Transcript
Speaker: I realized that one of the best ways that fundraisers learn is by talking to other fundraisers, hearing stories, seeing how they've gone about having those conversations. It's invaluable. But the problem is if you're new at fundraising, if you've just joined the nonprofit world, you may not know those people.
Speaker: especially the people who are really high -level leaders. You may not know associate vice presidents or foundations. You may not know principal gift officers, people working at the very highest level of fundraising in an organization. You may not know people that have 20 years experience in fundraising. And so as I thought about it, you know,
Speaker: Apart from just sharing my own knowledge, my own education about these things, one of the best ways that I could help nonprofit leaders like you
Speaker: is to actually conduct interviews with people that have had substantial success and just get them to tell their stories of how they got into the business, how they really developed the type of mastery that you need to be able to confidently solicit a major gift. Welcome to the Abundant Vision Fundraising Podcast.
Speaker: 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. So who am I? Why am I creating a podcast? Well, this January will mark my 25th anniversary as a fundraising professional.
Speaker: as well as my one year anniversary as president of Abundant Vision Philanthropic Consulting. Now over the past year, I've had the privilege of interacting with nonprofit leaders of all kinds, CEOs, executive directors, major gift officers, volunteer board members, AVPs, and even university presidents. As you might expect, I've seen all sorts of folks with a wide variety of experiences and understandings about fundraising.
Speaker: And truthfully, most of them have really needed help due to a lack of experience, understanding, training, or in some cases, even availability. I'll never forget talking to one manager of a fundraiser when I asked him, so what's your fundraiser's goals for the year? And other than being able to tell me what their budget was and what they needed, he hadn't really thought about it.
Speaker: And I said to him, it's no wonder that your development officer isn't achieving what you want them to. If you've not given them any clear goals to shoot for, how can you guide them in that?
Speaker: So in building the vision for my own company, I came to realize that what I really care about is helping the smaller organizations develop more sophisticated approaches to fundraising, like you might find at larger foundations where I got the bulk of my experience.
Speaker: You know, I spent a long time with Central Ohio Youth for Christ, about eight years, and they're one of the larger faith -based organizations here in Columbus, Ohio. So not giant, but a good place to kind of cut your teeth. Then I spent seven and a half years at the Ohio State University College of Dentistry,
Speaker: And I kind of worked my way up. And honestly, during that time, I had every single donor -facing position that you could have within a university. Between that and my next role, which was seven and a half years there at the OSU College of Pharmacy, developed a lot of experience there at The Ohio State University and then went on to Ohio Health and their foundation.
Speaker: and let a team of seven major gift officers spread around Central Ohio at various care sites and service lines for them. So along the way, I've realized that many of these organizations don't even have the budget for the training and coaching that they really need. I spent some time considering how to best help smaller organizations that have limited resources and came up with three main ideas.
Speaker: So number one, I have a free coaching cohort for nonprofit leaders to join.
Speaker: Now, this is a monthly group coaching session, and it costs nothing. The space is limited to the first 10 organizations that sign up, and this has been great. I've had a number of folks from the pharmacy world join up with me. An old colleague of mine from Ohio State, who's now with a professional organization foundation, has also joined my group and then got
Speaker: One gal who's in nonprofit communications actually over in Nigeria signed up, as well as a group that focuses on medication misuse and other social issues in the state of New Jersey. So it's really exciting. We've got a broad group of different types of folks with different levels of training and education.
Speaker: And invariably, as we sit there and talk, we come up with things that really all of them need to hear. I think about, there's another coaching client in that group that I have, and she's working in a disability -focused organization. And she's got a lot of the same issues that the folks do in the medication misuse area.
Speaker: And so when one of them asks me a question and everybody in the group gets to provide input if they've got some helpful feedback, but I often find that as I'm helping one, I'm helping all of them in those conversations.
Speaker: On the flip side, you've also got a number of organizations that are brand new. They're just getting their first donors. They're trying to figure out, well, how do I go from an organization that has never had donors to an organization that has a pool of donors that we can begin to cultivate towards major gifts? And that's a whole other conversation altogether. So we've got that free coaching cohort that I'm providing there.
Speaker: And then after that, I'm going to start a new coaching cohort. So some of you are out there and thinking, you know, I'd like to try Tom out and I'd like to try him out as a fundraising coach, even for free. This is your opportunity to get in there and get some time with me where we can start talking about your organization and how to take those next steps towards major gift mastery, as I like to say.
