Episode 172: Delayed Gratification: Finding Bigger and Better Solutions in Philanthropy

Today, we have instant access to nearly everything. News, information, products, services – the list goes on. Conditioned to instant gratification, have we lost sight of recognizing the payoff of patience? What is the return on investment of time?

Welcome to another edition of Around with Randall, your weekly podcast for making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett. I'm honored that you've taken a few minutes of your time to join me, Randall, on this edition of Around with Randall.

Today I want to spend a little bit of time figuring out about this concept of doing the right thing even though it doesn't bring you the immediate result that maybe everyone else is thinking about and you're thinking to yourself or asking where did this come from. Came from my daughter, my seven-year-old daughter. At school they have the book fair where they come in and they sell books and in our house books are a big deal. We do a lot of books and there was a particular book that my daughter wanted, Diary of a Plug. I can't tell you any more than that other than sitting and reading with her. And this was the latest edition number seven that she didn't have and she's a pretty good little reader in first grade but we emphasize that there's good things to read and bad things to read, fun things to read and something you have to read. And this is one of her fun things. So we try to embrace that and endorse that.

So they went to the book fair at the school where I think the school gets out of the sales of books and all the other quote unquote junk that my wife seems to complain about a lot because it seems to me what the books which we don't understand why but that's another story for another day. So they didn't have this particular edition of Diary of a Plug and were used to having books and getting books and so the question became from my daughter in her own mind. Do I get something now and walk out with something I may not want or is another option and she actually brought that to my wife and said I don't want any of these books. I want that book.

Now a seven-year-old's perspective doesn't understand that there are things like Amazon and Walmart and in our case the great family based bookstore just down the street from our house and Mary Lynn and she chatted and came to the conclusion why don't we go over there which is basically on the way home from the grade school where we live close and see they have the book and they did and that book was waiting when I got home right next to her plate at the dinner table so she could show me that she got the book that she wanted and I asked her well are you glad that you didn't sacrifice that you waited that you really got what you wanted and she said yes and there was a real genuine smile and look of joy in her eyes.

I thought a lot about that moment and the fact that I was really proud of her for working with her mom in waiting for what was right. Then I started thinking about all the ways in which, as an industry – and I would say not just in the nonprofit charity space, but in life – we settle in many ways for what might be a part of what we want but not all of what we want. And that we aren't patient enough. And then I come back to – and you've probably heard me talk about this – what I was brought up with, from my mom and dad: Is it the best things in life are worth waiting for? The most important, your relationships with those that you love, in terms of choice. Oh, significant other, the investment of time you put into your family, the best things in life, those are big.

Then that comes to things about education and accomplishment, whether it's athletics or, for my wife, music, where you put in all of that work to get to a point where there is output. And it comes in small bursts but it's worth the delayed effort, delayed results of where you get to, to the things that are more academic, to friendships, to all kinds of things. And so, this positive enough about Randall in his life, let's talk about philanthropy and the nonprofit world.

One of some things in our world that we generally don't get right that are causing us issues that if we were just to wait and do some extra little things would get us greater joy output results deeper relationships. So there's a couple of things that come with us. I think the world is too much built on instant gratification that comes from technology that has sped everything up where we expect things more immediately. We're not patient.

Number two, I think that's led to more turnover. We always think the grass is always greener somewhere else because we need that joy right now. We're not willing to fight to get to what we want to get to so we think it's better over there. Generally, it's not. And thirdly, it comes back to what mom always said: Do the hard things, do the small things, do the right things. And the funny thing is they all end up being the same thing. And they usually don't that thing that what you need to do usually isn't just based on simplicity and quickness.

So where are some areas where we see this is a problem in the nonprofit space and what can we do about it? When I think about gift officers' job choice and there are several podcasts if you search within the Around With Randall series of podcasts conversations about this. But the turnover rate of gift officers is somewhere between 17 and 19 months depending on the survey because there's an impatience. There's impatience on the part of gift officers that they do everything they can with the people they build or that they get from a portfolio they don't build new long-term relationships capitalize on those and then they leave.

There is impatience on the part of the organization who have unrealistic some expectations that oh we get a gift officer they should generate $5 billion the first year what where are you going to get that if you're actually trying to build trust in relationships with people that are connected to your organization. So gift officers sometimes need to be more patient, organizations need to be more patient higher great people give them the length of time to get to success.

