Podcast: The Power of Women in Philanthropy (with special guest Kathleen Loehr)

Season 4, Episode 2

In this episode, Amy Eisenstein and Andrea Kihlstedt dive into the transformative power of women in philanthropy with their special guest, Kathleen Loehr. Kathleen, a leading expert on women’s giving and author of “Gender Matters: A Guide to Growing Women’s Philanthropy,” shares her deep insights on the unique ways women approach charitable giving and why they are often the unseen yet significant donors in capital campaigns.

Kathleen discusses the rising wealth among women and how they are becoming key decision-makers in philanthropy, often giving more and in different ways compared to their male counterparts.

Tune in to learn how you can start seeing and valuing the unseen donors in your campaigns!

Listen Now:

Amy Eisenstein:
We are talking about the unseen donors. Specifically women, but other unseen donors as well.

Hi, I’m Amy Eisenstein. I’m here with my co-host and colleague and co-founder Andrea Kihlstedt as always, and today we actually have a very special guest with us. Andrea is going to introduce her, but normally when we have a guest, it’s just me or Andrea. But we’re so excited to talk to our guest today that we’re both here. Andrea, why don’t you introduce Kathleen?

Meet Kathleen Loehr

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Thanks, Amy. I am so tickled to be here with Kathleen Loehr. Now I’ve known Kathleen for some time, and Kathleen is a great friend of other people who are connected with Capital Campaign Pro. And Kathleen is the foremost expert and guru of women and philanthropy. Women. Women, and how women give. How women think about giving. Such a great topic, right?

She is a well-known author. In fact, she wrote a book on that topic, Gender Matters: A Guide to Growing Women’s Philanthropy. So if you’re interested in this, check that book out. Kathleen is also on the Women’s Philanthropy Institute Advisory Council.

All these mouthfuls of words, Kathleen. But the gist of the matter is that Kathleen knows more about how women give, why they give, how think about money, how that interprets how we in the fundraising business should function. And that’s a topic that most of us have really never thought about. So we are thrilled to have her with us. Welcome, Kathleen.

Kathleen Loehr:
Thank you so much both of you. It’s fun to be here with you.

Women: Unseen Donors

Amy Eisenstein:
So Kathleen, we are going to focus today on three or four principles and practices that you’ve identified as really key to thinking about women, as you say, as unseen donors. So why don’t you give us a little background and then share some of your key principles.

Kathleen Loehr:
Sure. Thanks, Amy. I can give you a shorthand. Just take this away. Women wealth is rising. Over the last 40 years, earning more, making more of those decisions in the household. CEO titles, you name it, we’re on the mark and getting that money.

Amy Eisenstein:
Can I just say yes.

Kathleen Loehr:
Yes, me too. The other thing is we give more. There’s so much research coming out of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute over now 15 years showing how we make those decisions, give more. Give more to more charities and causes we care about.

And the third thing is that we give differently. Not right or wrong, just differently. A way of approaching it is much more collaborative, engaged with all of our assets. So that shorthand, more money, giving more and giving differently. So with that work that I’ve done over many, many clients, many, many years and writing the book about this and listening deeply, I’ve really come up with things that we as fundraisers need to pay attention to.

And before I get into the what we can do and what we pay attention to, I want to just bring us to who we are as fundraisers. So I was trained with best practices by some incredible fundraisers. Everybody who’s hired today is being trained on similar best practices. We put those best practices in place because we know they work. We raise how many billions of dollars a year over and over plus more. And yet we have to recognize best practices have been put in place from the seventies from what was known then as the typical donor. That would be primarily white, primarily straight, primarily male. No right or wrong, we should not stop using best practices that worked with that donor.

But when we apply those practices to those who are unseen, un-listened to back in the seventies, they don’t always resonate. And that’s really the core of the work I’ve been doing. What does resonate? And what I find resonates, and as Amy you said, I’ll be talking about women, but we’re finding it applies to many, many unseen donors of all different races and ethnicities and just how they are showing up today.

Women Want to Be Seen and Valued

What does resonate is with women, we want to be seen and valued for all that we are and not just what I call the walking pocketbook. So the principles that I’ve come up with really starts with that. It starts with facing into, as I’m facing into you two today, facing into who’s in front of us and being curious and asking questions. So the first thing anyone can do, and it’s the first principle, and by the way, these principles are not in order. All six you can find on the website, I’ll give you later. All six are interwoven.

