being able to design an effective approach strategy

[00:10:08.64] spk_0:
of course, write what moves them uh you know, programmatic program wise of course. But just in terms of, you know, where the decision making is, you might be talking to a female donor who might actually be, you know, uh in a in a marriage where the husband makes the decisions around finance as you were saying or you might not or it might it might be that the western culture is more seeped in in that family. So that’s what I’m saying. You know, you want to know the dynamics of the family you’re you’re working with.

[00:10:14.80] spk_1:
Oh, absolutely.

[00:10:16.20] spk_0:
Okay.

[00:10:17.11] spk_1:
And while you know, insight into that might be difficult. My my tip would be to pick up on a lot of nonverbal cues and kind of read between the lines when you’re interacting with these families. You know, sometimes

[00:10:32.24] spk_0:
that’s that’s juicy. Okay, what are some nonverbal clues, clues,

[00:11:19.45] spk_1:
clues for example, you know, you approach the home of the donor, you set up a meeting and whether they see you in the office or you see them in their home, Um, you’ll get and pick up a lot of cues in it. So for example, sometimes the wives may or may not even join the conversation and, and then you know, instantly that you know who, whose voice kind of dominates. Sometimes you might notice that as you walk into their office, you don’t see their wife’s office right next to his, you know, so you know, that perhaps she’s not engaged in that same line of work or you know, the responses seem seem to bear a certain unilateral authority rather than saying, Hey, I love talking with you, Let me talk to my wife and I’ll get back. He might, let’s say, you know, yeah, let’s do it done. And he’ll sign up right then and there or say no right then and there. So so you can kind of pick up and even when you’re talking to the wife, she might, you know, say this sounds great. It’s a very important, cause I suggest you talk to my husband, I’m traveling. I’m not even gonna be in town, but you can take it up with him. You know, and then you know that she’s probably not part of the routine decision making engine of the family.

[00:13:47.56] spk_0:
It’s time for a break turn to communications. I saw on linkedin, somebody defined crisis communications as applying to anything that’s out of the ordinary, not necessarily something bad just outside the day to day routine. And she used the example of dignitaries visiting her non profit obviously delightful, wonderful, great opportunity. Um, I can see, you know that sort of definition, but uh, because because it requires a crisis level response, even though it’s terrific, you wanna make sure, you know, you get the word out broadly leading up to it and, and during the event and after the event and you want to have that messaging being consistent and on brand and of course you have to manage the event itself. Um, you wanna tie in your own dignitaries, like your board and your major donors, major volunteers, Right folks that are your, your insiders. So, uh, maybe call it a positive crisis. You could think of it as as that. And another example might be a major anniversary, could be a positive crisis. So like your 20th or your 50th, this is all to say. That turn to, can help you with communications for these positive crises, great things that are happening that are way out of the ordinary. They can help you out with the messaging around all that because your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o Now back to planned giving for Eastern donors. You mentioned business to, uh, the, the, uh, I think you’re referring to the sun taking on the business of the of the father. Can you say a little more about that, that prevalence.

[00:14:46.12] spk_1:
Well, a lot of the times with reference, I think to to indian immigrant families and to Eastern immigrant families here in the United States, um, I would say that the fathers who moved here, let’s say in the eighties or in the nineties, you know, they worked tremendously hard tony to set up these businesses. Right. And, and that’s how they build better futures for themselves and their families. And so chances are that a significant portion of their Children are looking at taking over these organizations that their parents have created and along with inheriting not just the business, they tend to inherit the culture and the organizational philosophy that their parents intended when they started the organization. Right. So, so they take it upon themselves as a matter of, of responsibility to continue to toe that line and and to be able to make sure that they are indeed perpetuating what their parents most likely their fathers intended.

[00:15:02.34] spk_0:
Okay, so, so there is a responsibility across the generations,

[00:15:07.23] spk_1:
no

[00:15:09.38] spk_0:
doubt. Okay,

[00:15:10.08] spk_1:
no doubt.

[00:15:10.87] spk_0:
And that applies to daughters as well. You said, you said Children,

[00:15:25.02] spk_1:
of course, of course there’s numerous instances of, of super intelligent, empowered women that have done magic with what their fathers or mothers have created. And and that’s really heartening to see. And in fact, I know of several stories like that and those are the encouraging ones that, that I think a lot of other upcoming entrepreneurs and business women look up to as examples.

[00:15:49.28] spk_0:
You you mentioned when we were talking alone something about, you know synchronizing generational giving what what what what what’s what’s this about?

[00:16:58.46] spk_1:
So with reference to synchronization I think when Eastern families raise their kids um they are caught in a duality of their original cultures and also wanting to adopt, adapt and fit into the Western cultures. So every household kind of creates a marriage between the Eastern and the western world’s and picks values that they really try to instill and pass on into their sons and their daughters. They try to set boundaries on you know when they’re really young, you know saying this is what is acceptable to us or this is not acceptable to to us and they define and pick and choose which Western values can permeate through their walls into their homes and by doing so they try to sync up with their kids on their own values, what they believe in their approach towards money, their approach towards giving towards contribution to society. Um and and values that that they all follow in their personal lives as well in terms of whom you marry, how you spend money, how you communicate with those around you and maintain a social circle along with all of these. I think for sure you know the sense of giving back is also communicated and synchronized generation to generation.

[00:17:27.71] spk_0:
What can you generalize about thinking around supporting charitable work. You know I mean you know in a lot of other countries that doesn’t even exist very much, but but here in the U. S. You know, what what can you what can you generalize about support to to charity?

[00:20:25.88] spk_1:
What can I generalize? That’s such an interesting question, tony because uh you know, and this is in the Eastern world, in the Eastern world. If I were to draw generalizations, not here in the United States, but in the Eastern world, I would think that there are broadly three primary factors that drive planned giving in the Eastern world. It could be won a very heartfelt feeling for the cause itself. You know, you have you have philanthropists of of various economic capabilities who are trying to do their part towards the cost that they feel passionately about? And that’s the human drive, right? So, so that’s common for everybody across the planet. If you can you believe in a cause the humanness and you calls out to you and you give um in the Eastern world, a lot of plan giving is out of political pressure and and you do have to wade through through a lot of murky areas in order to navigate. I think those regions, because a lot of plan giving is very political in the Eastern world and and instead of a direct contribution to a political leader, he might say, hey, you know, can you build this park in this constituency or can be create a center of art in this constituency from from his constituency. So it’s it’s very politically driven. And third, I think is certainly the social status that comes with being known as a donor for a visible cause. And the social status in the Eastern world earns you so much in terms of almost a demigod kind of a status if you are that visible and if your donation is that visible. And I think in terms of generalizations, if I were to take these three and try to see if I can paint the Western donors from Eastern heritage in this same light, is it possible? I would say that only two of them are probably more applicable. A small percentage of them, I think would do it for uh, for political, the reason is a very small percentage, but broadly either they do it because they believe in the cause and they feel like it’s their turn to give back because they’ve crossed continents, rebuild their lives and, and now they feel almost a sense of social responsibility to give back. And also the second part that motivates them would be certainly the visibility in society to be seen as an immigrant who is successful up to the point where they’re being noticed for their philanthropic efforts. And, and guess that’s where, you know, the curve of life would take most immigrants to be in a position of visible donor to be respected for it to be acknowledged for it

[00:20:49.91] spk_0:
very interesting. So, you know, lessons for us in in stewardship and and public acknowledgement of the public acknowledgement as a part of stewardship so that the person feels this and and enjoys this elevated social status.

[00:21:33.08] spk_1:
Absolutely. And I think you know, when, when you approach donors, you know, if you can um, if you can give them incentives for increased visibility. So if you say, hey, you know, we’ll interview you and we’ll put a link on our website or there’s a plaque with your name on it or you know, we will have this section dedicated to you and and your name and picture will be visible here or we will announce this donation in this forum, whatever you can do or if there is a kind of a yearbook, almost that that you can include them in and their name and photograph or an interview with them that talks about, you know why they are giving to this cause and what their drivers were and make it a very personalized story that they can tell through you to the world. Um, I think all of them would be excellent motivators for them to give

[00:22:00.48] spk_0:
you even mentioned the word demigod in in in their own culture, being seen as a, as a demigod.

[00:22:10.21] spk_1:
Oh yes, and that’s a very interesting phenomenon and I think that’s very

[00:22:14.15] spk_0:
specific to the eastern

[00:22:15.46] spk_1:
world.

[00:22:16.54] spk_0:
Yeah,

[00:23:00.36] spk_1:
because you know organizations, the larger ones, especially if you take you know the non Gardena House of business or the even bigger Ambani House of business back in India, you know, they actually have a day called Founder’s Day during which all the employees in the organization, literally thousands of them, they celebrate, you know, the founder’s birthday and there is a large photograph and their garlands around it and people bow and their flowers and they recognize his, his contribution not just in founding the organization but recognizing his philanthropic efforts. Um, sometimes, you know, they would go as far as not even wear slippers or shoes right Up to the photograph, just like you would in a, in a temple, you know, and that’s why I call it the demigod status and, and it’s not artificial, it’s not a put on, they really feel it from their heart. They feel like they owe their sustenance to this individual who started this organization 50 years ago or 80 years ago.

[00:26:34.48] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. 4th dimension technologies, technology is an investment. You’re investing in staff productivity because you know how unproductive folks can be when, uh, technology is not doing what it’s supposed to do. You’re investing in security obviously, um, donor relationships because you’re preserving, giving histories and actions, people’s preferences, their own personal info, uh, their attendance at events. Um, you’re investing in your organization’s sustainability. So I hope you see tech as an investment and not an expense and 4D can help you invest wisely see how it all fits together, help you make your tech investment decisions doing it smartly you can check them out on the listener landing page for help with your tech investing at tony dot M A slash four D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. It’s time for Tony’s take two scott. Stein has a new album, I love it. You know, scott of course, he’s the composer of cheap red wine, the show’s theme song, it opens and closes every single show. You know it, his new album is uphill. I’ve been listening and uh hoping that you will listen. I’m suggesting giving him giving him a listen for the new album, my favorite song is the last one on the album. So even though he calls the album Uphill, he ends with the song, It’s a good life, which is the one that he premiered on the 600 show. Uh and I love his lyrics like don’t just stick to what, you know, let it fly and watch it go. Of course I’m not gonna bother trying to sing. Uh you’ll be grateful, you are grateful. Trust me. Another one that I love also from that song uh from it’s a it’s a Good Life no matter how you sing your song, there’s always someone singing along. So you know, I love scott. Um I’ve been using his song for many, many years. Um I’m enjoying his new album. Uphill. You can sample every song on the album if you go to scott stein music dot com. So I’m asking you please give give scott a listen at Scott Stein music dot com for his brand new album. Uphill, That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for planned giving for Eastern donors with Vidya murthy. Let’s talk about the one, something very concrete. The beliefs around the word death, death is is not not a good word.

[00:28:32.38] spk_1:
Yeah, I think, you know, if you spoke to anybody tony in the, in the Eastern world, um, generally Eastern philosophy, I think it lends itself to the fact that words are very powerful and uh, you know, most spirituality or different kinds of religions, I think they focus on energy and consciousness as opposed to a book or as opposed to uh rules of commandments, right? That’s what most easter religions are built on. So this is not just with reference to Hinduism, but it extends to buddhism or taoism or organism where they believe in the power of words. So, you they also believe then that what you talk about manifests in life. So what you don’t want to be doing certainly is approaching a person and saying, okay, so after your death, how can we ensure that the system of giving continues because that’s just too direct for them and it’s too much in your face. And it’s not something that I think people like to discuss openly as factual as it might be, as certain as it might be, they’re very watchful with, With using words in that context. So when you approach, I think a donor from the east, you really clearly want to stay away from using those kinds of words which talk about, you know, the term in al itty of life you want to really talk about, you know, how can we, how can we ensure that that what you’re doing continues for the next 80 years? That’s probably a better way to say it. And it’s just a choice of words.

[00:29:41.11] spk_0:
Right, Okay. And that’s very consistent with what I teach folks about talking about planned giving, which is that it is not a death conversation, although the word death may work its way in, you know, someone, uh, someone from the West may very well say, well, you know, I’ve already got my, my plans for my death, you know, laid out or you know, they may bring the word up. Um, but your, your point is that, you know, dealing with someone from the East you don’t want to. Um, and again, that’s consistent with what I teach, which is that planned giving is the, the, the life of the nonprofit, the sustainability of the nonprofits work and mission and values for decades and generations to come. And listeners may have heard me use that exact phrase decades and generations. Um, so, you know, you’re not talking about the person’s death, you’re talking about the life of the nonprofit, the survivability of the nonprofit. Okay. But interesting about just the word, you know, or around. Yeah, the words death dying, uh, you know, they should be avoided, which they don’t really belong in a plane giving conversation to begin with unless the donor brings it up.

[00:30:28.20] spk_1:
Sure, sure. Um, I just like to, you know, throw light on two different aspects and maybe this is an appropriate time. tony is, I think when you are trying to, um, talk to and attract donors, um, one, I think the western way of doing business is very transactional as opposed to the relational way of doing business in the Eastern world. And I think kind of softening the edges is, is a great place to start. So you know, when you, when you talk to a potential donor, maybe you can engage in some conversation about their family. Maybe you can engage in some conversation, you can ask questions about, about what their kids are doing and try to paint and present the picture that you’re not just doing this as a transaction between a donor and your organization, but rather this is a family that’s committing because they believe in the cause and position it based on the relationship that you seek to develop with the

[00:31:36.30] spk_0:
family. Yeah, I mean, these conversations are never the first time you’ve met the person, You know, these, these conversations take place over time. You’re talking to folks who are already committed and loyal to the organization. They’ve demonstrated that commitment and loyalty through their giving history and you know, it’s, it’s really, of course, as you’re saying, it’s, it’s relational, it develops over time to, to the point where you believe, you know, it’s a good, it’s a good time, the right time for an individual donor or family to raise the idea of a gift in their, in their long term plans. Yeah.

[00:31:40.20] spk_1:
And I think you’re right in terms of just warming up to it and then adding that personal touch. And because sometimes I think the western way of doing business, you minimize references to a person’s personal life. And I guess what I’m suggesting is talk about that personal life more.

[00:32:01.34] spk_0:
Yeah. Okay. Getting to know the person, getting to know their family

[00:32:06.35] spk_1:
and

[00:32:06.49] spk_0:
that and that is going to happen over over time. Right?

[00:32:09.14] spk_1:
Yes. Over time. Of course.

[00:32:11.90] spk_0:
Um, what else would you, what would you like to talk about around this?

[00:32:29.76] spk_1:
Oh, yeah, sure. So I think, um, you know, I’d like to go a little bit into detail now, tony If it’s okay with you to talk about the different kinds of family structures that exist. And, and uh, would you think that that’s an okay thing to talk about at this point,

[00:32:34.89] spk_0:
please? I opened the door. Yeah, I’m not going to say no. Now, I just, I just opened the door for you.

[00:34:56.44] spk_1:
Fantastic. Fantastic. So when I was researching this, I was very intrigued by this. and because I don’t think that immigrant families here who have lived in the US for generations, um are all homogeneous in their structure. And I went into a little bit more detail into finding out how our families organized here. And, and this is not my own research. It was something that was put out by Merrill private wealth. And they classify families as as essentially five different types of families. And the first type are individualists, families which are a lot of Western families as well. Nuclear units that that function mostly in isolation. Um then you have connected families and connected families. Um they’re very much nuclear units, but they stay in touch, They might meet once or twice a year. Um they might touch base once every few weeks. And those are again very similar, I think, to many families here in the Western world, then you have the third kind of families which are called tribal families. And tribal families tend to stay more connected. Um and they tend to know what’s happening in, in their daily lives, you know, so they might touch base certainly once a week and say, hey, what’s going on? And and even distant relatives stay in touch in the tribal family setup. Um then you have economic families and economic families. Um They own assets together. They might have a joint source of income and and family economics I think makes them one larger common unit and and the fifth kind of family is an integrated family where, you know, it combines the tribal and economic structures. They’re super close. Um, and mostly patriarchal and they have the money flow tied into decision making tied into raising kids, raising multiple generations and they all live under the same roof. And I think when you identify very clearly what kind of family structure a potential donor, um, lives in, it might be very helpful to you and, and critical input to you as you devise your strategy for approaching the donor. And so you could align

[00:35:22.53] spk_0:
it. Are we most likely to see folks from the Eastern cultures that we’re talking about being aligned in sort of the last one? The economic type family structure.

[00:35:51.83] spk_1:
Yeah, they’re mostly either tribal families, economic families or integrated families. And you will find that for example, if there’s a family of positions, um, you know, which is very common from the Eastern world, you’ll find that, that, you know, certainly they, our tribal families, they stay in touch, they talk about money and business, they might own assets to grow together. If they’re three brothers, you know, they make joint investments, um, they even make sure they support their nieces and nephews, not just their own Children. And so when you approach these families, then it might help to have a broader strategy of visibility, not just for the person you’re directly engaging with, but for their brothers or sisters as well.

[00:36:27.90] spk_0:
There are times of day that are better to talk about long term planning and finances than other times of the day in the cultures we’re talking about. Can you flush that out please?

[00:37:42.29] spk_1:
Yes, that’s an interesting concept and and if I may, you know this is a kind of a personal story, tony is when we were, when we used to live in in India and it was a multigenerational home. We had four generations in the same house, but the elders in the family would often discourage us from having either banking counselors or insurance counselors in our homes during the evening hours after 5 30 to at least 7 30 or eight p.m. And the belief was that that that is a pious time of the day when when all goodness walks into your home and it’s probably not the best time to be sitting and having a discussion on insurance or giving or what happens after you die. So they would actually shoo away invest insurance agents who would knock after 55 30 now. No, no fault of the insurance agent. You know, they’re just too trying to come by your place because it’s after work hours and they think that that might be a time that’s good for you to talk to them because you’re done with your work. So my suggestion is probably just during business hours is always the best to talk about um you know, plan giving, especially if you’re discussing, you know, what’s going to happen with generations to come with reference to the

[00:38:10.44] spk_0:
giving.

[00:38:11.81] spk_1:
Yeah. And it’s nobody wants to sit in most eastern worlds talk about unpleasant things between five and 7 in the evening.

[00:38:19.82] spk_0:
Okay.

[00:38:20.87] spk_1:
Yeah.

[00:38:21.65] spk_0:
Planned giving is not unpleasant, but of

[00:38:24.23] spk_1:
course it’s not. Of course it’s not. But God forbid, you know the word debt. But

[00:38:56.51] spk_0:
we are we are talking about money and finance and and you, you know, you might be talking about rates of income from charitable gift annuities or you might be talking about a gift from a life insurance policy. Again, this goes back to know your donor. No, the family, but we’re raising consciousness here about what you might, what you might, uh, what you might face. So be aware, be aware you have something called the, uh, answering the call of Oneness from humanity. It sounds very aspirational. What is that?