I'll give you a great example something that I'm having great joy with right now if you listen to this podcast at all you know that I'm an Nebraska head and a University Nebraska fan for all sports softball baseball basketball football tilly wings volleyball I don't care and our athletic director at least at the moment made a decision to retain the basketball coach Fred Hoyberg even though the first three years weren't very good now they made changes in the process but that investment and that patience is proving to be very important because for the first time in many, many years there is a programmatic shift in that basketball program that can leverage success and I enjoy watching the team the same is true with gift officers if you if you are just burning through people and not spending some time we'll talk about that here in a moment to get out and see people what you end up with is transactional relationships that don't last and thus you run out of people and the organization becomes impatient when it comes to the ROI it takes years.

I was used to use the average in the first year we want to gift officer to produce their salary plus their benefits kind of add it together as general if we can aim for that dollar figure then the second year would be kind of a three or four to one return on the a compensation package and then by year three it's five and upwards. I thought that was always fair because that would allow the gift officer to close some gifts but also allow them to look at it more longitudinally as a part of that.

I want to talk for a second about the idea of cultivation and about qualification. Gift officers in the process aren't patient enough. Well, I made one or two calls or I sent an email and they didn't respond to me because we don't know this person we're trying to get new people into our pipeline. I just heard a great story from one of the clients I work with where this gift officer over a four a two month period had five to six different outreach connection opportunities that she could be responsible for calls email texts all very gentle would love to chat have a conversation would love to get your opinion on some things talked to you about what we're trying to accomplish she didn't give up on the third or the fourth or the fifth and it turned out that it turned out the sixth outreach she always just scheduled them in the crm turned out to open the door to an incredible opportunity and it turned out that the other person was incredibly busy with some family things and they appreciated that they were there was always a reminder it wasn't pushy but they stayed with it how many of us do those five six seven times of outreach patiently waiting for that meeting.

Another gift officer that I work with indicated that she was struggling with the concept of trying to get a hold of someone and then the first series of conversations was really really really not what she thought it would be was uncomfortable it was disconnected disjointed and so she finally asked it it turned out that this person was deaf and instead of walking away from it she said I'd love to come and see you and she brought one of the sign language interpreters from the hospital with her to help her with the communication turns out this person is incredibly wealthy and joyful that they went that extra effort what is it that we're doing to build trust and relationships that takes time and what our organization is doing about expectations when we think about gift officers when we talk about referrals or the pipeline and particularly with health care.

I had a client who we have been trying to figure out how to have a conversation with a particular neurosurgeon who we know has incredible results and has incredibly grateful patients and a clientele or a patient list of people we'd love to be talking with on a regular basis. We started this in September and we went through all kinds of iterations. I give her an immense amount of credit she was patient and then she finally got brought to CMO and said look I'm not we're not asking you to drop the hammer and demand he comes in is there anything we should know excuse me and eventually brought in a nurse manager who got them got her the time for an initial conversation about how they might partner together in that one meeting got 12 names of people who said oh yeah my patients are so appreciative let's go talk I've got some things I need and they're approved but we don't have the money for it patients extra effort making it easy on the other person huge dividends.

How about in the thought process of cultivation when we're dealing with someone we know and we try to get a meeting and we send an email we make phone call we don't hear back and we look at our bosses or supervisors managers they say I can't get into CMO how do you softly appropriately respectfully work to find out how to build another opportunity to go have the next conversation in the same vein is planning these cultivations in meaningful ways so that it's meaningful for the patient or for the donor for the for the person you're trying to build a relationship with not wasting their time at the end of the day it should be more about what they need and what they're interested in and the pace at which they're working with us controlling a little bit of the rhythm of the discussions the second piece of cultivation that we probably aren't patient enough is ability to think about how to maximize the gift do we just want to make it easy on us and ask for $10,000 which they may or may not say yes to or are we going to look at a bigger picture and say how do I get closer to their passion how do I figure out what they want to do which by the way takes more time because you're going to ask more questions you're going to try to pivot into certain conversations based upon what they think is most important that's an entirely different conversation then hey we're here hey let me talk at you hey let me tell you what we're doing hey let me ask you if you can help us with what we need versus tell me about yourself tell me what's important to you tell me about what's some of the most meaningful things you do or you've been involved with could I give you something and let you get and get your opinion on what we're trying to accomplish could I talk to you about what you'd like to do that would be meaningful to you that also helps us can I connect you to the people who can help make that happen that's an entirely different series of questions and a different time and so patience waiting for the bigger having the ability to be kind of investing in tomorrow not just taking for today and be seen in this idea of cultivation and different options that come.

