Podcast: Extreme Gratitude: Recognizing Unsung Heroes of Campaigns

Season 4, Episode 8

In this episode, Amy Eisenstein and Andrea Kihlstedt discuss the importance of recognizing the unsung heroes of fundraising campaigns. These individuals often work behind the scenes, making crucial contributions that drive campaigns to success. Amy and Andrea share stories of meaningful and creative ways to show gratitude.

Tune in to learn the value of recognizing the key players in campaigns in a way that feels sincere and special to them

Listen Now:

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Today, we’re going to talk about extreme gratitude. In fact, we’re going to talk about how there are some people who are extreme in how they make campaigns happen.

Amy Eisenstein:
Hi, I’m Amy Eisenstein. I’m here with my colleague and co-founder, Andrea Kihlstedt. And today we’re going to talk about extraordinary individuals who go over and above and really bring your campaign to life and it’s critical or is it critical that you thank them in extraordinary ways? And how might you think about doing that?

Why Unsung Heroes of Capital Campaigns Matter

So Andrea, why is this topic important? Let’s start there and then we can give some examples of some extraordinary thanks that we’ve seen happen in the field.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yeah. Well, Amy, thinking about this topic is really fun for me and fun for you because Capital Campaign Pro has now been in business for long enough so that we have a bunch of campaigns that are coming to a conclusion. Campaigns take a while, and in the early couple of years of our business, campaigns were in the early stages. Now we are seeing campaigns that are coming to successful conclusions. So more and more people are turning their attention to what they can do to recognize and thank the people who have made their campaigns so successful. So it is in some way, this topic is just a natural progression of our business. It reflects the successful progression of our business.

It particularly came to light to me when one of the projects I have been working on came and invited me to participate in something that will recognize the person who was the fundamental driver of this incredibly successful campaign that has just come to an end. And someone emailed… one of the board members emailed me and said:

“We’ve been thinking about ways to recognize our executive director for all the remarkable work that he’s done as the building opens and the campaign draws to a conclusion. We don’t think he wants… he would like any public recognition. It’s not who he is, but we would like to invite you and everyone else who’s been involved to take a three by five index card and write on it a note about how you feel about him and his work on this campaign. And send it back to me and I will put all of those together into a book for him.”

And I thought to myself, it’s such a great example of something that’s not expensive and something that’s not glittery and something that fits who this man is. He’s an understated guy who made this campaign happen.

Amy Eisenstein:
And he won’t expect it. And it’s so genuine and heartfelt. I mean, to me, that’s the key. And I love that we’re starting with an example of the board getting behind thanking an executive director because I think sometimes the staff is taken for granted. Sometimes the board’s taken for granted. But we’re talking about extraordinary thank-you’s for people who really make campaigns happen. And sometimes we aim that gratitude at donors and board members. And sometimes it is wonderful when the staff is recognized too.

So I think that’s a great example. And I love how tangible and tactile and participatory it is because every board member’s going to write a notecard and some donors may write a notecard and staff may write a notecard and he’ll have this keepsake. I want to share an example. It made me think of a more modern way to do that, which is interesting.

That strikes me as lovely and old-fashioned, and you can actually do a video scrapbook of sorts. I first learned about this during the pandemic. I think my son turned 16, so his 16th birthday was in quarantine. It was April right? COVID started in March and he turned 16 in April. And I sent out this birthday invitation to all his friends and family, and they all recorded a little birthday wish. And it’s sort of the same thing. It’s a virtual scrapbook, but people did video thank-you’s, and you could do that certainly for donors, for staff. And then they have this forever video keepsake of people just sharing why they were amazing.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yeah. There are many other examples of this, but it strikes me that just about every campaign that comes to a successful conclusion, there are one or two people who have worked tirelessly to make it happen. And sometimes they’re very public, they’re public figures, sometimes they’re donors who have given a lot of money. But more often than not, they’re the people who are leading the campaign in a different sort of way. They’re not wealthy, they’re not fancy, they’re not anything. They’re just totally committed and totally working hard to make the campaign happen.

And I’ve rarely been involved in a campaign where you couldn’t — at the end of the campaign — identify someone like that. And those are the people we’re thinking about recognizing, those unsung heroes if you will, of your campaign.

Examples of How to Recognize Unsung Campaign Heroes

Amy Eisenstein:
So how have you seen them recognized? What’s another example? I love that scrapbook example where everybody participates. Do you have another example?

