Rainmaker Fundraising Podcast (Andrew Olsen, CFRE and Roy Jones, CFRE)

Tracy Thomas is a rabblerouser. A change leader. A force.  She’s also a loving mom, a caring wife, and a committed believer.  Tracy and I sat down to have a frank and honest conversation about what it’s like to be a woman in executive leadership in the nonprofit sector.  As Senior Vice President of Advancement […]

Trevor Bragdon is a behavioral scientist by training, and is Founder of 7-Figure Fundraising. 

He and his team have developed a proprietary training program that helps nonprofit CEO's, fundraisers, and board members hone their fundraising message (i.e., the pitch) to secure more 5, 6, and 7-figure gifts from individual donors, foundations, and corporate partners. 

This unique approach to crafting a compelling fundraising pitch has helped organizations raise millions of additional dollars. 

Yesterday, Trevor conducting an exclusive training for 70 Newport ONE clients and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. In our podcast conversation, Trevor distills some of those same key insights that you can start taking advantage of immediately.

If you want to raise more 5, 6, and 7-figure gifts for your organization, check out this conversation. I promise you'll be glad you did!

Stewardship and gratitude are such integral components of successful philanthropy efforts. In my mind, it all comes down to showing appreciation for the people who make our work in the nonprofit sector possible.

That's why I was shocked earlier this summer when I shared the results of a small test where 8 out of 10 organizations that received a contribution never sent a thank you letter or followed up on that gift in any way, either online or offline. Unfortunately, the fact that 80% didn't say thank you isn't the part that shocked me. What shocked me was that there's a subset of fundraisers and nonprofit leaders who came to the defense of that 80% and in some instances even suggested that it's a) wrong for donors to expect to be thanked, and b) that thanking a donor for their giving is akin to begging them for their support. 

This was such a crazy conversation that it sparked additional dialogue across the industry. I jumped onto the Responsive Fundraising Podcast and spoke with Noah Barnett, CMO at Virtuous Software about this. And recently my good friend Lisa Greer, author of Philanthropy Revolution and the Philanthropy 451 Blog wrote about this situation even last week. 

In the midst of this discussion, I had the opportunity to sit down with my new friend, Karen Paul, CFRE to talk specifically about this. Karen is Director of Development at Science Museum of Oklahoma, and I was particularly interested to hear her on-the-ground perspective on this issue.

What I think you'll find is a very balanced discussion of this issue, that I hope adds value to your work and challenges your thinking in the process. 

Special Offer from Velocity Strategy Solutions, our Episode Sponsor: 

Tony Martignetti, host of Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, and one of the nation's leading authorities on planned giving just launched a brand new program to help more nonprofit organizations access the transformational impact of planned giving for their organizations. 

The program is called Planned Giving Accelerator. 

Tony and I sat down recently to talk all things planned giving, and to chat about this awesome new program for organizations of all shapes and sizes. 

In our conversation, we covered:

1. Planned Giving myths
2. Why nonprofits never start planned giving programs, and how you can overcome the challenge
3. The truth about what an organization actually needs to have in place to launch a successful planned giving program (Hint: It's NOT an in-house attorney or PG expert!)
4. How the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting donor behavior related to estate planning and planned giving

Tony also wanted to share his brand new, FREE Planned Giving How-To Guide with our listeners.

If your organization is thinking about starting or ramping up a planned giving program, you've got to check out this episode!

Special Offer From Our Episode Sponsor, Velocity Strategy Solutions:

You have people working in ways they’ve never worked, with people they don’t know, and for managers and leaders they’ve never met around projects they may not understand.

The reality is the only thing your competitor doesn’t have is your team. But if you don’t utilize them well and position them for success, you’ll send them looking for better opportunities elsewhere. It’s time to optimize your talent.

You can use the code RAINMAKER to get your FREE personalized talent assessment from Velocity Strategy Solutions today! 

 

Coral Dill is the Founder and Principal at Grant Writer Etc., and a contributing author to the 2019 #1 Best Seller, 101 Biggest Mistakes Nonprofits Make And How You Can Avoid Them. Coral is an expert grant writer and regularly helps nonprofits of all shapes and sizes become "grant ready", and has helped those organizations raise millions of dollars over the last decade. 

In this episode Coral talks with us about some of the biggest grant seeking mistakes and how to avoid them. According to Coral, the biggest mistakes she sees are:

1. Starting with grants: So many organizations - especially start-up nonprofits - assume that the fastest way to significant funding is through grants. But the reality is that most funders want to see a track record of success and fiscal health outside of grants before they'd be willing to consider a funding request.  
2. Sending unsolicited funding requests: Grant seeking my be functionally different from individual donor fundraising, but there's one major similarity. They're both deeply relationship-based. In the same way that you wouldn't think of calling an individual donor you'd never met before and making an ask on the spot, don't make that mistake with grant funders either. 
3. Assuming that everyone wants to fund you: Grant funders have specific focuses of their philanthropy. If your approach to grant seeking is to "spray and pray", you could end up sending a million grant requests and get the same result as if you'd sent none at all. Instead, invest the time to research, find funders that are aligned with your mission, and engage them deeply -- that's where you'll find success.
4. Making poor revenue assumptions: This isn't unique to grant seeking, but it's critical to avoid. The mistake here is assuming that you're going to get funded by every funder or that they'll fund you at 100% of your request. It's rare that any organization gets funded at 100% by 100% of the funders they solicit. Make sure you're not executing spending plans based on poor assumptions like this.
5. Not being prepared to manage the grant: Most organizations are prepared to accept the funds associated with a grant. But as Coral explains, often organizations are ill-prepared to handing the various stipulations, reporting requirements, and other aspects of actually fulfilling on the grant terms. If you're not prepared for those, you're not ready to solicit the grant yet.

This conversation is full of great insights and context around the biggest grant seeking mistakes that organizations make, and what you can do to make sure your nonprofit doesn't make these same mistakes. 

You can download the full show notes here.

Special Offer From Our Episode Sponsor, Velocity Strategy Solutions:

Alan Clayton is Chairman of Philanthropy and Fundraising International, and Director of Philanthropy and Fundraising North America. 

He's also a brilliant fundraiser.

I had the absolute pleasure of visiting with Alan this past week to talk about great fundraising organizations...what makes them great, how they think and behave differently than other nonprofits, how they approach their brand differently from other organizations, and what other nonprofits need to do to become great in their own right. 

