Episode 85: The Changing Nature of Communicating with Donors

Welcome to another edition of "Around with Randall," your weekly podcast making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.

I'm always so grateful when you and others join me, Randall, here on the podcast, "Around with Randall." Today's conversation, discussion, is about building relationships with donors. And we're speaking about those individual relationships, so it could be an intermediate gift officer who is working towards building a relationship for that thousand, $5,000 ask or a major gift officer, principal gift officer, planned giving officer who is looking at gifts probably over $10,000 or more.

The model for which most of us grew up in or learned about or learned from a mentor or an advisor was thrown into absolute chaos beginning in March of 2020 with the pandemic. And as we come out of the pandemic hopefully continuing to find a sense of, I'm not going to use the word normalcy but, quote, regularity. We are trying to figure out, what did we learn from all of this? What did our donors learn? And what I'm experiencing with clients, and advising, and coaching, and working them through whether it's capital campaign, either feasibility, or counsel, or a grateful patient major gift, planed giving - all the different things that I do here with Hallett Philanthropy, I'm finding that donors have changed a little bit. The communication has changed. The relationship-building opportunities have changed. And in that process what we've realized is that we have to change. And so today, I want to talk for just a little bit about what are some of those changes and what we can learn from it? The tactical at the end to be more effective in getting to that end goal.

The first hurdle that we have to realize is that we are still emotionally damaged, traumatized, depending on your circumstances many people are still feeling the emotional effects of the pandemic. This brings me kind of to that first area. Everything kind of derives from this thought process. It's what I will advise major gift officers, clients, whomever even when I do public gatherings or or presentations. We need to be better at asking for permission as to some of the next steps that we go through when it comes to building a relationship. Not only is that something when we talk about, the soft ask, is it okay if I bring you a proposal, which we've talked about on this podcast and other trainings at Hallett Philanthropy. But really what I'm talking about is how do you communicate? We've got to get better at asking a very simple question, but that has a very definitive outcome. What is it if you're asking the donor, what is it that you would like to do next? Could we meet in person? Would you rather chat via zoom? Do you want to do this in your home? Would you rather do this here in the office? Would you like to meet in the public place? What public place is that? From the perspective of a park where it's open-aired, to an outdoor cafe, to an indoor restaurant ,we have so many different perspectives on where people are at or perspectives on kind of self-evaluation where an individual is at when it comes to comfort levels in being in groups. Yet the answer to figure out where and how we should meet someone is pretty simple. We just need to ask them, I've been doing some reading and talking with some gift officers in the last month or so, really honing in on this simple question. are you asking your particular donors prospects where their comfort level is with meeting?

I'll give you an example. Many board members are in this spectrum all over the place, while many organizations are trying to bring back their boards together. Just had a conversation, yesterday, as a matter of fact, with a client who's trying for the first time to bring their board back together in person and they still have people who are reticent, who are saying I'm just not comfortable. I would rather do this via zoom. How do you manage that? How do you figure out these things on an individual basis? That's even more important if you're trying to create a moves management scenario where you're going to eventually ask someone for a gift.

So the first walk away lesson, so-to-speak, here today is you have to be okay asking donors where they're at and what's best for them, and then be able to adjust from there. For those though that have accepted what I'll call a multitude of new communication opportunities from Zoom to phone calls to texts, we're finding some things that are very interesting in terms of how we do our jobs as gift officers, as as fundraisers, as relationship builders, as the conduit from the donor to the organization. So let's talk about them kind of in the tactical sense.

When we're able to use Zoom or virtual communication, I just use Zoom as a kind of Kleenex, it covers everything, there's some challenges and there's some positives wins and losses. Zoom certainly makes us a lot more efficient. It gives us an opportunity, particularly if you're a smaller organization or your budget still being squeezed, to continue developing relationships without having the travel expense. I think about this in my own business, in consulting, in that when I can use Zoom and I probably can use it about 98% of the time for a 98% efficiency it makes me more efficient. And from a work-life balance makes me happier. I'd rather be at home with my wife and kids, with all due respect to the great clients I work with. It makes it efficient. So there's really strong positives in what I think of as lost travel time that's removed. There's nothing more frustrating than trying to get home or get somewhere and you are stuck in an airport or you have a drive and that time's not as efficient. Many of us, and I'm sure you do the same, try to fill in phone calls but at some point you lose productivity.

