Podcast: Mastering Campaign Meetings: How to Make Every Moment Count

Season 4, Episode 3

In this episode, Andrea Kihlstedt and Amy Eisenstein dive into the art of transforming your capital campaign meetings from boring and unproductive to engaging and effective. Whether you’re tired of meetings where attendance dwindles or you’re just looking to inject more energy into your sessions, this episode is packed with practical tips and strategies.

Join Andrea and Amy as they turn the mundane into the motivational and show you how to make every campaign meeting count. Tune in now and start transforming your meetings today!

Listen Now:

Andrea Kihlstedt:
I bet you know what it’s like to be in a lousy meeting. It’s boring and you wish you weren’t there, right? Well, today we’re going to give you some secrets and tips about how to make all of your campaign meetings hum.

Amy Eisenstein:
Hi, I’m Amy Eisenstein. I’m with my colleague and co-founder, Andrea Kihlstedt, and today we are going to talk about how to have effective and interesting meetings so that your campaign goes as well as it can.

Overview: Capital Campaign Meetings

Andrea, well, first of all, let’s talk about bad meetings. But I was going to ask why is it so important to have good meetings? But maybe we can talk about bad meetings.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yeah. Well, let’s talk about why it’s so important first, and that is that capital campaigns go on two years, three years, four years. A long time. And there are a ton of committees or ad hoc committees or work groups or board meetings or campaign steering committee meetings or all kinds of meetings.

One of my favorite definitions of a capital campaign is that it’s just one very long series of meetings. The better than meetings are, the better the campaign goes. That’s kind of a funny definition of a campaign, and most people don’t think about it that way.

But if you do think about it that way, that means that you have to get very serious about understanding what it takes to have a good meeting, to design a good meeting. I mean, who even thinks about designing a meeting?

Amy Eisenstein:
Yes. It’s an important thing because the one thing that we hear frequently is that nobody shows up for meetings. Well, guess what? They’re not showing up for meetings because your meetings might be bad. I mean, obviously, people are busy and conflicts arise. But if people are unmotivated or uninspired to come to your meetings, they’re going to find any excuse not to come and you’re going to find your attendance decreasing over time.

But if your meetings are effective and exciting and interesting and an opportunity for thinking and growing and engaging and networking, people are going to come. They’re going to move things on their calendar and prioritize your meetings. And it’s true that campaigns are one long series of meetings. I think that that’s so true.

How to Tell if Your Campaign Meetings Are Bad?

Andrea Kihlstedt:
So yeah, let’s talk for a minute as you suggested Amy, about what a bad meeting is. What it feels like, what the factors are by and large that make a lousy meeting. How do you know if you’re in a lousy meeting?

Well, you kind of start to fall asleep. We’re doing Zoom meetings these days. So if you’re in a lousy Zoom meeting, you’re actually doing email, you’re looking at the screen. Everybody sort of thinks you’re there, but you’re doing email or you’re texting or you’re doing Instagram scrolling or whatever else. Right? And if that’s what you’re doing, you know that the meeting is lousy. The meeting’s not holding your attention.

You know that you’re safe, that no one’s going to call on you because they’re not going to call on anybody. There’s no role for you really and you need to keep half an eye in case something does happen that you have to respond to. But really you’re not really paying attention, and it’s no wonder then if you would decide not to show up in the next meeting because your participation really doesn’t matter.

Amy Eisenstein:
That’s right. I think that’s the heart of it.

• Do the attendees have a role?
• Do they participate?
• Are they engaged or are they just there to, in theory, absorb information which could have been sent to them?
• What’s the purpose of the meeting?

Andrea Kihlstedt:
I love that question, Amy, because I think that’s where every meeting begins. With whoever is organizing the meeting, thinking very carefully about what the purpose of the meeting is.

• What is it you want to do at the meeting?
• What are you going to accomplish?
• What is this group going to accomplish and why are all of these people at that meeting?
• Is it the right group of people to accomplish that task?

If the meeting is just to report, you might as well send an email or a report beforehand. You don’t have to waste everybody’s time having them come and then you talk at them the whole time. Right? That’s silly.

Always Consider What You Want to Accomplish During Your Meetings

So you need to think very carefully, well, what do we want to accomplish at this meeting? Why are these people here and how can we call on them to participate actively in some portion of the meeting?

Amy Eisenstein:
Do we need their opinion? Do we need their ideas? Do we need them to make a decision? What is the point of the meeting?

I mean, I’ll never forget recently, I went to a foundation board meeting. I sit on the board of this foundation and I got the agenda and I just knew it was going to be a bad meeting. And I suggested to the board president, well, do we really need to come for this meeting?

We all got there. 30 minutes later, she reported out and we all went home. I mean, at least it was short. That’s the best thing I can say about that meeting is that it didn’t last hours and hours, but it was terrible. There was no reason for it. She should have canceled it. She could have sent the information. It wasn’t a good use of anybody’s time.

