It’s the little things that can make a big difference in developing donor relationships. Using proper names and salutations, customizing and personalizing contacts, the use of the telephone and voicemail, and even how nonprofits approach the use of social media have nuances that will make a difference. LaShonda Williams from Fundraising Academy shared top tips in this fast paced learning segment! More about Fundraising Academy.org
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Telecast Transcript:
Julia Patrick
Welcome everybody to another episode of the nonprofit show. This is day 2. Of a drill down series with superstar Lashonda Williams from fundraising Academy. And these two days we’ve been talking about communicating gratitude and the actual thanking. Of donors and how we navigate this, it’s a I mean lashonda it’s a bigger issue than two days, I gotta say.
Julia Patrick
It is an ongoing conversation that’s never ending because you can never say thank you enough. And there are a merry out of different ways to say thank you based on the various donors that you’re dealing with, whether it be segmenting it out or customizing it. But thank you. You can never say enough and you want to make sure you have the necessary touch points. To strengthen the relationship and keep it going.
LaShonda Williams
And keep it going. Well, let’s dig in because we’ve got day two-part 2 of this. And again, if you don’t know who I am, I’m Julia Patrick, CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. Jarrett Ransom, my co-host, will be joining us shortly. She’s the CEO of the Raven Group and again, we are here today because of our amazing sponsors. And so we want to say thank you to them. Boomerang American nonprofit Academy your part time. Controller nonprofit thought Leader fundraising Academy at National University Staffing boutique, nonprofit Nerd and nonprofit Tech Talk. If you want to find any of the 800 episodes that we have produced. Over the past three years, we’re now in our 4th year. You can do that through our streaming broadcast. You can listen to us if you like podcasts, or you can download our super sexy new app. Just take a shot of this QR code and you can find us reaching out to you with what has gone on that day. It’s a really cool, cool tool and I want to thank my team at the American nonprofit Academy who created it, spearheaded by Kevin Pace. It is an amazing thing. All right, Speaking of amazing Lashonda Williams backed for day 2. I think we need day three and day four on this topic because.
Julia Patrick
Please do.
LaShonda Williams
Yeah, you said some things to me yesterday. Pardon me that took my breath away, Lashonda Williams trainer at fundraising Academy. You can find more information about her and and the team members that she works with at fundraising-academy.org. Lashonda yesterday you started off with. The four P’s. And the elements of a thank you and the thing that blew my mind is I think I was like. I was post gift specific. I was thinking this is what you do after you’ve received the gift and you. Were like. No, no, no, no, no. This is what you do as you walk the journey with this donor. And I’m like, yeah, duh. I don’t know why it was like, all in my mind post gift post gift. And so you said we need to be prompt. We need to be personalized, we need to be passionate and we need to be positive and that was the framework for our discussion yesterday. And I just wanted to kind of revisit that briefly because it factors into the things that we’re going to talk about now. And one of the things that I need help with understanding the difference between customized and personalized because there’s a pretty big difference.
Julia Patrick
Yes, indeed, there really is. So when you’re thinking about customized, you want to think about segmenting. So when you have a variety of donors that fit in a particular category, you may want to customize those messages. Meaning, for donors, it may be in a giving society, for example, stating to them specific things related to the benefits of the giving society and the impact of that said, giving society and addition to that, when you’re personalizing it, that is when you are acknowledging the individual and their specific. Individual goals and aspirations as they. Relate to being impactful with your organization. This is an opportunity to reflect on the relationship that you’ve built through needs discovery. When you learned how they wanted to impact the organization, some of their passions, and you want to connect their passions with the organization and how they can be impactful. And how their gift has been a tremendous resource to growing the organization and achieving its goal.
LaShonda Williams
So I love that you’ve talked about this and I’ve got a question as a follow up, when you talk about the customized market, you know, segmenting that market that you have. And you mentioned specifically maybe more campaign oriented or program oriented. Do you ever do this by donor amount?
Julia Patrick
So it depends on the organization and the structure. So you have to be very mindful of resources. And when I’m Speaking of resources, I’m talking about the time available, the number of people that you have in your shop and then also how much will it cost you in terms of getting this done. So it just depends on the organization and. The perfect world. We’d be able to handle it all. However, if you are a small shop, you want to identify what’s going to be the most effective and efficient way to thank your donors. There are instances where you may have categories of annual fund level gifts, leadership level, gifts and then major gifts and depending on the type of gift will determine. The type of personalization and those said thank you touches and so also to also determine who would be your signator on the message. So you can have multiple touch. Points and some gifts may require more touch points than others, but ideally you want to treat all gifts as though they were a major gift because the donor may have the propensity to give more, and it could actually be a test gift. You never want to minimize any gift because all gifts. Do matter because they help elevate your organization and move you forward on your path to succeeding with your mission.