[00:40:25.15] spk_1:
The Eastern world is a very trying world tony in many places. There’s a lot more competition for someone I think, who has not seen what the race for survival is. It can be very humbling and answering the call to to human Good, I think is something that strikes at the very heart of many donors of Eastern origin. And while they live work and play in the Western world, I think many donors are more inclined to give to a human cause that contributes, let’s say to to Children or to senior citizens amongst us or to those with physical challenges or mental challenges, something that improves humans and families and gives them access to better education, better futures generally. Again, broad strokes, they tend to connect more with these causes as opposed to causes that let’s say, promote art or, you know, if or promote, let’s say automobiles or promote music, even sometimes, you know, because they more relate and many a time they are witnesses to two stories of struggle and, and success within their own families. They know how little their fathers came from or how little their grandparents had and what helped them. So they look at plan giving as a way to give back and which is why I think human causes, um, attract them more

[00:40:53.72] spk_0:
because

[00:40:54.38] spk_1:
they’ve seen poverty and helplessness most of the time from a whole another level than, than what is visible here in the west.

[00:41:07.11] spk_0:
Okay,

[00:41:17.84] spk_1:
so I think I’m talking about what causes appeal to them more and the reason that it appeals to them. Yeah.

[00:41:20.00] spk_0:
Um, what else would you, what would you like to make folks aware of? We haven’t talked about yet.

[00:42:40.31] spk_1:
Um, well, as as I think we continue this discussion, I would, I would like to focus on some strategies that I think would be effective when you’re reaching out. Right. Um, I think, you know, to, it kind of touches upon some of the things that we’ve already spoken about. tony But um, one, I think the human angle is something that you should certainly reach out up front point number two Is the social status that comes with giving and three be sure you talk about generational impact or the impact on the broader family structure, not just on the donor himself, but with the 34, 10 people that encompass his immediate family, which might mean his brother, her sister, her aunt, just a few more people apart from just that one individual. And when you talk about generational impact, the human angle social status, um, I think then, and you’re sensitive about, you know, who’s making these decisions and who’s calling the shots. I think you’re really onto something in terms of being able to make them want to give to your cause?

[00:43:13.58] spk_0:
Let’s flush out that generational impact because that, that sounds like something that may be a stretch or maybe I’m just not conceiving of it correctly. So how can we, if we’re talking about a long term gift, a planned gift with someone. Um, I mean there are, there are planned giving methods that can include other people like charitable gift annuities and charitable trusts. There could be value for other family members that way beyond the donor. Um, is that, is that the kind of thing, you know, you’re talking about, are you referring to financial impact for siblings and, and other generations or are you talking about something broader than than a financial benefit,

[00:43:58.89] spk_1:
certainly broader than a financial benefit. tony I think what I’m, what I mean is if you’re looking at a charitable trust that composes the whole, the broader family unit, which is very common in Eastern families. And I suspect in the Western as well, obviously just because of its of the benefits of the financial benefits of having one, you are talking about not just the monetary component and the benefits through generations, but the val Values that you’re able to pass on from generation to generation and what you want your family to be remembered by what you want, your son to grow up and stand for or your daughter to say, Hey, you know, my mom did this 20 years ago and now I want to do it for the same organization and feel a sense of connectedness and pride. So you’re passing on the emotion, you’re passing on the value and you’re passing on the monetary commitment and the benefit.

[00:44:32.18] spk_0:
All right. All helpful. Okay. Um, what do you think should we, should we wrap it up there or something else? Is there anything pounding like, why didn’t he ask me this question? Anything else? Um, not

[00:45:24.17] spk_1:
that not that anything comes to, comes to my mind, but I think that, um, you know, just being sensitive to, uh, to the cultural impediments of fear, complexity and inconsistency. Um, in terms of, especially when you’re reaching out to, to first time donors. Um, I think that a lot of immigrants might be first time donors and they might need a certain kind of education to, to say, hey, you know, we would be honored. This is, uh, this is the main purpose and this is the higher calling. And if you’re able to walk them through that, then I think it makes, it, it’s simpler for them. It breaks down the complexity and it removes the fear of having never done this before. And like you rightly said, everything doesn’t have to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It could start small. And, and so if you give them the different options and the different that it’s not, you know, an arm and a leg to begin with. I think that is something that will mitigate the fear as well.

[00:46:48.25] spk_0:
And again, planned giving is never gonna be the first gift that you’ve asked someone to give. You may start them, you know, you’ll, you’ll, they need to be committed already to the organization before you’re opening the door to a planned giving conversation. So very well, you know, as you said, you know, we might be introducing them with $100 gift or $1000 gift. And that may be years before we get to a planned giving conversation. But the relationship has to be built and I, I thank you for raising our consciousness teaching me, uh, about some of the Eastern sensitivities around around a conversation that ultimately leads to plan giving or might be talking about planned giving now because the person already is a committed loyal donor, but now you’re talking about the next level of giving and uh, we need to be sensitive to the Eastern Eastern cultures, Eastern beliefs structures. So thank you. Thank you.

[00:47:17.77] spk_1:
Thank you. I hope that, you know, the listeners do get a couple of tips that might help them approach donors of eastern descent and also follow some broader strategies. But at the end of the day, tony as a multicultural specialist. Especially, um, I think what hits me most is that people are more similar than we are different. You know, it’s, it’s just a slight nuances that vary, but in a, in a broader sense, I think what we all strive for what we all want. Our motivators are, are shockingly alike.

[00:47:31.58] spk_0:
Video murthy, founder of Austin texas based chloral LLC at chloral c l U R A L dot c o. And you’ll, uh, you can connect with video on linkedin video. Thank you very much delighted.

[00:47:46.40] spk_1:
Thank you so much tony It’s been a pleasure

[00:49:03.65] spk_0:
next week. The tech that comes next. That’s the new book from AMY sample ward and a few a Bruce. They’ll both be with us if you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o and by fourth dimension technologies i. Tion for in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D. But you know, just like three D. Except they go one dimension deeper. And remember scott Stein’s new album, Please check him out Scott Stein music dot com, Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. The shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein. Thank you for that. Affirmation, scotty and congratulations on your new album. You’re with me next week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for September 6, 2022: Sustainable Fundraising

 

Larry Johnson: Sustainable Fundraising

Larry Johnson is author of the book, “The Eight Principles of Sustainable Fundraising.” He walks us through several of them, including “Donors are the Drivers™,” “Leadership Leads™” and “Divide & Grow™.”

 

 

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[00:01:51.84] spk_0:
and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me, I’d suffer with infra occlusion if I had to bite down on the idea that you missed this week’s show, sustainable fundraising. Larry johnson is author of the book The Eight Principles of sustainable fundraising. He walks us through several of them, including donors, are the drivers, leadership leads and divide and grow. I’m Tony’s take to make it about your mission. We’re sponsored by turn to communications. Pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o and by fourth dimension technologies I. T. Infra in a box the affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant or d just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper here is sustainable fundraising. It’s a pleasure to welcome Larry johnson to non profit radio He is founder of the Eight Principles and author of the award winning book the eight principles of sustainable fundraising. He’s an internationally recognized coach trainer and thought leader in fund development and philanthropy. The principles are at the eight principles dot com and larry is on linkedin. Larry johnson, Welcome to the show.

[00:01:54.56] spk_1:
Well Tony, it’s indeed a pleasure. I’m looking forward to this.

[00:02:14.05] spk_0:
Thank you very much. I am as well. It’s a pleasure to have you, Let’s talk about the eight principles. What were you thinking when you uh rarefied fundraising into into eight Cognizable bites for folks.

[00:03:22.38] spk_1:
Well um you know, I’ve been in this business what 30 plus years now, yikes anyway. One thing I’ve noticed throughout my career is that people tend to focus on the process or the tools and not really the underlying principles or unchanging sort of laws that are operating in the background. And, but if you look at organizations that are truly transformative in the way they raise money and the way they engage their donors in the way they continue to grow every year. Even if they don’t, they ever heard of the eight principles, you could take and look at their organization and see them observing all eight of them. And so when I went to write the book, the idea was to create a book that was sophisticated, yet simple and that could be applied both at the technical levels and at the board level that here, this is what’s going on. And if you understand it, then you’ll be able to assemble a program that makes sense for your organization because not every organization is the same. The constituencies aren’t the same. And so it’s really, it’s foolish to try to make everything work everywhere because it won’t. Uh, and that’s one of the reasons why so many organizations are pushing uphill.

[00:03:32.41] spk_0:
So, you see these as a, as a foundation for all sustainable fundraising.

[00:03:33.99] spk_1:
Yeah. And the reason why is they’re all based on human nature. Um, and, uh, I mean, we’re actually gonna be going into into, into ASIA, into India later this year and they’re just as applicable there as they are here because they’re based on human nature.

[00:04:24.33] spk_0:
Okay, well, we’re gonna, we’re gonna hit three of them that I feel are areas that we haven’t had many guests or any guests talk about. And then, you know, if, if there’s still time we’ll go back and hit a couple. But uh, you know, for listeners, I want, I want it to be stuff that we haven’t talked about very much with with other guests. So your number one of the eight principles of sustainable fundraising is donors are the drivers. What’s going on here?

[00:05:33.58] spk_1:
Well, um, donors A. K. A. Investors. I like the word investors. Um, they are driving the philanthropic enterprise without them. There is no philanthropy. There is no fundraising. But the irony here is they’re not driving it with their money. There’s the key, um, people are obsessed about the money. Well, yes, money is involved, but it’s not really the focus. And especially at the focus of, of donors, investors. They’re looking for something different. But then it’s also not really, their focus is really not the mission of the organization either. Um, it is, again, tangential, what donors are looking for is the fulfillment of their own dreams and aspirations. That’s what they’re really looking for and the organization that can provide that they’re the ones that will elicit the transformative and ongoing support of these people. Um, and so they are indeed driving the enterprise. And there’s a lot of, a lot of my friends out there in the wealth management world, tell me that for lack of engagement by nonprofits, there’s probably at least a billion dollars sitting out there un engaged. And, uh, and that, that doesn’t mean it’s tied up in a donor advised fund or any sort of instrument there. It’s just sitting out there because it’s never been engaged.

[00:05:48.98] spk_0:
I mean, there could be more than that. That that’s a very speculative,

[00:05:51.90] spk_1:
right? It is, it is

[00:05:56.19] spk_0:
Estimate, I mean, it could be $10 billion. I mean, I know nonprofits could be more engaging with donors. So I’m not, I’m not quibbling that it’s not a billion. It could be 10 times that,

[00:06:03.96] spk_1:
yes, it could be absolutely, absolutely. But the keys, they’re driving the enterprise, but they’re not driving it with their money,

[00:06:19.09] spk_0:
right? You’re saying their aspirations and their dreams say more about how you see nonprofits fulfilling donor aspirations and dreams.

[00:06:46.11] spk_1:
Well, tony if I were approaching you as a, as an executive of a nonprofit or a fundraiser, a board member or anybody else and you were a potential investor. Um, I would first try to figure out what it is that you that really gave you fulfillment what it is you’re really looking for. And we’re talking about very serious transcendent fulfillment, not immediate short term and, you know, especially with today’s technological tools that are available, you know, in the old days, you just ask people and that still works. Um, but you can figure out pretty quickly, you know, what is it that’s driving these people, what is it they’re not missing because what you’re giving them is something they cannot buy. You see, they can’t buy that. Um, and let me tell you a little story

[00:07:21.93] spk_0:
before your story, hold, we’ll get we’ll do your story. I love stories, not putting the kibosh on the story, but hold off what they can’t buy. They can’t buy the fulfillment that nonprofits can provide, that

[00:09:26.91] spk_1:
they can’t buy that. So, if the if the nonprofit is going to offer this to them, you know, and then they will more than gladly give them an exchange. You see, let me let me let me illustrate this. There is a there is a for profit market vertical that understands this intrinsically and in fact, their entire um market proposition. Their whole sales proposition is if you use their product, you will become personally fulfilled sex appeal, you know, self worth all in one package. And most of us use those products and I, and I usually say, so what is it to a group? And maybe one person will get it right, It’s the cosmetics industry, Alright, that’s exactly their sales proposition you use our product, you’re going to be beautiful, self fulfilled sex appeal, the whole thing. So, and the story is okay to illustrate that I went into a department store, it’s been four or five years ago now and I went into the cup of the men’s cologne fragrance counter, whatever you wanna call it. And there was a young clerk there, young man and I walked up and I knew what I wanted, you know, and he says, um, can I help you sir? Well, if you know me, you know that I love to ask questions just to see what kind of response I’m gonna get. And right in front of me on the counter was this, you know, men’s health? One of these men’s magazines opened to a full page cosmetics at full page. And the ad was very simple. It was a um it was a photograph, full page photograph. And it was this this uh this gigolo with this, with this blonde in a white bikini on a yacht, in the Aegean. And then the, an image of the product was superimposed onto the photograph very prominently. And it’s, you’ve probably even seen it. It’s a very well known brand. So I said to the young man, I said, well, so tell me pointing to the ad, if I buy this, do I get hurt? Well, he looked at me like he didn’t, he was just he was he couldn’t quite

[00:09:31.60] spk_0:
was a man,

[00:09:33.80] spk_1:
it was a gigolo with the, with the blonde.

[00:09:36.78] spk_0:
Oh,

[00:09:38.32] spk_1:
okay, so you know, the the idea is you’re you’re transmuting yourself there on the yacht with this blonde, that’s the whole thing. Okay,

[00:09:46.19] spk_0:
Yeah. The guy at the Clark county has to offer you?

[00:10:19.58] spk_1:
Well, first of all, he couldn’t quite process what I just said because it was so damn obvious. That’s why. And then, so then I said so, but that’s the implication, isn’t it? And he said, yes, it is. That’s what I’m telling you. And you see, and you see, so they’re making billions of dollars selling a counterfeit. And what I tell nonprofits is you have the real thing because people want to be involved in something that’s bigger than themselves. They want to feel they’re part of something bigger than themselves. And if you can provide that they will be with you over and over and over again. You try to browbeat them with with moral ISMs or statistics or other things. You know, people just kind of tune you out. They may give you a hush and go away gift. Like here, take some money, go away. But you’re not gonna get the kind of transformational engagement that you can, if you really understand that you want to tap into that person’s desire to do something bigger than what they can do.

[00:11:11.01] spk_0:
Let’s see what are some ways that, that we can, we can do this. How can we, I guess I guess I’m asking you in our, in our marketing, which may just be conversations, I don’t, I don’t mean necessarily in our print marketing or digital. But in our conversations even, you know, how can we rise to this principle of fulfilling dreams and aspirations for donors?

[00:12:17.47] spk_1:
Well, the first thing is you have to figure out what the dreams are. You have to know what they are. And that takes some time. Um, it takes some effort. It’s not impossible. And you know, I worked for one of the major consulting firms for over seven years and I did a lot of campaign feasibility studies a lot, uh, could do them in my sleep. And one thing I discovered about those is even though they consisted of anywhere from 40 to 50 individual interviews, um, if the initial interviews were chosen correctly, if we could get the right balance in the first half dozen or even maybe nine, um, I knew how it was gonna turn out in the end. I can tell you this is what’s gonna happen at the end and that comes from doing it from the experience. So, but the client of course one of the 50 interviews and that’s what the client got. All right. But I could because I remember getting a call from my boss once after the after the first three or four days. How’s it going larry? I said, well, it’s going to be X, Y. Z. Okay, fine. And I spent the balance of the time during the interview. So a lot of it is, you know, I’m an old school guy. Be

[00:12:27.18] spk_0:
careful there. I hope you didn’t, I hope hope after those first eight or nine interviews you didn’t engage in confirmation bias and then you just you just attempted. You and your all your subsequent interviews. You, you skewed your conversations to confirm what you had already told or you already fixed in your mind even was gonna happen. You didn’t let that happen. Did you know, confirmation bias?

[00:12:43.26] spk_1:
No, I’m an engineer by training.

[00:12:47.04] spk_0:
Okay. You’re

[00:12:48.01] spk_1:
looking at the data at the end.

[00:12:49.76] spk_0:
All right.

[00:13:40.22] spk_1:
You’re you’re looking at, okay, this, this is all the answers to the questions how they all stack up, but you can get a pretty good idea of how it’s going. If you’re listening carefully, you begin to see patterns emerge. And there are there is the odd ball one that you, at the end, you get a few interviews that that throw everything out of whack that happens. But typically you don’t have my point in saying that is you don’t have to, you don’t have to go out and interview 300 people. You really don’t have to do that. Um, you know, you interview a good segment of your population and the key is to be listening uh, and ask open ended questions. And if you guarantee them anonymity and confidentiality, they’ll tell you anything, you want to know, people really want to do that. So that’s that’s an old school guy. And so that’s what I would do uh to get some ideas as to what are the messages And there aren’t, they don’t have to be that many, maybe three or

[00:13:42.97] spk_0:
four that

[00:13:59.89] spk_1:
resonate with the people who support us because I know we’re not talking about principle for, but principle four is learning plan learn who would naturally support you because not everybody will okay, learn who that is, who big picture and, and then then make plans on how to reach out to those people because they’ll be reachable different ways. So you go back to donors. Other drivers, figure out what those touch points are, you know what and there and they’ll be there and they may be a little bit different than what your mission is, but it doesn’t mean it’s, uh, it’s contradictory, it’s just, it’s just a collaborative or a line.

[00:14:36.07] spk_0:
Okay, let’s move to, uh, principle number three. Of the eight principles of sustainable fundraising leadership leads, leading by example, Talk about this one. Why is this so critical? What are, what are leaders not doing that? They ought to be doing?

[00:14:42.99] spk_1:
Well, let me go back and say one thing about, is the drivers that I’m going to go into this.

[00:14:47.90] spk_0:
Alright, alright.

[00:15:30.90] spk_1:
There are levels of donors are the drivers, remember if donors are driving the car, they’re in the driver’s seat, they got their hands on the steering wheel. Um, if that donor is a really good match for you and you’ve done your work, you’re gonna be in the passenger seat, you’re gonna be in the navigator seat up front. Uh, if there’s sort of a match, you’ll be in the back seat, you’ll still be there, but you’re not gonna get the kind of attention that the, that the navigator would get or if you’re barely hanging on, you’re gonna be in the trunk, okay? And so you get whatever’s left over, you open the trunk after two hours and you’re still breathing okay, fine. That’s their levels of that. Not every donor is going to be that 100% sweet spot. Uh, and I’m not suggesting that you limit yourself to that. But if you’re focused on that, you’re gonna pick up everyone that would remotely be in that, that, that universe.

