Podcast: Mastering Accountability, Habits, and Motivation in Capital Campaigns

Season 3, Episode 50

In this episode, Amy Eisenstein and Andrea Kihlstedt delve into the critical components of accountability, habits, and motivation in the context of fundraising campaigns. Drawing on their extensive experience, they explore real-life scenarios highlighting the significance of staying accountable and cultivating productive habits.

Discover the importance of taking concrete actions in fundraising endeavors, moving beyond procrastination and excuses. Eisenstein and Kihlstedt share practical insights on fostering motivation and developing consistent habits, essential for achieving success in capital campaigns.

Listen Now:

Amy Eisenstein:
Have you ever put off doing something that you really had to get done? I know I have. That’s what we’re going to talk about today.

Hi, I’m Amy Eisenstein. I’m here with my colleague and co-founder, Andrea Kihlstedt. And today we are going to talk about the importance of accountability, habit, motivation and how they play such an important role in your [capital] campaign.

Why Accountability Matters in Capital Campaigns

Andrea, let’s talk about accountability in campaigns and why it matters.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yeah. Well, Amy, I’ll give you a real life story about why it matters.

As you know, every Wednesday we have these small groups of our clients who come together. They often have six or eight, sometimes 10 people come every week, and they talk about their campaigns, where their campaigns are and how they’re going, and they bring their questions to the table.

And recently, actually, for some months now, one person on those calls has been saying, “Well, we’re just about to get started. Just about to get started. We’re just about to start making calls. We’re just about to start making…” Every week. Every week.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yes, yes.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
I feel like saying, “Hello, I’ve heard you say this now for the last 10 weeks.”

Amy Eisenstein:
Oh, gosh.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
“I haven’t heard you talk about how much money you’ve raised.”

Amy Eisenstein:
Right. Or how many calls you’ve made.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Or how many calls you’ve made. And there’s always something, you know? Something needs to be approved and something needs to do this. Some of it’s valid, some of it really is valid. But every time he says that, it makes me laugh because I realize that the people who raise money in their capital campaigns are out there doing the work.

That means that they’re out there calling donors, scheduling appointments with donors, visiting with donors, soliciting donors, asking for gifts. That’s where the rubber meets the road in this capital campaign business.

And if you’re not doing it, guess what? You are not raising money.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah. So it’s not about excuses, it’s not about procrastination. It’s not going to be perfect. Nobody’s campaign, nobody’s asks are perfect, certainly not the ones that get done, right? It’s about progress, not perfection, as the saying goes. So I think it’s really important.

How to Stay Accountable and Maintain Good Campaign Habits

So the question is how to stay accountable, how to get into good habits of asking, how to be motivated. I think these all tie very closely together and are very real issues for development directors and executive directors who are understaffed and overworked and have fires to put out and long to-do lists and not enough help.

So let’s really think through how we can help listeners think about accountability and getting into those good habits. I think you need both. You need good habits, you need a lot of motivation, and you need accountability in order to stay on track.

So let me just start with a really quick story. I wrote about it on the Capital Campaign Pro blog, but this past weekend I ran a 5K. And I have to tell you, as you know, it was not something that I was super excited about, but for some reason, I got it in my head that I was going to do it last year. I didn’t do it. I failed to do it. I let our team know at Capital Campaign Pro and they said:

“Oh my gosh, we’re not going to let you fail at that goal again.”

And so I would’ve failed if I didn’t have people keeping me accountable. I had the goal of running the 5K. I had the motivation of getting healthy and being healthier, being stronger. And the key, honestly, the secret sauce, was people every week sort of poking me. So the question is how can you in your campaign have people poke you?

Because the reality is that there’s no donors that are waiting for your calls, right? Just like the story you told earlier, you could put it off one week after another, after another, after another. No donor is going to be like, “Oh, gee, Amy didn’t call me this week,” right?

So how do we apply these lessons in a capital campaign and how do we ensure that people get into the habit of picking up the phone, making appointments, visiting donors? How do we increase that motivation and how do we put accountability systems in place to make sure everybody’s successful?

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Well, let’s start talking, Amy, about the motivation with the capital campaign.

The Power of Motivation During a Campaign

You know, capital campaign, one definition is that they’re a big dollar goal up against a time deadline, right? That, all of a sudden, you’re raising $10 million and it has to be raised by such and such a date because the building has to be built, or whatever it is you’re doing in your campaign, right?

