Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Bernice Martin Lee Part 2: How details make the difference in fundraising success.
39 Plays7 months ago
In Part 2 of this interview series, Bernice shares about a time when she realized that her team needed additional training gift solicitation, as well as how she succeeded in getting the attention and funding of what seemed like a disinterested foundation. Lastly Bernice discusses the critical role attention to detail plays in cultivating major gifts.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Abundant Vision Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Abundant Vision Fundraising Podcast. Whether you are a seasoned professional or a first-time fundraiser, we have the advice you need to take your next step toward major gift mastery. I'm your host, Tom Dauber, president of Abundant Vision Philanthropic Consulting. Last week's conversation was a blast. I'm so excited to have you with me for this next segment. Let's get back to the show.
Lessons on Effective Fundraising
00:00:31
Speaker
So I'm curious,
00:00:34
Speaker
you know, and whether it's there at the epilepsy foundation or in in previous jobs you've had, is there a problem that you've run up against that you wish you could have a do over on? The problem that I've run up against and I wish I could have a do over on, we hold a, a corporate relationship meeting at a large conference each year. And coming into the organization, I made the assumption,
00:01:02
Speaker
that my team of fundraisers were trained in the same way that I was trained and and realized that they were not.
Overcoming Fundraiser Hesitation
00:01:09
Speaker
One thing I learned at my time at at Ohio State University was how to close a gift, right? And if I was to have a do-over in this last year, I would have met with my team prior to that meeting and really um coach them in how to close a gift.
00:01:31
Speaker
Right. Because what I found is that we were leaving a lot of this conversations with, well, let's set up the next meeting. And there were many times in those conversations I had to come in and say, well, this is the expectation of the gift. When would you be ready to commit to this? Yeah. Yeah. Right. And I think a lot of fundraisers are challenged with
Training for Successful Gift Closures
00:01:58
Speaker
that. Like if they're having good conversation with the donor,
00:02:01
Speaker
if they feel that the donor is engaged and there is an opportunity, they sometimes hesitate on making the ask, right? As we know, the donor's gonna tell you yes or no, right? Or they're gonna tell you what they can or cannot do. um If you put out a number and it's not comfortable, they're going to tell you, right? They're going to tell you. And I think um many fundraisers get caught in and the, if I ask,
00:02:26
Speaker
I don't feel like I have enough information to make the ass. I don't feel like they've told me what they want to do. Well, you still have to make the ask because also you will know if this is a prospect that you don't, you can give less time to because they're not ready. Yeah. great Right. And we, we've all had that donor that has led you on, right? We've all had that donor who will take a meeting, um,
00:02:56
Speaker
we'll come to a lunch, we'll come to an event, we'll come and continue in in continuing cultivation. And they seem very interested and you know they have the capacity, but they never really pull the trigger. yeah And sometimes that's because you never really ask. So if I had to do it where I would have went back and said, okay, how are we going to close these gifts at the conference? Like we have the people in the room, we are face to face. And what I had, what I told my staff after is that,
00:03:25
Speaker
You know, you have me there, you have a chief of the department and you have their leadership team there. yeah This is a lot of money in a room. So let's make this time worth worthwhile. Let's put a proposal on the table and let them react. They wouldn't have come to the meeting if they weren't interested.
Strategic Goals for Increased Fundraising
00:03:45
Speaker
I'm sure that I'm sure that has made a radical change in your fundraising numbers just by implementing that one thing.
00:03:53
Speaker
Well, and I would say we're still training on it. We're still learning on it, right? It's it's a very, you know, even as consummate fundraiser, we're really good at telling the story. We're really good at explaining the impact, but it gets a little hard when you're the one asking for the gift, right? And having that negotiation becomes a little, and and I think that we're we're definitely getting better, but it's still the area. We just hired a new CDO who's excellent. at She's a closer and that's what we needed.
00:04:23
Speaker
and to be able to help our team be able to close more gifts because, again, excellent relationship builders, excellent storytellers, but we need to be more aggressive in a close. I'll be excited
Success Story: From Cold to Gold
00:04:34
Speaker
to hear how that all goes for you, B. Well, we we we're on a philanthropic growth plan that we that we are have a trajectory of increasing fundraising by almost 10 million over three years, so good we we will see.
