Episode 171: Personalizing and Individualizing Solicitations For All Gift Levels

Thank you again for a little bit of your time at this edition, on this edition of Around with Randall.

I had an interesting conversation recently with a client, names aren't that important, and it was actually not about major gift, principal gifts or plan gifts. It was someone who is growing in their profession and doing a really nice job and talking about more of the annual giving or print support. We're talking about how that was going to be her avenue of opportunity regarding the event that's coming up in the near future. And I started asking some questions about who she was going to talk with, how she was going to do this. And what finally came out of it was a conversation about an email that she was intending to send asking people for their gifts in support of this event.

And I stopped and thought, I need to write this down because this is a podcast subject. We've become too familiar, too comfortable, too ritualistic in our ability to ask people to be a third party means, I mean, indirectly, not in person. And on top of that, not individualize the solicitations that we're going to make. So let's talk about this challenge today.

As people are, and I think you probably experienced this, if you have any engagement in philanthropy, are less likely to pick up the phone. They don't respond quite as much by email. People are a little more, put up a few more hurdles just because of their own privacy and their own lives and they're busy. And that's caused us to in terms of us being philanthropic leaders, philanthropy, enthusiast, fundraisers to not individualize and create in-person opportunities for our asks. And this applies to annual giving, corporate giving, foundation giving. Now in foundation, corporate giving, if there is a defined process where they don't want to see you and you have to follow certain steps that is an application process, that's not what I'm talking about. But annual funds, principal gifts, man gifts, even into major gifts.

Interestingly enough, and I thought about this after the fact, I had a conversation with a friend of mine who's a plan giving expert, somebody I have a great deal respect for. And he is new to his organization. He's kind of leading the plan giving conversation for all of them. And his comment was, we have so many gift officers that think that by sending out in every other month, for sure, or communication about plan giving, that's going to bring the plan gift, which kind of led me back into as I thought about it, the conversation I was having with this corporation, annual fund, special events person. I want to turn this around for a second. And I want you to think about your choice of giving, whatever you choose to do, whether it's buying Girl Scout cookies or making a philanthropic gift or buying something. Are you more or less likely to purchase something if it's done with respect individually and in terms of interaction? It's individualized. The answer is of course, you're more likely to engage and that's how we have to look at our donors.

So let's start with the basics and what we're going to do today is kind of break this down into what should you be doing to individualize asks and do so in person. And in person, I'll get to kind of as an air quote, there are different ways of doing it. But it's not done third party IV or IE or eG email or just voicemail. Hey, I don't ever have a conversation.

The first part is that we have to ask some day, I'm going to write a book and I'm going to call it dog got it. Yes, you have to go see people and ask them for money to raise money because I think sometimes we live in a world where we think it just comes naturally. And there are plenty of examples that you can name that I can name that we could name where a gift came in without a lot of work. Those are great. They're special. But at the end of the day, that's not what's normal. What drives giving is when we actually build long term relationships and ask people to join us in what we're trying to accomplish. And along the way, which is maybe the most important piece of the difference that I'm talking more and more about, ask them what's passionate to them and then find a way to slide it into what we're trying to do. And all of this comes back to eventually we've got to ask them for money.

I have been privy to seeing witnessed. I can't tell you how many times there is a conversation that led right up to the ask. And then somehow the meeting ended and we never asked for anything. And the donor looking at their eyes and kind of judging their body language is just as confused as I am about what actually just happened. And the gift officer when we got out, this happened a number of times over 10, 15 years. I say, wait, did you not see that? They were ready to be asked. Oh, they were. Yeah, now what do we do? Well, that's a really good question. We have to set this up. So a couple episodes I did the soft ask. So go back and review that the value of the soft ask and how you set that up. But the soft ask isn't the actual ask. That's to get you closer to yes and to know exactly what you should be asking for.