LaShonda Williams
Yeah, I love that. And I love that you brought up, you know that. Thank who who’s doing the thanking and what is the signature? I think that’s brilliant because. Undoubtedly, how do we communicate up? You know, the the chain of command when they might not have any contact with that leadership, but ultimately they will or they should. Or they might want to. I mean, yeah, I think that’s brilliant that you brought that up because that’s one of those things that we we don’t often talk about. And then I feel like sometimes in our portfolios there’s a little bit. Of I don’t know. Not jealousy, but like it’s mine. That list is mine and. You know?
Julia Patrick
Right. The ownership is ownership of the relationship because you have invested in the relationship and cultivated and nourished it.
LaShonda Williams
Yeah, ownership. That’s a better word.
Julia Patrick
And now that it has become actualized in terms of a gift, it kind of transitions the way that we want to engage. However, we also want to be mindful. That the relationship ultimately is owned by the organization and we are acting agents and therefore we must respond in the best interest of the organization as opposed to our personal preferences.
LaShonda Williams
Thank you for for reminding us of that because I. Think that’s the. Ego and that’s the personalized side of things that get messy and get in the way. And you’re right, ultimately, it’s our donor is being stewarded by the organization and not just that, that personal relationship that we think we might have. Another piece of this is like now we’re kind of like going old school and then we’re going to new school after the foam thing, but picking up and calling a donor. And I have to witness to you. I served on a board for years, and we had a thank athon twice a year and the board members would go to one of our. Fellow board members offices that had a phone ban. And we would each be given a stack of names and numbers. Generally we did this on Saturday mornings, not too early, and then we would just call and thank people whether it was leaving a message or we would, you know, speak to them directly and we would just say, you know, we would identify ourselves as board members and all we’re doing is simply. Calling to say thank you and people would.
Speaker
Be so shocked.
LaShonda Williams
They would try and give us more money and we’d be like, you know, we’re going to have to have someone call you because we can’t. We’re not taking, you know, donations. We’re just literally calling you calling to thank you. It was always one, I think, of my most favorite days it. It was a little stressful to begin with. Everybody was a little nervous and then you start making those phone calls. And you just really became. I don’t. I almost want to say engaged.
Julia Patrick
Absolutely, it is the perfect level of engagement. I tell everyone all the time, whenever preparing your thank yous, you want to start with a nice script. You want to get comfortable with the script you know, do a little role-playing with your colleagues. I used to manage a call center and we did solicitations as well as thank athons. And there is nothing better than being able to call a donor. Saying thank you because in many instances in the world that we live in, most people are very accustomed to a lot of evening solicitations. And so a thank you call is a breath of fresh air, and one of the things about your thank you calls we mentioned earlier customization. This is the opportunity to segment out those phone calls. And identify donors that may have given to a specific program in identifying those specific attributes of the program and the accomplishments and having one particular individual being assigned to call donors that have given to that specific program.
LaShonda Williams
I love that because you know, I don’t think we were that sophisticated. I think we were just given, like, you know, probably letters like you take ABC and D and. You take the. But I love that because then that makes the. It it it also it it makes it more of a genuine conversation, but for some some folks that might make it a little bit easier to have the conversation or actually dial the number.
Julia Patrick
It does make it easier because then the individual that’s making the thank you becomes the quasi expert on that talking point. And then of course, obviously you want to equip your board members and anyone who’s making phone calls. If you’re doing a thank you time frame, like a think a thought, you want equipped them with basic information about the organization, however. You want to prepare them to be the expert on the program. To give the donor insight on the the updates, some of the advancements, how their gift is benefiting, how many people, the the the gift has benefited and then some of the forthcoming outcomes and simply culminating with thank you, your gift is appreciated. Another Ave. to consider when sorting out those calls could be by gift. Now in more, more instances than not. Those higher dollar gifts you may want to have your executive director or your President of the board to call, which creates that opportunity to really strengthen the relationship and demonstrate the power of a more sizable gift. And it also is a talking point from an administrative level to talk about more in depth about the overarching goals. In the future, so it gives that donor not only a thank you for what you’ve done, but this is what we’re planning on. The road ahead. And thank you for joining us on this journey. And we’ll keep you informed as we continue to make progress.