Amy Eisenstein:
Yes.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Dollar goal up against a time deadline. So there is the motivation and your entire institution has lined up around those that you will have to report to the board, for example, about how the campaign is doing. You will have to report to your executive director. You’ll have to report to your campaign committees, right?

In some sense, all those campaign committees are set up so that they are to motivate everybody to actually get the work done. But if you are just one person sort of puttering around to get it done, the chances are it’s not going to get done. It’s like Amy and her support team. So a capital campaign is set up to be a system that provides both motivation and some version of accountability. But there are some people for whom that’s not enough, and you need some more personal accountability systems or patterns.

Now I, for one, have found that getting into a habit helps. That like Amy, I exercise regularly. In fact, I exercise every day. And the reason I exercise every day is not necessarily because I think exercising every day is necessary, but because it’s a habit. I wake up in the morning and I know I’m going to exercise. I don’t have to say:

“Well, should I do it today or should I not do it today?”

And the minute I am having to ask myself that question, it falls apart. When I know that every morning I’m getting up and I’m going to the gym, I don’t even think about it anymore, right?

Amy Eisenstein:
Yes.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
And it becomes much easier. Then when I get there, I exercise. Some days I do better, some days I do worse. Some days I do harder exercise. Some days I do less hard. But boy, it is a habit. And when I don’t do it, I know something feels wrong.

Setting Up Good-Habit Systems

And you can set up a system that becomes a habit for you when it comes to scheduling calls with your major donors and to going and seeing them on your calendar. Maybe every Monday, for example, you can call and schedule your calls for the next week. And then the following Monday, you’re following up on the calls you had last week and you’re scheduling the calls for the next week. And it is on your calendar like clockwork. It’s a habit. You don’t give anyone else that time because that is your time to schedule your calls.

Once you’ve scheduled the calls, I promise you, they’re going to happen. You’re not going to forget them.

Amy Eisenstein:
So here’s the thing. I have to say that two or three weeks into running at the beginning of the year, I desperately wanted to quit, right? I was miserable and unhappy and regretful that I had declared that I was going to run this 5K. And if it wasn’t for the outside pressure for the accountability and sort of the public declaration that I was going to do it, I would’ve stopped. So I think that there needs to be, yes, scheduling and sort of outside accountability.

So to me, it’s about not only scheduling the time to make the calls, but telling your boss you’re going to do it and your boss asking you, “Did you do it?” And to me, that’s not micromanaging. It is just encouraging each other and being there for one another.

Reporting Back to People Who Keep You Accountable

So do you have to report back to the board every month on how many calls you made? It’s not that the board’s going to come and say, “Report to us,” but you can say, “I’m going to report to you. I need to have made 10 calls a month in order for us to succeed on this campaign, and I need you to hold me accountable. Otherwise, it’s going to slip off the to-do list,” right? It’s human nature. Everybody’s busy. If it’s your least favorite thing to do in the week, it’s the easiest to put off and so both making it a habit, and I think building in accountability mechanisms.

Now I just talked about two free ones, right? You’re the executive director checking in, the board checking in. Often, organizations hire consultants to serve as accountability partners because it is so challenging. And that’s not being critical, it’s just how humans work. We procrastinate. Our nature is to put things off that are difficult and challenging and that we’re nervous about. And so sometimes it is perfectly appropriate to pay somebody to hold your feet to the fire.

I mean, that’s a lot of what our advisors do at Capital Campaign Pro. I mean, they do a lot more than that as well, but one of their roles is to be a cheerleader, to be an accountability partner. And that is often how the work gets done.

A Story of Capital Campaign Accountability

Andrea Kihlstedt:
You know, Amy, I have a story from yesterday, actually. I have a weekly meeting with an organization that I’ve been working with for quite some time. Their campaign is at the very end, they’ve been very successful at the very end of their campaign, but they somehow don’t want to give up their meetings with me.

So once a week I meet, maybe it’s every other week, I guess. Now it’s gone down to every other week we meet. And they have to come up with the agenda. I don’t come up with that. They come up with the agenda so that holds them accountable. If they want my time, they need to come up with what the important issues are.

And sometimes there’s something on my mind from what I know they should do, and I bring it up at every call. And yesterday I brought it up again. I said, “Have you done such and have you written to so-and-so?” “No, not yet.” I said, “Well, I’m still here asking you about it. What can you write? What are you going to write? What’s going to work for you? Can you tell me by next week that you’ve written this letter,” right?

Amy Eisenstein:
And what are the blocks? I mean, you can explore, why haven’t you written it?