Alan gives us his in-depth assessment on:

1. The biggest obstacle to great fundraising and growth for nonprofits (hint: it's probably not what you think)
2. The process organizations and leaders need to follow to bring alignment internally that can prepare their organizations for transformational growth
3. How to know if your organization is prepared for a great fundraising transformation
4. Navigating the complex maze of logic and emotion to bring about meaningful change in your organization
5. Why the conflict over investment between fundraising and program budgets is short-sighted, and how you should think differently about it
6. How an organization's fundraising returns compare to stock market returns, and why CFO's should fully embrace fundraising investment
7. The key decisions that growth-minded, successful nonprofits make that are different from the decisions that average nonprofits don't make

 

 

Alan and his team are hosting a fully ONLINE version of The Great Fundraising Masterclass from February 9 - February 12. If you like our podcast conversation and want to go deeper on this subject, sign up for this Masterclass today!

Special thanks to our friends at 7-Figure Fundraising for sponsoring today’s episode! At 7-Figure Fundraising they teach fundraisers and nonprofit leaders how to craft and deliver fundraising pitches that consistently deliver more 6 and 7-figure gifts. Right now, they are offering a 5% discount on their live online training that begins on February 16, 2021. You can register here, and use the code RAINMAKER at check-out to get the discount. 

Leadership has zero to do with position or title. It has everything to do with impact. But becoming a leader of impact doesn't just happen by accident. And it doesn't happen over night. It requires focus, intentionality, and a commitment to changing the world for the better. 

I sat down recently with Braden Douglas, founder of CREW Marketing Partners and author of Becoming a Leader of Impact to talk with him about this concept of leadership impact and how every leader can increase the level of impact they make in their organization, the lives of those they serve, and their communities. 

In our conversation, Braden outlines the 7 key characteristics of a Leader of Impact:

1. Driven by fulfilling a purpose focused on the betterment of others
2. Confronts & resolves conflicts in relationships with diligence and care
3. Displays gentleness and patience in the midst of stress, tension, and frustration
4. Is generous with their advice, their time, and their finances
5. Disciplined with their personal health, development goals, and activities to ensure they have the energy and capacity for the people and projects that matter
6. They are part of a community of like-minded people who hold them accountable, encourage them, and spur them toward greater things
7. Intentional about having an impact on others

This is just a small sampling of the great conversation with Braden. Check it out today, and pick up a copy of Becoming a Leader of Impact!

Special Offer from our episode sponsor, Velocity Strategy Solutions:

You have people working in ways they’ve never worked, with people they don’t know, and for managers and leaders they’ve never met around projects they may not understand.

The reality is the only thing your competitor doesn’t have is your team. But if you don’t utilize them well and position them for success, you’ll send them looking for better opportunities elsewhere. It’s time to optimize your talent.

You can use the code RAINMAKER to get your FREE personalized talent assessment from Velocity Strategy Solutions today! 

We kicked off 2021 with an awesome conversation with Kent Stroman, Principal and Founder of the Institute for Conversational Fundraising, and author of Asking About Asking. 

We covered a ton of ground in our conversation, focused primarily on how frontline fundraisers can improve their individual relationship engagement and raise more money for their causes. Here are some of the key points from our conversation:

1. Donors don't like to be "pitched", and why authentic conversations deliver better fundraising outcomes.
2. How frontline fundraisers -- those who have done this work for decades, and those who are brand new in their role -- can overcome the anxiety and fear of asking.
3. The impact that a fundraiser's mindset has on her ability to cultivate meaningful relationships and secure significant gifts.
4. How asking the right questions at the right time can help you unlock transformational generosity in your donors.
5. The importance of leveraging peer relationships to accelerate major donor relationships.
6. The value of listening well, and how it can help you close more gifts in 2021.

Wishing you all a successful 2021 -- and hoping The Rainmaker Fundraising Podcast continues to add value to your life and work in the new year!

Andrew

If you want to lead your organization more effectively and help your team avoid costly mistakes that drain your organization of time, talent, and revenue, check out my Amazon #1 best-seller, 101 Biggest Mistakes Nonprofits Make And how You Can Avoid Them. 

Transform your fundraising with Rainmaking: The Fundraiser's Guide to Landing Big Gifts, the best-selling resource that has been used by more than 2,500 major gift leaders, chief development officers, and executive directors to raise over $150 million in the last decade. 

If you want to be a successful major gift fundraiser, one of the most important traits you'll need is courage. Courage to overcome the fear of failure that so many of us face in asking donors to invest in our causes. Fear of not just hearing "no", but failing our organizations and letting down those we're committed to serving. 

Julie Ordoñez is the Founder of Courage Lab, a coaching and training program to help fundraisers and nonprofit leaders face their fears and build the skills and resilience necessary to raise significantly more money for mission impact. 

But Julie isn't just a coach or teacher of fundraising theory. She's a proven front-line fundraiser. She's done everything from running a one-person fundraising shop to achieving success as a top 1% major gift fundraiser for United Way of Los Angeles. 

We connected recently with Julie to learn more about the importance of courage in fundraising, and what holds people and organizations back from achieving success in their fundraising efforts. 

Some of the key takeaways you'll enjoy from our conversation are:

1. Fundraising problems are actually organizational leadership and culture problems that manifest in revenue challenges.
2. The risks of believing that only you and your employees care deeply about your cause (and that your donors don't care as much as you do).
3. The importance of empathy for fundraisers and donors alike.
4. Why the way we each view money in our personal lives impacts our ability to make significant asks. 
5. No, COVID-19 hasn't diminished the capacity of major donors (mostly), and why this line of thinking destroys your fundraising potential.
6. The importance of asking great questions and listening to donors.
7. Why you should stop looking outside your organization for major donors and instead invest in building relationships with your current supporters.
8. The value of prioritizing important tasks like actually calling and speaking to your donors, and why that's so difficult for many fundraisers.

This episode of The Rainmaker Fundraising Podcast is brought to you by my friends at Virtuous. 

If you want to create meaningful connection with donors instead of putting distance between your supporters and your cause, you need to know Virtuous. 

The responsive fundraising platform created by Virtuous unifies fundraising, marketing, and donor development activities to deliver dynamic campaigns that engage supporters in more meaningful ways. 

Download a copy of their Responsive Fundraising Playbook today!

Brady Josephson, Managing Director of the Institute for Online Fundraising at NextAfter recently sat down with us to share what he's learning about the changing fundraising landscape during the COVID-19 crisis. 