[00:17:12.88] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications, like so many other things in life. Getting in the media depends on relationships. You’ve got to be known by folks who work in the media to be heard by folks who work in the media to get their attention. It’s so much easier when you know somebody, it’s so much easier when you want to be heard when you have an existing relationship before you’re out for the ask, right? You draw the fundraising analogy first meeting. Do you ask somebody for a gift, highly unlikely you build up a relationship, you get to that point. Media is the same way. You have much, much better odds if you have an existing relationship when you make your ask based on the news hook or something happening at your organization that, that is no, is newsworthy? Whatever it is, it’s the existing relationship turn to knows how to set those up for you, how to build them and grow them. So you get heard at the time you make the ask turn to communications, your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C o. Now back to sustainable fundraising.

[00:17:17.97] spk_1:
Leadership. Leadership

[00:17:19.68] spk_0:
leads. Yes. What, what, what, what can we be doing better here?

[00:18:57.77] spk_1:
Well, let’s look at what that means. Leading by example, you look at any organization, whether it’s a commercial enterprise, whether it’s a civic association, whether it’s a political party, whether it’s a nonprofit social, whatever it is. Um, leaders are expected to assume certain responsibilities. I mean, they’re obviously the fiduciary ones, uh, and the other issues that are related to that, but it’s, they set the pace for the example. What’s the quality of the leadership by these people morally upstanding? Do they represent the essence of the organization? Um, you know, are they representative of those who are investors to the organization? That’s a big key. Uh, and I’ll give you an example about that. Um, I was working with a social service organization that covered about 45 counties and they were concerned, they weren’t getting any support out of this one county. And I said, well, who on your boards from that county. Well, no one I said, well, there’s your problem right there. You’re not tapped into the networks there. So they corrected that. Um, but then the other key is they only have in a nonprofit setting leaders, I. E. The governing board and certainly their their employee, the executive. And I think that needs to be stressed is that the executive is an employee of the board. Sometimes you get these weird sort of relationships and how they relate to one another. Um, but the key there is that they only have three things they should be focused on. Number one setting policy for the organization, number two advocating for it. Hey, if they’re not, if they’re not a fan, why are they on the board? And three, they should be there charged with making sure they’re sufficient resources with the delivery of the mission and in a non profit that almost always includes some philanthropy or some fundraising. I mean, there are other sources of revenue,

[00:19:17.15] spk_0:
but fundraising

[00:20:57.82] spk_1:
is a part of it. So wherever the leaders lead you, that’s where your people on the outside are gonna take their cues. So if for instance, I’m a big believer and I make no bones about this. Is that every board member and I’ve been a nonprofit board member needs to be financially committed. And now, what does that mean? Well, some people use it to say there’s a board minimum or we have this or that or whatever. You know, I really don’t, I don’t really like those because I prefer something I call equal sacrifice, not equal amount because everyone around that table is gonna, their pockets are gonna have different depths to them. And you know, for someone, $1000 could be quite a sacrifice. And for someone else, hey, they’ll spend that at Sun Valley down the road for me and one weekend easy. So it just depends on who you are and and where you come from. And because I’m a big believer in that board should be representative of the constituencies they they support or that they reach out to. So, so but they all have to be and that includes person that should be personal funds, not corporate funds. I think, you know, people use people, you know, people who are corporate appointees. Um they not, they may not be useless, but they tend to be very weak board members because they’re told by their boss to go and be a part of that. They want to have a representation. Um, it’s not really that effective. Neither is the board member who’s on 12 other boards and you’re getting them simply because they have a recognizable name names don’t bring in support. They really don’t. But but leadership leader, they will lead you irregardless of whether they’re leading you in the right place at the wrong place. They will lead others, they will get that message, but here’s another piece of it is people before

[00:21:07.03] spk_0:
you move onto the next piece. The equal sacrifice. I like that. Uh equal sacrifice instead of equal amount. Sounds sounds like the stretch gift. You know, everyone should be stretching to to what is a stretch for them.

[00:21:20.64] spk_1:
Yeah, it should be uh,

[00:21:24.66] spk_0:
I think

[00:22:36.94] spk_1:
stretch but doable and then the way you achieve that and what I, what I counsel clients to do is something called peer solicitation and that’s not what it’s known in the current and the current. That’s not the current version of that. Pierre solicitation is where boards, there’s a small group of the boards that that takes and evaluates people in terms of their bill And then people are asked face to face for a specific amount for their annual gift at the beginning of the fiscal year. Uh they can pay it in cash, they can make a pledge, they can make payments whatever they want to do, but it’s got to be satisfied by the end of the fiscal year. And then you take all those, all those, all those evaluation amounts, you add them up, take about 20 or 30% discount on that total. And that’s your, that’s your group goal because you want the board to feel as though they’ve accomplished something. I don’t like goals that are so high that it’s almost impossible to reach goals should be floors, not ceilings because the idea is to create that momentum. And if you do it up front and you can say, hey, you know, our, our goal for our board this year was $65,000 and we raised 72 5. Great, Wonderful. That’s terrific. Think about how that plays in the public square. Think about what that says to the people who are on that board and and all their friends and people they know, wow, Hey, you know, they must really believe in that, that that organization is going places. Let me let me learn more about it.

[00:22:48.96] spk_0:
And alright, well, and you achieve that by taking the, the what you expect the aggregate to be for the year and you’re discounting it.

[00:23:04.21] spk_1:
Yeah, yeah. But, but it’s reasonable. It’s something that’s based on what, you know, the individual. All

[00:23:04.48] spk_0:
right, what else about leadership leading?

[00:25:02.28] spk_1:
Well, another thing is, you know, I said, fundraising is a big part of it and people, they always start groaning well, you know, um, You know, I’m not good at asking for money. That’s just not for me, I don’t feel awkward, I feel awkward. Well, what I tell people is board involvement in fundraising only about 5% of its actually asking. Alright, that’s the very minor part of it, a big, big part of it is the board to be able to number one properly resource a fundraising program knowing it costs money to raise money. And then also when they, when the reports are made and when the analysis is done for the board to be sophisticated enough to ask the right questions of the fundraiser and the executive, you know, you know, one of the, you know, the number that usually, or often let’s put it that way comes up, you know, at a board meeting is, well, what did you raise in the last quarter or six months or whatever it was? That is a totally meaningless number from a fundraising perspective, that’s an accounting number. That’s a cash number. That’s the result of your fundraising. That doesn’t predict anything. Even the brokers say past performance is not an indicator of future performance. They get that in real fast. So, but there are other variables that are identifiable in a program that will, if the board is aware of these and presented and educated, they’ll be able to evaluate, they’ll be able to see, okay, you know, our retention rates really low. We need to work on that our average giving rate is stagnant. You know, we’re here here here and you see board members are not stupid people, You know, they can assess this, but they’re not given this opportunity. I think there was a study, Oh, it’s been several years ago now where I, I shocked that 75% of the board members they surveyed wanted some sort of formal understanding of fundraising or training and only about 20% were ever offered anything like that. And that’s, and so these are these people are volunteers Tony this isn’t their full time job. So it’s not their stick to go in and kind of relationship is really, really aggressive to go and figure it out on your own.

[00:26:28.74] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Fourth dimension technologies. They have the free offer. It’s still going exclusively for nonprofit radio listeners. You know, you’ll get the complimentary 24 7 monitoring of your I. T. Assets and they’ll do it for three months, 90 days monitoring your servers, network, cloud performance, your backup performance All 24, 7 of course, if there are any issues during the period, they’re going to let you know immediately and then at the end of the three months you’re gonna get their report, telling you how you’re doing. It’s all complimentary. It’s on the listener landing page. It’s at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D just like three D. But they go on to mention deeper, Let’s return to sustainable fundraising. Let’s talk some more about what board members can do around fundraising besides soliciting. And I understand re sourcing you said re sourcing the development function, properly asking the right questions, focusing on the meaningful metrics, not the vanity metrics. Uh, let’s talk something about individual board member activity aside from soliciting. So, you know, making introductions, hosting small events, things like, you know what your ideas around those that individual board members can do around fundraising.

[00:28:03.88] spk_1:
Well what I tell you what I tell organizations when they’re looking to evaluate their board or improve it or whatever I say, you know, the, you know, boards are, excuse me. Boards should be organic groups, meaning they’re responsible to each other, they’re not responsible certainly to their employee. The executive and the boards that do best are the ones that are, are organic. And the way you get that is that first of all, the idea of equal giving excuses of equal participation and that kind of commitment. But another way you do that is to things you make sure that you have a variety of skills on your board. You don’t need six accountants and nine attorneys. You know, you need to spread that around a little bit and then the other pieces, if you look at the constituencies from which you expect to raise money and however you want to identify those, you should have at least one board member that represents those constituents. Each of those constituencies because they’re the person that has the network that you’re looking to to, to to build and then that that individual’s job, one of their jobs is advocacy, is making sure that their network knows who you are as an organization and the great work you’re doing, that. You’re willing to introduce your friends and relatives to this organization, you know, and if a board member isn’t willing to do that, I question their commitment. Why are you on the sport? I mean, if you don’t really feel good enough to tell your friends and relatives and business partners that this is a good thing, why you know what you’re doing that.

[00:29:47.58] spk_0:
I was on a board years ago by the way. Larry. If you need to take a sip of water, please go ahead. I’ll, uh, I’ll make my question. Uh, uh, Loquacious to give you a chance to take a, take a drink and a breath. Um, I was on a board many years ago. Uh, and one of the board members was, was kind of embarrassed to ask for money. He didn’t, he didn’t feel that the organization really merited the support of his friends he was giving personally, But I think that’s because we all have an obligation. But he, he was, he was kind of embarrassed actually. He felt that, yeah, that the organization just was not, wouldn’t be meaningful to his, his colleagues in his, this happened to be an attorney in his, in his law firm wouldn’t be meaningful to them. They wouldn’t be interested without, without ever having talked to him about it. Very, you know, very unfortunate. Um, yeah, it’s just a terrible, unfortunate, sad mindset. You know, why are you on the board? If you don’t think your friends, even your colleagues forget friends, Your professional colleagues are going to have any interest that you serve on the board. I mean, that’s your biggest hook or at least that’s your first hook. Maybe it’s not your biggest hook. That’s your first hook. I spend time with this organization. I go to their performances. I go to the meetings. I’m on the, I’m on a couple of committees. You know, that’s your, that’s your entree and then what good that the, that the community that the organization does, the education program in the elementary schools, the performances, etcetera. But he just had the vastly wrong and very unfortunate mindset.

[00:30:12.95] spk_1:
Well, you see that mindset goes beyond board members and what’s happening there is the person is not comfortable. And so they’ve feel authorized to take the agency away from the other person. They’re making the decision for

[00:30:18.50] spk_0:
them. That’s

[00:30:19.63] spk_1:
what they’re doing. And, and I, it’s like when, you know, you’re doing an awareness meeting or an event

[00:30:24.78] spk_0:
well, and they’re also, they’re also just making everything easier on themselves.

[00:30:28.84] spk_1:
Of course they,

[00:30:29.81] spk_0:
well, my, my, my, my fellow, uh, partners aren’t gonna be interested. So I’m not going to approach them.

[00:31:23.95] spk_1:
So, but it’s the whole idea of awkwardness and you, but they don’t realize they’re taking agency away from these people. They’re not giving them the opportunity to make the decision on. That’s really what they’re doing. Now. There is the flip of this. I’ll tell you a story. Um, I was working with a client up and catch them, which is Sun Valley. I live out in Idaho and Sun Valley is a very wealthy community. It’s not very big, but there’s a lot of, a lot of money there And we were doing an annual fund where this one individual had made a cash gift to $250,000. And so he was assigned to do another to go and solicit one of his board members and this man’s name. Others call him John offered the guy that the other board member will, will you take 50? And where upon the board members said, Bill, don’t embarrass yourself with that. I want the 2 50 that I put put in. I mean, there’s, I mean, I wouldn’t necessarily advise that, but he obviously knew the man well,

[00:31:42.07] spk_0:
right. Talking about peer to peer. Yeah, if you can, if you can get friends, I was gonna say putting pressure on, let’s just say soliciting, uh, if you can get friends like that soliciting each other, Nobody’s gonna walk away disappointed.

[00:31:52.60] spk_1:
No, No. I just love what he said was, don’t embarrass? You

[00:31:58.61] spk_0:
Don’t embarrass yourself 50,000. Yeah, Yeah. That’s, that’s a, that’s a great lesson in peer to peer board board soliciting keep the keep the professionals away and let’s just get the 22 good friends having lunch together. One of them has an agenda to talk to the other about his or her board. Giving all right,

[00:32:17.59] spk_1:
Anything

[00:32:18.22] spk_0:
else you want? I I got admonished on because donors of the drivers, I left that too early. So anything else you want to share on leadership leads before, before we move ahead.

[00:32:33.32] spk_1:
Um, I don’t think so. I just say that, oh, when you in, when you insist, when, when you insist on equal sacrifice, here’s what happens. You get a group of people, of individuals that become accountable to each other.

[00:32:46.92] spk_0:
There’s

[00:32:57.13] spk_1:
the key and they begin to function as a group, not as a collection of individuals. And that’s where the trail, that’s where two plus two equals five, you see is because that synergy of a group functioning as a group, not as a group of it, not as a collection of individuals. And that doesn’t happen very often. But when it does, it really really energizes an organization. You see it make great strides very quickly,

[00:33:20.21] spk_0:
shared sacrifice. If we’re all sacrificing equally. And I don’t mean dollar wise, I mean, I mean, capacity wise, we’re all sacrificing for the good of this organization. Yeah. That’s going to create a cohesion.

[00:33:27.51] spk_1:
That’s what you that’s what you’re looking for. Is that kind of, you know, we’re all in this together. Um and we’re gonna make it we’re gonna make it successful

[00:33:36.03] spk_0:
partnership in sacrifice.

[00:33:38.32] spk_1:
That’s right. That’s exactly what it is. And as I said, it becomes an organic group. It’s not it’s no longer just a collection of individuals.

[00:33:55.30] spk_0:
Good enough. Okay, Let’s talk about principle number six, divide and grow. What’s this? What’s this about?

[00:35:20.41] spk_1:
Well, a divide and grow. Um The shorthand version of that is treat different donors differently. Alright. So that um what you’re essentially doing here is you realize that your donors are not all the same, they’re not all the same age that they don’t have the same situation in life or as the Germans would say, where they are in their lifespan, um, their interests, all of the, they’re all different to some degree. They come from different backgrounds, different places. So that the organization that can allow for these, and that creates a pathway for donors to come closer to you emotionally over time and see, I’m a big believer in really focusing on high retention rates, not cache entry rates. Those organizations are the ones who achieve this transformative giving over time. Uh, and that’s so that when you divide your constituency into these air into these levels of, you know, you know, ages and, and where they are in life and income level and all these kinds of things that, that define, you know, what the person is going to be like when they come to you and you treat them that way. And, and you, you can, of course with today’s technology, even the very smallest organization can do this kind of thing. Uh, it doesn’t, you know, in the old days, you know, three or three or five cards and an army of researchers and, and people making phone calls and you can still do that. But the point is, you don’t have to, but you know, I’ve known this for a long time. But then there was research published about five years ago, I think it was Russell James, I’m sure, you know, russell

[00:35:33.09] spk_0:
Russell Professor Russell James texas Tech University.

[00:36:46.40] spk_1:
Yeah, So and what they discovered was when donors are given a pathway that brings them closer emotionally. And I stress that word, the emotional connection with the organization over time To the point where they make a gift out of an asset, not income. And it doesn’t have to be a large one can be maybe a couple $1000. I mean really it doesn’t have to be huge when that happens. And you can get a core group of people, maybe only 10 or 15% of your donor base that has done that the entire fundraising program in terms of income, just skyrockets. And the reason why is you have a core group of people that are so emotionally committed to you. They come hell or high water they’re gonna, they’re gonna be there for you no matter what happens, you see, and that’s what you’re looking for. Is that core group of people that are so emotionally committed to you and they may not be your top givers financially, but they will drive everything else. That’s the key. Um, and that’s why although I’ve done most of my work in capital fundraising and major gift fundraising in all the conventional terms, I I even sort of steer away from the term major giving anymore because that’s an internal term. It’s reflected on ability. Um, and I really, really focus on emotional commitment because I think the rest will come. And of course in your area, the deferred giving area, that’s those are asset gifts, you know, usually by definition.

[00:37:01.29] spk_0:
Yeah, right. You were talking about giving from assets, but

[00:37:16.11] spk_1:
I mean, I had a fun gift be satisfied by the liquidation of a small, a small money market. 10 grand. Okay. I mean, yeah,

[00:37:51.83] spk_0:
sure. That can happen. Um, yeah, the ultimate, you know, the for a lot of folks that their ultimate gift has to come in their estate plan because either they can’t or they believe that they can’t make their ultimate gift while they’re still living. So they put it in their estate plan and there there’s there’s a plan to get in a nutshell. Alright, So, yeah, so, all right. So you want us to, you know, dividing and growing, you want these, you talk about mutual, mutually beneficial relationships.

[00:39:22.17] spk_1:
Yes, these are, these are not one way relationship. These are mutually beneficial relationships. Um, you know, you know, I have something called the, if you read my book or my other stuff, I have something called a donor pipeline pipeline signs kind of commercial and kind of cold, but what it really is, it shows how donors come to you and they come to you through three or four different sources and then over time, how you get to know them and move them closer to you and then you can attach certain kinds of fundraising methods and relationships and things that they do over time and then a capital campaign, which is a very specific, relatively short term way to raise a lot of money for a specific so set of, of things or ideas then what that, how that serves in all this is to kind of goose what I’ll call goose the whole system because it raises everybody’s awareness of what’s going on. And then, you know, for those who understand that the real or that I would think the more significant payoff Quote of of a capital campaign is not the money raised in the immediate, uh, for the immediate, in case it’s how you’ve positioned your, your donor base to continue to give at higher levels over what, 10 or 15 years. And universities, they figured this out 30, 40 years ago when they invented what they called the continual campaign, the continuous campaign. And so, you know, before that, you know, you and I probably have to remember that these universities would hire, you know, couple score of, you know, field officers and run the campaign then fire everybody. And five years later they do the whole thing all over again. That’s a very inefficient way of raising money. And so they realized, oh, we can do this differently. And so that’s, you know, but you can do it even as a small organization.

[00:39:45.82] spk_0:
Yeah. Keep those relationships going rather than trying to renew them every five or seven years on your on your campaign cycle. Yeah. That seems antiquated. Alright.