There are pros, positives, outcomes from asking in person. And this is where I had that air quotes in person. If you're asking for $1,500 in a great gift in support of a sponsorship, you do not need to go see them five times, particularly if they've given in the past. You probably can do it with a phone call or two. So in person doesn't necessarily mean face to face depending on the size of the gift and how often they're used to giving it. If that said, if you have a choice between driving down the road and going seeing someone and saying, last year you gave us $1,500 to sponsor this event, we'd love to come and chat with you about what this is again this year and ask you to support that again and go see them and say, would you think about this? That's a better option than the phone call. But I also realize that if there are a lot of donors at $1,500 and that's your job, you may not be able to do that. So a phone call can be considered to me in person, not a voicemail, not an email. And by the way, that's what this situation started all of this was planning on doing. Let's set it on a mass email. That's called marketing. That's not called philanthropy or fundraising. Even if you give them a hyperlink to sign up, hey, would you sponsor this $1,500? Respect them enough to actually ask them.

So what are the pros, the positives, the outcomes that come from an in person and personal conversation? And when we get into major gifts, principle gifts and plan gets, we'll get a little bit more detail about what's personal. Number one is is that we know when we do it face to face that gifts are larger, that just simply are. We can ask for more money, more support. People appreciate having someone sit down and respect them enough to ask them for their support. Number two is participation rates, engagement, actual gifts coming to fruition are much higher when we do it in person. It's actually according to a couple studies, almost double the amount that we would get when we do it in person. And by the way, if you're in person, you're personalizing it, you're having a conversation face to face. Number three is that gifts are much, gift decisions are much shorter. It doesn't take as long for the donor to make a decision because you're sitting in front of them. You can answer their questions. You can get over the hurdles without going back and forth. Private conversations number four, foster greater trust. You actually are investing your most valuable two assets, your time and yourself to build a relationship with someone that engenders trust. That stronger relationship builds into and morphs into more personal connection. It's sustainable.

So if we know that there's more money, larger gifts, we know that it more people are going to say yes to form a person. We know that we can get through the challenges and issues if we're in person, individualizing the conversation. And finally, we can know that we're building a deeper, more meaningful relationship for future gifts.

Why is this so hard? And we're back to what we talked about in episode two or go around water off a ducts back because most gift officers are afraid of being told no. And what I find is that most of the time the know has nothing to do with you, it's something else going on with them. So we have to get in front of people.

Now that all sounds like that's a lot of annual giving phone calls, 2500, maybe you have to 5,000 other gifts. This pertains to the individualization of gifts that we should be doing as a major gift, principle gift and plan giving levels. That all starts with the conversations we have at the beginning about changing how we qualify people, finding out what their passion is. If you start with in the qualification stage, what is their passion? What do they give to? What do they think about the things we're trying to do? Give them an opportunity, ask somebody for money, you get advice, ask them for advice, you get money. If you do that, you begin an individualization process built into your ask because you find out their passion is X and they want to accomplish Y and thus A, B and C will do that. That is the essence of individualization.

So how we start the relationship process actually can lead us to an individualized in-person approach. What does a major gift, principle gift, plan gift solicitation at its individualized personal level sound like? It starts with the thought process of what are you actually asking for? I've been too often brought into conversations too late where the gift officers will already ask them for $10,000, $25,000. And I asked the question, did you come up with that number or did they come up with that number? And not only don't they tell me that someone else came up with that number, they can't even tell me who came up with that number. Normally when that hear that hard number, totally on a round number, $25,000, $10,000, $250,000, it was us setting the benchmark. What we should be doing is worrying about outcome and passion.

If you want to see this program, if you believe in this program that can change this many lives to do the kind of work that we've discussed as we have built the conversation, it would take somewhere around $250,000. Is that something we could talk about? That's a much different conversation because I have created, as an example, a threshold to get to the goal of what they have the passion about. And I know that to fund that, it's going to be in a next amount of dollars. The other thing is, is if $250,000 in our examples too much, I haven't asked them for $250,000, I have a retreat point. Well, I wasn't asking you for the $250 because I know that we've talked about it. What I'd like you to do is, would you consider being $100,000 donor for this passion you have that we can accomplish? And I will try to go out and use your gift as a match, as an incentive, as leverage, on three other gifts of $50,000. What you get is options. If you just don't say, well, we do $25,000. Number two, by individualizing it to their passion, you can elevate the gift, meaning the dollar figure. So if you're able to do this verbally, somebody in accounting, finance, or auditing, or in the foundation, tracking CRM infrastructure team is going to want some documentation.