This conversation and the learnings that Brady shares are based on observations from more than 157 nonprofits that were and are actively fundraising during the COVID crisis. Brady is learning and seeing some interesting trends that you'll no doubt want to be aware of:

1. As COVID took hold in early March, a lot of fundraising slowed or stopped. There was a marked decrease in email volume, as some organizations slowed down and some went entirely dark.
2. Starting early in April, organizations began to emerge from the initial shock of COVID, and fundraising (particularly online) saw growth both in April and May (in both email volume and total revenue). This was further supported by the Giving Tuesday NOW initiative. 
3. Through late May and into early June, we've now started to see a correction (downturn) in email volume again. 
4. There is absolutely value in achieving first mover status when it comes to responding and communicating in a crisis. The faster an organization can get into market and begin to communicate with constituents, the easier it is to navigate a crisis situation. 
5. Organizations responding fastest and raising the most money during the COVID situation are those that are NOT focused on perfection, but focused on speed to market. They are willing to move quickly, test, learn, and adapt. 
6. The more human you can make your digital fundraising and marketing efforts, the better you'll perform.
7. The elevated sense of empathy across the globe has resulted in increased giving across many different types of organizations, even those that might not typically receive increased funding during a crisis (i.e., arts, etc.).
8. High dollar sustainers may be more apt to opt out of their monthly commitment right now. They are seeing this emerging in the U.S., and we have seen it more significantly in Europe. 
9. Since people are at home more right now, a lot more of our online consumption is happening on desktop vs mobile. That's good news because desktop experience tends to increase conversion rates. However, this may mean that when the country reopens and people return to work (whenever that is...), online conversion rates my drop again to reflect the shift back to mobile consumption. 

Special Offer From Our Episode Sponsor, Velocity Strategy Solutions: 

Matt Hackler is Vice President of Strategic Capacity Building with Feeding America. Like many of us, Matt says he "fell into" fundraising before joining Feeding America. In his current role, Matt leads a team of experts across multiple disciplines to help local member food banks increase their capacity to serve children, families, seniors and individuals experiencing hunger across the U.S.

Matt and I connected recently to talk about COVID-19's impact on fundraising in general, on Feeding America nationally, and on individual member food banks. 

We covered a lot of ground, including:

• How food banks learned from the 2008 - 2010 financial crisis and changed their approach to crisis fundraising as a result.
• The spike in giving due to COVID-19, and whether donors who came on file as a result of COVID are "emergency response" donors, or "recession" donors (and what that means for your future fundraising efforts).
• When is the right time to stop talking to donors about COVID-19?
• The role of brand in fundraising, both nationally and in local communities across the U.S.
• How food banks have historically relied on volume-based tactical fundraising efforts instead of relationship-based philanthropy -- and why that needs to evolve for the future. 
• Feeding America is seeing that donors who gave in response to COVID-19 are giving more frequently, retaining at higher rates, giving higher average gifts, and converting to monthly ongoing support at higher levels than the average donor -- and what this means for the future of hunger relief funding.

Whether you're working in hunger relief or a completely different kind of nonprofit, you'll want to catch this episode with Matt. His insights are relevant no matter what your organization's focus!

This episode of The Rainmaker Fundraising Podcast is brought to you by my friends at Virtuous. 

If you want to create meaningful connection with donors instead of putting distance between your supporters and your cause, you need to know Virtuous. 

The responsive fundraising platform created by Virtuous unifies fundraising, marketing, and donor development activities to deliver dynamic campaigns that engage supporters in more meaningful ways. 

Download a copy of their Responsive Fundraising Playbook today!

Jenny Soderholm has invested her entire career in healthcare philanthropy. As Chief Development Officer at Children’s Minnesota and President of Children’s Minnesota Foundation, Jenny is focused on fostering a broad and deep culture of philanthropy that advances her organization’s ability to serve more children and families across Minnesota.  As we talked recently, Jenny shared some […]

This conversation with Jenny Floria, Founder of Floria Consulting, is focused on the importance of data and how data drives strategy is an essential conversation for all nonprofit leaders and fundraisers. 

In our chat, you'll hear Jenny and I talk through a number of important examples of how understanding data and how to deploy data effectively in your marketing and fundraising can drive increased value -- and how not understanding the importance of data can damage your fundraising results. 

Regardless of your role or experience in the sector, if you have responsibility for fundraising or marketing outcomes, you'll want to check out this episode!

Special Thanks to New Story for sponsoring this podcast episode. They are on the forefront of developing solutions to end the global homelessness crisis. And they’re looking for innovative fundraisers and leaders to join their team. If you’re interested in joining a team that is making a tangible impact on the lives of people in need across the globe, you should connect with New Story today. 

If you want to lead your organization more effectively and help your team avoid costly mistakes that drain your organization of time, talent, and revenue, check out my Amazon #1 best-seller, 101 Biggest Mistakes Nonprofits Make And how You Can Avoid Them. 

 

Kris Putnam-Walkerly is Founder of Putnam Consulting Group, and author of Confident Giving and The ImpactAssets Handbook for Investors. 

Kris has spent her career as an advisor to high net worth individuals, family offices, corporate philanthropy programs and foundations. 

She's also the author of the newly released book, Delusional Altruism. 

We sat down with Kris recently to talk about her new book, covering topics like: 

1. How well-meaning philanthropists get in their own way and prevent themselves from achieving the philanthropic impact they hope for.
2. Debunking some of the deeply held, incorrect beliefs that often drive delusional altruism.
3. Understanding how high net worth donors, foundations, and corporate philanthropies are changing their approach to giving during the COVID crisis.
4. Asking better questions, and positioning them differently, to help unleash greater impact through high net worth donors.
5. Understanding how nonprofits and fundraisers can better engage wealth managers, advisors, and philanthropists to unleash greater philanthropic impact. 

Kris is a highly skilled philanthropy advisor, and shared many of her insightful observations with us in this conversation. I hope you enjoy the discussion!

A Special Offer From Our Episode Sponsor, Velocity Strategy Solutions. 

You have people working in ways they’ve never worked, with people they don’t know, and for managers and leaders they’ve never met around projects they may not understand.

The reality is the only thing your competitor doesn’t have is your team. But if you don’t utilize them well and position them for success, you’ll send them looking for better opportunities elsewhere. It’s time to optimize your talent.

You can use the code RAINMAKER to get your FREE personalized talent assessment from Velocity Strategy Solutions today! 

