Podcast: Curiosity and the Art of Fundraising: Building Genuine Donor Relationships

Season 4, Episode 24
In this episode, Amy Eisenstein and Andrea Kihlstedt dive into the often-overlooked power of curiosity in fundraising. They explore how understanding donors’ motivations and personal stories can transform your fundraising efforts and create authentic connections that inspire giving.
Whether you’re in the quiet phase of a campaign or preparing for a significant ask, this episode will give you actionable insights to enhance your approach and raise more money. Tune in to learn why curiosity isn’t just important—it’s essential for fundraising success.
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Amy Eisenstein:
How curious are you about your donors and does it even matter?
Hi, I’m Amy Eisenstein. I’m here with my colleague and co-founder, Andrea Kihlstedt, and today we’re talking about curiosity and motivation for giving and why it matters.
Andrea’s Story About Motivation for Giving
Andrea, how did you come up with this topic?
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yeah. Amy, I am so happy we’re talking about this. It’s a fresh topic for me and here’s why. So over the last couple of weeks, a woman that I know who runs sort of an art gallery education space in East Harlem, which is not very far from where I live, she invited me to her gallery for an event and I went. I gave her a little money to the event and then she asked if she could drop by to deliver a signed print that came with the gala and we chatted for a while.
Amy Eisenstein:
Right. Which is good because you love the arts.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
I love the arts, right. True.
Amy Eisenstein:
You love supporting the arts.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
I do. And I like supporting small organizations and I like helping people. All of that’s good. So she came up and we were chatting and I said to her, “you know, I give you a challenge.” I said, “If you come back to me and ask me for a gift for your organization, I will make a gift. I can’t promise you how much, but I’ll make a gift just because you make the effort to do it. But you have to come and ask for a gift.”
Amy Eisenstein:
As a good fundraiser that you are, right?
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yes. Exactly.
Amy Eisenstein:
You’re training her. You’re training her.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
I’m training her. And in fact, I do this to many organizations. When people come to me personally and ask me for something or ask me for some help, that’s what I say to them. “If you come and ask me for a gift, I will give.” This is a no-lose situation for you.
Amy Eisenstein:
No lose. Yes. Win-win.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
No lose situation. But you have to get up the courage to ask me for a gift. And it’s interesting of the people I do that for, about half of them don’t get the courage to come and ask. But this woman said, “I have the courage and I will be back. I will do that.”
So lo and behold, a day or two ago, I get an email from her with a lovely little proposal asking for a gift. Actually asking for if you give $1,000, here’s what it’ll do. If you give 2000, here’s what it’ll do. Kind of a range of gifts and it was-
Amy Eisenstein:
Can I just make an audible sigh here? She sent you an email.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yes, exactly.
Amy Eisenstein:
Sigh. Sigh.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Sent me an email, right? She sent me an email and with the email, was a note saying, “Here’s my proposal and I’d love to get feedback from you.” So it wasn’t just an email. She acknowledged that I had offered feedback. So I wrote her back, said, “I will look at it and let’s schedule a time to get together.” So we got to do that next week. So this is high on my mind.
Now what’s high on my mind about it? So now let me start out by saying, I like this woman. I like what she does. I think it’s pretty impressive, but I realize that she has spent absolutely no time at all getting to know me. Asking me anything about —
Amy Eisenstein:
Even though you sat down.
Getting to Know the Donor is Critical
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Even though we sat down. Right now, you can see from our apartment, we have art on the walls. You can see that. I mean, just from general conversation, she knows something about me. But she never said…
- What is it about what I’m doing that might interest you?
- How does it connect to your life?
- Is there some way that what I’m doing actually ties in to what you’re interested in doing?
- What kind of organizations do you support?
- How do you like to support them?
- What’s been the most fantastic gift and response you’ve ever done?
Anything, right?
- What do your children do?
- Were you raised in an artistic family?
- Why does art matter to you?
- Why does art matter to you?
Amy Eisenstein:
I’m just cringing because your whole family are artists. Everybody’s an artist. And the idea that she wouldn’t know that is so, dare I say, cringy.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yes. No, but let me say this. This woman is not alone, which is why I wanted to do this podcast because most all of us when we are working on raising money for a project and we think about going and asking someone for money, what do we think about? We think putting together the case for supporting our project.