So how are you going to use people’s time well? I would ask that. So what’s the purpose of the meeting? How are you going to engage people? Are you going to ask for their opinion, their feedback, their ideas, their expertise and how are you going to make meaningful meetings?

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yeah, and there are a number of ways to do that. One is that perhaps someone at the meeting will have an assignment beforehand and they will have to report on what they’ve done. Or maybe if everybody had an assignment beforehand, that they’ve been working on something, maybe everybody at the meeting reports and they know they’re going to have to report. That means that they come prepared and that you schedule 20 minutes where each person reports on what they’ve accomplished since the last meeting.

Now, of course, in order to do that, at the end of this meeting, you have to clarify the assignments that people have for the next meeting. So how you end that meeting may set up your next meeting. Now, sometimes that’s not the right approach. Sometimes you can have a section of the meeting that is a brainstorm session. Say:

“Here’s what we’re wrestling with. We have a situation here, we’re not sure how to deal with it. We might do this or that or the other thing. Let’s go around and hear what everybody thinks. We’re going to take the next 15 minutes to get people’s opinions on this and we’re going to make a decision by the end of this meeting.”

So then you throw it open to the group.

Digging Deeper: What Makes Campaign Meetings Work Well?

Amy Eisenstein:
You’ve said multiple things that I want to dig into a bit. First of all, we came to this topic, which I think is such a good and important one because the other day for listeners who are unfamiliar, at Capital Campaign Pro, our clients have lots of workshop and training options. One of them is a monthly CEO round table that we do every month. Anybody who’s a current Capital Campaign client of ours is invited, all the CEOs are invited to come.

And one of the topics that came up at that meeting recently was this idea of having effective meetings and using board member time well. And we came up with lots of specific examples of things that you might do, have board members do in advance of a meeting or between meetings and come back and report on.

So I want us to share a few of those ideas that came up at that meeting. I think that’s important. And then I want to talk about the idea of going around and making sure that everybody who comes to your meeting, assuming that it’s a meeting of less than about 12 people, everybody should talk three times. They should talk at the beginning of the meeting, they should talk at the end of the meeting, and they should talk in the middle of the meeting.

So let’s sort of tackle both. Which one do you want to tackle first?

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Can you remember some of the things that we discussed?

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah. So some of the ideas that came up of things to have committee members or board members, they don’t have to be board members, committee members do between meetings might be okay, you’re going to…

Engaging Board Members During Meetings

One idea was if board members aren’t confident about having a campaign or what’s expected, you might assign each board member to reach out to another board member in the community who’s sat on the board through a successful campaign recently. And ask about how it went, what they learned, pros and cons, but lessons learned. And then come back and report and say:

“Oh, Sue, on the hospital board that just finished a campaign learned this, that, and the other thing. What might we learn?”

So there’s really a robust discussion around that. So that’s one example of something that you might do.

Between meetings you might have little subcommittee meetings. So if you’re working with an architect, you might have three people from the larger group meet with the architect and discuss the questions. What does the architect need to know from the organization in terms of the programs and the services and how the building might be used in order to draw the best drawings possible? So there might be a discussion around that. Those are two that come to mind immediately. I’m sure I’ll think of more.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yeah, I mean what assignments you’ll make and what the purpose of the meeting is will depend on where in your campaign you are.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yes.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
So it’s not just that there’s a list, though I think it’s helpful to hear examples. But it’s not just that there’s a standard list. You have to look at:

1. Where are we in the campaign?
2. What’s the purpose of this upcoming meeting and this particular committee?
3. Does the committee know what the purpose of the committee is and then what the purpose of the meeting is?

And now who on the committee should… Maybe there’s somebody to give a report or maybe we have a brainstorming session. So you have to actively design each meeting, and there are a number of tips we can give you about that.

Engaging All Meeting Participants Early On and At the End

Amy talked about getting everyone to say something at every meeting, preferably three times. The quicker you get someone to say something at a meeting, the more engaged they will be in the rest of the meeting. So you should begin every meeting with some kind of a participation where everyone will have a chance to do that.

If you’re having Zoom meetings, it’s super helpful if you go around and call on people, right? Say we’re going to go around and ask each person how they’re feeling about the campaign or if there’s one thing that’s happened to them about the campaign between meetings. Just have a topic and then go around and get everyone to talk. Just getting everyone to talk about something and getting to think about the subject matter of the meeting will set your meeting up in the right way.

Then you’re going to want to design the middle section of the meeting. Is it a brainstorm? Is it some people on the committee reporting out on what they’ve done? Is it something else that’s appropriate to that meeting?

And finally, at the end, you’re going to want to go around again and say, okay, let’s do a quick go around and does everybody understand what they’re going to do next? Is there something from this meeting that you’d like to call out for next time? And you will conclude by saying here’s a summary of where we are, where we’re going and what the next committee meeting is. Right?

That’s a pretty helpful meeting design format that you can then design more specifically within for every meeting. Committee members will know why they’re there. They will know that when they show up, they’re going to be expected to participate and not do email or an internet scroll or Instagram scrolling. And if somebody is not a good participant in the meeting, if you find that they’re not showing up and not doing work, then you should talk to them about whether this is the right committee for them. You can do some reassignments.