But a really good first one to start is start with that curiosity. Start with your feeling of I don’t really know perhaps how those who identify as women are giving to me. So you go into your database, you look. You look for frequency, you look for size of gifts, you try to understand who’s the decision maker. Those are curiosity things you can work with your team to find out.

You also have to check assumptions. The first principle is start and look for insights. And one insight I’ve had is all of the models we have for projecting wealth, for looking at one’s background, what they might be able to give actually are models based on, again, males. Males of a career trajectory and males who have certain titles. Males who stay in the workforce don’t go in and out. So we have to assume we’re not seeing it all, and that’s a fact.

Men are giving to the 12 charities that are out there, kind of the categories, men are giving to only six of them. Women are giving to 11. So we’re spreading our wealth. So we have to start by assuming our assumptions aren’t right, we may not be seeing all that she’s giving and we may not know how she’s giving. So that’s really the first principle.

The Importance of Curiosity

Amy Eisenstein:
Let me just jump in and say I think it’s so important to start with curiosity. I love that. We definitely want to look at our donors’ history. How recently they’ve given, how frequently they’ve given, how much they’ve given. But something else that you said about assumptions really struck me because haven’t we all been in a room… Well, maybe not all of us, but certainly I can relate.

My husband and I are standing somewhere and people talk to him and I’m like, wait a minute. I’m the one who’s going to make the decision on whatever given topic we’re talking about. And whether it’s a maintenance person or a vendor or contractor or a lawyer or whoever we’re working with, they’re directing the questions at him. And I’m the driver of the decisions or certain decisions certainly in our household. And I think that that’s one of the things that we’re talking about here today.

So thank you for pointing that out. I just wanted to throw in a personal example.

Kathleen Loehr:
Well, don’t get me started, Amy, because the number of times that things are misaddressed, addressed to him and not to her, or invitations are put out. That’s one thing I want to say about our best practices. They allow us to move effectively and efficiently in our work and get things done. But when we move so fast, we’re not taking a beat and double checking.

• Is that practice going to work in this situation?
• Who am I not including?
• Who am I not speaking to?

So those are just ways of adapting our behaviors. And so the first principle allows us to catch yourself and start with insight. What do we think we know, but can we check it? And what have we never even looked at and can we learn more?

The Importance of Trust

The second principle starts with the women and this is where a big differentiator is, I find, between donors who have been seen for a long time, the last 50 plus years, and women and all other donors, we’ve not been seen. So if we don’t start with them and listen to them, we’re again making assumptions. Well, this worked before. I can get my case out there and I can put it in front of you and you’re going to say yes.

Well, not so fast. So if we start by asking questions directly of women, interviews, focus groups, bringing small group in, taking part of the board saying, well, what do you think? We get a lot of input. And to be honest, women are paying attention. Just because we may not be paying as good attention to them, they pay attention to what they care about. And they’ll have ideas and they’ll respond to priorities and they’ll respond to curiosity about how can we bring more like you in.

There’s a gaining of intel here in the second principle that makes all the difference for the success we’re seeing and the amounts that women are now giving because they feel not just seen, but they feel trust.

An Aside: A Big Part of Women’s Philanthropy

This is a little aside, it’s not directly on the principles, but it’s another big part of women’s philanthropy, which is it’s the third principle. Women give more than just treasure. We talk about the three Ts, right? The time, talent and treasure. I think there are at least six. I would add to those three, trust.

Are you coming to me just really for my money or are you coming to me as a partner? Can we work together in trust? Ties is who do I know? You’re not keeping in touch, but I’m keeping in touch with them. I can bring my network forward if I trust you.

And then testimony, I’m shy about talking about you if I’m not quite sure about how you’re going to use my names, my contacts, me. So all of that, that whole bringing together is an important part of going to women and asking for their input and listening deeply about what they want to bring forward for this particular cause that they care about.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah, I love it. Andrea, you’ve been quiet. What thoughts are you thinking?

Women Who Have Come Into Money Through Men

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yeah, it’s such an interesting topic. What I’m thinking about is that I think there are a lot of women who have come into their money through men. Perhaps through their husbands, perhaps through their fathers. Perhaps that there are a lot of women who haven’t earned their money through their careers early on. Or if they have, maybe they’ve had later careers as I have to earn their money.

So you can’t make assumptions, I think, about how women relate to their money because those relationships are often very complicated. The relationships between a woman who has philanthropic resources of some significance, but that money sort of has come from the husband who has given it to the wife.

So you are focused on curiosity, on a wanting to understand what that feels like. How a woman thinks about her resources and how she gives them away is a much more complicated and rich conversation than you might imagine.