I would tell you there's two more the first is dealing with objections so we're kind of in the process of cultivation if I continue that moving towards solicitation and there's an objection do we ponder do we pivot puntings easy because you can say oh they said no did they actually say no or did they give you a clue is not now not the right ask not the right area you're not the right person to ask there's conditions there's challenges I need some time to think about this somebody else has to be involved there's a difference between no and this isn't quite right the easy thing would be to back out of the conversation oh it didn't work instead of leaning in and say gosh there sounds like some things not aligned here tell me a little bit more about why you have concerns about this you're opening yourself up to the fact maybe you didn't get something right but you're also allowing them to guide you as to where you go that's a long-term trust relationship based opportunity to maximize the gift which leads us into the other last thing I want to mention about objections which is maybe a sub part is maximizing gift opportunities.

I am frustrated, disappointed, angered, troubled, by how few conversations we have about plan giving because all of our metrics all of our pushes in terms of finance needing the money our organizations desire to do the project now are so generated towards cash and pledges of cash that we don't get into the plan giving conversations. There's 50 trillion dollars it's going to pass from hand to hand from generation to generation. Person to person from somebody making decisions out of their states in the 50 trillion in the next 25 years but that takes a longer-term view patience and getting to what the donor really wants passion and to say it sounds like you want to do these things this is incredible could we talk about how your state could allow you to do this it's not about what we're trying to do it's about what they're trying to accomplish we're just the vehicle which they're trying to accomplish it with sometimes that takes estate giving is there an asset rich farmers business owners you live on the coast they have homes that are worth they bought for 125 thousand dollars 40 years ago there were 2.6 million dollars their asset rich or they need those assets for retirement how do we pivot into conversations in plan giving that are more long term and more genuine gift officers in in the organization about what they're doing what the organization requires them to do patience longer-term view physicians in particular referral agents faculty members board members having a longer term conversation with them on a regular basis about how do we make this easy for them to introduce us into other relationships the idea of cultivation qualification are we actually attempting to reach people on a regular basis more than we just one email one text one call giving them software minors that we're here we'd love to have a conversation we're not even going to ask them for the first in that first meeting for money just when I engage with them the idea of objections that do we see no or do we see hey something's a little off let's pivot and figure out how we can build a longer term conversation about how they like to be involved with our organization and finally plan giving is a vehicle which the dollars tend to not come now at times are we and as our organization our metrics rewarding those kind of long term passionate driven conversations do the the big things do the tough things do the small things they all end up being the same thing as I get older I'm realizing the more we keep in mind what our goals and not just in philanthropy in life are in realize some of them are more long term and they may take time to get to them those like my daughter's book and the joy in her face for being patient and have in letting her mother help her figure out how to get the books she wanted and I just buying crap has value internally personally and my request is maybe you think about what that means for you and the things you can do couple of examples today to maximize opportunity personally and professionally for donors in the organization mutually beneficial outcomes that allow all of us to be successful

Don't forget check out the blogs Hallettphilanthropy.com you can do an rss feed right to you two week also make sure if you have any comments questions thoughts suggestions on a subject podcast at hallettphilanthropy.com philanthropy, love of mankind love of humankind is more and more important we talk a lot at people instead of with people the downside of the way in which I choose to do this podcast is it sounds like I'm talking at you and I apologize I have a figure out a way to have a massive amount of conversations in the podcast where I get feedback or a instantaneous conversation to talk with people what I'm hoping is is that philanthropy can be a way that we talk with people and think about the longevity of the relationships and the actual opportunities that exist if we don't just go for the short quick wins that are smaller but think about the large s that comes from bigger opportunities personally professionally in the organization in relationships with your donors being patient having the organization be patient with you don't forget my favorite saying some people make things happen some people watch things happen then there are those who wondered what happened the best things in life are people who make things happen who spend the time to invest in themselves and in others to make things happen for those who are wondering the organizations in our community that are wondering what happened that's a long term commitment that has unbelievable personal gratification that comes when you invest yourself or what's really important in the long term I look forward to seeing you next time right back here on the next edition of Around With Randall, make it a great day.