What does that look like? Well, we have two choices. We can create a proposal. What should be fairly simple, but also individualized? It uses the name of the person, the organization, or the couple, multiple times throughout, about how it enters into the conversation, a letter that says, "Dear Randall and Mary Lynn, I can't thank you enough for the time we've spent together," and talking about A, B, and C. As discussed, I've attached some documentation for you to review that will support what we've discussed, M, and O, and P. That is specific to them. The proposal is specific to their passion. That's how you individualize, which means there is some work in proposals, and subsequently gift agreements. The more you individualize this written proposal, knowing who should be the signatory. Maybe it's the CEO because they value that person's opinion, and they're not even making the ask. CEO signs the letter. Thank you for spending time with Bob, the gift officer. I know he's told me so much about how you want to make a difference in this, this, and this. That individualization is critical.

You want that donor to believe because it should be true and genuine, that this is the only thing you're doing all day. This is the most important thing you're doing professionally. To show that level of engagement, you have to individualize it. It's not a mail merge. You can individualize a letter by mail merging, and it has its place, but not in principle gift, plan gift, and major gift solicitations. I would argue, not in annual giving, either when it's an individual ask. You're doing mass letters for $20. That's a different conversation. The other thing is is realizing who has the influence, really, to move that gift to fruition. Should someone else be a signatory on an individual letter, along with the gift officer? Is there a doctor who should be involved, a professor? Someone who has helped that individual realize the importance of their gift. And remember, you might be putting something on paper, but we're going to hand deliver it. We're going to look across and say, here's the proposal, particularly the higher level dollar figures.

And by the way, you might think, well, of course, this is the way it should be. And why are you doing this? Because I've had a couple of examples at the end of the year, where I was like, no, no, no, no. Yes, I know it's the 30th. Yes, I know you have to go see them. They're calling you. Yes, I know you were planning to take some time off, but it's the end of the year. You got to go. The other thing that can happen when you do it individually and face to face is those objections. Well, I've been thinking about it, and I have this question. Great. I'm going to start right now. You're trying to do this via email or do this third party, i.e. not in individual conversation. You don't have a chance to react to the objections in the moment. Your ability to overcome challenges and objections, which we've done podcasts on is critical. I just assumed when we did those podcasts, we'd be doing it in person or on the phone or something individualized. What I've realized is I can't overlook that step when I talk and teach about best practices in building relationships and driving revenue in the door, philanthropically.

All of this is to say is this takes time planning, which goes back to things I talk about about controlling your calendar, being able to know when you're available and making yourself available enough that it's convenient for the people you're going to see. I know there are people listening that will say this is all elemental. It should be, but I'm finding more and more that we have a lot of wonderfully dedicated people who are graduating out of these philanthropy schools where they're certainly talking about philanthropy as a profession, but this is best practice. I think we're missing some of these pieces. This is where mentoring is important, where teaching is important, where education is important, and not just formal education, but the education you do on your own. Like, thank you for listening to this podcast. That's why I do it. All of this is to say individualizing and personalizing the communication and the proposal and the ask are essential if you want to maximize giving and sending it via email and just hoping for the best is not going to be your best friend. It same applies in sales, same applies in relationships, same applies in philanthropy. Individualize. Do it personally. What you'll find is greater results, greater success every day. Don't forget to check out the blogs at Hallett Philanthropy post in two weeks, Tuesday, Thursday, or so. You can get an RSS feed right to your inbox. If you'd like to, you can reach out to me at podcastahalifelianthropy.com.

There's a lot of moving pieces in our communities, a lot of people. The philanthropy has the magic, an elixir, to be able to help solve things that the government and individuals can't. It's the collection of people's desires to make their community a better place. What we know is when we do that, we get to my favorite saying, "Some people make things happen, some people watch things happen." And there are those who wondered what happened. The philanthropy is the ability to do that, to make things happen for those who are wondering what happened. And if you individualize your relationships, realizing that everybody is a little bit different, what a person who wants the community to be better is going to be different than someone who wants a family heritage or tradition to continue, individualizing those opportunities, makes philanthropy what it should be. Changing lives, making a difference, helping those people and things that are most valuable to us.

Can't wait to see you the next time, right back here, on another edition of Around with Random. And don't forget, make it a great day.