Episode 21: Donor Cycle Series - Qualifying a Prospect (Part 1 of 4)

Welcome to another edition of “Around with Randall”. Your weekly, 10-to-12-minute podcast and making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett. 

Thank you so much for joining me here on “Around with Randall,” we're going to try something new. This is the first of a four-part series on the different aspects of nonprofit work for a gift officer in the donor cycle. We're going to break them up into the overall qualification parts, which we'll talk about today. Next time, we'll talk about the idea of cultivation. The third will be solicitation. Finally, will be after that solicitation, the idea of stewardship. When we talk about qualification, just at a very high level, we're talking about does a potential donor or prospect once have the ability to give to our organization. 

In all the years I've been doing this, this tends to be the most challenging of all the aspects. There are lots of studies out there that actually say that asking for money is one of the great fears, kind of like publicly speaking for the general population, inside of that, I have found that the idea of meeting, calling, and building new relationships is actually the most challenging internal part of asking somebody for money. 

I think that it comes down to some pretty basic concepts. I think that there is such a fear of rejection, particularly in younger gift officers that they tend not to want to make qualification calls or identification calls or introduction calls are all the same type of call because they're going to take it personally. There's this, I have thought of rejection and if we look at the science behind rejection, there's reason to understand why this is probably true. So, let's just talk about some of the statistics, rejection actually piggybacks on this idea of pain, equivalency of physical pain, that when they've done Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI). It shows that the areas of the brain are activated in the same way between emotional and physical pain. It hurts. It's not imaginary, and there's actually a drug they've actually been able to find, think about this, that reduces this idea of the social or emotional pain. It's Tylenol. It dulls that part of the brain where pain is felt and known.

I am not here to say that gift officers making phone calls should be taking Tylenol before they do it. However, I just think it's interesting that this is actually a medical condition and there are answers of how to overcome it, which we're going to talk about here in a few minutes, we actually relive social or emotional pain more vividly than we do physical pain. Memories of where things didn't go well, or maybe embarrassment or just out and out rejection live forever because it destroys our need to belong. As social animals, we naturally are wanting to belong to a larger group. Rejection makes that more challenging and it makes because of that, it surges on things like anger and aggression.

It affects our self-esteem. Rejection, if not seen correctly, makes us believe less in ourselves. Probably the one I find most interesting of all is rejection also is about the idea that it lowers your IQ temporarily, your ability to think. The last piece is rejection isn't based on reason, which is the direct tie to this idea of what we can do about it. The problem that we have is this qualification, building relationships is the most important part of major gift work. It's the everything. Yet I find gift officers are fearful of that rejection constantly. So, what is it that you can do to get past that? 

We're back to the qualification. I break qualification down to kind of two major things, making calls and going to see people. In either case, the key is a simple concept, which probably isn't talked about enough. We can reduce our stress, reduce our fear if we understand how to build rapport and yes, we're going to get to the technical. So, we'll call this piece, the semi-technical. How do you build rapport with someone you really don't know? What is building rapport? It's just building connection, building a relationship, getting to understand them, creating I think someone once said a state of harmonious balance in a relationship, and it's a process. It takes time to build that connection. This is why studies have shown this constantly, we see small talk being so important. 

Tactical tip. Tip of the day. If you're a gift officer, you need to be what I call wide, but not necessarily deep. That's your knowledge base, because the people you meet, you need to build rapport with them at their level. So, you need to be reading and learning about things you don't think might be applicable.

One of my all-time favorites is a requirement in my undergrad studies was to take music classes. And even though I married a classically trained musician, I know nothing about music, nothing barely can spell the five-letter word, but I had to take some basic music classes and a number of times in odd scenarios there have been situations where I'm trying to build rapport and all of a sudden, they want to talk about music. Either I have my wife to fall back on and talk about her experiences or these classes that I didn't think had any value in my life at age is 20, 21, and 22. So if you don't like finance, you should read a financial publication every once in a while. If you don't like basic literature, you should probably read at least the cliff notes. If you don't like sports, you probably should know some basics because your responsibility in that breaking of the ice is to build rapport. So, one thing to do tactically is to become, well-read, watch lots of different things. Don't just find yourself in a very narrow band of information learning. Remember there are safe subjects. We live in a world today where there's polarization. My goal is that I wanted my donors to never know my political affiliation. My wife would comment on many, many, many trips, many, many, many dinners she would laugh. She would say, they have no idea if you're a Democrat or Republican, that's the point, it's not relevant.

My job is to be genuine and be interested in them. Try to use humor to your advantage. I love self-deprecation. It reduces the stress in the moment. People who are appropriately self-deprecating are easier to get to know. They're less intimidating. They also show the willingness to expose weakness, which can be very endearing to someone who's getting to know you. Remember your body language. You want to lean in about 60% of the time. Look at people in the eye, but not stare at them and hand gestures and movements are good, but they can't be ginormous. They have to be appropriate and show empathy, show that you care for them as a person. If you do those things, you'll find rapport.