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yeah. I’ll give you another example. I was involved in a hospital campaign to build a new wing of a hospital. And one of the people who really was one of these leaders who worked tirelessly was a woman who had been a nurse who retired and who just got on board with this campaign. And she organized the volunteers and she asked for money and she co-chaired the campaign and she made it her full-time job. She was a volunteer. She didn’t take any money for it, but she worked full-time plus to make that campaign happen.

And eventually the campaign came round and was a big success. And the board got together, some group of board members got together to decide how to thank her, how to recognize and to thank her. And again, they didn’t want to do anything that was giving her a gold watch that somehow didn’t feel like it fit her. But what someone knew was that this woman had long wanted to go to Italy and long wanted to go to Rome, I think, actually, and to have a trip to Rome.

So what they did was they went to the board, to individual board members, and they asked the board each member individually to contribute to a fund to send Becky and her husband to Rome.

Amy Eisenstein:
Wow. What a gift.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
That’s what they did. She was bowled over. Now, it wasn’t that she couldn’t… she was a woman of some means. She wasn’t a woman without money. But the fact that the board did that to give them the money to do something that they really wanted to do, made it incredibly special for her.

Amy Eisenstein:
That’s amazing. And think about that, a volunteer working full time, it speaks volumes for the campaign. And if you have to pay somebody for all those hours, I mean, sending someone to a trip to Rome is a fraction of what you would have to pay a staff member or a consultant or anybody else. So having that volunteer there was invaluable, I’m sure, in many ways, in many ways.

So that’s interesting. It reminds me of this woman I worked with years ago who, for one of her older donors who was wonderful and powerful and did all sorts of amazing things for the organization. But this development director decided… and this woman lived by herself and she was active, but she was also, she didn’t have any family. She lived by herself. And this development director made her a coupon book. And every month there was a coupon that said:

“All right, in October, I’m going to bake you an apple pie and bring it over and we’ll have coffee and apple pie.”

Or maybe October was:

“I’m going to bring you a pumpkin and we’re going to carve it together.”

And in January:

“There’s one coupon for shoveling your walk.”

And the development director did, she went over and shoveled this woman’s walk one time, and it was just… you can’t do that for a lot of donors. You can do it for one or two special select people who really make a difference at the organization, who move the needle for the campaign. And I think thinking outside the box, some of the examples we’ve given are just tipping the iceberg.

What you could do to really show your gratitude and to tell people this happened because of you. We’re not doing this for everybody? We’re doing this for one or two people who moved the needle for this organization by putting their heart and soul, sometimes money, but often not into the campaign.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
I think what’s important to think about in this kind of gratitude is that it has to be right for the person who is getting the recognition.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yes.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Some people really like public recognition. They thrive on it. They thrive on parties, they thrive on being social, being called out in public. And some people run away from it. And as you get to know people, you see what they prefer.

Recognize Unsung Campaign Heroes in Different Ways

So I think the important thing is to pay close attention to who the people are, what is appropriate for them and what’s not appropriate for them, rather than just selecting the kind of recognition that is standardized in situations like this. And sometimes it takes a small group of people to sit down and have a real conversation about, “Okay, what would be right? What would they like? What would really make a difference to them?”

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah, I mean, if I gave you a plaque, you would put it in the trash.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
That’s right. Or I would put it in the closet anyway right?

Amy Eisenstein:
The closet. And with an eye roll. With an eye roll.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Exactly. Exactly. It’s just not who I am right?

Amy Eisenstein:
It wouldn’t be meaningful.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Right. So you have to… to recognize anyone really well, you have to look and see what would resonate with them, what they like, what they would appreciate. And it’s very different for individuals. There’s not as though there’s one good way to do it or a bad way to do it. The way to do it is to think carefully about the person you’re going to recognize and then find a way to recognize them that’s going to hit the spot just right for that person.

So I think it’s, as we get to the end of more and more campaigns, Amy, I’m happy to have a chance as we’ve taken today, to actually just put some out of the ordinary ideas out there. Not because these are things anybody should particularly do, but because they might stimulate other thinking, other ideas. And we of course, are always hungry to hear about other ideas because love to have sort of a library of things that people have done to make their special campaign heroes feel great.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah, that’s interesting that you talk about a library. Obviously we have our Online Toolkit for our clients, and it has lots of examples. I’m not sure it has examples of these things. So maybe we need to start adding to our library or continue adding to our library. But for those listeners who are interested in getting samples and getting advice, and getting coaching and getting templates, do come over to the Capital Campaign Pro website, sign up to talk to us about your campaign and see if our services and our toolkit and library of samples and templates might be a good fit for your campaign.

So Andrea, great. I think it’s always fun to brainstorm with you. Thank you for an interesting and innovative topic today, and we’ll see you next time.