 

Do you have a theology of fundraising?  This was a fascinating question that Michael Mitchell posited on the show recently, and it led to a great conversation about what’s really important in our craft.  Michael is Director of Development and Discipleship at Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO).  In our conversation, Michael talked a lot about […]

Over my 25-year fundraising career I’ve often heard it said, “fundraising is like farming — you plant the seed, allow time to take hold, and then eventually reap the harvest.” But as Joel Eaton, Founder of Preface and I discussed, there are a multitude of other ways that fundraising and farming are similar. In this […]

Visionary leaders don't succeed with just great ideas. They succeed because they've built a framework that inspires others and provides their teams with the necessary tools to perform."

I was recently blessed to have a fascinating conversation with Dr. Kent Ingle. In this fast-paced conversation, Dr. Ingle delivered huge leadership wisdom and value -- and I think you'll get a lot from this conversation. 

Dr. Ingle is President of Southeastern University in Lakeland, FL. He's also author of multiple books including Framework Leadership, 9 Disciplines of Enduring Leadership, This Adventure Called Life, and The Modern Guide to College. He also hosts The Framework Leadership Podcast.

Here are just six of the key takeaways from our conversation:

1. Focus on being self-aware and self-disciplined. Self-awareness allows you to understand who you are, your gifts, your passions, your abilities and experiences. And always knowing that helps you to understand the opportunities before you.

2. If you want to succeed as a leader, you need to build habits of discipline. Whether they be physical, emotional, educational, spiritual, or other, your ability to be disciplined in your own life will greatly impact your ability to lead others. 

3. People long for value and significance. As a leader, your responsibility is to help people understand their value and significance in the world. 

4. Leadership is all about your relational connectivity and how you interact and influence and have impact. 

5. One of the most difficult and challenging things for any organization is to be excellent at systems thinking where you see the big picture, understand how the individual parts really interconnect to each other to accomplish the big picture. Especially at times of change, if you aren't growing your systems at the same speed of your overall growth, you're probably going to hit some plateaus. 

6. To be successful as a leader, when leadership requires you to build a map to a place you've never been before, you need a framework. A successful framework for leadership requires four key elements: 

• Listening - You must constantly listen to all stakeholders and constituencies.
• Contextualize - After you've listened to all involved, make sure that you've appropriately contextualized the situation so you fully understand what the issue really is.
• Audit - Continue to audit your perceived understanding of the issue. When you think you've listened, and you think you understand the context, keep clarifying until you have certainty that there's shared unde...

Gift planning and legacy giving conversations don’t just have to be about death and mortality. In fact, they can and should be beautiful conversations about how donors can care for the long-term needs of their families, AND, how they can make significant impact for the causes they care most about.  Kristi Brennan, Chartered Advisor in […]

Dr. Charles Owubah is the visionary leader currently serving as CEO of Action Against Hunger. He's also a member of the Forbes Nonprofit Council. 

We spoke recently about global leadership lessons, and you won't want to miss this conversation!

In our discussion, Dr. Owubah shared key insights that any nonprofit leader or aspiring leader can learn from, including:

1. The importance of leading with humility and integrity
2. The value of building leadership bench strength and succession capacity by leading by example with your senior team
3. How bold vision and action can enhance your organization's impact
4. The role of an organization's brand in delivering mission impact and growing revenue -- and the CEO's role in shaping that brand
5. How a kidnapping in Darfur shaped his leadership philosophy

I guarantee you'll find value in this inspirational and insightful conversation with Dr. Owubah. 

If you want to lead your organization more effectively and help your team avoid costly mistakes that drain your organization of time, talent, and revenue, check out my Amazon #1 best-seller, 101 Biggest Mistakes Nonprofits Make And how You Can Avoid Them.

Transform your fundraising with Rainmaking: The Fundraiser’s Guide to Landing Big Gifts, the best-selling resource that has been used by more than 2,500 major gift leaders, chief development officers, and executive directors to raise over $150 million in the last decade.

Our good friend Brady Josephson at NextAfter joined us for a third episode here on the podcast recently. You might remember Brady from our conversation about COVID fundraising observations, or fundraising Testing. 

This week we connected with him to learn about the recent project that NextAfter and Salesforce.org collaborated on, called the Global Online Fundraising Scorecard. 

This study explored the front-end user experience of donors and email subscribers across multiple countries. 

Here are some of the key findings we cover in this discussion:

1. Email sign-up was impossible in 27% of cases in the study, either because organizations didn't offer it, or because it took too many steps to discover where the email sign-up was located
2. Very little progress has been made in years around the area of using value proposition to either subscribe for emails or make a giving decision (you'll hear Brady outline what the keys are in a successful value proposition too)
3. The dangerous myth that online users don't or won't consume copy -- and address the (surprising) negative impact that video and images have on conversion
4. The half dozen (or more!) types of friction that negatively impact decision-making online, AND, the one positive type of friction that can actually help you raise more money online!
5. The importance of email cultivation to long-term retention and revenue, and the sad fact that too few organizations are investing in meaningful email relationship building.
6. The truth about email deliverability, and what you can do to improve deliverability for your organization.
7. What's working best globally in sustainer giving, where the U.S. is falling behind in this key giving area, and what YOU can do to improve your organization's sustainer numbers.
8. The trends on email welcome series use, and how one organization tested into a 900% increase in 2nd gift conversion by rethinking their approach to welcome series content.

It's always a blast to have Brady on the show, and I hope you'll learn as much as I did in this conversation!

Don't forget to download the Global Online Fundraising Scorecard today!

This episode of The Rainmaker Fundraising Podcast was brought to you by our friends at Virtuous. We’re so excited to partner with them to promote the upcoming 2021 Responsive Fundraising Summit on April 14th and 15th. You can register for FREE today. 

You’ll be front-row with world-class nonprofit and thought leaders, participate in hands-on, discussion-driven workshops, and build lasting connections with like-minded peers. 

Sign up today for this FREE event!

https://youtu.be/56RwjgU-q9M

Unless you live under a rock, you'll know that in 2020 the nonprofit sector saw HUGE increases in giving through Donor Advised Fund (DAF) giving accounts. There was an outpouring of generosity across the nation, and many donors with DAF giving accounts stepped up to make sure that organizations received critical funding when they needed it most.

Watching this play out in 2020 got me thinking more and more about the growing importance of donor advised funds, the donors who control them, and how nonprofits can and should engage both with DAF account holders and the financial institutions that manage these accounts.

That's why I was thrilled to recently get the chance to talk with Jennifer Risher.  Jen is a retired Microsoft executive, author of We Need to Talk: A Memoir on Wealth, and co-founder of the #HalfMyDAF movement. Jen and her husband David (CEO of Worldreader) founded the #HalfMyDAF movement in 2020 to incentivize donors who have DAF accounts to distribute more money from their giving accounts more quickly to make greater impact right now.

