Podcast: The Secret to Major Gifts Success is Making Time for Donor Conversations

Season 5, Episode 29

What if the biggest barrier to your capital campaign success is the phrase “we don’t have time”?

In this episode, Amy Eisenstein and Andrea Kihlstedt pull back the curtain on a truth that experienced fundraising consultants see every day: organizations that prioritize real conversations with major donors outperform those that try to outsource or avoid them.

Drawing from their work with nearly one hundred small and mid-sized nonprofits at a time, Amy and Andrea unpack the mindset shift that separates stalled campaigns from fully funded ones.

Listen Now:

Amy Eisenstein:
We’re pulling back the curtain on a secret that consultants know that you want to know too.

Hi, I’m Amy Eisenstein. I’m here with my colleague and co-founder, Andrea Kihlstedt. And today we are going to show you behind the curtain of what we see every day when we talk to nonprofits.

And the reality is that I talk to dozens of nonprofits every month that are contemplating capital campaigns, and it’s so interesting to see really two mentalities, two mindsets of organizations; one that are eager and excited to talk to their donors, and others that really don’t have the time. That’s what they tell me: “We don’t have the time to talk to our donors.”

So that’s what we want to focus on today. The difference between the two, and how, if you’re at an organization or if you feel like you just don’t have the time to talk to your donors, how you might get the time. Find the time, make the time, and get there.

Making the Time for Donor Conversations

So Andrea, I think this is such an interesting topic and so important, because we work with nearly a hundred organizations on capital campaigns at any given time, and so we get to see really behind the curtain of all these different organizations. We have a bird’s eye view of how small and mid-sized organizations function or don’t function during their fundraising.

What do you want to add to the conversation as we get started here?

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yeah, thanks, Amy. So a couple of things.

First of all, what people tell us is that they don’t have the time. That’s the presenting issue for them. “Oh, we don’t have the time. I’m so busy running the organization. I’m so busy doing anything else. How am I ever going to find the time?” The reality is that all of us have 24 hours in a day. It’s not about whether you have time. It’s about whether you’re willing to prioritize having real conversations with your major donors over other things that you might have to do. It’s about priorities.

And what we’ve found is that if an organization does not prioritize building personal relationships with their largest donors, then it’s not likely to lead to healthy and effective major gift fundraising. I mean, it’s really that simple right now. We know they’re busy, we know everyone’s busy, but in fact, if they decide that they want to put major gifts fundraising at the top of the list of things they do, everything else will fall in … They’ll find other people to do things or everything else will fall away or fall into place in their 24 hours.

Amy Eisenstein:
All right. So let me back this up a little bit and talk a little bit about how it comes up for organizations and why we got here.

So of course, if you’ve been listening for a while or if you’re familiar with Capital Campaign Pro, you know that in our model of feasibility study, we coach, teach, train, guide organizations to have conversations with their best prospective campaign donors as part of the process of planning for a campaign. We think it’s better than sending a consultant to talk to your donors for a myriad of reasons, which we’re happy to talk to you about. If you’re interested, just visit the Capital Campaign Pro website and sign up to talk to us.

But really what we hear is two things. One is organizations that are super excited about this model of feasibility study where they don’t have to send in a consultant, but they get guided through the process of talking to their biggest potential donors. And we talk to organizations that tell us, as Andrea said, that they simply don’t have the time to do that. They need to outsource this. And that is such a red flag for us.

Nobody Has the Time – People Make the Time

The truth of the matter is that we primarily work with small, understaffed, under-resourced, busy, overworked nonprofit professionals. Nobody has the time. People make the time. They prioritize. And one of the things that we do really well, I think at Capital Campaign Pro is helping nonprofit leaders figure out what can be delegated, what should be prioritized, what should be outsourced to consultants.

I mean, there are things to be outsourced to consultants, maybe grant writing, maybe event planning, maybe some writing of your newsletter, but talking with your biggest potential donors is like the number one thing that shouldn’t be outsourced to a consultant.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
I have a little story to tell about that.

Early on when we were starting this model, right? Early on, and we were just really tiptoeing into it, the model of supporting organizations when they go and talk to their major donors … Because we knew in our guts that the conversation should be happening between the organizational leaders and the major donors. We knew that as clear as we knew our own names. So we started this model.

And early in that process, a prospective client called, and got in touch with me in fact, and he said, “You know, I hear you’re working on this model.” And he said:

“I’ve been looking for a consultant who would work with me so that I could go talk to my major donors, because honestly, I don’t want a consultant going and talking to them. That seems to me to be a terrible idea. So can I work with you in developing this early model? Because for me, it’s not just a matter of time. It’s a matter of why would I send someone from the outside in to talk to my major donors when I have an opportunity to use that moment to build a real relationship with my donors?”

Well, when he called, we of course decided to move ahead with him, helping him with this campaign. And fast-forward several years, that still has proven to be one of the most successful campaigns we have ever undertaken with someone.

Amy Eisenstein:
Why? People just throwing money at this organization.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Right. And these people are literally throwing money at this organization. Why? Because from the very beginning, from the get go, he knew that the relationships that had to be formed were between the leaders of his organization and his major donors, and he set about doing that. And it has paid off in ways that … I mean, I’ve been in this business a long time, but it even surprises me to see the results of that.

Amy Eisenstein:
Well, that’s an important story of a leader who knew that he wanted to do that.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yes, yes. Exactly.