[00:40:00.38] spk_1:
Yes,

[00:41:36.64] spk_0:
it was, Yeah. My early days. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Make it about your mission. Your work. That’s what you have in common with your supporters. Whether we’re talking about volunteers, donors, other types of supporters, they love your work. You do the work. The mission is what you have in common. So you know, as we’re approaching rapidly, the all important fourth quarter, keep the mission in mind as you’re crafting messages, whatever digital print the mission is what moves your supporters. That’s what they love about you. That’s what they give their money, their time to make it about your mission. It’s special to them. Sort of keep it special in your mind. Don’t let it become routine and mundane and, and un interesting to you or you think what’s interesting to you is not going to be interesting to other folks. Not so not so they love your mission. Your mission is what you have in common with those who are loving you who are supporting you. Make it about the mission. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo, but loads more time for sustainable fundraising with larry johnson instead of doing just three of the 8, 3/8. Let’s, let’s talk about four of them. We have, we have a little more time left and then we’ll just tease, you know, all eight of them. But I would like to talk and you’ve, you’ve talked around this one and you’ve alluded to it. Number seven renew and refresh. You know, keeping a high renewal rate, high retention rate. Let’s, let’s just flush that one out as, as our, as our fourth one renew and refresh.

[00:43:27.63] spk_1:
Well, it’s, it’s said, it’s said in that order on purpose, your first goal is to renew the investors you currently have, that’s your first priority. And your second priority is to refresh your base because people die. People change their interest. People go into a different stage of life. I mean will go into bankruptcies or they lose their all sorts of reasons why people will stop giving to you and many, most of them legitimate reasons. You know, you haven’t necessarily quote pissed them off or anything. So that, so that renewing should be your number one priority with your donor pool. Unfortunately it’s not for most people. I can’t believe, I can’t tell you the number of development officers I’ve heard tell me, well, I’d like to renew more, but my executive just wants to get more new donors into the fold. And that just seems to be the, I mean, I’m like, I don’t understand where that comes from quite frankly. I mean, but I mean who am I to say? But anyway, renewing first And the, and there’s, you know, and renewing donors is actually easier now than it was when I was just in this business. And yet it seems that there’s more turning going on than it was when I was first in this business, I think there are a couple of things that are driving that first of demographics we’re dealing with, we’re dealing with younger generations in the boomers whose patience and attention levels, attention spans are quite a bit shorter and their reasons for giving are different. They’re much more impact driven than those in our age range.

[00:43:33.34] spk_0:
This is interesting. Larry, let me, let me let me stop here. Do we know that retention rates, which are, which are quite low, uh, around 20,

[00:43:43.98] spk_1:
pathetic

[00:43:45.38] spk_0:
Part. Yeah. Our retention rates lower than they were 20 years ago.

[00:43:56.38] spk_1:
I think they are. I mean, I would have to check the numbers, but in terms of my experience, excuse me, there seems to be less churn, have

[00:43:59.62] spk_0:
a drink, have a drink while I uh, say that Larry’s having a little sip of water from his yellow yellow water bottle. Very pretty.

[00:44:47.75] spk_1:
Uh, there’s, there’s, there seems to be more turn that may simply because there’s more younger donors. I mean, people send, there’s sort of this false calculus out there that millennials aren’t philanthropic. Well, they are, they’re a very high percent of them give, but they give it a different way than baby boomers do like you and I, but yes, the renewal rate is pathetic. And what I, the, the, the analogy I use is that, you know, I think the, I think, I think it’s like the the first year renewal rates always hovered in the high thirties 30% somewhere in there, the ones I’ve seen. But if you look at the consumer products, Uh, renewal rates, they’re 95 and 96%. So what I say to people is people are more loyal to their toothpaste and they are their charity. This

[00:44:57.24] spk_0:
is a very good example actually.

[00:45:06.18] spk_1:
Mean P and G. Has that figured out tony They got it figured out. So why is it if they can figure it out for something as mundane as toothpaste. Alright. Uh, why is it that nonprofits can’t employ there again? They’re selling the real thing. They’re not selling a pony thing. It’s real. It’s hard. You know, why is it? They can’t get there. Well, because they’re not investing the time and effort to make it happen. It’s just not on their radar screen. Um, that’s, that’s what I’ve seen. And maybe

[00:45:27.48] spk_0:
your advice around increasing retention.

[00:45:49.66] spk_1:
Well, it has to be an organizational mandate number one. We are going to set these goals and they’re gonna go up. I mean, there has to be the board executive. Okay, This is gonna happen. All right. We’re not happy with this. Okay. Number one, we’ve got to make a change and then you go back and you just deconstruct every single piece of what you’re doing and you look at, okay, Is this adding to or or or or taking away from the ability to renew

[00:45:55.38] spk_0:
looking at the donor journey?

[00:45:57.40] spk_1:
Yes, yeah, just

[00:46:10.66] spk_0:
listeners, we recently had um uh, I guess talking about the, the welcome journey, your email welcome journey just within the past month or six weeks or so, So you know, that’s welcoming brand new donors, you do that over the first week to 10 days, so that’s part of what you’re talking about. That’s

[00:46:19.99] spk_1:
just absolutely, that’s

[00:46:21.07] spk_0:
the initial phase of what you’re talking about, that. But the whole journey, let

[00:46:24.43] spk_1:
me give an example of the initial phase why it’s so very important. Um you maybe you’re, I know, I know you’re old enough, I don’t remember a woman with the name of Pearl Mesta.

[00:46:33.82] spk_0:
No

[00:46:35.29] spk_1:
esto was the heiress to the Mesta Machine fortune in Pittsburgh, and they’re the ones that produced a lot of the heavy artillery and guns during World War two.

[00:46:43.25] spk_0:
I went to school at Carnegie Mellon. Uh

[00:46:45.69] spk_1:
there you go. I

[00:46:46.82] spk_0:
knew, so I know. Andrew Carnegie Did you ever

[00:46:50.17] spk_1:
machine in Homestead? It’s still there.

[00:46:52.45] spk_0:
Okay, I know Homestead Homestead works used to be, it was a big Steeltown Homestead. Okay. Mr Works. Alright.

[00:47:33.73] spk_1:
So anyway, Pearl Mesta uh in the 90 the sixties, uh, you know, was the grand dame of Washington social life. Okay. Everybody wanted to be invited to one of Pearl’s parties. Okay, whether you’re Republican democrat, it didn’t, it was the place to be boy and if you don’t wanna pearls list, you’re at the top and everyone came and it was a very congenial group? Well at one point someone asked her pearl, you know, what is it that makes your party? So everyone just can’t wait to get there. And here’s what she said. It’s all about the hellos and the goodbyes.

[00:47:38.65] spk_0:
Mm think

[00:47:43.30] spk_1:
about that. You know how

[00:47:43.71] spk_0:
welcome you feel, coming, coming and going

[00:48:00.93] spk_1:
right, right. And and she saw that as her job when someone crossed her threshold who may not know more than two people in the whole room, okay to make them feel at home and welcome. And that takes

[00:48:02.66] spk_0:
purpose

[00:48:03.63] spk_1:
to welcome them. Call them by name and you know, take care of their coats or whatever it is that you need to do and then introduce them to someone

[00:48:11.00] spk_0:
introduced right and

[00:48:28.66] spk_1:
get them started and break the ice for them. That’s what she did. And then when it was time for someone to leave, she didn’t let them sneak out the front door, the side door. Oh, tony thank you so much for coming. I can’t wait till I can have you here in my home again. See the difference, but that’s the hostess is as an active role then, you know, she’s not over there huddled in the corner with all of her friends,

[00:48:37.18] spk_0:
you

[00:48:37.35] spk_1:
know, and and there’s the difference and I’ve seen this in awareness meetings when I was in universities where you got the administrators all hovered over in the corner talking to themselves. you know, what the hell is this about? Get out there and talk to these other people?

[00:50:10.31] spk_0:
Yeah, I hope. Yeah, I used to see that when we had in person meetings, you know, too many, too many development folks or even it doesn’t, they don’t, it’s not even just the fundraisers, it’s, you know, too many insiders talking to each other because they’re all comfortable with it instead of talking to the donors who they don’t know or maybe just, you know, casually. No, but you know, I’m breaking the ice with those folks and making them feel welcome. Yeah, I hate to see those clusters of employees. Again, not only fundraisers, you know, anybody for any, anybody doing program work, anybody representing the organization at a public event, you shouldn’t be huddled with your fellow employees, you should be out talking to the public, telling them what you do. You it may be mundane to you, but it’s not mundane to them. They, you know, quoting from glengarry glen ross. They don’t step foot on the lot. If they don’t want to pay. If they don’t want to buy, they don’t step foot on the lot. They’re not ready to buy from the, from the alec baldwin, you know, booming iconic speech folks don’t set foot on the lot if they’re not ready to buy, they haven’t come to spend time with your organization, if they don’t want to learn about it. So whether you’re a fundraiser or you’re not, if you don’t have an outward facing job, then, you know, if you don’t want to talk to the public, then don’t come to the event. This is, this is an awareness raising. You

[00:50:15.95] spk_1:
know, just

[00:50:28.82] spk_0:
come to the employee holiday party and then you can huddle with all your fellow employees, but coming to a public event, talk to the public, get away from the folks, you know very well because you work with them and, and get out talking to folks you don’t know, tell them about what you do

[00:50:33.01] spk_1:
when I Years ago.

[00:50:35.31] spk_0:
That was a bit of a,

[00:50:36.67] spk_1:
it was not

[00:50:37.38] spk_0:
sure. I’m sorry. But

[00:50:38.83] spk_1:
you shouldn’t be

[00:50:40.50] spk_0:
years

[00:50:41.34] spk_1:
ago when I was running the major,

[00:50:44.06] spk_0:
when

[00:51:09.56] spk_1:
I was running the good major program at Suny Buffalo. I was very, we were very much mindful of, you know, and this is politically incorrect today. But we were in the Chiefs and indians A’s okay. How many, how many people do we have? We gotta make sure we balance this thing out and, and I, and I made I made it very clear to, to fundraising staff that were there. You know, here’s your assignment. You are not here to suck up free food and booze. Thank you very much. That’s not your role here. In fact, if you get anything to eat or drink at all. That’s, that’s lucky on your part. Okay. That’s not what your

[00:51:15.30] spk_0:
extreme. I like to feed food, I like to see that folks are said and, and uh, you know, plus you can meet people over the buffet table. Oh

[00:51:24.62] spk_1:
yeah, I mean I, I said that, I mean I expect people to enjoy themselves. Uh and I, and I think it’s important that,

[00:51:30.78] spk_0:
but, but there’s a reason that you’re there.

[00:51:32.71] spk_1:
Yeah, you’re not there just to suck up free food. I

[00:51:35.88] spk_0:
used to go to these events with the name, list of pack,

[00:51:38.85] spk_1:
list

[00:51:39.22] spk_0:
of pockets. I’m getting too excited. I used to go to these events like this with a list of names in my pocket, on a piece of paper folded in half. So it would fit in my breast jacket pocket. And these are the folks that I want to talk to who said they’re coming and from time to time I would excuse myself, go in the hall, look at the

[00:51:57.37] spk_1:
list,

[00:52:18.29] spk_0:
check with the front, the registration desk to make sure that these, you know, I can’t find somebody. Did they come or that they didn’t come so I can’t talk to them. But I would check the list, go and talk to folks you should be going with and, and for some of these folks, you know, there were, there were reasons I wanted to talk to them. Some of them, it was just a refresh and renew. But some, you know, I had a specific agenda item to talk to them about. You know, these these events are not, you know, to your point, you’re lucky if you eat and drink, they’re not social, these are work events.

[00:52:29.27] spk_1:
That’s right. You’re not

[00:52:30.01] spk_0:
gonna be, you’re gonna be working in advancing relationships.

[00:52:32.61] spk_1:
You’re not, you’re not just schmoozing, You’re working.

[00:52:36.47] spk_0:
Uh,

[00:52:53.03] spk_1:
this is purposeful. Um, well, and I used to, and I used to have the officers that attended, I used to have them submit the names to me of all the people they have meaningful conversations with. You know, how did we cover the floor? You know, it was left out. Um, that was key cause this, this was a very, of course, if it’s a sit down event, it’s all about strategic seating. Of

[00:52:58.37] spk_0:
course, yes, Yes. Don’t put the employees together. Put the right donors with the right potential donors. Put the right staff with the right donors. Yes. Be very intentional. Very purposeful

[00:53:10.75] spk_1:
or donors who have personal differences. You don’t see them together.

[00:53:16.96] spk_0:
Yes. Um, if it’s not a sit down event or if it’s the cocktail hour, you see somebody standing alone or sitting alone, over in a chair or a sofa, go up and introduce yourself.

[00:53:25.67] spk_1:
Don’t

[00:53:34.44] spk_0:
let people sit by themselves alone and stand alone in the cocktail hour. You know, they’re looking for somebody to come up to them, do it again. If you don’t want to do that kind of work, then just go to the employer employee holiday party.

[00:53:40.85] spk_1:
You

[00:53:41.90] spk_0:
know, you might not have an outward facing job. but if you’re going to an outward facing event representing the organization, then you need to be outward facing and not huddled with your fellow employees.

[00:53:51.68] spk_1:
So

[00:53:52.67] spk_0:
going back

[00:54:24.09] spk_1:
to the premise here of renew, that should be the number one driver in terms of the donor pool focus on renewal and building that relationship over time. Uh, it’s, you know, you know, in terms of, you know, I’m an engineer, I’m a business guy, you know, I’m interested in return on investment. How much does it cost? You know, and it is a cost. It’s much less expensive in dollars and cents to maintain a relationship to get a very large gift than it is to constantly be trying to bring new people into the fold as you know, No,

[00:54:25.71] spk_0:
that’s donor acquisition costs a lot more than donor.

[00:54:28.83] spk_1:
Yeah, it’s so much more expensive

[00:54:32.09] spk_0:
multiples.

[00:55:10.77] spk_1:
And so then from a financial point of view, it’s makes sense. Everything, It just makes sense. But you, but you’re really working on this relationship over time and then you do have an acquisition program that, that drops people in at various levels when they come in, but that’s where the focus should be every and so people aren’t doing that. As I said, the first step is to go back and deconstruct the entire program and begin to rebuild it with renewal as the number one focus. And then, and of course that’s gonna really, um, give some executives heartburn because they’re so dependent on these small first time gifts to make, to make a budget, you know, which is, you know, that’s an exercise in futility. But it happens all the time because that will absolutely give them heartburn. But what’s gonna happen here? What’s gonna happen there? But

[00:55:20.51] spk_0:
over time you’ll have a more sustainable fundraising revenue when you retain your donors and grow them

[00:55:27.41] spk_1:
well, not only sustainable, but a lot more money. Pure and simple. And I would go so far as to suggest that you could probably do this in a way that it wouldn’t even affect your current income levels. I think you get enough replacement from your acquisition in your renewal’s

[00:56:22.00] spk_0:
maybe maybe. But even if you don’t, it’s still worth, it’s still worth investing in the long term retention or renewal and growth of your existing donors. All right. That was # seven renew and refresh. Alright, so Larry, give us the rundown. Uh, are you able to recite them? Okay. Okay. Okay. So we’re gonna go through the eight. We, we touched on 4/8. So we did half the other half are at the eight principles dot com. Larry, please just run down your, your eight principles of sustainable fundraising.

[01:00:11.58] spk_1:
The a principles are principal one donors are the drivers donors dr philanthropy, but they drive it with their dreams, not their money principle. To begin at the beginning, you need to be able to know your mission and be able to communicate it in a way and in language and in areas and places where your prospective investors will receive it and understand it. Clearly three leadership leads, Your leadership leads, sets the tone for everything else and they will lead. Everybody else will follow their lead, whatever whether that’s good or bad principle for learning plan. You need to first learn who would naturally support you because not everyone will even philanthropic people, Not everyone will and then construct a plan or a program. And how do you reach those people? Where are they? What do they read? What do they do? Who are their friends? All this sort of thing. Principle five. Work from the inside out. Begin with those people closest to you, both in terms of, of affinity and to your mission but also closeness to your organization. That’s why I’m a big believer in doing board campaigns, annual campaigns and doing employee campaigns because it’s you begin and you move out in concentric circles, it’s like building that network. Principle six divide and grow simply treat different donors differently And you’re constructing a pathway that over time will bring your donors closer to you emotionally. Principles seven renew and refresh. Your first focus should be to renew your current investors, the other people who have already voted with their money. You know, they’ve already told you, hey, we support you and oftentimes they’re ignored or simply given you know, whatever. Quick, quick Thank you and then Principal eight integrate, evaluate, integrate, invest, integrate and evaluate. I get that. Right. Okay. So you, you tricked me up. Okay. First of all you have to invest in your program. It costs money to raise money. But this is the role of the board to understand what these general guidelines are in terms of what it takes to raise money over what length of time, you know, how much of investment do we have to make for it begin to pay off over time? Um, integrate. Now this can be, this can be a problem with small organizations or large organizations. And integration is simply understanding that you need to make sure that you, as you communicate as you solicit as you focus on your donor constituency. It needs to come across as a uniform message to the receiver. And what I mean by that is in the case of a big university. You, we have all these different appeals and their college and their this and plan giving and major giving and all this sort of thing. And you know, if, if those things aren’t coordinated the effect on the donor, it, it’s like they’re coming at them. They don’t know, you know, and we’ve all had the horror stories of that sort of thing. Um, you know, one in particular was, I was running again this back at Sunni and a major gift officer called me up. They were in California and they said, I just had a very interesting experience. And I said, what’s that? He said when I was in there visiting the couple, the doorbell rang and it was a plan giving officer. Well in the university’s wisdom, you know, our two organizations were silo where you see the result that God and so and then on the other end of the spectrum, another kind of offender of this kind of thing are the independent schools where they are soliciting parents left and right for every little ding dong thing on the face of the earth and people get worn out with that really quickly. And so you know, when I worked with independent schools, I say, hey, we need to budget as much as this is possible and have a uniform appeal to these donors and organizations schools that have done that the donor satisfaction goes up and they raise a lot more money. Okay,

[01:00:26.41] spk_0:
that’s integrate. So invest, integrate and evaluate,

[01:00:38.64] spk_1:
evaluate. You know, how many times have I heard? What we’ve always done it that way. What do you mean? You’ve always done it that way. That’s prescription for death in most places. And so every year there ought to be an evaluation of the plan evaluation. How do we perform, what do we do well, what we do not do well, what do we need to change? What do we need to tweet? What

[01:00:48.80] spk_0:
are the important, what are the real meaningful metrics?