That's kind of the semi tactical -- what is the actual tactical pieces? Don't forget that qualification in a call or a visit, we're going to talk about each here in a moment, is all about identifying two things. Number one is likelihood. Number two is capacity. I do not think they are equal. Likelihood is 80 to 90% of the equation. Are they likely to want to do something in support of the organization you represent? 

I once spoke to a very, large university, to the entire fundraising advancement division, and asked the question, would you rather have capacity or likelihood? Almost everybody answered capacity. And I said, give me 10 minutes and show you some data and then let's ask the question again. We are more likely to be successful, to have less rejection and more success that we can embrace and feel great about if we worried more about the people that want to engage with us than just who are the richest people. I've talked about it on previous podcasts, we are addicted to wealth screening. Find a way to do likelihood screening, who are the people who are the most likely, but you still have to have both, depending on your place in the organization. If you're a principal gift officer, do they have a capacity to make a $500,000 or a million-dollar gift? If you're a major gift officer, can they make a gift of $5,000 or $10,000 or more? If you're an annual gift officer, can they make a gift of $100, $250, or $500? Most importantly, think about that likelihood and then worry about the capacity.

So, the ultra-tactical, if you're going to make phone calls, have a thick skin. Realize this isn't about you. Most people who choose not to engage has nothing, absolutely zero, to do with the person calling -- either the experience didn't meet up to their expectations, that connection isn't good, or simply they're just having a bad day.

That's thick skin mentality of really embracing the idea that I'm going to do this because it's important to my future. I'm not going to take it personally can be literally 70% of the equation in winning this battle. Create the right environment -- mentally, physically, can you lock yourself down where there's not a lot of distractions because most likely gift officers will want to do something else? Can you schedule time to ensure that you're going to block time to do this right now? And lastly, even when you're on the phone, smile, your voice changes. When you smile, you become more likable. 

If your qualification process involves a personal visit or in a COVID world, a zoom visit, or a virtual visit, keep them short. For capacity, you might look around and see where they spend their disposable income. Pictures are a great indicator. I remember in California in Santa Barbara or excuse me in Santa Monica, I was working with a client there and I worked with gift officers to realize that at Santa Monica, there are a lot of people who have boats and boats are expensive. That's an indicator of capacity. It's not how big their house is because you can't, unless you're doing plan giving, you're not going to get a cash gift from the house. Disposable income is what's going to be able to be leveraged for a cash gift or some type of pledge. So disposable income is spent on things that are fun and interesting, not that are based on a house payment or the size of the actual house. Remember, in the conversation, it's always about what's next? What is it you want the next step to be, so they fully understand where you're headed? 

The last tactical piece of advice is what are the questions to ask, to figure out likelihood on the phone or in-person? And let me give you a couple. Is this something you would be interested in after you talk about why the organization is doing what it is? Ask the question. Is this something you might be interested in? Could you see yourself supporting this? Could this be a top giving priority for you? The similarity in all three questions is that there's a yes/no answer and you need that yes/no answer because likelihood needs to be identified in an affirmative or a negative, so you know what to do next. If it's a negative, move on to the next person. If it's an affirmative, what's the next step, can I bring you more information? And that will lead us into this idea of cultivation. Don't forget if they say no, might as well ask them for a gift anyway. So, if you're qualifying them for $10,000 and they're not going to show interest at that level. Gosh, would you consider a $500 gift in support of the organization? What's the worst thing they can say – No? Build rapport, put yourself in a mental, physical state to be able to do this, and realize it's not personal. And then take some of the tactical tips and apply them as most appropriate. Next time, we'll talk about cultivation and some of the things that go along with that to get someone to the point where you can ask them, particularly if it's a larger gift. 

I want to remind you about the website, www.hallettphilanthropy.com. That's two “L's” and two “T's” in Hallett Philanthropy. You can check out the blogs there and the podcast. Please subscribe and share it with a friend or two if you find this helpful or think that someone else might find it helpful. And lastly, if you want to email me if you think “this stinks” or there's a problem, my homage to Clark Howard, reeks@hallettphilanthropy.com, or if you have a recommendation for the podcast that's podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. 

It’s a noble profession, I end every time because I really truly believe it. I get up every morning thinking how lucky I am to do what I do. I hope you feel the same way. You are making a difference for people who are in a struggle in life right now or have a small part of their life that's a struggle. Nonprofits, fill holes in communities to make it better. And I believe that that is so important in our world today. Don't forget my all-time favorite saying, “Some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. Then there are those who wondered what happened.” I think that in the world we live in one of those three places every moment we're breathing. And the great thing about philanthropy is it's people, as a staff, in you or a philanthropist who's giving people who want to make things happen for people who are just wondering what happened in their life. That's a vocational call, and I hope you feel good about what you did today, what you do tomorrow and the day after, because it is a difference-maker. I appreciate your time here and we'll look forward to seeing you next time with cultivation on the next podcast, on, “Around with Randall”. And don't forget, make it a great day!