Jen and I sat down to talk about why she and David launched the #HalfMyDAF movement, how nonprofits can and should engage with DAF donors, and what the role of financial institutions is in the DAF giving ecosystem. 

We also talk about the growing pool of matching funds that #HalfMyDAF is making available in 2021 to incentivize more DAF giving account holders to spend down at least 50% of their DAF holdings -- you won't want to miss this opportunity!

Every nonprofit needs to be paying attention to donors who are giving through their DAF accounts. 

Jen and David Risher will be joining my friend Jack Doyle, President of Amergent (a Moore company) for a FREE webinar called #HalfMyDAF and the future of Donor Advised Funds on March 9 at 12pm Central Time (US and Canada). I invite you to join them for this free webinar that will provide a TON of value!

How has COVID-19 impacted Mid-level and Major Gift fundraising? Are Mid-level and Major donors shifting their giving priorities because of this crisis? Are they holding back on giving? If Mid-level and Major donors did give during the COVID crisis, how is that going to impact year-end giving? 

These are the exact kind of questions that my close friends, Derric Bakker and Paul Martin of Dickerson Bakker & Associates were wrestling with in their fundraising consulting practice. To get to the bottom of these questions, they decided to go directly to the source -- to Mid-level and Major donors. In June of 2020 they commissioned and conducted the study, Charitable Giving in the Wake of COVID-19. This survey focused on donors to faith-based organizations, but I believe many of the findings will also hold true for organizations that are not faith-based.

Derric and Paul are two of the smartest and most accomplished major gift fundraisers in our sector, so when they ask questions like this then do the research and offer their insights, I ALWAYS listen. 

What their research discovered is something amazing:

1. 85% of donors surveyed report that they plan to continue giving through year-end at the same or greater levels than they did last year.
2. 64% of donors expect the economy to rebound within one year -- a key consumer confidence indicator. 
3. Majority of donors reported that their giving during COVID was in addition to what they were already planning to do -- as in, increased generosity.
4. Giving priorities remain unchanged, with outreach & evangelism ranking #1, and meeting the needs of vulnerable populations in the U.S. ranking #2.

We sat down to dig deeper into the research findings, and to hear from Derric and Paul about how fundraisers and nonprofits can and should apply these learnings to their fundraising efforts between now and year-end. 

You don't want to miss this conversation!

The Dickerson Bakker team is also partnering with our good friend Mike Buwalda at Money for Ministry to share even more about this study in a special webinar on August 25. You can sign up for that webinar here, and when you do, you'll get a FREE copy of the E-book, The Top 3 Ways to Approach Major Donors This Fall. 

Special Offer From Our Episode Sponsor, Velocity Strategy Solutions:

You have people working in ways they've never worked, with people they don't know, and for managers and leaders they've never met around projects they may not understand.

The reality is the only thing your competitor doesn't have is your team. But if you don't utilize them well and position the...

We sat down last week for a leadership conversation with Kishshana Palmer, CFRE, CEO of Kishshana & Co., Founder of The Rooted Collaborative, and Author of Hey, I'm New Here. 

We scheduled this conversation months ago, and initially our plan was to talk broadly about leadership trends, insights & learnings across the nonprofit sector. 

But...then George Floyd was murdered here in Minneapolis. Cities across the state -- across the nation -- erupted in protest against police brutality and racism. 

As any good leaders would do, we assessed our situation and changed our objectives to address the critically important issues of equity and inclusion in the nonprofit sector.

This conversation is a bit more off the cuff, and maybe not as polished as our other episodes. It's a bit raw. A bit more unvarnished. But such a necessary discussion. 

I hope you'll give us just a bit of grace if the conversation is a little more meandering than you might be used to. I encourage you to listen all the way through, as we cover a ton of important ground.

I'm so grateful to Kishshana for walking through this conversation with us, shooting straight with us, and not holding back. 

Special Opportunity From Our Episode Sponsor, Velocity Strategy Solutions:

“If we believe so much in our missions and what we’re trying to accomplish, we have a moral obligation to provide the time and space for our employees to get the continuing education necessary to be the best they can at their jobs.” I loved this quote from Andrew McIndoe, Vice President at The Heritage […]

You are going to LOVE this conversation with Mark P. Fisher on Inspiring Growth as a leader!

Mark is host of the Inspiring Growth Podcast, CEO, and Chief Encourager at Inspiring Growth, a firm he founded to help organizations increase revenue, organizational leadership, and overall joy in their work. Check out some of Mark's great offerings here.

If you like The Rainmaker Fundraising Podcast, you can thank Mark. He's the person who inspired me to launch this podcast!

I first met Mark when he and his team led the national marketing effort for the Paramount Pictures movie, Same Kind of Different As Me, and we worked together to craft a Red Carpet Event strategy to market this film nationally in support of Gospel Rescue Missions through a partnership with City Gate Network. 

In this episode, Mark and I covered a ton of ground in a very candid conversation about his personal leadership journey.

Here are some of the key points we hit in this discussion:

1. Mark's personal story of going 100+ miles per hour as a leader until he hit a wall...and it nearly killed him. He talks about how this experience helped him reset his priorities and focus, and create Inspiring Growth, his life's calling.
2. The importance of caring for yourself as a leader in order to allow you to truly serve those you lead.
3. The power of kindness, and how it helps you lead well.
4. The importance of resilient thinking, and how that allows you to pick up  the pieces and move on after failure or setbacks. 
5. As a leader, why you should strive to believe the best about people, and how that can radically change the culture in your organization.
6. How to use a post mortem or after action review to overcome failure and create learning that will move your organization forward in a healthy way, even when a major project or initiative doesn't turn out the way you'd hoped.

Special Offer From Our Episode Sponsor, Velocity Strategy Solutions:

Leading well is critical -- especially during the challenging times in which we find ourselves these days. That's why I think my recent conversation with Bobby Lewis, Executive Vice President of Operations at Love Worth Finding is so important. 

According to Bobby, great leaders:

1. Are lifelong learners who focus on adding knowledge and skills regularly
2. Lead THROUGH others rather than trying to do everything themselves
3. Invest in mentoring others so that skill-building becomes an ingrained focus across organizations
4. Develop deep, meaningful relationships with those they mentor, rather than trying to rush the process
5. Lead through collaboration and consensus-building instead of dictating
6. Embrace the power of relationships rather than focusing on authority-based leadership
7. Get close to people -- staff, donors, and clients -- in times of crisis, rather than pulling away
8. Build trust by investing in people and relationships

There's some real leadership gold in this episode. You don't want to miss it!