Amy Eisenstein:
Yes.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Right? We think about writing a proposal. We think about practicing a solicitation. We think about putting the best foot forward for our organization. That’s what we’re wired to think about.
Amy Eisenstein:
Yes. All right.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Instead of —
Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah, I was going to say. So listeners get the point.
How to Determine the Motivation for Giving
So let’s talk about now what would motivate giving, what she should be doing.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
So here would’ve been for me the ideal scenario. That I would’ve gotten an email from her the next day or two saying:
“Thanks so much for your kind offer. It’s great that you’re willing to help me get good at this and wonderful, you’re willing to let me come and ask you for a gift. But before I do that, I really need to know a ton more about you because if I’m going to ask you for something, I want to ask you for something you’re going to want to do.”
Amy Eisenstein:
Yes. Tailor the approach, right?
Andrea Kihlstedt:
That’s right.
Amy Eisenstein:
Tailor the solicitation.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
She should have said:
“How about if I take you out for coffee on Thursday morning,? Let’s meet at the cafe for coffee.”
Amy Eisenstein:
Or come back to the gallery or I’ll come back to you.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Or come back to the gallery or whatever.
Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
But she should have made time specifically to find out about me. To say, I just don’t know enough about you. You’re generous with your use of time, but really we’ve just met. So can we get together? So that would’ve been the first thing for her to do, right?
And then had she asked a lot of questions, she would’ve learned a whole ton of stuff. She would’ve learned that my mother was an artist. That when my father retired, he became an artist. That I spent my childhood going to New York City with them to galleries every week. That my husband is an artist historian. We have a little art collection. That we believe that art for kids makes a huge difference, really matters. That people who are artists and in the arts are remarkably effective in all kinds of other things.
So she would’ve been able to learn that for me, art is not just a flu-flu off to the side thing. That art and art education teaches you more than most anything else you learn in school, in fact.
Amy Eisenstein:
And what I just learned is that you’re the ideal legacy donor for her. And that in addition, she shouldn’t just be asking you for $1,000. She should be asking you to really get involved and how are you going to help sustain this organization? Because that’s what I just learned from your story.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Right. So there’s a ton for her to learn about me. Then once she had learned that, then she should say:
“Okay, now I’m ready to come and ask you for a gift.”
And she should ask me for a relatively small gift up front. Because for me to consider giving a legacy gift, I’m going to have to watch her.
Amy Eisenstein:
Of course. Of course.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
I’m going to have to watch and see how she functions. Then she’s going to have to stay in touch with me. She’s going to have to invite me to things. She’s going to have to tell me the stories of the kids who are successful in her program. She’s going to have to call me up and say, “Hey, you know Justin who you met at the gallery? Here’s what happened. He got into a school based on his art.” Or whatever. Right?
Amy Eisenstein:
Right.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
You’re going to have to stay in touch with me. If she does, I don’t need to be on her board. I don’t want to be on her board. I really don’t.
Amy Eisenstein:
But she doesn’t know that yet because —
Andrea Kihlstedt:
It’s true.
Amy Eisenstein:
You haven’t discussed it.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Exactly.
Amy Eisenstein:
And she should not make any assumptions.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Exactly. Exactly.
Amy Eisenstein:
And I think that that’s a good point because not every big donor needs to be on your board, nor wants to be on your board. But you have to explore what do they want to do? How do they want to be involved? What do they want to know before they consider a larger gift? Whatever that means.
Asking Important Questions
And so one of the things that I’m hearing in this conversation, and I know part of this you’re teaching her how to fundraise, but good fundraisers would’ve asked you those questions. She’s already been to your apartment and she missed a huge opportunity. Most donors wouldn’t want to then circle back and have another second discovery call.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Right. Right.
Amy Eisenstein:
And so it’s important to do that initially and not miss your opportunity because not all donors want to sit down with fundraisers and have coffee multiple times. You’re special in that way. But I think using every opportunity to interact, to learn something new about the donor.