Virtual vs. In-Person Campaign Meetings

Amy Eisenstein:
I want listeners to notice, you know, we haven’t really differentiated between virtual and in-person meetings. And I think I can say from experience, I have been to some terrible online meetings and some terrible in-person meetings. And sort of on the other side of that, great in-person meetings and great Zoom meetings or great virtual meetings. And so designing meetings well applies to both, and you can have good and bad meetings both in person or remotely. And I think the idea is to engage people and you will want to tell them the purpose.

Today, the purpose is brainstorming. Today, the purpose is finding out what everybody’s done since the last meeting and assigning next steps. Today we’re going to try and make a decision or come to a consensus. I mean, maybe the most obvious example of things to do between meetings is reach out to a donor and try and schedule a meeting, or move the conversation towards the solicitation or make the solicitation.

So coming back to the meeting is finding out what progress did you make with these donors? Where are we at? What are next steps? If we’re not sure what to do with the next donor or how to move them forward, let’s discuss it. Let’s brainstorm it. So that’s, I guess, an obvious thing depending on if you’re in the quiet phase of the campaign. That’s an obvious thing that you might have each person do between meetings is make one or two or three contacts.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yeah. It’s sometimes also a really good idea if you have a sense that the meetings are starting to lag, that they’re not working well. It often works to say to the committee, today we’re going to talk about how to make these meetings work better.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yes.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
To bring it up. To say, what would be more exciting? How can we run these meetings so they’re more efficient, more interesting for you? Let’s go around and just throw out your ideas about great meetings you’ve been to and what we might apply to our meetings.

Meetings come and go. They ebb and flow, right? All committees. If you have a committee that meets multiple times, there may be some time when it just feels down. And maybe that’s a good opportunity to say, hey, let’s talk about how we can make this better.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yes. And you might also say, we’re finding that our campaign is in a slump right now. Let’s brainstorm how we might breathe some life back into this campaign. What could we do that’s exciting? What have you seen work at other organizations? I mean, really tap into your volunteers for what they’re there for. Their experience, their expertise.

But really the worst meetings is when you show up and you don’t say a word. It really doesn’t matter that you were there. And so you want to make sure that you’re not… Then people will not show up. They will start not showing up, not following up. There’s nothing for them to do. There’s no purpose for them to be at the meeting. There’s nothing worse than that.

Dealing with Dominators

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Just diving into one more thing, Amy, before we close out here. One of the things that comes up at meetings is that people behave in different ways at meetings. Every once in a while you have someone who comes to a meeting who won’t stop talking. Who just dominates.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yes.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
And you have to think about how to deal with that, right? On the other side, there are people who come to meetings that you know are smart and wise, but they don’t participate unless you call on them. Unless you ask them what they think. So as you work with the committee, you’ll get to know these people and it’s your job to work with them to moderate the people who can’t stop talking and to invite the people who need an invitation if they’re going to participate.

Just because someone doesn’t naturally talk doesn’t mean that they don’t have great ideas. And just because someone talks a lot doesn’t mean that they have great ideas.

Amy Eisenstein:
So a kind way to do that is to say all right, let’s hear from someone we haven’t heard from yet. That both at the same time tells so-and-so to be quiet and says all right, if you haven’t spoken yet, now it’s your turn. We’re going to call on you. We’re going to come to you. I think that’s so important.

Sometimes it’s these little, I would say soft skills, meeting facilitation, running good meetings is considered a soft skill, but it’s something that’s so important and something that we work on with our clients at Capital Campaign Pro.

If you’re considering a campaign, I hope that you will consider us. I hope that you’ll visit the CapitalCampaignPro.com website and sign up to talk to us and see if we might be a good fit to support you in your team through a campaign. Because we look at fundraising, we look at meeting facilitation, we look at time management and stress of busy development directors.

Final Thoughts

Good meeting facilitation is absolutely critical to running an effective campaign.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yeah. And I think often overlooked by even the best of consultants. It’s just often overlooked and is so super important. Amy, this has been fun to do with you. I hope this has gotten people to think about, oh yeah, I really need to be thinking about and designing great meetings.

Well, I was just going to say, there’s a ton online about meeting design. This is actually a whole field of expertise. So we’ve given you a few little tips here and there, but I encourage you to go on. I’m going to drop one piece of information that I didn’t make up, but there is information about, and that is that what people remember from meetings is not necessarily the full scale of what happens.

What they remember is the moment of highest energy in a meeting, and that can be good or bad energy. It can be a conflict or it can be an exciting moment. And they remember what happened at the end of the meeting, how the meeting wrapped up. So if you do nothing else, pay close attention to that because those two moments are going to stick in people’s brains and everything else is likely to go away, to fade.

Amy Eisenstein:
Excellent. Well, thank you so much for those words of wisdom, Andrea, and thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.