Special Offer From Our Episode Sponsor, Velocity Strategy Solutions: 

Dionne M. Rosser-Mims, Ph.D., is Dean of the College of Education at Troy University. She's an educator, author, and successful leader. She's also my longtime friend, and someone I'm incredibly proud of and inspired by.

We recently sat down to discuss leadership, and to get Dr. Rosser-Mims' perspective on what it takes to be a great leader. 

Here are :

1. Leaders don't sit on the sidelines and complain -- they jump in and focus on finding solutions to the problems of the day.
2. The best leaders focus on collaborative engagement, not on being the smartest person in the room.
3. Integrity is critical for leadership success.
4. Great leaders are consistent communicators, making sure that everyone understands where the organization is headed, how they individually fit into the plan, and what is expected of them.
5. Being an authentic leader means modeling what you expect of others. If you aren't willing to do something yourself, you can't expect others to step up and do it either.

It's a great conversation, and I hope you enjoy it!

Special Offer From Our Episode Sponsor, Velocity Strategy Solutions:

Jaimie Trussell, CFRE, is Chief Development Officer and Vice President of Marketing & Communications at Adult & Teen Challenge USA. 

She recently sat down with me to talk candidly about nonprofit leadership. In this great conversation, Jaimie provided so much value!

Check out the top 5 insights I took from our conversation:

1. True leadership isn't glamorous. It's hard, but highly rewarding.
2. Great leaders endeavor to find their tribe and thrive with them rather than being all things to all people. 
3. If you don't have credibility as a leader, you don't have anything.
4. The best leaders focus on developing other leaders -- that's the true measure of leadership success.
5. Leadership is a 24/7 game. Finding micro moments to refresh and recharge in the midst of packed work and home schedules is critical to your mental, physical, and emotional health.

Check out the entire conversation for even more great insights!

 

Jennifer Diaz is Director of Major Gifts with The Salvation Army. She works out of the Philadelphia area, where she leads a team of five major gift fundraisers, and carries her own portfolio of top-level donor relationships.

I first met Jennifer about five years ago when I was helping to lead a major fundraising change initiative for The Salvation Army's Eastern Territory. I quickly connected with Jennifer because she's a highly skilled, successful, no-nonsense relationship fundraiser. 

We sat down just before Thanksgiving to talk about her experience raising major gifts in the Philadelphia area, leading a team of fundraisers during the COVID crisis, and bridging the divide between being an individual contributor and a department leader.

You'll hear us cover topics like: 

• 2020 Major Donor Trends 
• The growing trend of donors shifting their giving into DAF's, and what that means for your charity
• What you can do to more effectively manage a remote team of fundraisers 
• What it takes to engage donors during a pandemic, & how those donors are supporting the organizations they love

If you're in the business of engaging major donors and/or leading fundraising teams, you'll enjoy this conversation. 

Special Thanks to New Story for sponsoring this podcast episode. They are on the forefront of developing solutions to end the global homelessness crisis. And they're looking for innovative fundraisers and leaders to join their team. If you're interested in joining a team that is making a tangible impact on the lives of people in need across the globe, you should connect with New Story today. 

If you want to lead your organization more effectively and help your team avoid costly mistakes that drain your organization of time, talent, and revenue, check out my Amazon #1 best-seller, 101 Biggest Mistakes Nonprofits Make And how You Can Avoid Them. 

 

Transform your fundraising with ...

Change. Whether you like it or not, it's the topic of the day. 2020 punched all of us in the face with COVID-19, economic turmoil, and racial unrest across the country. And that's just the change that many of us didn't initiate. Countless other change initiatives were launched and undertaken for one reason or another by organizations of all shapes and sizes. But at the end of the day, one thing is crystal clear. Change is now a constant in all of our lives. 

So how do we lead well through constant change?

What is the difference between managing change and leading through change? 

How can we as leaders use the process of change to bring about positive impact in our organizations and in the lives of those we lead? 

What's the right perspective that a leader needs to bring to a change initiative to help our people thrive in the midst of change? 

How do we as leaders identify the cultural and institutional roadblocks to change, and what can we do about them? 

These are the kinds of questions that we grapple with in this great conversation with Nancy Murphy, Founder and President of CSR Communications. 

This is a great discussion for leaders who are struggling to navigate change with their teams, and even for those leaders who are doing well, but simply want to make sure they're focusing their change efforts for maximum impact. 

Special thanks to our friends at 7-Figure Fundraising for sponsoring today's episode! At 7-Figure Fundraising they teach fundraisers and nonprofit leaders how to craft and deliver fundraising pitches that consistently deliver more 6 and 7-figure gifts. Right now, they are offering a 5% discount on their live online training that begins on February 16, 2021. You can register here, and use the code RAINMAKER at check-out to get the discount. 

 If you want to lead your organization more effectively and help your team avoid costly mistakes that drain your organization of time, talent, and revenue, check out my Amazon #1 best-seller, 101 Biggest Mistakes Nonprofits Make And how You Can Avoid Them. 

In this episode I talk with Burt Rosen, President & CEO at Knox Area Rescue Ministries about leading an organization over the long-term, and the most important aspects of leading well, including: 

1. The importance of taking a stand when you see something broken in your organization
2. Every sound of the sail means something to the sailor
3. Navigating the fears associated with making difficult calls as a leader
4. Why integrity, trust, and transparency are the keys to long-term leadership success
5. The keys to successfully developing emerging leaders in your organization

If you want to lead your organization more effectively and help your team avoid costly mistakes that drain your organization of time, talent, and revenue, check out my Amazon #1 best-seller, 101 Biggest Mistakes Nonprofits Make And how You Can Avoid Them.

Transform your fundraising with Rainmaking: The Fundraiser’s Guide to Landing Big Gifts, the best-selling resource that has been used by more than 2,500 major gift leaders, chief development officers, and executive directors to raise over $150 million in the last decade.

The fifth child in a family of six, Bill High grew up "dirt poor and on welfare." The son of an alcoholic, Bill describes his childhood as "pretty dysfunctional."

Around age eight or nine, Bill was introduced to the idea of a personal faith by a neighbor, and that began his life-long journey to live differently and to focus on making an eternal impact in our world.

Throughout his lifetime, Bill has had some amazing opportunities to impact the world, including practicing law for 12 years to co-founding iDonate, a leading digital giving software company that helps nonprofits build lasting relationships with their supporters.

In 2000, Bill felt a calling to do something more in our sector, leading him to create The Signatry, a global community and ministry dedicated to creating eternal impact through generosity across generations. They provide a unique approach to donor advised fund giving to empower donors, advisors, and ministries to maximize their impact.