00:04:48
Speaker
that's That's aggressive, but i'm I'm excited. That's wonderful. So I'm curious, and this can be anything in your career, B. I'd love to hear from you, your best discovery slash qualification slash disqualification story. Yeah. Yeah, I also was my best qualification story. During my time with the American Red Cross, I i was a deployed disaster fundraiser, and I was also a major gift officer for the local region. And in the Red Cross, you can typically hold two roles, depending on crisis, right? And we were looking for a way to ignite the foundation community to give to the Red Cross. And we just came off of a disaster, I believe, with Hurricane Harvey. And we were attempting of how do we begin to engage these and particularly family foundations, as you and this was in Pittsburgh.
00:05:45
Speaker
As you know, Pittsburgh has one of the largest philanthropic communities in the country. ah That is where Heinz, Carnegie, all of those foundations, and it had spurred a large community of family foundations. ah And we were really looking to tap into those funds and the program officers really weren't responding to the foundation in the way that we thought that they would.
00:06:10
Speaker
So I went to my CDO at the time and said, you know, we should hold a cultivation event. We should hold it the a cultivation event. And there was some humming and hawing about it, um but we went through with it and we brought in our national director of disaster, disaster recovery. And there was a foundation that we had been trying to get to know and trying to get them to know us with no avail, but they showed up at this event.
00:06:39
Speaker
his family showed up at the event. And they were so enamored with the director, right? They were so enamored with just what he had accomplished, the stories he was telling about the, about how he was supporting communities and things of that sort. And they were like, okay, we're in 325,000. And this was a gift. This was, and we they still continue to have this relationship with ah the family, but this was a family that,
00:07:09
Speaker
other than having an invitation to that event and being able to meet that person would not have made a gift to the Red Cross. Like I said, this was, I mean, years of trying to engage this particular donor without any success, but it took that one, that one-on-one connection. And and and and my advice was like putting people in a room together without, it wasn't about me as the fundraiser.
00:07:38
Speaker
it was connecting them with the person that was gonna make the most impact for them.
Building Strong Donor Relationships
00:07:42
Speaker
So that was my greatest and identification because again, they were pretty obscure to us and then within 24 hours had made a gift, you know a six-figure gift to the organization. Tom Dobber here for Abundant Vision Philanthropic Consulting. Fundraising can be hard work, and it can be hard to mentally get into the place you need to be in order to see new opportunities. Everyone struggles with it. We are like the fish in the fishbowl who just can't see the water they're swimming in. That's when having outside expertise comes in handy.
00:08:16
Speaker
For 25 years, I've been helping nonprofits analyze the challenges, discover new ways forward, and develop clear plans that lead to greater fundraising back to the show.
00:08:44
Speaker
i'm I'm curious, did you have a chance to talk with them about what what got their interest specifically about the event? what did What did they say? Well, you know, they said, you know, they were, in you know, this one because we were talking about a national issue and not just something that was local, they wanted to come and to hear about it, right? What had happened, because of course, Hurricane Harvey was a huge disaster in our country, right? Followed by Irma and Maria.
00:09:08
Speaker
And so they wanted to hear that, you know, what, how does the Red Cross operate in this way? What were the success stories? Because ah honestly, at that point, the Red Cross had not, there'd also have been some negative press about how the Red Cross operated as well, right? But when I talked with them, they said they were really surprised to understand that our local resources ship to crisis areas in time of crisis. So their particular gift was for an emergency rescue vehicle.
00:09:38
Speaker
a sprinter van that would travel from Pennsylvania to a disaster site. And in their mind, that was their way of helping in national disasters with a local point of view. Wow, that's cool. so you So you broadened the vision and it captured their attention. That's great. Absolutely. Very good. I'm curious, and and I mean, that story could count as both if you wanted, but I'd love to hear your best cultivation story.