And sort of my shortcut, my shorthand for this is:
If you don’t know why the donor’s interested in your organization or why they gave in the first place, you’re not ready to ask for another gift. So some very basic, basic knowledge about why they care, what motivates them, what inspires them.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Well, and it’s actually even more complicated than that because… So why did I do anything with her to begin with? Well, because her sister goes to the same gym I go to, she and I have a little friendship. She introduced me right to her sister. So I didn’t want to disappoint my friend at the gym. So I was willing to meet with her sister. So I met with her sister. Sister told me what she was up to. So I’m still at the fairly entry level.
Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Which is all right, there are sort of little personal reasons to keep saying yes to her. But what she needs to know about me has to deepen as what she’s going to ask me for becomes more significant. And that happens over time.
And I’m not suggesting that anybody can do this with every donor, but if you have a donor who has the capacity to give a significant gift relative to your organization, you shouldn’t think that this is a one-shot deal. You’re going to get together and ask all the questions and then you’re done.
Amy Eisenstein:
No, of course not. Yes.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Think about okay, what are the ways in which I can build a deeper understanding, a deeper relationship with this person? And then as that relationship deepens, then I can start asking for different things.
Amy Eisenstein:
And yes, thank you. And I want to just say that I didn’t really mean to imply that she should have —
Andrea Kihlstedt:
No, and I knew you didn’t.
Amy Eisenstein:
Ask you for a legacy gift on the first visit. But in my head, that’s what your story triggered is that your whole life is dedicated to the arts and surrounded by the arts and impacted by the arts. And so who else would be a lifelong donor and supporter and legacy donor? Not on the first visit.
Get Curious About Your Donors
Andrea Kihlstedt:
I mean, just to take this a little farther, there’s another whole area. This is a woman of color. Her organization is in a part of New York that is a poor part of New York that doesn’t have many arts organizations there. That happens to be a big part of my life. I often have lived in poor neighborhoods for most of my adult life. I’m very interested in living in places with people who are not like me, and what’s that like?
That’s a whole different reason to be interested in supporting this woman. So she might say, “Gee, why is it you live here in the South Bronx? How did that come about? It’s unusual that you would be living here.”
Amy Eisenstein:
You don’t look like anybody else in this neighborhood.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Exactly, exactly. Why do you live here? So that’s a whole other thing that she might be curious about to finding out about me. So all of which is not to say that I matter, but that every donor has stories. Every donor has ways of being.
- Maybe their church, maybe their religion is important to them.
- Maybe their family is important to them.
- Maybe where their family came from in Italy or wherever is important to them.
- Maybe the culture in which they grew up as one way or another way.
- Maybe their family has been affected by a disease of some sort and they want to give back.
Everyone has such different things and it takes some moxie for someone thinking about asking for a gift to say, whoa, let me stop before I ask for a gift.
Amy Eisenstein:
Right.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
And let me find out what drives the person I am going to be asking.
Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
That’s the point.
Giving Motivation as it Pertains to Capital Campaigns
Amy Eisenstein:
Let’s pivot the conversation and let’s imagine that an organization’s in a capital campaign or preparing for a campaign. And so you are fortunate enough to get a meeting with somebody that you are thinking about for your campaign.
So how might a development office, a development committee, prepare for some campaign meetings? What is the conversation that happens in the development office or with your campaign committee as you prepare to go out and have these initial, early… Whether it’s feasibility or just an informal conversation, but you get a meeting. And that’s pretty exciting in and of itself because the truth is it’s hard to get meetings with people days.
So you get a meeting and what does the conversation look like the days and weeks leading up to the conversation so that you do think about those things and think through the questions that you want to ask? How do you coach people to do that?
Andrea Kihlstedt:
So the first thing I would say is have a conversation with the key people in your development shop and make a list of what you know about this person. And really, this is not what you know in terms of how much wealth they have and how many holdings they have and how much real estate they have. Again, too often that’s what we focus on. Honestly, that’s far less important than all of the other things we want to be able to know.
So you can spend a good half hour, hour saying, “What do we know about Susan Jones and her family?” Let’s really think about what we know. Let’s think about how we might find out what are the things we would want to know about Susan Jones and her family? And then sort of develop the list of questions starting with what you already know and then going beyond. And when you have a whole list of questions of things you know it would be helpful to understand, but you don’t yet know about, then you have to figure out, well, how can we find out?