Bill and I met through our mutual relationship with Forbes Business and Nonprofit Councils, and sat down recently to talk about philanthropy and leading generously.  

Some of the key insights from our conversation include:

1. The impact of the massive increase in Donor Advised Fund adoption over the last decade
2. Debunking the myth that Donor Advised Funds are simply a place for the wealthy to "park" money
3. How Donor Advised Funds (on average) distribute 10X more than private foundations annually
4. How leaders who invest heavily in the people in their care are maximizing impact
5. The value of leaders serving others, and how that releases creativity and increases engagement with employees
6. Lessons from a reluctant leader
7. Why setting vision and inspiring your people is essential to your ability to achieve greater impact
8. How the best leaders use storytelling to inspire others
9. What 2021 has in store for philanthropy and charitable giving
10. Quick tips for nonprofit boards and CEO's to begin effectively planning for leadership succession

This episode of The Rainmaker Fundraising Podcast was brought to you by our friends at Virtuous. We’re so excited to partner with them to promote the upcoming 2021 Responsive Fundraising Summit on April 14th and 15th. You can register for FREE today. 

You’ll be front-row with world-class nonprofit and thought leaders, participate in hands-on, discussion-driven workshops, and build lasting connections with like-minded peers. 

Sign up today for this FREE event!

https://youtu.be/56RwjgU-q9M

As President & CEO of Oxfam America, Abby Maxman is responsible for leading global social change to alleviate the injustice of poverty across 90 countries. 

This fight is not a new one for Maxman, who has made a career of giving a voice to the voiceless, fighting hunger, poverty, disease, and injustice across the globe at leading INGO's and within the U.S. Government. 

Abby and I sat down to discuss her leadership experience and what we can all learn from her time working to right the most devastating wrongs the world over. 

We tackled some big issues in our discussion, including:

• The importance of boldly charging toward your goals, even when they might feel overwhelming and unachievable.
• How the values of integrity and commitment provide the courage and resilience necessary to allow a leader to book the first flight into post-genocidal Rwanda, to tackle apartheid South Africa, and to take on the global HIV/AIDS crisis.
• The importance of showing up authentically and consistently as our whole selves to build and nurture a healthy culture. Ad the value of creating a safe place for people to try new things, to fail, and to learn from those failures without risk of retribution or career damage. 
• The role of leaders in addressing racial, gender, economic, and climate justice, and the challenging of maintaining focus on this important work in the midst of every other priority.
• Developing the 21st century skills of leading with care and compassion to help your people feel safe, engaged, and cared for by their leaders. 

This episode of The Rainmaker Fundraising Podcast was brought to you by our friends at Virtuous. We’re so excited to partner with them to promote the upcoming 2021 Responsive Fundraising Summit on April 14th and 15th. You can register for FREE today. 

You’ll be front-row with world-class nonprofit and thought leaders, participate in hands-on, discussion-driven workshops, and build lasting connections with like-minded peers. 

Sign up today for this FREE event!

https://youtu.be/56RwjgU-q9M

It was an incredible honor to sit down recently with Commissioner Kenneth Hodder, National Commander of The Salvation Army USA, and Joey Zumaya, Public Sector Leader at LinkedIn and national advisory board member at The Salvation Army. 

One of the things I love about The Salvation Army is that they are actively serving people in EVERY zip code in the U.S. That is a bold and expansive commitment to caring for people in need all throughout our nation.  Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their volunteers, supporters, corporate and faith community partners, and employees, The Salvation Army truly allows each supporter to do the most good, right in their home communities.

We had a fascinating conversation on leadership within the context of The Salvation Army. In this episode, you'll hear us cover a lot of ground, including:

1. Living and leading from your values
2. The importance of deep relationships between a nonprofit CEO and their advisory board members
3. The Salvation Army's long-term commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and how that shapes decision-making across the organization
4. Technology's role in the development of an organization's talent pipeline, program delivery, and fundraising strategy
5. How the nation's changing demographics impact the way organizations approach the recruitment of employees, donors, and volunteer leaders

Special Thanks to New Story for sponsoring this podcast episode. They are on the forefront of developing solutions to end the global homelessness crisis. And they’re looking for innovative fundraisers and leaders to join their team. If you’re interested in joining a team that is making a tangible impact on the lives of people in need across the globe, you should connect with New Story today. 

If you want to lead your organization more effectively and help your team avoid costly mistakes that drain your organization of time, talent, and revenue, check out my Amazon #1 best-seller, 101 Biggest Mistakes Nonprofits Make And how You Can Avoid Them. 

John Walsh is one of the most innovative digital marketers in the nonprofit sector today. He currently leads email marketing at one of the world's largest Evangelical ministry organizations. 

In this episode, you'll hear John and I discuss all things email marketing and fundraising, including:

1. Designing and executing an effective email testing strategy
2. How to determine whether a variable is worth testing or not
3. The impact of change management and innovation on digital marketing and fundraising efforts
4. How his organization has created new and unique donor experiences during COVID, and the result of those efforts.

If you're interested in digital marketing and fundraising, you'll want to pay attention to this episode!

A Special Offer From Our Episode Sponsor, Velocity Strategy Solutions:

You have people working in ways they’ve never worked, with people they don’t know, and for managers and leaders they’ve never met around projects they may not understand.

The reality is the only thing your competitor doesn’t have is your team. But if you don’t utilize them well and position them for success, you’ll send them looking for better opportunities elsewhere. It’s time to optimize your talent.

You can use the code RAINMAKER to get your FREE personalized talent assessment from Velocity Strategy Solutions today! 

If you want to lead your organization more effectively and help your team avoid costly mistakes that drain your organization of time, talent, and revenue, check out my Amazon #1 best-seller, 101 Biggest Mistakes Nonprofits Make And How You Can Avoid Them. 

Transform your fundraising with Rainmaking: The Fundraiser's Guide to Landing Big Gifts, the best-selling resource that has been used by more than 2,500 major gift leaders, chief development officers, and executive directors to raise more than $150 million in the last decade. 

If you’ve spent any time at all in the nonprofit sector, you know there are some subjects that are taboo. Some subjects that are difficult to discuss in public spaces, and others that are purely unpopular.  Our guests today refer to those topics collectively as “Nonprofit F-Words.”  No, not THAT F-Word. I promise.  In this […]

Sarah Lee is Chief Operating Officer at New Story, an innovative, growth-focused organization that behaves more like a Silicon Valley start-up than a traditional nonprofit. 