[01:00:55.09] spk_1:
That’s right. And then how do we make those better larry

[01:00:55.64] spk_0:
johnson. The Eight Principles, You find the principles at the Eight Principles dot com. His book is the Eight principles of sustainable fundraising. You’ll find larry on linkedin Larry, thank you very, very much for sharing.

[01:01:08.53] spk_1:
Oh, it’s my pleasure, tony This was a lot of fun,

[01:02:18.43] spk_0:
I’m glad. Thank you. Thank you very much for being with me. Next week planned giving with eastern donors. I learned a lot in this one. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by Turn to communications. Pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turned life into dot C. O. And by fourth dimension technologies i Tion for in a box, they’re affordable tech solution for nonprofits at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant for d just like three D But as you know, they go one dimension deeper and they’ve got the free offer. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. The shows, social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy. And this music is by scott Stein, thank you for that. Affirmation Scottie with me next week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great

Nonprofit Radio for October 25, 2021: The Time For Endowment Building Is Now

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Deborah Kaplan Polivy: The Time For Endowment Building Is Now

That’s Deborah Kaplan Polivy’s new book. She’s with me to explain why that title is a simple truth.

 

 

 

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[00:01:00.54] spk_1:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast and oh, I’m glad you’re with me, I’d suffer the effects of Takayasu says arthritis if you inflamed me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. The time for endowment building is now. That’s Deborah Kaplan policies new book, She’s with me to explain why that title is a simple truth. I’m Tony state too planned giving accelerator. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C o. It’s my pleasure to welcome Deborah Kaplan Pahlavi and before I continue with her official bio, I should have asked you before we started recording, but you’re suffering a lackluster host. Am I pronouncing your last name correctly?

[00:01:14.10] spk_0:
I was just going to commend you, you were one of the few people that have pronounced it correctly. Good for you.

[00:01:56.24] spk_1:
Oh, good. Thank you very much. All right. Deborah Kaplan Pahlavi ph D consultant and author. Her third book published in 2021 is the time for endowment building is now Why and how to secure your organization’s future. She’s been a frontline endowment fund raiser researcher, university teacher. She’s trained numerous boards and development professionals to achieve fundraising success. Her consulting practice is at Deborah Pahlavi dot com. Welcome to the show, Debbie,

[00:01:57.74] spk_0:
thank you. My pleasure

[00:02:10.24] spk_1:
to have you on nonprofit radio Yeah. Endowment the title of the book end out the time for endowment building is now why is that So

[00:02:44.54] spk_0:
Well, we’ve all heard about the transfer of wealth uh, from baby boomers to whomever baby boomers choose to transfer their wealth to. And if we don’t capture that money now there is going to be, I don’t know, very little opportunity in the future. People are my age and younger, older are dying. We’ve made more money, particularly in the stock market and real estate than ever before. And if not for profits work hard. They can certainly do a good job in capturing this money for their own sustainability.

[00:02:56.24] spk_1:
This transfer was originally documented by two, two professors at Boston College Havens and Schervish. Right,

[00:03:00.57] spk_0:
yes,

[00:03:19.74] spk_1:
I’ve had paul schervish on the show. I don’t know, I don’t know Professor Havens um say a little about you know, just summarize you you, by the way I admire as a former tony I love all your footnotes and thank you for putting them at the end of a chapter and not end notes at the end of a book where I have to flip all the way back there. Thank you for deciding to put footnotes at the end of each chapter

[00:03:22.55] spk_0:
and author. An author makes no decisions. I have to, that’s what the publisher did not. Alright, well my graduate it,

[00:03:32.34] spk_1:
my gratitude to them, I appreciate either the bottom of the page or um or the end of a chapter. So you you cite havens and Shellfish just say a little about their, about their research, the magnitude of this wealth transfer and, and we’re, you know, the trillions of dollars that were anticipated to see and we are starting to see,

[00:04:54.14] spk_0:
right? Yeah. I’m not as familiar with their actual research. I’m quoting like other people quoted them when I began this book. It really wasn’t about the transfer of wealth. It was about trying to get people away from the language of planned giving toward endowment development. And then when I began to read and do my own research, I came across this study. I had heard about it years ago, but I was refreshed and doing or the research for this book and I realized that the timing was the factor. It wasn’t necessary, the language. It was, hey guys, and they say in their conclusions, nonprofits are going to get a lot of money from this transfer and then they say, if not for profits, work harder and are more aware and don’t do it in a serendipitous fashion, but do it in a very conclusive weigh in the decision making way that they’ll do a lot better than they ever imagined. And so that’s their conclusion. And I incorporated it in my book and in the book’s title.

[00:05:11.14] spk_1:
And wasn’t the magnitude of that, something like 50, $59 trillion dollars

[00:05:17.64] spk_0:
or nine trillion somewhere somewhere in that I have The numbers, but it’s 57, It doesn’t matter. It’s a lot of money, right?

[00:05:25.01] spk_1:
What’s $2 trillion between friends? All right. It’s not in the thirties? It was I thought so. There was 50 59 you know,

[00:05:31.54] spk_0:
hi

[00:05:32.62] spk_1:
double high double digits of trillions of dollars.

[00:05:49.04] spk_0:
And that was before the huge increase in the stock market and the huge increase of what’s happened in terms of asset value because of Covid. So the money really as you’re you’re right, who knows what we’re talking about?

[00:06:42.44] spk_1:
Yeah. Yeah. Their research was like early 2000s was 1990s, early 2000. So it’s at least 20 years old. And yeah, the way the way asset values have increased since then I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking. A $100 trillion dollars from baby boomers to the next generation. I don’t know. But It’s huge. Even even if it was flat, it would still be 59 trillion, which is enormously big. So, uh, you know, as we as we sit here today, uh, Congress is debating whether to spend $1 trillion 20 times the order of magnitude, the larger end of that scale. So that spectrum, So a lot of money, let’s leave it at

[00:06:43.78] spk_0:
that. You’re with that observation when you compare it to the congressional numbers.

[00:06:59.54] spk_1:
Yeah. You know, the magnitude is enormous. Um All right. So let’s talk about, uh, types of endowment. Can we, can we make sure everybody’s got a baseline understanding of quasi versus permanent endowment. Can you take care of that for us please?

[00:08:34.94] spk_0:
Yes, a permanent endowment is that in which money is invested and there is a spending policy. In other words, a certain percentage is distributed every year. The donor, according to the law, the donor determine what goes into a permanent endowment. The donor decides, hey, I don’t want my money spent today. I wanted to go into the permanent endowment and I have set up my gift and the verbiage in my gift accordingly. Now, many donors either are unaware that they have that choice or they don’t choose to put their money into the permanent endowment. So they say, okay, not for profit, you do with my money, what you want. And many organizations will spend that money doesn’t go into any endowment or they’ll put it in what’s called a board directed endowment or a quasi endowment, which means the board can use that money as it sees fit. What happens for the most part when boards pay attention is that they say, okay, we’ll put that money into a quasi endowment or aboard directed endowment, but we need X, Y Z votes in order to take it out. In other words, the board itself makes it difficult to spend that money so that it’s done quite judiciously as opposed to just spent every day and regular expenditures.

[00:08:57.14] spk_1:
So we have different thresholds of spending capacity. So in one and we’re gonna flush this out, there’s a state law governing that you cannot spend principle of the endowment without going through enormous hurdles usually, or versus the board being able to approve spending of the principal or some folks, you know, you might call it the corpus. I don’t like to get too technical on nonprofit radio but the principle that, uh, so bored mechanism for spending

[00:09:36.24] spk_0:
that, your first example, the law says, if a donor determines, uh, indicates that he or she wants the money or they want the money to go into permanent dominant. This is what the law subscribes. It’s the second one that’s really kind of equivocal because sports have great discretion over what they do with particularly a state. Yes, that come in without any their owner direction.

[00:09:42.64] spk_1:
Yeah. All right. Let’s talk about that law a little bit, uh, to the uniform prudent management of institutional funds act. I wasn’t gonna ask you to the site of the acronym, but I like,

[00:09:53.55] spk_0:
I can’t even pronounce it. I call it now. But

[00:10:21.04] spk_1:
so it’s uniform prudent management of institutional funds acts. But it depends on whether your state has adopted. You have to, if you’re gonna embark on having a permanent endowment, you need to know what your state law says about that because this uniform law is not necessarily adopted in all the states. It was, it was a recommendation, uh, and, you

[00:10:22.94] spk_0:
know, I think at this point in time it’s adopted by all states. Yeah.

[00:10:28.45] spk_1:
On some states though,

[00:10:30.22] spk_0:
modify

[00:10:31.23] spk_1:
Based legislature might modify it. So it may not be identical? It’s probably not identical in all 50 states.

[00:10:54.64] spk_0:
Right. But for more or less it is identical and it’s don’t correct it. And it was an attempt by state governments to, um, oversee the way in which non profits were using their requests in particular. But other future gifts,

[00:10:55.72] spk_1:
endowment money, right? Money is placed in these permanent endowments.

[00:10:59.62] spk_0:
Exactly.

[00:11:27.04] spk_1:
Uh, you know, the basic state laws basically saying keep your promise correct. You got to keep your promise to the donor. And here’s a law that enforces that exactly forces your promise. Okay, Okay. And then the quasi, the board has some flexibility as you described. And I guess if they want to be very restrictive, then they would say like it takes a three quarters vote or maybe 100%. Maybe every board member has to agree to take money from our principal of our endowment.

[00:11:35.74] spk_0:
But there’s a real difference in that in the former, the myth flower the uniform prudent management of institutional funds

[00:11:41.29] spk_1:
there.

[00:12:37.74] spk_0:
That’s a law Board has great discretion in terms of the board endowment. And that’s where I really focus. My book is hey, board, have you really analyzed what you’re doing with these monies? And do you have policies and guidelines? Do you have a preference whether you want permanent endowment or quasi endowment? And, and the most important thing, I think is once you have really determined what you want, really thought about it, talked about it, have you communicated your preferences to the donor and communicated to the donor? Why you prefer one model versus the other. So I’m really asking for boards to address this issue and not just let it go by as they receive money.

[00:12:39.45] spk_1:
Right. Okay. We have an endowment. So we’ll just put it in a savings account. You know, there’s a lot more to it. All right. You said a lot there. We’re gonna unpack some of that first. Doesn’t, it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Couldn’t, couldn’t a nonprofit have both couldn’t have a permanent endowment and a quasi endowment

[00:12:59.44] spk_0:
and most do, yeah, it’s time for a break.

[00:14:24.54] spk_1:
Turn to communications. Crisis communications, you want to keep turn to in your back pocket so that when you have a crisis or if certainly I’m not hoping it on you, wishing it on you. Not at all. If you have a crisis, then you know, you need to be communicating consistently, but not identically with your employees. You’re bored, donors may be volunteers and possibly the public through the media. Now, all those messages are not the same. I’m sure your board doesn’t get the same message that the public gets. So you’ve got to be consistent, but different right turn to can help you. They do crisis communications. So if you need help in a bad situation, that’s why I’m suggesting you keep turn to in your back pocket, you’ve got something bad has gone down. You need help communicating with all your different constituencies turn to turn to right turn hyphen two dot c o. Now back to the time for endowment building is now. Now in terms of the policies, let’s talk about just how endowments generally both kinds are generally treated right the way the way we spend just a little and you know what, what, what, what do you see there? What are your recommendations around how much to spend each year?

[00:15:37.54] spk_0:
There are averages that most organizations use. They come out of national organizations and what have you? I’ve seen them as low as 3% as high as six per 77% particularly during covid times they really increase because people wanted to get more money out to the respective communities and clients patrons however you want to call the users of the monies. Um, but what mostly happens is there’s a rolling average and the rolling average it video rolling average and that allows you or the organization to think about ah ha. We don’t want to take the most one year. When are we have great proceeds asset management. We’ve got great returns in the next year. We have bad returns. So they don’t do it according to the return. They do it according to a percentage and it evens out the kind of money that is going into the budget as opposed to high, low, high, low, high, low this way with a rolling average, you’re much more aware and you can be futuristic in terms of your budget allocations and creation of budgets.

[00:17:16.54] spk_1:
So what we’re talking about is, you know, uh, let’s say a small mid sized organization has a $1 million. I like round numbers. They were, they’re easier for me to figure out as a $1 million endowment. And let’s say it’s a it’s a it’s a permanent endowment the way we’re describing. Yeah, it’s permanent endowment. And, and, and in in year one they spend they decided to spend 4%. So then $40,000 comes out of the endowment and that can be used for, You know, there may be restrictions on how it gets used if if people have like named programs that are part of their endowed that are they’re endowed funds, then part of that 40,000 has to go there to honor your promises to those donors. But then other other money may come out and be unrestricted. And so you’re you’re the presumption is that you’re spending less than what you earn Through investment management each year. So maybe you earned seven or 8% in the year, But you spent only 4% in year one so that the balance of what you learned goes back, in Does that sound right?

[00:17:53.14] spk_0:
Yes. And the balance of what you were. And so in your example, 3% goes back into the corpus and 4% of the new number because now we’ve grown By 3%. So the next year you get that much more and that’s why it’s a rolling average because the corpus let’s say you don’t make 7% you make 2% and you’re spending 4% then you have a minus number. So the purpose of all of this is to somehow get what you receive every year to be predictable and not go up and down and down and up.

[00:18:25.54] spk_1:
That’s a huge advantage to having an endowment. Exactly. You’ll know, you know, you’re trying to diversify your revenue streams and this is another revenue stream for you that you can count on. So when you do have a bad year and you lose money or only earn one or 2%, like you’re saying you still can count on The 4% or 5% whatever your board has determined for that year is going to come out and it will support you in the bad years and you’ll be profiting your end out. You’ll be growing your endowment in the good investment years.

[00:18:58.94] spk_0:
But that is also a board decision. The board has to also mhm address that spending policy. It can’t just be, well, let’s see the CFO says this year, we’re going to spend 4% and now gee it’s wrong, let’s spend 5% next year. And so what if it’s going down. So in order to keep that money coming, we’ll do 6% again. The board has to wrestle with this decision making and not just let it be haphazard

[00:19:22.44] spk_1:
and a lot of times they, the boards will board will get advice from the investment manager, what, what they predict will happen in the, in the next year or two. Uh, and how confident they are in that prediction, what we’ve learned over the past several years And what that tells us perhaps about the future, you know, so you can the board can get input often from an investment manager and you know, and this applies if you have $100,000 endowment and you’re looking at $4,000 or $5,000 coming out each year. You’re

[00:19:37.98] spk_0:
still, you know, it

[00:19:49.44] spk_1:
doesn’t matter the scale, the principles that you’re describing are all the same. The board needs to decide. It’s not just Let’s decide in December, what we’re going to take out on January 1st. There needs to be right. There needs to be a board evaluation of this and a policy around how your endowment is treated

[00:19:58.24] spk_0:
Exactly 100%.

[00:20:47.44] spk_1:
Okay, cool. Um let’s take a little higher level view. You you have, first of all, you have a chapter why we need an endowment or maybe we don’t. And I thought, well, I look back at the title of the book because the title of the book I thought was now is the Time for endowment building. So, alright, But it’s mostly a pro probably 90% of pro chapter. But let’s talk a little about some other advantages and then you you name a disadvantage and maybe maybe I missed other disadvantages in terms of equity across the years but acquainted. So aside from having a steady revenue stream, one of many, hopefully that we can count on through in the year. Why else might we want to have uh, an endowment either quasi or permanent

[00:21:54.54] spk_0:
first. Let me go back to that title of that chapter. Do we need an endowment or maybe we don’t or whatever. A favorite chapter in the whole book. And I’m so glad you picked that out because I think that’s a very important issue. Do we even need an endowment with the Sunflower, the uniform prudent investment act there. It says you have to have it at the donor directs it. But what about all this other stuff? Do you really need an endowment? And I always believe you do because you can have a really bad year in the market or you can have donors? You can have a donor who’s really supported you for ages, especially if you’re a small or middle size organization. And all of a sudden that donor either has a bad economic year or the donor can have said, you know, I don’t like you anymore. I don’t like your exact or your development director really insulted me and didn’t handle me well. So you know what you’re done, You’re out of my gift giving. And if you or look at the federal government, it changes its allocations on a regular basis. So if you don’t have an endowment

[00:22:14.84] spk_1:
and I just add one more foundation priorities, Foundation priorities change too. Or foundation may agree to fund you for three years and then that’s it. And that’s what they would extend another three years. And but they’re not, they’re keeping to what they said. So foundation can change as well.

[00:23:31.64] spk_0:
Any donor. Let’s just look at it as any supporter, whether government, whether private, whether stay, it doesn’t matter can change their minds. And if you don’t have a fallback because it’s going to take time to recuperate the kind of money that you’re losing, then you’re in big trouble. So the endowment provides you with maybe not the total replication of the gift, but certainly it keeps you from losing sleep at night because, you know, as the board and exact that you have a cushion to help you through bad times. The other reason I like endowments. And this was what I always used when I worked with potential donors is we in the not not for profit sphere, particularly for a smaller mid level organization. We have no money for research and demonstration that’s really icing on the cake. And yet it’s fundamental to the work we do. So I like an endowment to give us a little leeway in the kinds of programs that we want to experiment with, I call that money risk taking, it allows us to think about what we’re doing in alternative ways. And if we lose, we don’t succeed. Okay. At least we tried a different pathway or we took took some risks and we’re not always being so safe in the not for profit sector, we have to change the way in which we do things. And an endowment allows us the wherewithal to do so

[00:24:04.34] spk_1:
take a little risk. You know, we we we see a different way of doing something or something new that we can try uh $1000 behind a project project.

[00:24:31.74] spk_0:
And as you say, hire an investment manager, want to go into some strategic planning or hire a new officer employee to do something in a different way. Anything that we want to do that isn’t in accordance with the way in which we’ve done it over the past. And the domino allows us the leeway to try new things.

[00:24:38.14] spk_1:
How about the intergenerational Equity rationale, which cuts both ways. But let’s let’s deal with the pro the pro first you talk about it in the book.