LaShonda Williams
I love that you know, again, it’s a genuine thing. I got two follow up questions and one is. Is it OK just to leave a voicemail and just say these things that I mean in a very truncated version, very short and sweet, but to say we’re just calling to say thank you. And you know, because of you, we’ve we’ve done some great things and we hope to see you. On our campus or at our event or whatever, I mean, how does that play out?
Julia Patrick
So when I’ve when I’ve hosted think athons, we did leave voicemail messages. However, the caveat. With the voicemail message, because you only have a small window of time when you’re sending or leaving a voicemail message, you also want to follow up with an e-mail immediately prompt. To let them know I did reach out to. You. I left. You a voicemail message. We hope that you’ve received it. Please let us know if there’s a better time. When I can call. You back to speak with. You so again you want to alert them because you know with voicemail messages again today.
LaShonda Williams
OK.
Julia Patrick
Think about it. We’re more tech savvy. And so we’re more in tune to text messages than we would be to listening to a voicemail. And then there have been instances where individuals have subscribed to text messaging services to send out thank yous. However not. As personal as that voice to voice communication.
LaShonda Williams
Right. You know, that’s super genius yet again, hair on fire moment. I never thought of that. And I think that’s really smart. Because again, it’s it’s positive, it’s engaging and if if that donor wants to communicate, great. If not, it doesn’t seem like it’s like you’re hammering them.
Julia Patrick
Exactly puts them back in control of the situation because when you’re when you’re going through the donor cycle and preparing for the solicitation, the donor is in control, they they set the tone and the pace of the relationship and how quickly or how modestly it will move around through the donor cycle.
LaShonda Williams
Yeah, I love it. Now here’s another question and again this somewhat this might seem like it’s come. Being out of left field, but it does weave into this and I I’d love for you to chat with us about using the donors name the right way. You mentioned it yesterday, which again I thought was genius, making sure that early on in the cultivation piece, you ask what’s appropriate. And I’m wondering what this looks like to you and how we should navigate this because it can be really uncomfortable.
Julia Patrick
It really can, but that is the power of relationship building and the power of learning and discovering things about your donor. From an electronic standpoint, we mentioned many people make gifts online and with your online giving form, you can have a space that. As please identify your your preference in terms of how you’d like to be addressed, you can have multiple boxes, one or your formal salutation, and then the informal name so that you have both. And then when the when the relationship gets to the point where it’s assigned to an RM, then during the discovery phase the RM can have a conversation about how the individual prefers to be addressed. If they’re more of a formal person or a less formal person, and it’s not discriminating. Because there are many high net worth individuals who simply prefer to be called by their first. And so again, it’s an individual preference and it’s our responsibility to ensure that we’re acknowledging donors in the manner that is their preference. Many of my solicitations that I’ve done in the past have been quasi informal because we want to make that connection with the individual and make it very personalized. And when you have a signature of of someone who is a high level administrator within the organization, it creates that personal effect, that individual, and it makes them think ohh. The President of the organization sent me a letter. Or left me a voicemail and that gives you that warm fuzzy feeling that is not one that will make someone be upset about the informal messaging or the name use. However, it will make them feel as though they have a relationship with the person that’s sending the message, but in the end it’s all about acknowledging and recognizing. Owner preferences.
LaShonda Williams
You know, it’s so interesting that you’d say that because I had just in the last 24 hours that occasion I was briefly introduced at an event to a Fortune 500 CEO who’s done some amazing philanthropic work. I wrote him a thank you note yesterday morning. And I addressed the envelope with his more, you know, his fur. First and last name his title. All that, and then when I opened up my note card to write, I was like, oh, do I write Mr. or do I write his first name because I had a very, I mean I I had probably 120 minute. Chat with him, right, very small. But I didn’t know how formal or, you know, have a commonality. And so I I was like the way I addressed it in my own mind was OK. I did the formal greeting and citation on the envelope on the inside. I just wrote his first name because it was. It was a weird thing, but it speaks to what we’re talking about.
Julia Patrick
Exactly from the external envelope. A male piece is a formal piece, and that is definitely where you want to have this proper salutation and recognition. However, personal messages are that they’re personal, and again, depending on the donor and the demographic. So, for example, with myself, I’ve dealt with donors who are relatively young and those that are really seasoned and sophisticated. And so, because I know my donors, they’re instances where I have a donor who’s very seasoned and sophisticated. Says call me by my first name and then I have others that simply are very formal and proper, and I acknowledge them as such and so the personal note may say Mr. or misses. But then there are other instances will simply say Julia, so you want to make sure that you know. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, how they’d like to be addressed in instances where you’re uncertain. Always use that salutation on the note if you’re uncertain, because you’d rather the individual say to you lashonda, don’t worry about calling me missus. Please, just call me Julia rather than you say, dear Julia. And then Julia says. Our relationship is not that would allow you to call me by my first name. My preference is to be called so you always want to err on the side of caution when you’re not.