And while it is possible to find out a lot of these things without talking to the donor, one of the best ways to find them out is by talking to the donor. Because they will tell it to you. They will tell you these things with a color and energy and excitement that will clue you into who they really are in a way that reading about them in some article or online never will.
Amy Eisenstein:
That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. So these conversations should be strategic. They should be thoughtful. They should be planned in advance. Now, you don’t want to sound like a robot, but I always like to talk to development directors about what are the three questions? What are the five questions you want to ask this donor? Or what do you need to know before you can craft a proposal or a solicitation? What don’t you know about this donor that would be helpful in tailoring your ask?
Because if you present the same exact solicitation to every single donor for your campaign, it’s not going to be personal, it’s not going to resonate, it’s not going to motivate. So how can you say because of your interest or history with XYZ, because of your commitment to or passion for, we’re doing this specific aspect of the program in this way that resonates.
Now, you’re not going to change your project or your program, but you’re going to be able to highlight different pieces of it based on the interests and needs and of your donors. That’s what good fundraising is about.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
To really make it very, very simple, the very best fundraisers are very curious about other people. They really are. They genuinely are interested in other people and they’re willing to ask. And the worst fundraisers or the most inexperienced fundraisers are those who don’t even think about who the other people are, but can’t get their eyes off the money.
It’s one of these paradoxes, right? When you take your eyes off the money and look at the donor, you’re likely to be a better fundraiser than when you don’t look at the donor and follow the money.
Remember – People Love to Talk About Themselves
Amy Eisenstein:
Right. Sort of a silly cliché to remember is what’s the number one thing that people like to talk about? And everybody knows the answer to that, it’s themselves. And so if you sit having a meeting with a donor and tell them about your programs and services and stats and figures and campaign plans, they’re not going to be that interested because it’s not about them. And that’s just human nature. It’s not a criticism. It’s just the way people are wired.
So instead, if you have a meeting where you’re asking donors about themselves and their involvement and their activities and their family and their commitments and their passions, they’re going to think you’re so much more interesting. They’re going to be so much more engaged and you can spend 20% of the meeting talking about your programs and services in reaction to what they’re excited about and what resonates with them.
So you can sort of follow up and have the conversation follow their interests. But 80% of the conversation should be your donor talking. Not you presenting. So if you prepare a presentation, you’re starting wrong. Start with questions.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Amy, it seems like such a simple lesson, right? It seems like such an obvious, simple lesson. And yet, so few people are good at this. They’re intimidated. They’re worried about asking donors. They don’t feel it’s their position to ask donors about themselves somehow. And somehow the wealthier the donor, the less they feel it’s their position to ask. Right?
Amy Eisenstein:
The more tongue-tied you become.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
The more tongue-tied they become. So I just want to acknowledge that while this all is really true and important and everyone should be working on becoming more curious and talking to donors about who the donor is, who they are. I just want to acknowledge that it is not intuitive for many, many people.
Don’t Be Afraid to Get Curious!
Amy Eisenstein:
Right. And along those lines, you can acknowledge that to the donor. Say:
“Listen, I’m curious. You’re such a busy person? Why did you decide to give 30 minutes to me today? Why is this organization important enough or this issue important enough that you would make time in your schedule for me? I’m curious why this meeting made it onto your calendar. Tell me more.”
Andrea Kihlstedt:
And they may say something like I would say, “I work out of the gym with your sister, and she asked me to do that.”
Amy Eisenstein:
Yes.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
All right. Well, that’s a starting place.
Amy Eisenstein:
That is a starting place. And can you say:
“Listen, we’re so grateful because we’re looking to meet new people who might be interested in the arts. Are you interested in the arts? Can you tell me more about that?”
Right?
Yes. All right. Great. I think we’ve hammered this home, Andrea. This was a great conversation and hopefully, listeners take away something and at least the next donor meeting, you prepare with questions and you get more curious and you will raise more money.
Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yes, indeed.
Amy Eisenstein:
All right. Thanks for joining us. We’ll see you next time.
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