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Why haven’t you written it? What’s getting in the way of writing it? But if I didn’t bring that up, I mean, I am their accountability partner in that. This is not something that anybody else is going to push them on because nobody else realizes how important it is, right? But I know it’s important.

Amy Eisenstein:
Right. So sometimes the board and the executive director aren’t enough. You need the outside expertise of someone who’s been through campaign after campaign after campaign who can identify those critical issues, or that the cadence isn’t right, or that the outreach hasn’t been done, or whatever the case may be.

I mean, certainly sort of self-reporting to the board, you can… I was going to say fudge the numbers. I don’t really mean that, but sort of call the least important people first. That’s what I mean by fudging the numbers. You know, you can be busy, but not effective, right?

• So are you calling the people at the top of the gift pyramid?
• If not, what has to happen before you do?
• What do you need to do to feel prepared?
• What is getting in the way?

I think that’s a really important role that consultants play in campaigns. The idea is that you’re raising more money than you’ve ever imagined before. And so sometimes it is important to pay for accountability, and that’s just part of the process.

Accountability Gets Easier with Well-Formed Habits

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Let me go back, Amy, to the analogy with our various exercise practices, what you and I have exercise practices, and it strikes me that the more we do it, the more you run, the more I do my exercise, the easier some things get.

I mean, first of all, it’s easier just to do it because, as we said, you’re in the habit. But more than that, you get better at it and you start to enjoy it. You start to enjoy the challenge of it. You’re not dreading it. You’re kind of enjoying it. Last time I did such and such a weight, now this time, maybe I can do more weight.

So once you get into a habit, it takes on a life of its own. And the same is true with calling major donors, right?

Amy Eisenstein:
For sure.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Once you get over your fear and you get more comfortable with it.

Amy Eisenstein:
Well, just imagine that first million gift, that gives you all the confidence in the world. I mean, if you’ve never raised a million dollars before and then you get your first million dollar gift, wow, is that motivating. So it’s just a matter of getting out there and asking for that kind of gift, preparing for them.

I’m not just saying willy-nilly, go out and ask people. You’re going to be prepared. You’re going to practice. You’re going to strategize. You’re not just going to wing it. This is serious business. But once you do, oh my gosh, that high is incredible.

And you’re right, it’s just like exercise. That adrenaline, that endorphins, you will want to fundraise even more. Successful fundraising begets successful fundraising. So you do need to get into the habit. And staying accountable, certainly at the beginning, is going to be key to your success.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
So don’t be like our friend who comes week after week after week and tells us that he’s going to get to it. Don’t do that. Otherwise, you’re not going to raise any money.

Final Thoughts on Capital Campaign Accountability

Amy Eisenstein:
You know, that’s interesting, Andrea. One question that I get from time to time when I’m talking to prospective clients for Capital Campaign Pro, they ask what makes a successful client and what makes an unsuccessful client. And the answer I always give is:

If an organization shows up to their strategy sessions week after week and hasn’t completed the assignments, it’s not going to go well for them. There’s nothing we can do to sort of force the campaign’s success if the staff and board members aren’t making their calls doing what they say they’re going to be doing.

Once in a while, of course, you’re not going to have done what you said you were going to do, and that’s not a problem. But if it’s week after week and month after month, that leads to a bad engagement.

Donor Meetings Provide a Good Motivating Deadline

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Right. You know, Amy, and there’s one more thing I want to say. You talked about, of course, needing to be prepared, right? You don’t want to go out and do things without being prepared, particularly when you’re talking to your largest donors.

But that’s one of the reasons that I put so much attention on scheduling the meetings because there’s nothing like knowing that you’re meeting with a major donor in two weeks, having that on your calendar, to force you to get prepared.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yes.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
You may not be prepared when you’re calling to schedule, but I promise you, you’re going to be prepared by the time of that meeting. So that’s why I prefer to focus on the scheduling part because I know that if you’ve done that, then the chances are very good you’ll get prepared, and the chances are very good that you’ll actually have that meeting.

So put a lot of attention into locking out time on your calendar to actually schedule. And when you then have an accountability partner, you can add that to what you’re reporting on. You can say every Monday for two hours, I’m scheduling. I made 20 calls. From those calls I scheduled four meetings, right? I mean, that’s a great thing to be accountable to. The rest of it’s going to happen if you schedule.

Amy Eisenstein:
Excellent. So if you’re wondering if you need an accountability partner or some additional motivation or better habits, head on over to the Capital Campaign Pro website, capitalcampaignpro.com, and sign up to talk to us about your campaign. We’d love to speak with you.

Thank you so much for joining us, and we’ll see you next time.