LaShonda Williams
Certain you know. Do you feel like they’re regional? Regional differences in our country? So for example, maybe in the South? Or the east? We’re. More formalized in the West, we’re less. I mean, do you? Do you see that as a a part of? Our drill down with our different cultural parts of our of our communities.
Julia Patrick
That is a wonderful point of reference, because the individual that’s a seasoned donor that I mentioned to you, we’re in the Southern States and it’s a part of that southern culture and you want to make sure that you’re very respectful to your seniors. The last thing you want to come off as someone who is not respecting your senior. So from a southern hospitality standpoint, we’re always using those mysteries and misses, especially for those that are our elders. And it’s a sign of respect. And even when you think about it from a religious standpoint, most religions, the elders are respected and greeted with a specific salutation just because. Of their wisdom and knowledge. And again, this goes back to what I just said. When in doubt, always be formal because you can never go wrong with the formality. You’d rather be more formal and be asked to take off that jacket than coming in without a jacket and saying you need one.
LaShonda Williams
You are a southern belle. If you can use that reference. That is hilarious because you’re right. I feel that way too, about, like professional designations. So for me, like, you know, a chef like you would say Chef or reverend or a physician Dr. You know also within certain institutions, I know with higher education a lot of times they would say President Smith, you know as or Chancellor or you know pulling together those titles. And I think that’s going to make the person who’s earned that title feel better.
Speaker
You know.
Julia Patrick
Exactly it’s giving. Reverence to that achievement, you know, and is is as great as it is and wonderful. We will want to personalize it and say Julia. But if Julia. Has earned her PhD. We want to acknowledge that until Julia has said you do not have to call me Doctor. And again, these are all personal preferences. I can recall working at an institution where the President preferred to be called by her first name. And then there are other instances where the entire faculty would say I expect to be addressed as doctor, and so you want to acknowledge you want to give reference to that because the last thing you want to do is have someone think that you aren’t respecting them and respecting A donor is very, very important. And it goes to. It speaks also to the donor Bill of Rights. You know, when you talk about the prompt. With the the the designation providing the information, the impact all of that. Is in alignment. With the donor Bill of Rights being acknowledged and how he or she would like ** ***, they them would like. To be acknowledged it. All falls under the donor Bill of Rights.
LaShonda Williams
Very interesting. You know, I think sometimes we don’t think about it. But then we we. Reap the repercussions of a bad decision, or not even a bad decision. Just not being thoughtful, right? It’s like all of a sudden we wonder, like, well, why didn’t this work out? Or I thought I did everything right. But it can be these little things that become. Big things.
Julia Patrick
Exactly. And that goes, that goes that speaks to the importance of the discovery process. When you are cultivating the relationship with the donor, making sure that you’re asking open-ended questions, and especially those when it comes to recognition because a. Donor will be. Very clear about how he or she would like to be recognized. If they’d like any recognition at all when we’re talking about from a public standpoint, so you want to make sure that we’re respecting their privacy and respecting how they’re being recognized, both in writing and in public.
Speaker
So yeah.
LaShonda Williams
So that leads me to my next question, because now there’s like a whole, you know what we’ve been talking about often times has been more private. It goes through our snail mail, you know, mailbox at the end of the the drive, it goes to our e-mail account. But what about thanking somebody and social media where you’re going to have? A wider distribution within a community. What do you think about that?
Julia Patrick
Social media is a wonderful way to further your cause and also to garner additional support. First and foremost, we want to make sure that we have the donors permission before putting their name out in the universe. I can remember when I was working with the former. Institution and we received a gift from an anonymous donor of a sizable amount. And we immediately wanted to share with the broader community. However, the donor wanted to remain anonymous. So first you want to make sure that you have permission, but once you have permission, when you are formulating or crafting that. That message you also. Want to secure that donors buy in? So you want to give them a chance to look over it first to be OK with it because it’s not only the organizations brand, but it’s also the individuals brand and you want to make sure that the messaging is reflective that of recognition in the way that the donor would like to be recognized. And that’s for individuals. When you’re thinking about crowdfunding, more often than not, you have those wonderful donor roles. Some are reoccurring rolling donor roles, some are stationary. Roles on your gift form. The donor should always have the right to opt in or opt out on the donor role, and so for those that like to be recognized, they can.
