Moving from Transaction to Transformation: Converting Your Supporters into Ultimate Givers

1. Moving from Transaction to Transformation: Converting Your Supporters into Ultimate Givers

2. Transactional vs.Transformational

3. Transactional Giving Webster’s definition • an exchange or transfer of goods, services, or funds • An act, process, or instance of transacting • communicative action or activity involving two parties or things that reciprocally affect or influence each other

4. Transformational Giving Webster’s definition • an act, process, or instance of transforming or being transformed • the operation of changing

5. Reciprocity vs. Change

6. What’s the difference? • Reciprocity – you pay $20,000 for a new car. You own and drive a $20,000 car. Or more close to home, you give $20,000 and get your name on the donor wall of fame. • Change – you make a $20,000 gift to the Salvation Army’s homeless prevention project. You feel good about the many families that avoided an eviction and were able to keep their jobs. Maybe you get to talk face to face with a family who benefited and see the change right in front of you.

7. Martin Teitel in The Ultimate Insider’s Guide to Winning Foundation Grants All foundations open and read their mail. So there’s always rudimentary screening. But careful screening often isn’t needed, because once you open the envelope it becomes apparent the writer didn’t pay enough attention to how that foundation works. Separating the wheat from the chaff isn’t all that hard . . .

8. It’s the People Not the Tools

9. Why should you engage in Major donor work? • From a practical, bottom line perspective, it costs YOU less to develop a deeper relationship with your current donors than it does to go out and beat the bushes for new supporters! • Penelope Burk’s research shows that 2-4% of your overall donor base has the capability of making major (asset) gifts. • Her research found that if properly thanked and communicated with, these previously small donors would significantly bump up giving within a year.

10. What is a Major Gift?

11. Defining “Major Gift” • It’s a relative “internal” term used by the organization. • Often reflects the maturity and size of the organizational budget. • Often changes based on campaign size. • It usually reflects for the donor a bigger/harder decision as it often comes from one’s assets instead of income.

12. Establish Campaign Goals • Annual Campaign • Capital Campaign • Multi-Year Comprehensive Campaign (Sometimes there are parallel campaigns running; each may have a different major gift definition)

13. Determine Number and Size of Gifts Needed • Build gift pyramid • Determine how many prospects are needed for each gift (bigger the gift, larger the number of prospects needed) • Create a “Moves Management” system

14. Campaign Pyramid $1,000,000 Campaign Gift Size# Gifts# Prospects $500,000 1 3 $100,000 2 6 $ 50,000 2 6 $ 25,000 4 8 $ 10,000 4 8 $ 5,000 5 10 $ 1,000 25 40 $ Under $1,000 many many $1,000,000 18+ 81+

16. What is Moves Management? • A proven method of coordinating relationship building activities that result in the improvement of bottom line outlines.

17. Why have one? • A successful Moves Management program will increase the success rate of every solicitor action, communication, and appeal and can help your organization provide excellence in terms of responsiveness to donors, internal efficiency, and bottom-line results.

18. Sample Moves Management System • Works on an Excel Spreadsheet • List top prospects in one column • Provide the rating in the second column • Rating changes with moves

19. Prospect Chart

20. Who are your Major Donors? • Typically only a small portion of your total donor make-up are potential major donors. • So how do you determine who they are?

21. Six Pillars for Successful Major Gift Program 1. Identifying and researching prospective donors who can be cultivated to support the organization with time and money over a long period of time. 2. Qualifying prospects in terms of interest, potential, and motivations for supporting the organization. 3. Cultivating identified prospects through information, communication, and personal contact. 4. Involving prospects in the activities of the organization and developing personal and business relationships. 5. Asking prospects for the gift-at the right time and by the right people. 6. Stewardship - sincerely acknowledging the gifts and recognizing the donors through formal and personal methods.

22. Prospect Research • Financial status (assets and investment strategies) • Family background • Associations • Philanthropic history • Biography • Personal interests • Relationship with your organization • Recency, Frequency, Amount, Personal experiences (http://majorgivingnow.org/downloads/pdf/Fundamentals_of_Prospect_Research.pdf )

23. Affluence-Interest Chart Affluence Interest

24. When asked this question by your donor, what is your answer? Is my gift making an impact?

25. Does your answer resemble this? • We served 2050 seniors hot meals this month. • We built three wells in Africa that cost $10,000 each. • We helped 250 former prison inmates transition to a positive new life. • We cleaned 3000 miles of streams.

26. Or this? • Let me tell you about Bill. He’s an 85 year old widow on a fixed income. Picture a bone thin man who uses a walker to get around. He can’t drive due to poor sight. When I met Bill, he was sharing dinner with his cat. No, I mean literally sharing the cat food with his cat. Now, because of your generosity, not only does Bill get a hot meal delivered to his home 3 times a week, but he also has human contact with volunteers who deeply care about him. Can you believe he’s put on 20 pounds in 6 months? Here’s a before and after picture.

27. The Singularity Effect • When humans hear about one identifiable victim, we care more than when we hear about millions. We tend to donate more when we feel we are helping an identified, single individual. Katya Andresen – Non-Profit Marketing Blog: www.nonprofitmarkingblog.com

28. Ten Tips to Make Donor Cultivation PersonalGuideStarSeptember 2012 Newsletter Terry Axelrod, Benevon • Your time is valuable and so is your donor's. If you are going to take the time to cultivate donors, do it in the most personal manner possible. • Apply the "personal equals special" test. If the contact doesn't make your donor feel special and unique, it's not personal enough. Make every donor feel that you are speaking only to him or her, even though the donor will know that is not actually the case all the time. • Consider eliminating most of the time-consuming, impersonal "cultivation" you are now doing, such as the hard-mailed newsletter and the invitations to the entertainment events, and free up your time to work smarter. • Think about yourself as a donor. Notice which cultivation contacts get your attention—mail, phone, e-mail, or fax? Notice how you connect personally with people in your everyday life. Is that how you're treating your donors? • Notice that you have preferences for how people contact you—via which medium and which phone calls and e-mails you return, versus which ones you delete. Notice how flattered you are when the right person calls you or even sends you a note, yet how offended you are when someone else shows up at your door unexpectedly. • Notice that you can discriminate between those "bulk" group e-mails and the smaller group ones that feel like a real person actually wrote them and meant them for you. Notice how you realize that some people are so busy, you're willing to cut them a little slack if they send out an e-mail to a small group of people. Notice that sometimes you even hit "reply" to those e-mails and send them a note in return. • Notice how people who know you well get your attention these days. Blackberry, computer, phone, fax, or in person? (Granted, there will never be any substitute for an adorable child coming up to you and saying, "Hi, Daddy.") • Notice that you get annoyed when people take too long to respond to you or, conversely, when they bombard you with several responses in a short period of time. • Notice how quickly you switch modes of communication. You may reply to an e-mail message with a phone call or reply to a phone call with an e-mail. You may talk with someone via voicemail back and forth for weeks and accomplish quite a bit before you ever speak to them in person. Notice that you have adapted to multi-media communications. • Notice that the people close to you know how to get your attention and how to use your time well when they need it. They know when they can find you on your cell phone in the car, when you check your e-mail late at night, when you shut down that hand-hel

29. Words of Wisdom The best solicitation occurs when the rightprospect is asked for the right gift by the right solicitor at the right time in the right way. One of the most important elements in the fund-raising process is determining all of these rights. - Alfred A. Blum, Director of Institutional Advancement, Boston College Law School

30. Thank you!Perri Rosheger830-792-1204prosheger@laityrenewal.org