[00:27:01.64] spk_0:
Well, intergenerational Equity is really brought up by um Tobin, who is, I forget his first name, who is a Nobel prize winner economist at Yale and what he says is an Endowment provides the same services to the generation today as for the generations in the future. So that’s what’s called intergenerational equity. Well if I go to the Y W. C. A. And I can use the pool or I can have daycare or I can have services because I’m homeless. That those same level of services will be available for the next generation of women because the endowment will be growing and the value of the money will be equal. So that’s the intergenerational equity. Others argue that this generation is going to be richer than the next generation. So why should this generation supply for the future or the opposite? No one really knows who’s going to be richer and who’s going to be poorer. There was some like Henry Hanson who is I think now an emeritus professor at the Yale Law School and it was his work that really got me started and thinking about the economics of endowment and his thinking says, hey look at Harvard Yale, these big universities, these big museums are holding on to so much money in their endowments. Wouldn’t it be better that they spend more today? And some people say, yeah, he’s right. And others say no we have to have intergenerational equity and make sure there is there for the future what’s available today. So you can argue it either way. Um and of course the favorite argument is the impact argument, do we want impact today? Do we want to spend all the money we get today and get the biggest impact today, are we pushing the can down the road and saying, okay, if we don’t spend the money today, we’re just continue waiting the problems down the road. And so what is the impact? So that’s why they’re question is, do we want an undamaged for intergenerational equity or no? Should we spend all the money today and try to solve all our problems today? And that’s a decision that organizations have to make.

[00:27:49.54] spk_1:
That was very interesting. I had never thought of it this way before. I read the book that that there are folks who say that uh, preserving endowment is actually, uh, antithetical to intergenerational equity because you folks now are doing what you just said, they’ll be pushing the can down the road, kicking it down the road. You’re you’re not investing enough and you’re you’re forcing the next generation to deal with the problem that you could solve if you would spend more so by spending less and preserving it for us, you’re actually hurting us because you’re levying a problem on us that you probably that, you know, the belief is you have a better chance of solving if you put more money toward it.

[00:28:29.04] spk_0:
Exactly. And there’s another issue in this, we keep talking tony about the organisational to organisational decision making, that’s also a donor decision. I dealt with many, many doctors who said I don’t want my money put away for the future? I want to see impact today. So that’s why a board has to discuss what they really want. And once they make that decision, they have to be able to communicate the wise and the wherefore to the donor. But ultimately, it’s a donor decision as to how the gift is made.

[00:32:11.84] spk_1:
Let’s talk a little about that donor. That’s, that’s, that’s excellent having these conversations with donors. You know, you said earlier, a lot of times, donors don’t even know that they have the choice to give a gift to endowment. A gift of, uh, yeah, that will last in perpetuity. And listeners, you’re just gonna have to get the book because Deborah talks about the phrase in perpetuity and what she learned about learned about it. But you know, we can’t, we can’t probe everything. Uh, you got, we scratched the surface, you gotta get the book. Um, but let’s say, but it is valuable to talk about, um, well, it’s all valuable to talk about, but we only have so much time. So, uh, your lackluster husted host is choosing to talk about the donor conversation, having, having a discussion with donors about an endowment gift. It’s time for Tony’s take to plant giving accelerator. So here we are talking about endowment building, right? Planned giving can be a great help in building your endowment. Lots of planned gifts come in unrestricted. I encourage you to put as much of that unrestricted money as possible into your endowment. The plan, gifts that come restricted. Those have to go into your endowment by law. So, uh, you could even take the show today. The time for endowment building is now, you could swap out endowment building with planned giving time for plan giving is now, which actually is ironic because something that, uh, Deborah and I are going to be talking about, you’ll hear the irony, just keep on listening. But for now, um, so you want to build endowment plan Giving an ideal for this Playing giving accelerator, I will help you get started in planned giving in 2022. The next class starts in January. I’ll teach you step by step, everything you need to get started. It’s a six month course, used to be a year now it’s down to six months learning exactly the same stuff exactly the same curriculum, but condensed and still only one hour per week, an hour a week. But I’ve taken out some of the free time and aside from learning from me, there’s this incredible peer support and peer learning. The existing class, the current classes existing sounds so jeez, existing sounds so I don’t know, So sterile the existing classes, the current classes, The members right now, you should hear the way they’re supporting each other, helping each other with questions about their board or individual board members. Um, donors, leadership questions. It’s a great supportive community and I have every reason to believe that the january class will be the same supportive. So there’s a lot of peer learning as well as learning from me. So you’ve got enormous support by no means are you on an island starting your planned giving? That’s, that’s antithetical to planned giving accelerator. So if you’d like to check it out, think about joining the january class, it’s all at planned giving accelerator dot com. I hope you will and I hope you’ll be with us if you want to get your plan giving program going next year. I hope youll be with me in planned giving accelerator. That is tony state too. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for the time for endowment building. Planned giving is now

[00:32:21.04] spk_0:
froze. Yeah,

[00:32:43.54] spk_1:
we did freeze. Okay. Yeah. I made a little joke about lackluster host and I didn’t see, uh, you didn’t smile, was disappointed, but you’re frozen. So I’ll take that as a, as an, as an implied smile. So please, I’ll maybe I’ll edit this out or maybe not. It’s not really that bad. But talk about that donor conversation regarding an endowment gift. Mhm

[00:33:38.84] spk_0:
There are all kinds of donor conversations. The point and I and you read about it constantly in the chronicle of philanthropy is the necessity to have the conversation because oftentimes people make a state gifts and they don’t even talk to The people in the development office. That’s one. So they’re really two conversations. There is the personal one on one conversation with the organization to which the donor is giving the money, but there’s also the printed conversation or the website conversation. And that’s why I feel it’s so important that organizations make the preference and tell donors either verbally or through written material what they want and why. But back to your question on the verbal conversation. Uh huh. I think it’s very important to listen to the donor first. Everybody in this field, you have to listen to the donor and hear what the donor wants and you said something earlier in this interview where I did not interrupt you, but I did. Um,

[00:33:54.57] spk_1:
I’m like me. I just did right this second.

[00:35:43.24] spk_0:
I did get the chills when you said if the donor has directed where the money goes. I think the biggest and the most important conversation that a donor can have is how they want the money used and the most important usage is unrestricted and what we have to explain to donors is what they sail it. See as a usage today may not even be in the cards in 20-50 years. We may have conquered breast cancer. We may have conquered homelessness. That would be wonderful. But and asked me very, very clear to a donor that they, they have to think broadly in terms of how they want to direct their money if they want to direct their money at all or if they do want to direct their money that they have to have a second purpose, which could be unrestricted if the first purpose becomes obsolete. So I was always the endowment officer, the fundraising officer to try to get the most money to be unrestricted because then we would have the flexibility if we wanted to use it for experimentation or if we wanted to use it for a particular program. And I’m not sure that we talked to our donors in a generic fashion. We listen to what they want. And then we fashioned the gift accordingly as opposed to communicating what this money is really going to be used for over time. And that’s an important conversation

[00:35:50.24] spk_1:
about what our programs may look like in the future. Uh, but, but your point that we may not have some programs in the future.

[00:36:53.43] spk_0:
Yeah. And you can direct your program, your direct. I remember a woman came to me and said, you know, I wanted to defend. My father was a violinist. I wanted to have an endowment for musical concerts. And the last thing we needed was any more money for musical concerts. We needed money for Children that were challenged and needed some educational programs. And I was real clear to her that that was the need. And I brought in our educational professional and we talked about it and she completely understood and was willing to make the change and educational programming couldn’t go on forever because it changes over time. But it’s broad enough that the function is not restrictive or just broadly restrictive. and her father’s name still went on the named endowment, but it was for something that the community needed as opposed to a program that we didn’t really need it all nor want.

[00:37:01.43] spk_1:
And some of that unrestricted money could be put into endowment to,

[00:37:05.13] spk_0:
oh, this is the endowment get.

[00:37:39.03] spk_1:
Well, that was, yeah, that was, I’m going back to something you said earlier about, um, restricting restricted gifts, you know, being part of endowment, but, but unrestricted gifts, you know, you can put some of that into. I’m always advocating for clients put as much as possible, You know, I understand, you know, and it’s always a tension, of course, there are immediate needs. We got to keep the lights on, we got to pay the rent and the salaries. But you know, can we peel off anything? We peel off 15 2025% and put that into the endowment and, and spend 75% this month.

[00:39:02.92] spk_0:
That’s a different conversation. That’s a different conversation. There’s the convert endowment conversation, which is the permanent endowment conversation, which could be through an estate gift, a future gift or a current gift. This woman was making a current gift, which is another issue. We don’t think, I think, um, widely enough about talking to donors about a permanent current endowment gift. So that’s a um, let’s say you have a capital campaign. I always want to peel off a percentage of a capital campaign gift to go into the permanent endowment for maintaining that which we are building because otherwise what happens is you put all this money into the capital into the building. Now, all of your costs have gone up, but you have no wherewithal to maintain those costs and you put the organization at some kind of risk. So it’s a very wide that’s the beauty of endowment conversations. They can be very, very wide. They can be very, very creative. And the less you restrict your fundraisers imagination and your donors imagination, the more impact current and future that a gift might have.

[00:39:23.82] spk_1:
Let’s have a little fun with the phrase planned giving. I have a company called martignetti planned giving advisors. I run an online class called planned giving accelerator. But I mean, uh, there may be a common ground or maybe not, you know, that’s fine, but share your, your, the guests. So you go first. You share your thinking about the phrase planned giving.

[00:40:23.71] spk_0:
As I said in the book, I never allowed either my staff or hopefully my consultant clients or even a donor to use the word plan giving. We all plan are giving whether it’s our annual distributions or our future distributions. So planned giving as it is perceived or understood by the experts in the field are primarily future gifts. And I, my my my problem with the language is a we all plan our gifts. So it’s a, it’s the phrase is really only for the expert experts in the field. And it’s sometimes more often than not turns off boards and donors because they don’t know what you’re talking about and they think it is so convoluted and so expensive and you need fancy you should excuse me, consultants to help you go through this.

[00:40:39.24] spk_1:
You’re a consultant.

[00:43:39.50] spk_0:
Yeah. And but I don’t ever use the word plan Giving in my consultancy. I use endowment development. So that’s my first issue with the words Plan Giving. The second issue with it is plan giving is a tool. And what we don’t say is why do we want to use these grand gifts? What is the ultimate purpose of the planned gift? Do we want the planned gift to be used today? Okay, so I’m going to make a quote unquote. I’m going to set up a charitable gift annuity. It’s a future gift when you the organization received the principal after I pass away. What are you going to do with it? So my feeling is that we should concentrate on the use of the tool. What do we want the gift to be used for as opposed to the tool itself? So that’s two, three fancy dancy plan gifts, charitable lead trust, charitable remainder trust? Charitable. What have you trust? Those are going to come to most organizations through a professional advisor. They’re not going to go from the donor to the organization. So I concentrate on the book in the book with what kinds of gifts are easy for an organization to do to pursue where no attorney is needed. And then on the other hand, I think it’s very important to have outside counsel so that if you do receive as an organization, they’re kind of two ways to look at it. If the organization is the trustee of the gift that the professional advisor constructs, then the organization needs an outside counsel to make sure that the organization’s interests are protected through the document. But we don’t need all these fancy attorneys in house and what have you, especially small to medium sized organizations. There are lots of things that they can get current and future endowment gifts that have no relationship to these trust gifts. But again, my my my argument is a, the language is scary to the non professional and even fundraisers get scared by the language so they don’t discuss these kinds of gifts with their donors and ultimately, what is the purpose of the sophisticated, so called tools and what do we want to do with it in the organization? And that comes back to the board discussion.

[00:44:39.89] spk_1:
Okay. Yeah. I think we, I think we largely agree. You know, my, my use of the phrase planned giving is exclusive to those who are, I’m not even gonna say plan giving experts because I, I work with startup programs. So they’re not playing giving experts that they may never be, but they can have a, they can have a plan giving program. So I’m talking to folks who are inside nonprofits, but I understand your point to your right and I agree that it’s an off putting phrase for a lot of people. It’s just so well ingrained that my message constantly is don’t be intimidated by planned giving. Debunk the myths of planned giving. Planned giving is not a black box. You don’t, you know, I’ve got five myths, you don’t need an attorney. Like the things you ticked off debunked of top five minutes. You don’t the myth that you need an attorney, the myth that you have to offer complicated gift options, the myth that you have to spend a lot of money. I can’t remember the other two of my own debunked myths, but there’s a lot of mystique and mysteriousness and it does, it absolutely intimidates lots of non plan giving professionals and that those are the folks I’m talking to because I want to start up programs where its

[00:45:20.89] spk_0:
endowment building. See again, the plan keeping is the tool, right? It’s that is why that’s my primary Um, complaint is AIDS, the tool. We don’t talk about the purpose of the planned gift, how it’s spent when we actually receive the proceeds a and b. I love Doug whites comment to me, he calls the phrase planned giving calcified. He was using it what 30 years ago. It’s old. It’s time for us to change that.

[00:45:37.79] spk_1:
I’ve had, I’ve had dug on the show every time he publishes a new book, I have him on the show. Um, the fascinating one was the Robertson case at was at Yale. It was Yale.

[00:45:39.69] spk_0:
I don’t think it was texas, I’m not sure.

[00:45:43.17] spk_1:
All right. Maybe wasn’t really there, but it was, it was some time ago. He’s working on a new book now. So when he gets that one out, I’ll have him

[00:46:36.88] spk_0:
again. My biggest compliment. tony was when, um, two things happened. I did write him about some of the ideas that I was thinking about and never dreamt. He would reply and he replied in this long, long email and supported everything. And what was even more interesting and what he wrote to me is even with that act that we began this conversation with the uniform prudent management act, that’s in all of these states, there’s so many organizations that don’t even pay attention to it. Even when they get donor designated gifts where the donor says I wanted to go into the endowment, the organization is either unaware of the act or tends to ignore the act. And that’s where I think consultants like you and me have even a larger role is to help the boards come to grips with what they are doing with these monies and what they want to do with these monies.

[00:47:11.38] spk_1:
Yeah, It’s a, it’s an important conversation and, and the policies behind it that we talked about. Um, right. I’m, I agree, I agree. We uh, we, I guess what I’m, so you have a few things, you, you have a lot of footnotes to eat my emails with Doug White, you’re crediting Doug White and lots of cases email

[00:47:21.44] spk_0:
with White.

[00:47:24.48] spk_1:
Uh, he’s a gentleman,

[00:47:25.27] spk_0:
he’s a gentleman, he’s starling, he’s the guru. And it was very important to me that he agreed with my arguments because my arguments are not run of the mill. They are outside of what we actually for most organizations actually operate today. And that’s the reason for writing a book because you’re trying to affect change in the way in which the field operates.

[00:48:23.77] spk_1:
I would disagree with with you and Doug and playing giving. Being calcified, I would say it’s well known. It has been around for a long time. I had 60, 70 years or something like that back going to Robert Sharp senior, he was an early practitioner, uh, I don’t know who coined the phrase, I don’t know, he claims that, I mean he’s no longer with us, but um anyway, it’s a, it’s a timeworn phrase uh, calcified, Yeah, calcified, overstating, overstating. Its uh, its utility or lack of its lack of utility. I think it’s just a well well well known, well understood phrase,

[00:48:33.17] spk_0:
professionals in the field, but not the people that really matters, which is the donor and the board decision

[00:48:34.19] spk_1:
maker. That’s where we agree. Yeah, I absolutely agree with, not talking, not putting on your website planned giving options. You know, you

[00:48:41.87] spk_0:
suggest a bunch of your professional. I am the director of planned

[00:49:18.97] spk_1:
giving because that is an outward facing like that’s an outward facing title. You can know internally that the person works on planned gifts you want if you want to call them them internally, but outward facing. Yeah. Endowment development, long term, long term giving officer. You know, I tend to not like the silos anyway because I think the long term giving officers should be working a lot with the annual giving officer who’s working a lot with the peer to peer fundraiser of course, in some organizations, that’s all one person. Um All right. All right. Deborah, Why don’t you leave us with a little, um, endowment motivation? I think we’ve, you know, I feel like we’ve given a good justice. Uh, you know, but you wrap up with some final words on Endowment.

[00:50:14.86] spk_0:
You didn’t warn me about that one. Come on, think about this for a year. You wrote a book about this for for 25 years. You’re going to book, Right? And that’s why I’ve concentrated it on it. And those of my colleagues through the field say it’s about time. You wrote about it because you believe in it so strongly. I believe in endowment is like a retirement fund. If you don’t put away money for the future, you’re not going to have a future and it’s the board’s responsibility to think, yes, we have to worry about today, but we have a responsibility to future generations and future clientele to make sure that this organization is healthy today and tomorrow. And that’s why I think endowment is so important

[00:50:21.36] spk_1:
today and tomorrow. If you you see it on all the social networks and the nonprofit communities, sustainability, sustainability, well, if you if you want to live sustainability and

[00:50:34.36] spk_0:
and be healthy and be healthy, it’s really not only sustainability but to be healthy and your sustainability to be healthy in your retirement, that’s why we have our iras we want to live a qualitative life and we want to make sure that our organizations have a qualitative future.

[00:51:12.36] spk_1:
Mhm irish thought healthy was subsumed and sustainable. I just thought that meant, you know, not just not just starving, getting by, but you know, you’re you’re healthy, just sustainable. So if you want to walk the walk of sustainability, talk about, talk to your board about endowment development, Endowment growth. Do it correctly. And uh the book will help

[00:51:15.59] spk_0:
you time

[00:51:48.46] spk_1:
for endowment building is now there’s other chap, there’s a great, there’s a case study on a program called Life and Legacy of the Grinspoon Foundation. We didn’t get into that, but there’s a there’s a chapter on that could help you get started um you know, who are your best, your best prospects for for endowment type gifts and more about the titles. Uh and then the jargon. Just that’s the book. And the author of it is Deborah Kaplan Pahlavi, you’ll find her practice at Deborah Pahlavi dot com. And the book, the time for endowment building is now Debbie, thank you very much for sharing. Really

[00:51:53.09] spk_0:
enjoyed it. Thank you Tony. It was a fun conversation.

[00:51:56.18] spk_1:
I’m glad. My

[00:51:57.05] spk_0:
pleasure. Good luck to you And your plan.

[00:52:08.05] spk_1:
Giving consultancy. That’s very gracious of you. Thank you. See, and you didn’t say it to snarky either. Just a little bit, got a little bit of a pejorative tone, but I’m willing to overlook it Because it wasn’t, it wasn’t much, is only 10 or 15%.

[00:52:10.75] spk_0:
It wasn’t snarking on. I detected a

[00:52:14.40] spk_1:
little, we’re gonna play it back.

[00:52:15.64] spk_0:
There was a little snarkiness, but it was a small percent.

[00:52:44.15] spk_1:
No, no, look, okay, wait, I gotta finish up for our listeners because next week Jeanne Takagi returns with Risk Management Part two. And if you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o Our creative

[00:52:44.64] spk_0:
producer is planned. Meyerhoff shows social

[00:52:47.09] spk_2:
media is by Susan Chavez.

[00:52:48.83] spk_1:
Mark Silverman is our web guy

[00:53:00.95] spk_2:
and this music is by scott Stein, thank you for that information scotty be with me next week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95

[00:53:14.05] spk_1:
percent go out and be great, mm hmm.

