Podcast: Unlocking Donor Insights: Decoding “Don’t Want to Meet” Signals

Season 3, Episode 46

In this episode, hosts Amy Eisenstein and Andrea Kihlstedt dissect the enigmatic message when donors express reluctance to meet. Through candid anecdotes and strategic insights, they unveil the layers beneath such responses and offer actionable steps for fundraisers.

Discover why a “no” doesn’t equate to rejection and learn how to navigate various scenarios with empathy and persistence. From deciphering genuine disinterest to uncovering hidden opportunities, this episode empowers fundraisers to forge meaningful connections and transform setbacks into triumphs.

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Andrea Kihlstedt:
Andrea, I got your message. Thanks very much. And I really don’t want to meet.

Amy Eisenstein:
Hi, I am Amy Eisenstein. I’m here with my colleague and co-founder Andrea Kihlstedt. And as you heard from her fabulous introduction, today we are going to talk about donors that don’t want to meet with you and what to do and what it means when they say they don’t want to meet.

When a Donor Doesn’t Want to Meet With You

All right, Andrea, kick us off.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
So Amy, you point to exactly the right thing, that when someone says something like that, you don’t know what it means. You don’t know what’s underneath it. You know they’re saying they don’t want to meet, but you don’t know if it means they’re not interested in the project. You don’t know if it means if they’re angry with you, if they don’t want to make a gift, if they’re heading you off at the pass, if they’re just out of town and this isn’t a good time for them.

There’s a lot to unpack from a message like that. Now, if you get an email message like that, it’s also easy to misread it.

It’s even easy to misread it if it’s a phone message. So the first thing to know is when a donor tells you in one way or another that they don’t want to meet with you, your job is not to hide your head and say:

“Oh my goodness, this donor’s angry with me, and we’re just going to let them go.”

Your job is to find a way to figure out what they really mean and what has led them to telling you that. Now, there are a variety of ways that you can do that. Amy, how would you think about it if that came to you?

“No” Doesn’t Mean “Never”

Amy Eisenstein:
Well, my wonderful mentor from when I worked at Rutgers on a campaign 20 years ago, always used to say:

“No doesn’t mean never. It simply means not today.”

I have always carried that with me. What does that no mean? And I think that that is the point. We have to get to uncover. Say:

“I understand that you don’t want to meet right now. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you’re thinking? Do you want to continue to learn about the campaign? Does it mean you’re not interested in our mission? Is everything okay?”

I mean, sometimes that’s the first thing to say, right? Is everything okay? Maybe they just got a terrible health diagnosis, or their spouse got a terrible health diagnosis, or they’re caring for their parents.

There could be a million other things having nothing to do with you that makes meeting untenable right now. And so the easiest thing for them to say is, “I’m not interested. I can’t meet. Don’t call me right now.” And you could easily take that to mean, “I’m not interested in the organization.” But it might have nothing to do with you.

Sometimes Donors Don’t Have the Bandwidth to Meet

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Amy, I have a really good example of that. As you know, my husband was quite ill this past summer. He’s fine now, by the way. But during that month that he was in the hospital, when anybody called me or reached out to me about anything, my answer was “no.”

I simply didn’t have the bandwidth to do anything other than think about and worry about the real life-threatening situation that was staring me in the face. Even if some of the organizations that were closest to me had reached out and said, “Hey, can we get together in a meet?” I would’ve not only said no, but I probably would’ve been quite curt about it.

Because I just had no bandwidth to deal with it. Now, does that mean that if they called me now, I would have the same response? No. I would be happy to be with them now. I’d be happy to… I’d probably apologize. Say, “I’m so sorry I was so curt, but here’s what was going on.” And I would appreciate if they followed up with me and said, “Are you okay? Is everything okay? It’s not like you to respond that way. Let me know what I can do to help.”

Amy Eisenstein:
I think that’s a perfect example. And importantly, sometimes you do need to let some time go by. If you hear a curt response, you may follow up with a quick, “I hope you’re okay. Thanks for letting me know.” And sort of let it go for a few weeks. You don’t need to be all over them.

And I think that sometimes our instinct is, “Oh my gosh, what happened? Woe was me.” It may have nothing to do with you.

3 Scenarios When a Donor Doesn’t Want to Meet

So all right, let’s unpack. There are different scenarios.

1. Sometimes it is a case of just simply being too busy and not having the bandwidth or something else is going on.
2. Sometimes donors truly aren’t interested. Your cause is not in the top 10 of their list. And I think it’s important to try and decipher when that happens or how to sort of sus that out and when it is appropriate to continue to follow up.
3. [They don’t feel they need to meet because they’ve already decided to make a gift.]

I just want to give one other example. So a client of ours that we’ve been working with at a technical college was doing a campaign. And early on in the campaign, the executive director met with this big prospective donor in town. And the donor said:

“You know this campaign isn’t for us. We’re not interested. We’re not going to be funding this campaign.”

And that could have been the end of it. She could have taken him at his word and sort of not followed up. But every quarter, every few months, she’d send him an update. She’d ask if he wanted to have coffee just to catch up and connect and talk about what was going on.

And two and a half years after doing that, he actually gave a million-dollar gift, which was the biggest gift that campaign got.

And so if she had been totally disheartened by his first initial response, he was pretty clear that this was not within the mission of what he wanted to do and he wasn’t going to support it. But for some reason, they bonded, they connected, and he was willing to continue to hear updates and have meetings with her.