Kathleen Loehr:
It is. It very much is. I often start every interview, every casual conversation is tell me about you. How do you think about your philanthropy and give me a story of one moment in your philanthropic journey that gives you great joy. You’re going to learn so much about motivation, about choice, about who was involved, who the decision-maker is just by listening to that story. So you’re so right.

Amy Eisenstein:
So interesting that that’s sort of where your mind went, Andrea. It’s no secret we’re of different generations and I just assume that women are earning their money now. I don’t assume that it’s coming from their husbands or their fathers certainly. So that goes back to not making assumptions, being curious. And I think that there probably are more complicated relationships. Even when women do earn their money, they feel really differently about it and how they use it.

So I think it’s an important thing to think about. But my assumption today is that women donors have earned their money and sometimes it’s probably true and sometimes it’s not.

Conversations Can Be Complex

Kathleen Loehr:
I want to pick up on one thing you said Andrea, about how these conversations are more complex and you went on to say, and rich and I totally agree with both. And one thing I hear from fundraisers is it takes time to ask these questions.

So let me tell this story. This is from my university. I was going into my 35th reunion and I had run reunions at that university, so I knew the drill. So they were emailing me and they were sending the letters and it was June 12th, I think, of the year. And the year ends on June 30th, and I still hadn’t made my gift. And I get a call. It doesn’t matter if it was male or female, but this is how the call went:

“Kathleen, I know that you know it’s your reunion and I know you care about Cornell based on everything you’ve done before. Tell me, what are you thinking? What are some values you have that you want to see reflected in this year’s gift? Or is there anything you need to hear from us to help make your choice?”

That conversation probably took four minutes, and I surprised by myself by giving three times more than I was going to give, because I was just asked these rich questions and it was two-sided and I was in a conversation. So is four minutes really so hard to find to ask curious questions and get the woman’s input? So that’s just something I want to leave with the audience as you think about starting yourself and get going on this.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah. I think that’s such a great point.

Other Tips to Focus on Unseen (Women) Donors

What other tips do you have, Kathleen, of how people can be more focused on unseen donors in general, but specifically women? I think that four-minute example is perfect because I was thinking, although I didn’t articulate it, it does sound like a lot of time. It sounds like so much work.

So how do we implement these things in a practical way? You just gave us one great example. What are some other practical takeaways for listeners of how they can engage these specifically women donors?

Just Start

Kathleen Loehr:
So I’ll jump to the fifth principle, which is essentially just start. Don’t have it perfect. Don’t have it tied up with a bow. Don’t even begin to think you know everything. Just start. Start by doing some data mining and learning what’s happening right in front of you that you just haven’t looked at. Start by asking these questions. Start by being curious. When you’re meeting at any time, any donor, all unseen donors about asking about them first over what you want to say, which often is our goal, our campaign, our case, whatever.

And I know that we are trained in this. I absolutely know this, that we do ask questions of course, but there’s an orientation. People have to understand that when we’re in a meeting and we’ve got pressure on us to meet our goals and there’s a time pressure how much we meet or a time habit of the donor that we, in that pressure, sometimes revert to what we’ve always done before, rather than staying open and loose and asking say more. Can you tell me more about that? I’m curious about that. So there’s an orientation to at least just start with questions with true curiosity rather than I’m supposed to do this and then I’ll move on to what I want to say. That energy is so different and donors pick up on that.

So the just starting means you might just take across these summer months, the three months and just try to find an annual fund breakout of your donors and how they’re giving across class years if you’re in a university or how they’re giving against programs, if it’s a nonprofit and learning. And then you find some top donors and then you might say, I’m really curious. Then you pick up the phone and you make some of those phone calls. We do have a website to help get you started. We can put that up. But it’s at Indiana University. I’ve given a lot of this material to the Women’s Philanthropy Institute and it’s called Proven Practices.

Amy Eisenstein:
So what’s the website, Kathleen?

Kathleen Loehr:
Let me just pull that up.

Women: Drivers of Donations

Amy Eisenstein:
Okay. And while you’re doing that, one of the things that you talked about before we hit the record button was that women are the drivers of donations. Talk a little bit about, if you can, the research or why you say that women are the drivers of donations. What does that mean and why should people care? I mean, you started with women are making more, women are giving more and I love that. I think let’s just go back a little bit to the why and then you can tell us that website.