Nonprofit Radio for October 11, 2021: Next Year’s Plan For Your Year-End Donors

My Guest:

Poonam Prasad: Next Year’s Plan For Your Year-End Donors

We’re in the 4th quarter and you’re expecting a lot of fundraising revenue. You want those donors with you next year and beyond. Poonam Prasad has the strategies to make that happen. She’s president of Prasad Consulting & Research.

 

 

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Turn Two Communications: PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is our mission.

 

We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
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[00:00:10.84] spk_4:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio

[00:01:41.44] spk_1:
Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast and oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the embarrassment of Ruba malaria if you made me hot with the idea that you missed this week’s show next year’s plan for your year end donors. We’re in the fourth quarter and you’re expecting a lot of fundraising revenue. You want those donors with you next year and beyond. non Prasad has the strategies to make that happen. She’s president of Prasad consulting and research on tony state too planned giving accelerator. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C. O. It’s a pleasure to welcome to the show for the first time Hunan Prasad. She is founder and president of Prasad consulting and research, providing board and staff training, audit, major gift capital campaign and publication services to non profits. She’s on the executive committee of the Giving institute, leading consultants to nonprofits before nonprofit work. She was an investigative reporter and worked in journalism, advertising and pr in India south Korea Hong kong the West Indies and the U. S. Her company is at Prasad consulting dot com and she’s at prasad c Welcome to the show. Prasad opponent. Prasad. Welcome to nonprofit radio

[00:01:53.44] spk_0:
Thank you Tony. It’s a pleasure to be with you.

[00:02:02.54] spk_1:
My pleasure to have you. Thank you. There’s so many so many facades. I guys called um facade instead of being um so you’re in you’re in new york city, right? You’re coming

[00:02:05.65] spk_0:
to us from new york? Yes. Coming to you from downtown Manhattan

[00:02:09.30] spk_1:
downtown. What neighborhood?

[00:02:11.54] spk_0:
Oh, east mid down. Sorry.

[00:02:13.84] spk_1:
Oh, now you moved in downtown anymore.

[00:02:16.17] spk_0:
Yes. Now we moved, we moved recently near Grand Central Station.

[00:02:20.74] spk_1:
Okay. And your Grand Central. And how about your home? Where where, where is your home?

[00:02:24.55] spk_0:
Also in midtown,

[00:02:26.08] spk_1:
midtown, midtown east. Also,

[00:02:28.39] spk_0:
midtown east. Also. Okay,

[00:03:06.04] spk_1:
East side of new york city. For your business and your home. Wonderful. So we’re talking about this year’s fourth quarter donors and how we want to treat them and work with them So that we hold on to them into 2022 and beyond. So just, you know, because we know the donor attrition is a big problem. It’s a appalling somewhere around 75% annual donor attrition rate. What do you see? You know, generally that, uh, nonprofits could do better about holding on to their year end donors

[00:06:17.64] spk_0:
actually, tony uh, the attrition rate or the leaky bucket is almost, uh, from three donors, you get down to 1.5 or from two donors, you could be down to one next year. So for all the efforts that you’re putting in to bringing these donors in. If you think about, you know, we were a research firm. So we often get people asking us, can you find me new donors? Can you find me new donors? I’m sure we can find them new donors. But the point is, once they’ve got them in, they have spent so much effort and time and money on getting them in. And then if you don’t steward them, if you don’t get to know them and you don’t work with them, then you’re going to lose them by next year. Um, and that’s the tragedy of uh, fundraising. You know, that is really very inefficient. So I suggest only just two little tips, the donors that you get in at the end of the year. There are only two things you need to do with them. one is get to know them. And then the 2nd 1 help them to get to know you. So show them that you are doing the right thing with their money. You know, the impact report reporting, telling them what you did with their money and how you could not have done it without their money. And the second thing learn about them. You know, if you were trying to become friends with someone, you went to a party and you met somebody and you said, you know, this was a really interesting person. Uh, they came to my birthday party, they gave me a present. I would like to be more friends with them. Would you not write them or thank you not? Would you not invite them to a body afterwards. Would you not say it? Let me have coffee with you. These are simple things that we do in everyday life. But then when you’re the executive director of a of a charity, a little social service charity, you said, I don’t like to do fundraising? Well, it’s not it’s human relations. These are people who gave you something they didn’t have to give you. They could have bought a boat, they could have bought a car, they could have bought a dress, they could have bought a rug for their living room. No, they gave that money to you. Shouldn’t you be grateful? Don’t we tell our Children you get a thank you gift for Aunt Mabel. You never met Aunt Mabel writer. Thank you. Not sit down here and right, right, and a thank you note, she sent you this gift. It’s simple. It’s it’s it’s not it’s not it doesn’t even have to be about fundraising. Yes. A lot of small agencies don’t have fundraisers, don’t have dedicated development people, but this is not even about development, This is about standard manners, you know, standard courtesies, things that we grew up with. But when it becomes, oh my goodness, it’s my donors. I don’t like doing this. I’m afraid to ask them for more. You know, just thank them first before you think about asking them for more, you know, and don’t wait too long to figure it out. You know, have the plan now, you’re getting the money in 40% of the money is going to come between October and November and December, that means it’s coming in now, October. You know, and in December you’re gonna get 20% of your money. So what is your plan for January? What is it that you’re gonna do?

[00:07:17.04] spk_1:
Okay, well, we’re gonna we’re gonna get there, we’re gonna get there. Hold on. Um So you made a couple of things, points that I want to amplify about it. Just being a matter of common courtesy in in a lot of respects, and it being about relationship building. All right. So, you’ve got, you know, in in in corporate marketing, there’s the idea of get a finger grab a hand. You know, someone walked into a Starbucks, they bought a coffee. Well, Starbucks doesn’t only sell coffee. They sell music, they sell food, they sell coffee accessories, they sell a tire, right? But not to mention they sell an environment. Uh, so I think there’s a lot we can learn from that. You know, get a finger grab a hand. So someone, let’s let’s take the donor that’s made their first gift, Right? Because that’s the tougher one. That’s the that’s the easiest one to lose

[00:07:20.79] spk_0:
that 1st 1st. That’s the that’s the most fragile relationship,

[00:07:56.14] spk_1:
right? So, we’re gonna start with that. I’m giving you the toughest hypothetical, right? So, all right. So we’ve got a bunch of first time donors, we had a very successful fourth quarter in donor acquisition. We brought in a good number. What however good number is defined by My listeners. That could be 12. It could be 1200. It could be 12,000. We’ve got a bunch of new first time donors. You started to allude to, you know, what’s your plan? What’s your plan for january? What’s your first recommendation for? What we’re gonna do with this, this nice rich cadre of first time donors?

[00:07:59.40] spk_0:
Well, my first recommendation is of course they didn’t within 48 hours to get a tax

[00:08:03.07] spk_1:
receipt. If it’s

[00:08:04.11] spk_0:
Over a certain amount that you need to give them a tax two

[00:08:06.41] spk_1:
$100, requires a receipt. How about your about just a simple acknowledgment letter

[00:08:20.04] spk_0:
Also, you start then you start with the next. So then depending on how much money they got They sent you, you need to figure out who they are. If it’s over $1,000, you need to send it to somebody to research somebody in your office or somebody you outsource it to. You need to figure out who this donor is and why they gave to you.

[00:08:34.84] spk_1:
Well, all right. But for some non profits that could be, if it’s over $100,.

[00:09:16.54] spk_0:
Yes. If it’s over $100, you might wait till January and take the whole batch and screen them. So we are now screening a batch for a social service agency in Connecticut and we’re screening uh $690 that gave From $20 up in the last two years now. It’s late that we’re doing it now. But you know, it’s better than nothing. So ISIS suggests that, you know, we have another client that we’re doing over the pandemic. They said they had 274 new donors who gave over $500. And we’re looking for people within that Group within that cohort who would give maybe $10,000. They actually have people, we just finished that project and they actually have people who would give them, not just $10,000, but $100,000.

[00:09:46.04] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. All right. Let’s take a step at a time. So We’re sending our acknowledgment within within 48 hours. And if the tax receipt is required, then you might incorporate that into your acknowledgement or you might send something separate. Alright. We’re saying thank you fast. Now, is there is there nothing else between, you know, suppose that’s in october or november, donor. Nothing else between that and screening them in january. Don’t we want to we want to be involved with

[00:10:41.94] spk_0:
them. Yes. Yes. So then you start then you start with the seven. Thank you. Then you start with the seven. Thank you because this person has given you a a donation and depending on their level of giving and the effort you have to put in. You start with sending them your annual report, your newsletter. Welcome email. Some some agencies have a three series of welcome emails. And so you do that. Maybe you send them a donor survey which they respond to and tell you what aspect of their uh of your program they are interested in. That will help you a lot uh to know you know, we have a social service agency. They do senior care, they do middle school education, they do uh other kinds of adoption. So now which program is that person interested in? They can tell you or you can find out given are based on when you do the screening and when you do the research, you will see what else they’re giving to. And that will give you a clue as to which part of your program they care about.

[00:11:03.94] spk_1:
All right, well, you also have a clue based on what they gave to. Yes.

[00:11:04.45] spk_0:
Yes. If if

[00:11:05.88] spk_1:
if you know a lot of people don’t designate a gift. I agree. I agree with you. But if they designate their gift to a particular program, then you know where their affinity is.

[00:11:14.69] spk_0:
Yes. And you know that in the database right away. Of course.

[00:11:33.44] spk_1:
Absolutely. Yes. It’s important to preserve what people give to. Just like. It’s important to preserve the donors survey results that you suggest? Absolutely. Okay. What what might be. What what might we be soliciting uh information about in that in that follow up donor survey? You want to get to know folks better

[00:12:47.54] spk_0:
which aspect of the program they care about how they heard of your agency. You know uh Would they ever would they attend a webinar? If if you had one would they be willing to travel and come and see your facility? Uh You know is there a particular staff person that you know they have met with or or they know about you know each each agency is different. So you would ask different questions based on what you want to know about them. Uh what would help you? So those would be for instance with this where there are three different uh we have an irish theater company. Well they would want to know which which playwright you know with their favorite if you’re a music or something you might want to know which music they care about. If you’re a medical agency might we used to send out service and say which disease do you want to know more about? So we can send you newsletters about that disease. So you know based on your interest based on your work. You ask the right questions.

[00:12:49.08] spk_1:
Okay. And you also mentioned the seven. Thank you.

[00:12:52.23] spk_0:
Yes

[00:12:53.93] spk_1:
I say a little more about your seven. Thank

[00:15:37.44] spk_0:
you. This is this is my mantra that I have been teaching. You know I’ve been teaching at N. Y. U. And also at Columbia and I teach workshops all the time. And this is one of my mantra that I teach. And now my students have started deciding it back to me. So and it seems like oh my God you’re going to say thank you thank you thank you. It’s not that you have to be creative. So you might send them the tax receipt which is the first thank you. And then depending on after that you might have uh the executive director writer. Thank you. You might have the development director writer. Thank you. You might have the program director. We have a little archaeological excavation. You know there are two main archaeologists, archaeologists involved with it. and depending on which one uh is uh you know closest to that person who send the gift. We’ll have them right appears on the on the thank you note which we draw for them for some people. I might call them and say you know because I’m in new york city I might call them to say thank you. I have received your gift. It’ll take a while for us to process it. But in the meantime I want you to know that your check was received and we’re so grateful and the excavation will start on such and such a date and we’ll send you pictures and this is our facebook page and you know communicate with them. Uh one of my friends uh sent her son to a boarding school and she sent a little gift where she’d been sending it to the local school all the time. But now because it was a boarding school, the parents suddenly she got a call from my parents really wanted, why is the parent calling me when she said, you know, I know you sent a gift and I wanted to tell you thanks from the school. But also I want to tell you that I was yesterday at the tennis match in which your son played and my son is captain of the team and he played so well and we were so proud of my goodness, do you think that lady is not going to give another gift after that? I mean it’s just brilliant and it wasn’t even a staff member. It was a volunteer. I have I have another agency this year. There was a crisis and people ask me and I happened to have insight into that particular problem. They said what should we give to? I said, oh, this is a great agency. I’ve been, you know involved with them as a volunteer for a long time. You know, they use the money very well. They’re doing really great work. They sent the money. I sent the money. None of us have ever gotten a thank you note. Now they’re doing the work. They have social media, they have facebook, they have Lincoln they have a blast. They’re sending us the, all the information about what they’re doing and we are so happy. They’re doing it. But they didn’t do God one Thank You. And one of the donors sent it from a donor advised fund. He’s got no thank you, let alone seven.

[00:15:43.44] spk_1:
It’s time for a break.

[00:16:43.64] spk_2:
Turn to communications. I’m on their email list and they said something this week. That’s very interesting. They talk about seeing good news stories on social media, uh, specifically linked in, in this case and the uh, frequent lament that people will, will comment that you’ll never find stories like this in the mainstream media. In fact turned two points out that many, many of these good news stories originated in mainstream media. Um, you know, some are, we’re in newspapers, others might have gotten exposure from national outlets like the new york times or CNN, or one of the major networks. But the point is a lot of these stories originate and in some mainstream media and then make their way to social media. So what’s that mean for you? It means there are a

[00:16:44.64] spk_3:
lot of journalists

[00:16:58.94] spk_2:
that are interested in good news stories that maybe just generate a laugh or a smile or it’s, it’s um, it’s more of a story about work that a nonprofit has done.

[00:17:02.04] spk_3:
So the journalists

[00:17:03.33] spk_1:
are out there.

[00:17:04.28] spk_2:
They are hungry for these good news stories. If

[00:17:06.79] spk_3:
you’ve got something

[00:17:07.85] spk_2:
like that.

[00:17:09.74] spk_1:
Look internally,

[00:17:10.74] spk_3:
if you’ve got some good news

[00:17:27.94] spk_2:
turn to, can help you get it noticed right, help you craft that good news story and then get it exposed in all the outlets you’ve heard me talk about. So they finish up this on this. I’m choking up. That’s, that’s how that’s how, uh, much this touches me,

[00:17:33.04] spk_3:
they finish up there

[00:17:58.64] spk_2:
their email by saying there are lots of journalists out there that are ready to give good news stories a look despite what you may read on linkedin. So, you know, they’ve got their eyes on the media market. Turn to communications. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C O. Now back to next year’s plan for your year end donors.

[00:19:01.14] spk_1:
Yeah. I mean, that’s that is a very bad practice To have gone. Well, you know, some folks say 24 hours, you’re, you’re being more generous 48 hours, that’s still fine. But If it goes much longer than that and you’re, you’re saying it’s been months or whatever, you know, that, uh, to not acknowledge every single gift, I don’t care if these are $3 gifts. I don’t care if the dollar and a half. It still deserves an acknowledgement. You just never know. Someone might be testing you with a small dollar amount and really who gives a dollar and a half anyway, so that, that’s, you know, that’s a hyperbolic on the low end, right? Uh, but if someone gives you $5, they might be testing you, they might have capacity to give 5000 or 50,000. They may have capacity. They may feel whether they can’t or or they know they can, but they’re they’re trying you out every gift deserves acknowledgement. So when you were just describing that’s very poor practice.

[00:19:08.04] spk_0:
Well, unfortunately, the excuse is that they are because they’re doing such good work. They are understaffed and their non profit. So they don’t have capacity.

[00:19:34.24] spk_1:
That doesn’t, that doesn’t sell. That’s a that’s a nonstarter. You need to invest in your organizations to the extent that you can thank people. Thanking people is not overhead, It’s not worthless. It’s it’s an administrative investment. It’s not an expensive, it’s it’s an investment in the relationships that you’re talking about. You mentioned earlier, you know, absolutely relationship building, if that’s an investment thanking

[00:21:02.24] spk_0:
people. Absolutely, and and that’s how one needs to think about it. And and you know, the board members, the staff, the executive director, everybody needs to be aware that how important this is. Now, another thing that people ask us a lot is we got a gift from a donor advised fund and we don’t have any access to the donor. So we don’t know how to thank them and we want to know who they are, what they are and you know, they’re freaking every sort of possible way of trying to google it to trying to get us to do it. This is so simple. This these these two donors who gave to this charity that gave through the donor advised fund that I know about, they are friends of the board members if they put a list in front of the board members and said, you know, we got a gift from. So and so family fund and unfortunately we don’t know how to thank them. They said that maybe they sent a thank you note to the to the donor advised fund agency. Somebody would speak up or you look in your database and say, oh, they came to the gala. This is the same person who came to the gala and sat at, you know, board member access table. So he’s gonna know this person. So let’s tell him that your friend gave us a gift even though there was no gala, even though there was just a virtual gala and he still gave us a gift. He didn’t even sit at your table.

[00:21:24.64] spk_1:
All right. So those, right. Those are, those are good ideas. But there is frustration among, among nonprofits getting donor advised fund gifts when you know, okay, so you’re right, try try your board query your database. But there are gifts that come that sometimes that folks can’t identify and that I know that is a frustration among nonprofits.

[00:21:56.24] spk_0:
Yes. But you know, more and more people have who have set up donor advised funds want people to know who is giving. It’s, it’s less and less about being anonymous. Now, people are going back to setting up foundations or entities from which they can give, uh, and be known and they want that because they want to add their credibility to the gift. They want people to know that a person whom they know give to this charity because it helps the charity.

[00:22:28.74] spk_1:
It does. Right. But there are, there are donors who would not agree with you. But I do, I agree. But there are always some donors that are going to remain anonymous. And I mean, I’ve always thought, you know, focus on the donors who you can identify. I understand the frustration for those. You cannot, they may come to you through a facebook fundraising event and facebook doesn’t share the information. They might come to you from a donor advised fund. That is not a name that you can track, uh, focus on the folks that you can thank and for the donor advised fund. Of course we should be sending a letter to the fund. Right, thanking asking them to forward the letter onto the anonymous donors.