I think also all of this pandemic and the constant communication via Zoom maybe being texting which we're going to talk about here in a second, I think also has deepened relationships with donors. I think about some of the people that I've had the privilege of working with, particularly at higher ends. And the level of information that I held, in some cases more than their kids, in terms of what they were looking at for philanthropic giving, and even in their finances, I think this has also changed a little bit in terms of emotional support. I'm hearing from more and more gift officers talking about their donors, they're the the people that are closest that they've built relationships over time. Because of that trust that has been developed, trusting them with emotional issues whether it's someone being sick in the family or someone in the family being concerned about something related to health, there's a deeper emotional interest in that relationship and I think that's because of what we do naturally as fundraisers. If you're good at it, and that's we provide empathy, when we go through the relationship building process, asking for a gift. Empathy is kind of a natural thing because they usually have challenges, whether it's a financial challenge, trying to figure out how to make the gift, whether it's a family challenge and how they're going to tell their family that they're doing this, whether it's a spousal pressure in terms of doing or not doing the gift, the best gift officers I've ever worked with have a great deal of empathy towards someone else's scenario or situation. It's not illegitimate in its emotional trueness. You do care. You still have a job to do. You're still trying to raise money. But the best gift officers, the best fundraisers I've ever been around have an immense amount of empathy. I think that's coming into play right now in massive ways as we have emotional scars, many people do, coming out of the pandemic.

The other thing that I'm beginning to realize as a positive or a win is is that decisions are being made much more quickly. During my doctoral studies there was a, the dean of the of the school of ed, Bruce Kramer, wrote a book about discernment, and we used it as kind of a process to work through challenges and use it as kind of a mechanism, a process to go through decision making. What I think the pandemic has done has allowed people to consider their values because there's been a lot of difficult situations. Maybe professionally, life has changed. Maybe at home, life has changed. Maybe someone's lost a loved one. Maybe you have a relative that's very concerned about it, you haven't seen them, a sister, a brother, or child, haven't seen them in a while. And so there's this almost discernment process that I think we've all gone through that really gives us a chance to think about our values.

Why is this important? I think major donors are making decisions much more quickly. They don't need as much catering and cultivation that goes on in a normal basis. They've had a chance to know what's important to them and so when we talk about these positives, we're talking about our own time. We're talking about deeper relationships, particularly opportunities where there's a great deal of empathy needed. And the fact that you know the, we, people have had a chance to consider what's important to them.

One other element, I think, when you utilize this communication, new communication mode, it's much easier to get content expertise or support involved in the relationship. If you're in healthcare and you want a physician or a researcher, or if you're in education, a professor, or if you're a social service you want a board member, it is much easier to coordinate a visit either locally or regionally or more distant using Zoom because you can just bring them into the conversation. The best organizations that I work with and the best gift officers are utilizing this beautifully. We are seeing major gifts being closed via Zoom, but that's because if we go back all the way to the original question what's in the best interest of the donor, what are they comfortable with, that's what they want. But we're also beginning to see more and more people meet personally, and it's easier to utilize both of them, particularly with a content expert. If you bring them into a conversation via Zoom and maybe you're in-person, there is no right or wrong answer. So there are some wins but there are also some challenges, some losses.

I've also learned that when you schedule a Zoom meeting there's a really a less feeling of urgency. When I used to travel and I would tell them I'm coming to Florida, that meeting was really important. But via Zoom, we can just reschedule, you know, hey we'll just do this next week. But that affects my schedule, and you have to work with the donor at their speed and level of interest. But at the end of the day, I do feel a less urgent situation.

Personal example: I do feasibility studies. The rate of cancellation of feasibility study interviews is dramatically increased with zoom because, oh we can just reschedule. We can. It's not the end of the world, but at the end of the day that affects my ability to get my job done. Well, the same is true as a gift officer.

I think the other thing is that the types of communication we have when you utilize less personal, less face-to-face visits. Things like if you use email to set up meetings or to communicate, subject lines and first lines of the email become very very important. I find myself crafting emails those first couple lines and the subject lines more often more carefully than I did before the pandemic because I know that there's going to be a three, four, five second quick assessment by the receiver that they're gonna decide whether they want to engage. That comes from a very narrow moment. What is the verbiage? And I find myself constantly in emails to clients, emails to feasibility study interviewees, to potential clients, and I talked to gift officers about it. They're talking about with donors re-crafting that subject line all the time.