Speaker: So we've got that resource. And then I've also created a low -cost online school, Abundant Vision Academy. It's available through Teachable. You can go on to Abundant Vision Academy and you can even take one free class that I've created that helps you
Speaker: cover the 20 most important questions that you can answer before you create a major gift program. Because I understand that a lot of organizations, maybe you're sitting out there and you've been really just funded by grants in your early days, or maybe some other source of money. And so as a new 501c3 potentially, or maybe one that just has never tried the major gift route, you want to start to think about that.
Speaker: Before you just go out and say well we're starting a major gift program. There's a lot of homework to do there's some some groundwork you gotta lay for your foundation that.
Speaker: will allow you to be successful in major gifts. So if that's something you're looking for, you can look my class up on Teachable there, and you can find that. So this is thomas -daubert -s -school .teachable .com.
Speaker: I'll make sure to include that in the description of this this podcast. But what I'm saying is I've got a free resource on there for you. Check it out. Maybe you like it. Now, if it's helpful to you and you want some more training, but maybe you're not ready to take on a monthly coaching subscription with me.
Speaker: I've got another class on there that for a relatively small amount of money that can be, you know,
Speaker: paid over a number of months if you really need that help. You can actually get trained up pretty quickly in the basics of major gift fundraising. And I've looked at a lot of other types of training mechanisms, really tried to boil it down to the basics. What's the minimum a leader needs to know in order to get going on major gifts?
Speaker: And I know a lot of leaders out there, as you're thinking about your time and your availability, you don't have a lot. And so I've actually gotten this thing down to 110 minutes and really cover all the basics that you need to know. So I'd encourage you to check that out, see if that's helpful for you.
Speaker: but it's low cost, any nonprofit should be able to afford certainly the free class, but even the fee -based one. And then as I was looking at other ways that I could help, I realized that one of the best ways that fundraisers learn is by talking to other fundraisers, hearing stories, seeing how they've gone about having those conversations. It's invaluable. But the problem is if you're new
Speaker: at fundraising, if you've just joined the nonprofit world, you may not know those people.
Speaker: especially the people who are really high -level leaders. You may not know associate vice presidents of foundations. You may not know principal gift officers, people working at the very highest level of fundraising in an organization. You may not know people that have 20 years experience or more in fundraising. And so as I thought about it, I thought, you know,
Speaker: Apart from just sharing my own knowledge, my own education about these things, one of the best ways that I could help nonprofit leaders like you is to actually conduct interviews with people that have had substantial success and just get them to tell their stories of how they got into the business.
Speaker: where they learned to cut their teeth and how they really developed the type of mastery that you need to be able to confidently solicit a major gift.
Speaker: I know for me, I've really benefited by having some fantastic managers over the years. People that have gone on, again, to be AVPs and VPs, and I've even had the chance to go on donor visits with them and watch them do their thing, and certainly to have their input on the work that I've been doing. But again, many of us,
Speaker: who are working in small nonprofits, you don't have that. You don't have other fundraising professionals that you're working with to talk to. And you certainly, oftentimes, unfortunately, you don't have a boss who has years and years of experience that you can benefit from. And so this is one way that I'm trying to take
Speaker: you know, one aspect of mentorship, one aspect of supervision and leadership that has helped me tremendously and share that with all of you. And so if all goes the way I hope, or you're going to be hearing from some of my bosses, some of the people that taught me and mentored me in the profession, and you're going to benefit from some of them. And I'll tell you, some of these folks are
Speaker: pretty heavy hitters. These are some of the best fundraisers I know. And I know a lot of fundraisers. I've been doing this, like I said, for 25 years, seeing a lot of successful people. So I'm very excited to expose all of you to some of the people that have been instrumental in my career. And I believe
Speaker: even from afar through a podcast, can be instrumental in helping you in that area as well. In fact, and then of course, I'll be sharing my opinions about some of the things that I'm seeing, both as I talk to clients and potential clients, but also things that are coming up on LinkedIn and in the news and the Chronicle of Philanthropy. There's all sorts of things that are coming up that need commentary.
Speaker: This is the introductory podcast. This is who I am. I'm a person that has had great success in higher ed and community faith -based fundraising, as well as in health care fundraising. I've got a pretty broad experience level. I think my close total is probably somewhere around 40 to 50. But in terms of initiatives I've led, it's well over 100 million.
Speaker: And I'm just so excited to be able to take some of the learnings that I've gained and help make those accessible to you. So feel free to comment, feel free to reach out. You can reach me at abundantvision .net. If you'd like to schedule a free consult to talk further about how I can be of assistance to you, or you can email me at thomasdauber at abundantvision .net. If you do have questions, if you do have things that you'd like to see me cover,
Speaker: Looking forward to going on this journey with you 30 minutes a week is all it takes. I'm your host, Tom Dauber. Thank you for joining me as we journey together toward Major Gift Mastery on the Abundant Vision fundraising podcast.