[00:23:12.94] spk_0:
Exactly. And they would, I’m sure the same donor, the same donor, the friend of mine that gave because I said, oh, this is a good charity could give to them. It’s also sent to another charity in the same space. And he got his seven. Thank you. He actually told me I got seven. Thank you. So, he said, you know, the development director wrote, the executive director wrote the board member wrote, they sent him an annual report. You know, they invited him to an event. They sent him different things. You know, I mean reports, personalized. Yeah. All right. I mean, you could take a little video and send it to the person, you know, that you can do

[00:24:18.44] spk_1:
personalized video is a terrific idea. Um, I’ll give a shout out to a company that’s not expensive. Bond euro bongiorno dot com, bong boro easy personalized videos. You shoot a one minute video and you say thank you. And you can, you can be walking, you can have any background you want to know the production value is not the concern, sincerity, The genuineness. That’s the concern. And you do it in a 45 seconds or one minute video. You sent it right back to the right to the person. You can do it immediately. You could do it the next day. So, and Bongiorno is by no means the only personalized video platform out there. But Um, yeah, you’re right. Personalized video is a good one. all right. So you mentioned these screenings. So now we’re now we’re a little longer on now. We’re into January. Right? We’ve done our activities for the fourth quarter. Now we’re conveying into January. What kind of information uh, you’re looking for in a, in a screening. Does it have to be a commercial screening? You know, what are we,

[00:25:09.24] spk_0:
what are we looking at? You could, you could do research or you could just go for a screening depending on the number of donors. If you have seven donors, you know, you just give them to somebody to research who has tools like screening tools and research tools and ask them to do it for you and that’s all you need, You don’t need a sophisticated screening. But if you have 670 donors or something that I knew and they were given maybe over $20 or $50, then you certainly should have a screening down. But don’t try to do it yourself because then when you get it back, you have this information and you have no idea what to do with it because there are mismatches in the screening. It’s an automated process. There are mismatches in the screening. You know, there’ll be a lot of tony-martignetti is and Putin presides in there and you have to make

[00:25:30.54] spk_1:
sure that I don’t know if there are such good examples who not pursued and tony-martignetti are not very common names, but there’ll be a lot of there’ll be a lot of smith’s and uh smiths and joneses et cetera. Okay.

[00:25:32.68] spk_0:
Yes. And and you know you being me is how many food and presents? All

[00:25:39.12] spk_1:
right. There aren’t too many tony-martignetti is I would be surprised.

[00:25:50.84] spk_0:
Okay. In fact it’s more confusing when there are only two or three because then you really begin to think this is your person and then it turns out it’s not your person.

[00:25:53.14] spk_1:
Right? Okay. So you’re you’re you’re caution against doing it on your own or I mean if you’re going to do it on your own. You said if you had just seven or so. You know, you’re not gonna hire an agency for that. But you just, the point is you need to be careful that you’ve got the right person

[00:26:08.50] spk_0:
right? Like checking,

[00:26:10.24] spk_1:
check middle initials, check addresses, check whatever you do know against what you found to make sure you’re, you’re dealing with the right person.

[00:27:04.64] spk_0:
Well, you can, you can outsource, you know, a little bit of work every month with somebody with some research firm. We do that all the time. Uh, you know, it’s not that we do it all, you know, in one go and finish. You know, we have like an arrangement where if somebody new comes in, gives more than $1000 get more than $500. Whatever matters to them, they send it over to us and we screen them, research them, give them back information on that person. Okay. Okay. But it’s geared to small agencies. It’s geared to small agencies so that, you know, because otherwise what happens is the Harvard University’s and the big, big who have seven researchers get all the big donors because they have the tools and they have the staff. So you, you do need to implement some of the techniques that the top fundraising organizations you

[00:27:13.64] spk_1:
mentioned, you mentioned before screening and research tools there, are there some out there that you can suggest that folks can use

[00:28:02.94] spk_0:
on their own. Yes. You could, you could make a substitution with with something like ivy or donor search and try to do some work on your own. You could look at the, you could look at the linkedin profile of the person. If you know, you know, I mean small simple things. You could google them of course. Uh small things that you know, you could look at if you know where they work. You could look at the bio most law firms have the lawyers while on on the website many firms have the, you know, employees, bio senior employees bio doctors. There are free sites for looking at doctors to see what kind of specialty does the doctor have. Is it something that’s relevant to my cause?

[00:28:05.45] spk_1:
Yeah. Good. Alright, right. If you can find the person’s company firm that they work for or practice. Okay. And you mentioned I wave and donor search.

[00:28:31.94] spk_0:
Yes. These are subscription services. So you have to pay a little bit uh, you know, usually it’s in your subscription and you can check out your donors through that. And the aggregate information of other gifts that the organization has received. Other organizations have received from the same donor. Okay. Right. Right.

[00:28:37.14] spk_1:
Other charities that the person is given to us. So then you start to get a little profile of person. All right. So you can have

[00:29:03.54] spk_0:
to be careful because of the person your donor is in new york and the person, a person with the same name is giving in texas, you have to be careful to see why would my donor given texas? Maybe it’s another person or maybe he went to school in texas and he is giving in texas. Or he’s giving to a senior center in texas because my daughter has a mother there who’s in that home. So you know you need to be a bit intelligent about.

[00:29:30.84] spk_1:
Yeah right with that. With that caution you gotta you gotta that caveat. You gotta be uh certain that you’re dealing with the right person. Otherwise you’re going down you’re gonna start talking to the person about their gifts to texas. And they’re going to say I don’t know what you’re talking about and then then you’re gonna be embarrassed. So all right. All right. Um Okay so screening is a possibility. Good. You can engage your company. You can do some on your own. What what what what are we gonna do from what we learned from our screening now? What?

[00:31:54.44] spk_0:
So there’s the thing I mean you know we do research where research for and we send research to our clients. The question is how do you read this research? What does it mean to you? What what is the interpretation you get out of a research report on? Suppose we write a little bio on this person. So what what what what is the strategy that comes out of this research. So the first thing that indicates higher giving is age. So anyone over the age of 60 or 65 has more disposable income. They paid their mortgage, they probably paid their children’s college education. They’re beginning to think about their own, you know, legacy and they’re beginning to give more generously. So 60, you have a better chance of getting a higher upgrading their gifts before that. People are still on that little hamster wheel, you know, increasing their mortgage, buying a little bigger house, sending their Children to a better school. You know, getting them into college, they just often do not have time unless they are very community minded and they might give to their local community or their college or things like that. But but they become more Uh philanthropic, more generous generally after the age of 16. Now, there are always exceptions. The other thing there are a lot of people look for as you know, being in plan giving is people without Children, because people without Children do not have that usual legacy is, oh, I’m leaving good Children into the world. Yeah, that’s great. But when you don’t have Children, you have to really think, what is it that I am leaving? What footprint am I living in this world that I lived and who benefited because I lived And those people take a little more care and thought and and usually we’ll try to make an impact in a different way and you can help them do that and make them happy. And you know, there there’s a lot of studies that say people who give are happier people who give actually benefit more from their gifts than the person receiving. So it’s at that age, particularly when you have that reflective time for reflection that we see better gifts.

[00:32:02.64] spk_1:
It’s time for tony steak too

[00:32:59.84] spk_2:
planned giving accelerator. I’m starting the promotion again this time for the January 2022 class, I have accelerated the accelerator. It’s no longer a 12-month course. It is now a six-month course. I will teach you step by step, Everything that was in the 12 month course, but we’re gonna, we’re gonna step it up six month course. I’ll teach you everything you need to know about starting your planned giving program and you’re not only learning from me, you’re learning from your peers, folks who are similarly situated, they’ve got the same frustrations, they’ve got the same tensions bandwidth constraints as you do. You learn from them, They’re your, they become your friends, your allies, your safety net in planned giving accelerator. So if you want to get your plan giving program started,

[00:33:03.14] spk_3:
You want to start in 2022,

[00:33:05.64] spk_1:
you can start

[00:33:06.28] spk_3:
with plan Giving accelerator. I

[00:33:19.34] spk_2:
hope you’ll join me. All the info you need is that planned Giving accelerator dot com. That is tony stick to, we’ve got boo koo

[00:33:20.86] spk_1:
but loads more

[00:33:21.61] spk_2:
time for next

[00:33:23.10] spk_3:
year’s plan for your

[00:33:24.59] spk_1:
year end donors,

[00:35:46.14] spk_0:
then there are other things like education for one thing, if you know the education you can no other people who went to that school. So maybe you can have them go on. Maybe have a board member went there so you can build a relationship more strongly. But also of course education indicates more disposable income. So you begin to see when you build a profile of the person you say, oh well they went to the school from that area, They studied social work or they studied history or that tells you something about what they are interested in. Right? And then there’s the question of, Although I said that people who don’t have Children, you know, are very sought after by plan giving professionals, on the other hand, people in their lifetime are more generous who have Children over the age of six Because they’re trying to inculcate good values in their Children. They start to see the value of a community. So there are studies that show that people who have Children over the age of six, there could be 6-18, they could be 18-24. But a family unit, a couple usually has more disposable income. It could be a same sex couple or a heterogeneous couple. But the heterosexual couple. But the point is because there are two incomes in that family, they usually have more disposable income. So so that that’s important when you see that. So those are little things that you’re looking at. And then of course there’s the interest, what else they give to, You know, how old are they? Was it their parents that also gave to this charity or this type of charity? I have a I have a friend and he gave to a university music program. And I said to him, why do you give, you didn’t even go to that university? Why are you giving to that music program? He said, well, I became friends with the dean. They invited me to an event. I went on a trip with them to Austria to listen to classical music. And he said in the end, you know, my father died when I was very young. And the one thing I remember is sitting on his lap when he played the piano. So the piano music to him was, and he doesn’t have any Children. So, you know, that’s what makes him happy giving to students who play the piano

[00:36:20.23] spk_1:
reminds us of course reminds him of his dad. And he hopes that that uh those young students will have Children of their own and their those Children will sit on their laps the way he sat on his dad’s lap. All right. Those are good. Those are, those are valuable insights that we can, we can get from uh, that we that we can get from the screening. So now going back to what you had suggested earlier when you said get them to know you and let them get to know, uh, sorry, get to know them and let them get to know you. So how do we do the second part of that now that we have this information, valuable insights? How do we let these new donors get to know us?

[00:37:37.13] spk_0:
Well, we talked about the series of three emails that welcome them. We have invitations. Uh, and of course in this environment, maybe you can’t invite them so easily, but you could still send them a video. Now. We had a homeless, uh, organized agency for homeless people last year that we were working with. And they sent out a video of their new building and somebody sent them $25,000 just from that video because it was the Executive director going through the building and saying, you know, we had such hopes for this building. We finally got it built. We’ve got all these people were going to bring into this building and the person was so touched. He was also a senior citizen. He had money. He felt like, oh, let me help. There are other people out there my age who do not have housing. And here is somebody who’s an agency that’s providing it. And that video, you know, a small video that they didn’t even actually seriously ask for money in it. They just said, and if you’d like to, you know, there was a little bit and

[00:37:44.23] spk_1:
well, it it touched it touched somebody. Well, video can do that. It’s powerful that way.

[00:39:16.22] spk_0:
All right. And of course a tour with the executive director. So you’re really getting to know the person, you know, face to face. So as best you can in this environment. You know, it’s a trusting relationship. So by video you’re seeing them as best you can. The other thing is of course you could set up coffee with them and people are much more accessible now because they’re not going out. So people are taking calls even if they are not. Yeah. In where at home, they’re still taking calls from wherever they are. They’re doing zoom with you. They want to be conducted. All of us are starved for human contact. We took these things for granted. And now suddenly we realized how valuable our community is. You know, I walk out, I’m an anonymous new york city right where nobody really knows anybody and you walk on the street and nobody should recognize. You know, it’s not like that anymore. The moment I walk out on the street, my neighbors are standing out there, they’re also walking. There’s no nowhere to go and nothing to do except to go for a while. So they’re all out there walking and they all suddenly know each other. So you realize how important your community is. So do you think that the area neighborhood association and things that are being done in our neighborhood are getting more attention. Sure, more people are planting, helping to plant in the parks, more people are helping to give to the local community association. Suddenly that’s becoming more important. So something that’s good for the small agencies.

[00:39:18.39] spk_1:
So engagement, Yeah. Uh, engagement at whatever level it might be something communal and community and in, in face to face,

[00:40:10.61] spk_0:
yes, might be something come and paint a mural on your wall of your, you know, of your agency. We have a, a friend of mine runs a clear art center community, you know, they make pottery, they got the local artists together to come and paint the wall even urine Corbett, they could still do that. You wear your mask, You come and paint the world their artistic. So you could plant flowers in your garden, invite them to do that, invite them to do outdoor things in the local park. You could have a gathering of rooftops. People have been doing gatherings or some of our clients have been doing gatherings or rooftops whatever you can do outdoors, especially in the summer. And then also we were talking, well, we were

[00:40:14.43] spk_1:
talking about january, but that’s okay. Well into spring

[00:40:55.71] spk_0:
now january, you could do a lunch and learn, which is a good time to do a lunch and learn. And that also gives you an information back because the people who attend, you do the lunch and learn on different programs and people sign up based on the interest. So then, you know, well this donor signed up for this lunch and learn on this program. So obviously that’s what they care about or they might write to you and say I didn’t, I really wanted to attend this, but I couldn’t. So you send them the recording of that lunch. That’s another, uh, value of having something which is recorded, which you’re doing on zoom. You can record it like, just like your radio programs, tony

[00:41:15.11] spk_1:
I’m a, I’m a big fan of big fan of audio. I think it’s very intimate medium, yep. All right. So we’ve, we’ve, we’ve thought through our engagement, it might be something in real life. It might be something virtual. I love. I mean, you gave a lot of good ideas. Um, now we need to plan for the next solicitation.

[00:41:21.53] spk_0:
Now

[00:41:49.61] spk_1:
we’re in, we’re in like the third quarter of 3rd quarter of next year and it’s coming time to solicit the person again. They made a year into gift this year. So we’re going to presume, but they’re, they’re going to do the same. Let’s exclude the folks who maybe became major donors and they’ve got a relationship now with a gift officer. We’re not, we’re not at that level. Uh, we’re dealing with the larger group. We’re planning our fourth quarter. What should we be thinking about in terms of possibly upgrading or should we not try to upgrade in the second year. What’s your advice around planning that, that second year solicitation?

[00:45:27.39] spk_0:
Well, another thing that we never spoke about and some of my clients and colleagues will be very upset if I don’t mention it is creating a giving circle. So you could have, if you have enough donors at certain levels, you could try to upgrade them by creating a council, uh, you know, giving society, you know, so, so somebody who gave 500 you could give them an incentive to upgrade to 1000 because when they’re at 1000 they’ll get such and such benefits. You know, they’ll meet somebody that they care about or they’ll get a painting or they’ll hear a concert or you’ll have some event just for them. So, so you’re constantly upgrading those who gave 500 to 1000, those who gave 1000 to 5000, those who gave 5002, 10,000. So, so a little theater client is probably going to say, oh, you know, uh, famous irish actor is going to speak with 10 of you and you only get invited to that if, if you give, you know, a little bit more than what they were already given and that and that creates a cohort of people. So they have a little sense of community because that giving society is going to meet, um, we have the example of a museum that was up. It’s a very famous glass museum called the corning Museum of Glass and it was very well supported by the corning company. But the corning company went through some very tough times and so they needed private support during that period. So they started with a giving society where people came up, they went through the museum, they were passing by on their way to Niagara Falls or they were interested in glass or whatever and they were told that if you give this much that’s great, we are very grateful. But if you give this much you’ll be invited to an event the opening of our show and guess what? We’ll fly you up in our private plane because corning had the private plan and you won’t have to drive all the way you know from new york city well and and that was something the company could no longer support the museum financially. But they had this plane which flew up with their executives and I was such a such a cashier to to fly up in the blind drain, arrive at this museum, attend this beautiful event on roman glass with food from roman times and then have the director of the museum walk you through the show. I said one of the most beautiful things that you know, I was a stuff remember trying to attend this and I thought I was wowed and and so you know you can be creative with almost anything you could if you’re a social service agency will say well I can’t do that well you know you have people in your community who will come out and provide their celebrity help to you. So you could still have somebody do a little concert or somebody, somebody from your community who’s a wonderful singer musician or something. And and it may be not relevant, but maybe their daughter was helped by your uh, you know, educational charity or their mother was served by your senior citizen center. They will do things for you. There was a person who used to come and play the piano at a senior citizen center in uptown all the way up, you know, above the Columbia University is in Morningside

[00:45:30.03] spk_1:
Heights or something, riverside

[00:46:01.08] spk_0:
riverside riverside. Yeah. You know, they’re above Colombia where the cloisters, the museum is there and nobody knew who this person was. But when we looked him up, he was a very famous pianist who used to play at the Carlyle and his mother was in the center. And so he would come up and perform. And so we asked him if he would perform and he did a concert and Steinway hall for us because he was a famous man and there are little treasures in your community. You just have to find out about them. There are little gems floating around.

[00:46:14.68] spk_1:
All right. So you like the idea of incentivizing folks to give a little give more, Even even in the 2nd year. So they were they were our, it was first year was last year. Now we’re planning for the next year incentivize them to increase even in that just in that second year. Yes,

[00:46:46.98] spk_0:
yes. And they will because you’ve been talking to them, you’ve been engaging with them in different ways and, and maybe some of them will become, you know, much higher level donors because for small agencies, a small amount can make a big difference. There is if they gave that small amount of a much larger organization, they can’t give them that personalized attention and it’s not going to make, its going to be a drop in the bucket.

[00:46:52.58] spk_1:
Yeah. There are those folks who will be more will be more generous

[00:46:56.35] spk_3:
to smaller agencies

[00:46:57.35] spk_1:
because they get a lot better treatment. They have more fulfilling relationships with a smaller organization than they would at an organization where their gift was

[00:47:07.88] spk_0:
not in their communities. They, you know, they feel closer to it.

[00:47:14.38] spk_1:
Okay. Alright then. Um, why don’t you leave us with some final thoughts please?

[00:47:54.88] spk_0:
Well, just remember about the leaky bucket. You know, it’s a, we all grew up with that song. There’s a hole in the bucket, realize a dear Liza. So just remember you are not going to let your bucket leak. You’re gonna make every effort you can to get those the donor who’s gonna fall through the cracks, Give him as much attention as I say lavish movie cultivation, whatever tactics you can think of. Whatever relationship building and getting to know you uh, thoughts and strategies that you can come up with, have a plan, learn about them and let them learn about you.

[00:48:16.47] spk_1:
Excellent. I’m gonna look, I’m going to remind myself uh refresh my memory about there’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza what do we do something like? What do we do? All right, thank you. Hernan Prasad founder and president Prasad consulting and research. The company is at prasad consulting dot com and she is at Prasad C Thank you very much. Program.

[00:48:24.37] spk_0:
Thank you Tory pleasure to talk to you.

[00:48:27.07] spk_1:
My pleasure as well.

[00:48:30.77] spk_2:
Next week engaged

[00:48:31.62] spk_3:
boards will

[00:48:32.58] spk_2:
fundraise with Michael Davidson and brian

[00:48:55.77] spk_1:
Saber from asking matters if you missed any part of this week’s show, I Beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Mhm. Our creative producer

[00:49:26.17] spk_4:
is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein, thank you for that. Affirmation scotty you with me next week for nonprofit radio Big Donald. profit ideas for the over 95% go out and be great. Mhm