Kathleen Loehr:
Of course, of course. So one of our very first studies at Women’s Philanthropy Institute, our research was to check how the households were giving. And we did that in 2005 and we repeated it in 2020. And I say that because that longitudinal view has given us even more information.

So back in 2005, we found that couples were making jointly decisions 75% of the time. So she’s in the decision 75% of the time, and the rest, whether either she or he or whatever the identifier is. The 2020 is that they’re making joint decisions 62% of the time.

Let me say that again. We found in 2020 that women are making with their spouse joint decisions 62% of the time. So still the majority, but if you’ve heard the difference in number, it has dropped. So they’re making 62% with a spouse in those conversations. But what has grown is that the women is deciding uniquely another 13% of the time, and she’s also making separate on her own decisions. So if you combine all that together, 82% of the time, the women are part of the philanthropic decisions in that household.

So that’s big. That really is big that you really aren’t anywhere from whether you give to the corner handout store or to your university. They’re in the conversation. So we have to assume that, invite them to the conversation with us. Did that answer, Amy?

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah, that’s great. I love that. Andrea, do you want to ask any other questions before Kathleen gives us that website?

Are Men Comfortable Giving Bigger Gifts Than Women?

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yes, I have one more question, Kathleen. It’s sort of a big question, but maybe you have a short answer for it. We can get you back another time. I think many people make the assumption, and I don’t know if it’s true or not, that men tend to be more comfortable giving bigger gifts than women. And I’m wondering from your perspective if that in fact is the case and if you see that changing over time.

Kathleen Loehr:
I’ll start with the last Andrea, which is yes, I see that changing. Of course, we all see the big headlines with MacKenzie Scott and Melinda, et cetera, but we’re also seeing it in news that’s coming out of various charities and universities.

The reason that’s changing I would put on the table is yes, women’s wealth is rising. They feel they can give more, but also we’re telling more of those stories. I think I hear women don’t hear enough stories about others like them giving. They don’t know the philanthropic journey. They don’t know what it takes to start and then grow and test and go forward. All the headlines have been the big, big gifts and the names on buildings. You walk on any nonprofit or campus, what are the names? And so the more visibility we can give to women giving, the more we will get more giving large gifts.

The second thing I want to say is we do not celebrate collective giving, and some of the biggest giving that I’m seeing collectively is coming from groups. So Women Moving Millions, a collection of women who just are raising over a billion dollars for the Jewish Federation. The collection of women who just gave to the university and all of them stretched, and they’d never dreamed that they would give collectively $10 million in one year and they thought it would take five, and they did it in one year. So these collectives are now stories that are also coming out. So both the individual stepping into more giving, and she might give it more in a collective and an individual stepping into more giving, and she might get more of a headline. Both of those stories need to be told.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Giving is so just so interesting because when I think of… I have a hard time imagining men wanting to give collectively. That when men give collectively, they’re vying for who’s going to get the top spot, right? When women give collectively, they’re vying to come together to do something bigger than they might think of individually. So I think it’s just such a big difference and something that’s such an important point.

Amy Eisenstein:
Andrea, I’m so glad you asked that question because I think both of those examples that you gave, Kathleen, both the collective giving, the giving circles we’re hearing more and more about are critically important. And also, these role models that you named MacKenzie Scott and Melinda Gates are serving as role models. If women don’t know that women make these big gifts, now they do and it’s really inspiring and motivating, and I think we’re going to see more and more of it. So I’m so glad you raised those points.

Final Thoughts

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Can I tell a quick story before we’re over? I’ve just finished a tremendously successful capital campaign for a small organization where they ended up raising much more money than they ever imagined. And when we sat down to look and see what actually happened, it turned out that five of the top donors, of the six-figure donors were women. Five of them were women.

So we started imagining, well, what would it be when the building is finally complete to actually invite them quietly together to come to a little tea party or a champagne brunch in the new building, just these five women who anchored that campaign. It was so surprising and so interesting.

Kathleen Loehr:
That is fabulous. I can’t wait to see what stories you create out of that. And then the modelings that go from peer to peer. That’s super. Thank you.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
All right, Kathleen, what’s that website we want to send people to?

Kathleen Loehr:
It’s at Indiana University. That’s where WPI is housed, and the website is WPIprovenpractices, all one word: WPIprovenpractices.indianapolis.iu.

Amy Eisenstein:
Okay. And if you just Google WPIprovenpractices — it pops up right up up. You can find it. Excellent. Kathleen, thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your wisdom. I think what you’ve shared is inspiring and motivating, and I can’t wait to see this rolled out in campaigns across the country and around the world.