00:10:08
Speaker
So during my time at OSU, I was really, really blessed to have met a family working in rheumatology, the Schwabber family. And at the time when I arrived, they were making about a $250,000 gift to support the Lupus Research Lab. And that gift was important really important to the department. It was really, really important to the department.
00:10:37
Speaker
and to the chair, Dr. Jazure. And we really worked hard to engage them further in the work of the lab. Even so much so, their daughter lives here, lives locally in the Dayton area. And in one conversation, they mentioned this bakery that was world-renowned, like this bakery everybody loved. So I worked with my stewardship officer and we,
00:11:06
Speaker
We had a Zoom call planned. And I said, can you send over treats from this bakery for our call? And she worked with the bakery. And not only did the bakery send over the treats and have them delivered, but they wrapped them all in scarlet and gray. And you know they were just so tickled that I remembered that that we had this conversation about this bakery and that we really took the time to um make that call special by delivering these treats. And you know over time, and and mind you, I've never met this couple in person. Only over Zoom, because this was all happening during COVID. right We had several more calls and and got to know the family, got to know their story. And you know again, want I want to talk about not a sprint. I mean, not a sprint, but a marathon.
00:12:02
Speaker
ah Getting to know them, I understood their their deep connection to lupus. But more importantly, therere they're both scientists. right And that was an important understanding, right that it wasn't just the disease state that they were interested they were really interested in how they were developing a breakthrough in the disease state and willing to support that. And so we we had a phone call at the end of the the time of their first gift agreement, that you know about six months before it ended.
00:12:33
Speaker
giving him the impact, had um the chair on the phone, giving him that information. And I said, we'd love to continue this relationship. And they said, we would love to continue too. We're really impressed with the work. um We're going to make a $2 million dollars gift. And i that if that would have been the end of the story, it would have been enough. But remember, this was during the time of COVID. And also during this time, I was inviting them to the COVID updates that OSU was providing. And they were really, really interested in those updates and then became very impressed with and Dr. Mohler who was leading those presentations and asked if they could have a call with him. So I arranged that call and they made an additional $1.4 million dollars gift because they were so impressed with the work that he was
The Power of Personal Touches
00:13:24
Speaker
doing. So, you know, over a year, a year, 16 months of cultivation
00:13:30
Speaker
we were able to garner a gift of $3.4 million dollars from this family. That's fantastic B. But it was the little things, right? it would and And I i always tell my followers, sometimes it's the little things. It's the notes. It's remembering something that they told you that was special to them and bringing that back into the next conversation and understanding what's who they are and their motivations. Yeah.
00:13:58
Speaker
that helped in those relationships along. That is such important advice be I, uh, I find that that's one of those things that a lot of fundraising leaders, nonprofit leaders, uh, unfortunately fail to do for various reasons. That's it what the attention to detail can do. Tom, I am not, you know, some people are masters at the personalized note. I have horrible handwriting. So if I wrote a note, you wouldn't be able to, you wouldn't be able to read it. Yeah.
00:14:27
Speaker
But I recognize there are other things I can do yeah that also convey that message. you know I have a donor here locally that I'm still very close with. um And you know I remember him telling me a story of how he he was a developer in Puerto Rico. And he used to tell me how he used to ride around in his red or his red as convertible around the island. And so when he had experienced a fall and was i'm hospitalized, I sent him my a succulent basket that was in a red convertible planner, right? And he was so tickled by it, right? But it's things like that. Just i like letting them tell their stories, letting them tell you their lived experience and remembering small details from that. I'll bet that really made him feel valued and heard. Yeah. And that he's a person, right? He's not a target. Yeah. Yeah. well That he's a person to you and that you're interested in their life story.
Episode Wrap-up and Future Teasers
00:15:25
Speaker
And I think that that sometimes makes all the difference. That's all the time we have today. But be sure to tune in next week to hear the next part of this exciting conversation. Now, if you've enjoyed this podcast, please be sure to subscribe and give us a five star rating on your podcast provider. I'm your host, Tom Dauber. Thank you for joining me as we journey together towards Major Gift Mastery on the Abundant Vision Fundraising Podcast.