And she sort of… I don’t know if it’s intuition or just persistence or whatever it was, her instincts were right to continue to follow up with him. She could have easily let him go. She had plenty of other things on her plate.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Amy, the other thing that happened with her is that as she was in touch with him, she was also in touch with the person who ran his foundation and she took it on herself to learn more about what his giving priorities were.

And she found a way to articulate what her college was doing that actually did fit within his giving priorities. But she had to be in touch with them long enough so that not only did they become more interested in what the college was doing, but she could understand better what he might want to fund. So it really worked both ways.

Amy Eisenstein:
I mean, that’s what we mean when we say this is a relationship. This is a relationship — it’s not a transfer of money. People have to understand on both sides what the needs and desires of the organization and the donor are and work together until there’s a match.

Not Wanting to Meet Because They Already Plan to Give

Andrea Kihlstedt:
There’s another kind of situation where people say, “No, I don’t want to meet with you.” And that is the donors that are going to give to you or going to give to your campaign that think you’re a terrific organization and they’ve made up their mind. They’ve decided to give X number of dollars and they don’t think they need to meet with you. Right? They’re going to send you a check. They’re going to wire the money, they’re going to transfer the stock.

Why should they meet with you when they already know what they’re going to do? So they may say:

“Hey Andrea, we really don’t want to meet with you. We’ve decided to give… Thanks so much for all you do.”

Amy Eisenstein:
The check is in the mail.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
The check is in the mail. Exactly. Now…

Amy Eisenstein:
Don’t call us.

Do You Still Want to Meet with Them?

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Two questions. Do you still want to meet with them? Is it important? And if so, how do you push back on that?

Amy Eisenstein:
I mean, I think that that’s where this idea of learning more and asking for advice comes into play. Say:

“Listen, I understand that you’re sending a check and we’re so grateful. I’d still love the opportunity to learn more about why you decided to send us a check for this campaign because it’ll help me with other donors. I’m wondering if we can get together for 20 minutes so I can ask you about your giving, your decision-making process, your philanthropy so that I better understand other donors through your generosity to us.”

So you might say something like that, for example.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yep, yep. You also might say, “You know I think there are some really interesting things that are going on with our plans that you’re going to find interesting. I will so appreciate your giving, and I would feel like it would be a mistake not to sit and tell you more about what’s going on. I think you’re going to enjoy learning about it.”

Amy Eisenstein:
Yes, that’s campaign speak, right? Perfect.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
That’s campaign speak. So both sides of those are important and good opportunities.

Amy Eisenstein:
You want to get in front of them. Say, “This is a wonderful, generous gift and…” I need to think about how I want to say this, but I’ve heard people say, “And we are looking for gifts of a certain size to make sure we’re able to accomplish our goals. So maybe you can help point us in that direction. So let’s meet to discuss what would really help us get to our goal.” Something like that.

Cases When a Donor Can Be Convinced to Give at a Higher Level

Andrea Kihlstedt:
There are many cases, not every case, but many cases in which someone decides to give at one level and they wind up giving at a different level, at a much higher level because they have learned more of our project or have had another conversation with the president or the development person or the board chair.

So it’s wise generally, not just to let it stand, not just to accept the check and say, thank you very much, but to push to the next, to actually having a meeting. I suppose another… Depending on your relationship with the person.

If I had someone with whom I had developed a friendship, let’s say I was an executive director of an organization and I had developed a friendship with someone who served on the board. And it came time to solicit her for a gift. And she said:

“Listen, we really don’t have to get together. I know what I’m going to give. I’ll send it in.”

Now, one of the things I might say is:

“Susan, I can’t let you do that. It’s going to be too much fun to get together and talk about this project and talk about your gift. Why don’t we go have a glass of wine after work next Tuesday? Would that be okay?”

So that’s another… When the relationship is the right one, you might nudge it a little that way.

Amy Eisenstein:
So to say:

“You know what? There are actually things about this project that you probably don’t even know yet, and I would be remiss in letting you make your gift without really understanding the full scope of the project. So let’s get together.”

Yes! Excellent.

Final Thoughts

So pushing the boundaries, we’re all about pushing the boundaries, continuing the conversation. As fundraisers, if you take no for an answer on the first response, then you’re going to get a whole lot of nos. And your challenge, your opportunity is turning those no’s into yeses.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
I think what people do when they’re inclined to take no for an answer is that they’re inclined to think that something’s wrong with them. And that’s why they got the no. They’re inclined to respond, as many of us are, initially.

“I must have done something wrong. It’s about me. The donor doesn’t like us. The donor’s upset. The donor doesn’t want to meet with me.”

For the most part, these things are not about you. And you have to get yourself to a place where you can acknowledge that.

It’s very rare that it’s about you and something you’ve done or even something your organization has done. And honestly, if it is, it’s important that you understand and learn and find out what that is. So that’s even more reason to be in touch with that donor.

But for the most part, when someone turns down a meeting, it has less to do with you and more to do with the donor. So by all means, keep pushing away.

Amy Eisenstein:
Excellent. So next time you get that no, don’t take it. Take it in stride. Take a deep breath. Make a follow-up plan. It doesn’t have to be instantaneous or automatic. The donor might be going through something, you never know. Be compassionate. Find out if they’re okay, and make a plan.

Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.