Speaker
Click the box.
Julia Patrick
Of their amount being displayed as well as their name being displayed, but there may be instances that a donor will only want to share their amount. And not their name, and that creates an opportunity for them to demonstrate that their gift has power to reach the overarching financial goal. It also shows support. So you want to make sure that you have donors permission before posting names.
LaShonda Williams
Yeah, I love that. And I think that donor role concept. Is something that far too many of us kind of skip past because we think, oh, wow, well, everybody’s going to want to be recognized and everybody’s going to want to have their name listed, but that’s not always the case. And names change and relationships change and so careful you know about that as well. Well, this has been. Pardon me? You choked me up yet again. It’s really been cool to learn from you about this because the concept of thanking somebody is multifaceted. It comes in a lot of different ways. You need to be thoughtful about it, and what I’ve learned to you learn from you over the past two days is that it’s not a one off. It’s an attitude. It’s a mindset and it’s part of the journey that might end up having far more impact than we ever know.
Julia Patrick
The attitude of gratitude will only elevate your organization and you can never say thank you too many times ever.
LaShonda Williams
Well, I’m going to say thank you to you, Lashonda Williams Trainer, fundraising Academy, Lashonda is one of those amazing voices that fundraising Academy has throughout this country. All different manner of talents and people that train and educate those of us in the nonprofit so. Doctor Lashonda, I say this all the time, if I. Hadn’t met you. All 30 years ago, I would have raised 1,000,000 millions of dollars more for my community because I. I just really could have used your. Tools and it’s it’s a powerful thing.
Julia Patrick
Well, I’ll say. This Julia. But Julia, the platform that you’ve. Created is allowing you to indirectly garner millions of dollars for organizations across the world because you are sharing your. Knowledge and your knowledge is helping individuals be equipped. To be even. More efficient and effective with securing the. Gift. Well thanks.
LaShonda Williams
That’s the nice thing to say, and I appreciate that. I really, really do. Hey, before we let you go, will you chat with us really quickly about cultivate 2023? It’s coming up. And I don’t want to miss this opportunity because you, my friend, are going to be one of the speakers, right?
Julia Patrick
Yes, I’m very excited. I’ll be Co presenting with Adriana O’Donnell and we’ll be talking about donor trust through transparency, which is very important. We just talked about that this goes through from the needs discovery all the way through stewardship, all aspects of the cost selling cycle. The Cultivate Conference will be held. June 1st it’s right around the corner and sunny San Diego we offer. Two track. For those of you who may be relatively new to fundraising or right at the five year mark and you’re wanting to secure additional information in your toolbox and then for those of you that are administrators and executives that want to elevate your leadership to make your giving and philanthropic culture even more effective. So we have something for everyone. Ranging from data assessment and data matrix all the way to stewarding your donors so everything that you need to. Know to equip your shop. In the middle of the year to reassess, retool and move on, we’re cultivating knowledge. We’re cultivating relationships, and most importantly, we’re in cultivating impact.
LaShonda Williams
I love it, you know? And this is the perfect time, because before we know it, that heavy hitting, you know, year end is upon us. So this is the time to learn. You’ll have a little bit of leeway to get all prepped up and ready to go into that closing season. So I I think it’s going to be great. I know that we will be there broadcasting for two days and so we’re really excited about that as well because again we think it’s going to be an amazing thing. And hello, who doesn’t want to be in San Diego in June? I’m just.
Julia Patrick
Saying say it never rains in California. It’s storming in Texas right now, so. I’m ready to go.
LaShonda Williams
Well, my friend, you be safe because I know we talked in the green room chatter that you’ve got some dicey weather ahead of you, so. To be safe, and as we end this fabulous 2 day drill down with our friends at fundraising and Academy, we want to make sure that we express our gratitude and that’s what the topic has been for two days, 2 Boomerang American nonprofit Academy. Your part time controller nonprofit thought leader fundraising Academy at National University Staffing. Boutique, nonprofit Nerd and nonprofit tech Talk Hey, this has been a lot of fun. You have really encouraged me, of course, you’ve taught me some new things. I really appreciate.
Julia Patrick
My pleasure and. Always remember the attitude of gratitude strengthens your relationships.
LaShonda Williams
Love it? What a great way to sign off. And as we sign off from the nonprofit show, we want to remind you to stay well. So you can do well. Thank you, everyone. We’ll see you back here tomorrow. Thank you, lashonda.
Julia Patrick
Thank you, Julia. Bye, bye bye.