Overcoming the Fear of Talking to Major Donors

Amy Eisenstein:
But I think just as important, we work with organizations all the time where leaders know they should and want to, but are very hesitant about it because they don’t have the courage or experience or … Just experience, I guess, on how to really engage their biggest potential donors. And that is exactly what we help them with. I mean —

Andrea Kihlstedt:
And you know —

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah, go ahead.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
And major donors are scary, right? The stakes are very high. When you have … Let’s say you have 10 people who may have the capacity to give you a quarter of a million dollars or more. I mean, just making up some numbers here. Maybe you only have 10 donors. That means for an executive director, the anxiety about whether you’re going to screw it up is huge, because there aren’t hundreds of them and it’s very personal.

And you have to get over that somehow. You have to build the confidence and the skills and the understanding that people are people, and that your role as the head of an organization is super important for your organization and for these donors.

Amy Eisenstein:
So Andrea, I think you’re simplifying it by saying they have to get over it. It’s very strategic, thoughtful, and coaching. You know, people don’t just get over it. The reason that this Guided Feasibility Study model works is because nonprofit leaders who don’t have experience necessarily engaging with their biggest donors in strategic ways are given tools, practice, role playing, strategy, and lots of coaching before and debriefing after the conversations.

And the amazing thing about this feasibility study model is that they’re having these conversations in a relatively low stakes way prior to the campaign. This is not the first time that they’re in the room with the donor when they’re asking for this big gift. They’re learning how to engage donors in strategic ways weeks or months before they’re actually asking for a gift. And so it is the perfect time to practice.

And then by the time they get around to asking for a gift, they’re so much more comfortable because they’ve already spoken with the donor two or three or four times. They haven’t sort of missed that opportunity by sending a consultant in. And then the ask is terrifying if you haven’t had this opportunity to engage them and hear their feedback and really have conversations.

So this idea when organizations tell us they don’t have time to talk with their donors, it really is such a red flag, because what we do is help people find the time, make the time, prioritize the time, outsource, delegate, eliminate tasks, right? And that’s what a good consultant does is come in and have that outside view. We’re not in the tornado with you of every day running your organization, and sometimes we can just say, “Look, these are three things that you don’t have to be doing.” Right?

Three Categories of the Donor-Averse

Andrea Kihlstedt:
One way to think about the people we encounter is that they fall into three categories.

First, there is this rare category, like the person I’ve referenced before, who knows that he should be the one talking to his major donors, right? That’s rare. It happens, but it’s rare.

Amy Eisenstein:
And wants to. He’s excited about it.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
And wants to. He’s excited about it, he’s thrilled about it.

Okay, that’s the A, number one, gold star model.

Then on the other side, on the other end of the spectrum, you have people who are totally convinced that they don’t have the time and they don’t really want to do it and they have no will to move in any direction. They just want to hire an outside consultant to take care of all this stuff. They’ll run their business and somebody else should be responsible for raising all this money.

The bulk of the people we talk to are somewhere in the middle. That they become interested, that they’re curious, that they’re anxious, that they’re nervous about it, but they understand somewhere in their innards that it would be a good idea to build relationships with these major donors, right? And some percentage of those people are willing to work with us to do that.

Now, what we see again and again is with those people who start out anxious, who start out thinking they don’t have the time, but know they probably should do that, what we find is that they begin the process of talking to their major donors full of anxiety, feeling uncomfortable. And by the time they finish a whole bunch of these conversations, they realize what fun it’s been, that they’ve had a great time. And many of them say to us, “You know, I’m never going to stop talking to my major donors. Now that I understand it, now that I know it’s constructive and fun and appropriate, and now I know how to do it, even when this campaign’s over, I’m going to keep right on doing it.” Which of course is —

Amy Eisenstein:
It’s totally transformational.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
… exactly what should happen. It’s transformational.

Final Thoughts

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah. It’s totally transformational for the people on your team and the organization, because fundraising is forever changed once your internal team has the confidence and the skills and prioritizes talking to donors on a regular and ongoing basis; not just when you’re asking for money, but really as a partner through the process.

So it’s just so interesting to be able to talk to so many organizations.

And I think you’re right to categorize these three different groups. So I’m asking you, listener, where is your leadership team? Are you in category A? You’re ready to go out and talk to donors? You know, just give you the skills and go? Are you, you know, “We don’t have the time. We’re just totally swamped and buried and we don’t want to do it?” Or are you somewhere in the middle; [you] see the value, see the benefit and willing to take the risk and sort of go along for the ride and grow? Honestly, grow as a fundraiser individually, grow as a team, grow as an organization.

That’s what Capital Campaign Fundraising is all about. It’s about building capacity for your organization, including your fundraising. So …

Andrea Kihlstedt:
So what’s the secret, Amy? Here’s the secret that we’re revealing. I think the secret might have gotten lost.

The secret is that if you aren’t willing to build real relationships with your major donors by actually going and talking to them when you’re not asking them for money, between those times, the chances of your having a truly successful major gift program or capital campaign are much slimmer than if you are excited about that and make it a regular part of your fundraising program.

Amy Eisenstein:
If you know you want to do it, but haven’t had the courage or the will to try it yet, go ahead and visit the Capital Campaign Pro website and sign up to talk to us, and we’re going to walk you through it. We’re going to be there by your side. So we’d love to talk to you just to explore the possibility of working together.

Thanks for being here and we’ll see you next time.