It also requires, when we have less face-to-face meetings, a need for more creative follow-up. More of a, how do you use video as a part of this, if you're talking about a particular need in the organization, is there something you can get in front of them. That's creative that's not just that follow-up email. I think that that that creativity allows people to connect more quickly. That emotional center that we're looking for in donors to connect them to the needs that we have and to get them to act.

So challenges really are about urgency, about attention grabbing. You only have a few seconds to grab their attention on something because your medium when you're face-to-face is you and the person, or you and the couple, or you and the family, but in an email there are other emails coming in how do you grab their attention. How do you get them to buy in to that moment, to be aware of what you're trying to do? And lastly, you got to be a little more creative because you have limited opportunities to to make them feel the moment, if you're not in front of them or they're not in front of you.

I also say there's a couple tactical things. I've realized this with clients and I'm seeing the same thing with gift officers because the relationship, if done correctly, deepens over time. That was true before the pandemic but two things have happened, the growing usage of text messaging, the acceptance of text messaging as a personal communication particularly by those that are a little bit younger, and then the pandemic. I find myself sometimes at eight, nine, ten o'clock responding to texts from clients - that's eight, nine, ten o'clock at night.

The boundaries of which we think of in terms of communication have changed and that's not necessarily a bad thing because that means you're trusted. That means they trust you, and you trust them, and that deepens the relationship, which I am all in favor of. But there are also moments where I don't want to be working. I'm watching a show with my wife, I'm putting my kids to bed, I'm trying to go to sleep myself, and that's especially true. I have clients in Australia, where obviously the times are nowhere similar to where I am here in lovely Omaha, Nebraska in the midwest. We need to find ways of properly setting those boundaries, and everybody's going to be different. And a donor may email you, text you, at 8:30, 9:00 at night and because we're an instant gratification world, people expect a response. I was with a gift officer recently who found a great way of handling this moment and said, in a respect, said well when that happens and it's a kind of a, you know, I'm not working in those moments I send something right back but it says gosh I'm so thankful for you thinking of me in name of the organization, I'll get back to you in the morning. And I thought, well, that's so simplistic. It's brilliant. And she says everybody's just very understanding, in some ways, some of the time. They just want to get it off their head so they could move on to whatever they were doing. Sometimes they were looking for response and that's all, that's all there was, and they were okay with that. But, she said, I've never had anybody say well darn you it's 8:30 at night you should be paying attention to me. I think they just wanted to know that you received it, and so I think that that what we realize is that our work-balance life as we build relationships has changed a lot in the last two years, and it's our opportunity then to really set apart some guidelines, within reason.

So there's been positives and negatives. How you use this, what's happening. I'm hoping today is really just an opportunity if you're driving in the car or sitting in your office to think about how you communicate, and where are the boundaries and what are the pluses and minuses, and how you use these new technologies to your fullest, to the best opportunity. And if you do so, you'll deepen those relationships and give yourself and your organization a better chance in driving revenue to the mission you believe in.

Don't forget to check out the blogs, two - three a week, 90-second reads, interesting things going on in terms of leadership and communication. Just something to get you to think. Something to possibly get you to go gosh that's interesting. And if you want to communicate with me don't forget that's podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. And of course, if you're listening on YouTube or Downcast or Apple or wherever, leave me a review. Tell me what you think. Tell others what you think. And by the way, share this with someone else. They might find value in it as well. We do important work. Most importantly you do important work, and I hope you feel that. The value of philanthropy is to help people to make a difference, and in doing so you're changing your community. You're changing people's lives, directly and indirectly. Don't forget my favorite saying some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, then there are those who wondered what happened. We're people who make things happen, partnering with people who want to make things happen, for the people and things that we believe in that are wondering what happened, and that's worth getting up in the morning, going to work for. The way I felt for 25 years, I hope for the rest of my career, it's the same way. And I hope it's the same for you. I look forward to seeing you next time right back here on "Around with Randall." And don't forget make it a great day.