New Story is on a mission to solve the global homelessness crisis by creating solutions that are cheaper to develop, higher quality than traditional housing options, and able to get into market faster than typical solutions. 

In our conversation we talked about innovation and growth in the nonprofit sector, and how New Story is charging forward to change the way organizations address complex global challenges more effectively. 

Highlights from our conversation are: 

1.  Believing that nonprofit organizations should be held to higher (not lower) standards of effectiveness.
2. How a 100% donation model and key investment partners help them achieve greater impact.
3. The role that talent plays in their ability to deliver effective solutions and to grow and scale their impact.
4. The need to balance advances in technology and innovation with mission delivery, and how organizations should think about that balance. 
5. The value of long-term thinking and how that changes the strategic approach for an organization. 
6. The importance of hiring people who embrace a "founder" mindset, and how that changes the way an organization operates. 

You might know him as The Fundraising Coach, the Founder of Concord Leadership Group, the author of Ask Without Fear, Fundraising Kick, or the brand new book, The Surprising Gift of Doubt: Use Uncertainty to Become the Exceptional Leader You Are Meant to Be . Or maybe you've seen and heard him speak at one of hundreds of nonprofit conferences over the last few years. 

I was honored and thrilled to sit down last week with Marc A. Pitman, CSP to have an insightful and in-depth conversation on nonprofit leadership.

This is a 48-minute masterclass on leading well and dealing with key challenges our sector faces, including:

1. How to live your values authentically as a leader
2. What it takes to build and grow a healthy culture in your nonprofit
3. Challenging the status quo without damaging key relationships in your workplace
4. Addressing toxicity in the workplace and the damaging impact it has on your entire organization
5. Traits of high-performing leaders
6. Why nonprofits don't do succession planning well, and how to fix that
7. The importance of strategic onboarding and training for volunteer board members

If you enjoy this episode, don't forget to check out Marc's newest book too!  

This episode of The Rainmaker Fundraising Podcast was brought to you by our friends at Virtuous. We're so excited to partner with them to promote the upcoming 2021 Responsive Fundraising Summit on April 14th and 15th. You can register for FREE today. 

You'll be front-row with world-class nonprofit and thought leaders, participate in hands-on, discussion-driven workshops, and build lasting connections with like-minded peers. 

Sign up today for this FREE event!

https://youtu.be/56RwjgU-q9M

On August 3rd, 2020, Bob McCartney authored the article, Nonprofits in trouble: One-third of organizations may not survive pandemic, recession for The Washington Post. 

This article is a sobering assessment of the health and sustainability of nonprofit organizations in the Washington, D.C. metro area. But more than that, it's likely a canary in a coal mine for our entire sector on a national scale. 

Bob's conversations with nonprofit leaders, institutional funders and other officials in the sector clearly indicate that while many organizations have survived the COVID crisis successfully, thousands of organizations were not prepared for this. 

In this episode we delve deeper into Bob's article and talk about the underlying challenges faced by nonprofit organizations right now -- and the risks the sector faces in the near future.

This is a conversation you don't want to miss!

A special offer from our episode sponsor, Velocity Strategy Solutions:

Employee performance and productivity is the highest ranked concern for CEO's. This is true in the nonprofit sector just as much as it is in the for profit sector. That's why we're so excited to partner with Velocity Strategy Solutions to offer nonprofit leaders a special opportunity to gain an unfair talent advantage in their organizations. You can sign up for a FREE, confidential assessment and demo today by visiting People Get Results and using the code RAINMAKER. 

https://youtu.be/3HTdAsKkrfI

What does a Bay Area pastor know about nonprofits and charitable giving?  Turns out he knows quite a lot.  At least if that guy is Vance Roush.  Vance is Founder of Overflow.co, a platform created to help unlock generosity across the globe.  Overflow is a platform that helps generous individuals give to charities and ministry […]

Franklin Guerrero is Vice President of Major Gifts at AARP, and is a highly accomplished fundraiser and leader in the nonprofit sector. He and I recently sat down for a conversation about philanthropy and leadership.

In our discussion, we talk about how personal crisis shapes our work as leaders, the importance of values-based leadership, how the nonprofit sector is addressing issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and how fundraisers can address these complex topics with donors. 

Grab a cup of coffee and your favorite snack, and settle in for this insightful leadership conversation!

 

Special thanks to our friends at 7-Figure Fundraising for sponsoring this important conversation with Franklin Guerrero! 

At 7-Figure Fundraising they teach fundraisers and nonprofit leaders how to craft and deliver fundraising pitches that consistently deliver more 6 and 7-figure gifts from donors. 

Right now they're offering a 5% discount to their next live (video) training program for our podcast listeners. You can register here and use the code RAINMAKER at checkout to get the discount!

As we are quickly approaching the year-end giving season, it's more important than maybe any time in recent history that nonprofits understand how to effectively engage with high net worth donors and members of their communities. 

That's why I was so excited to sit down recently my good friend, Kurt Peterson. Kurt is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP), a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor (CRPC), and an Accredited Asset Management Specialist (AAMS). Kurt is First Vice President - Investments at Wells Fargo Advisors in the Woodbury, MN area. He is also a committed family man and accomplished athlete. 

In this conversation we spoke with Kurt about:

1. Why year-end giving in 2020 might be different from other recent years.
2. How nonprofit organizations can create more win-win giving opportunities with donors by engaging financial advisors in the process.
3. Why it often makes more sense to ask donors to give from their assets instead of their cash accounts. 
4. How nonprofits can better engage and connect with financial advisors to benefit both their donors and the organizations they serve.

You can check out this 2020 Year End Planning Guide, which includes great information on year-end charitable giving.

Special Offer From Our Episode Sponsor, Velocity Strategy Solutions: 

You have people working in ways they’ve never worked, with people they don’t know, and for managers and leaders they’ve never met around projects they may not understand.

The reality is the only thing your competitor doesn’t have is your team. But if you don’t utilize them well and position them for success, you’ll send them looking for better opportunities elsewhere. It’s time to optimize your talent.

You can use the code RAINMAKER to get your FREE personalized talent assessment from Velocity Strategy Solutions today! 

Have you ever wondered what your major donors really thought of your work, how you engage with them, and the experience you create at your events? Have you ever struggled to connect deeply with high net worth individuals that support your cause, and wish you had an insider's perspective on how to approach these relationships more effectively? 

You're in luck! 

Lisa Greer is a serial entrepreneur, a former entertainment industry executive, community leader, founder of the Philanthropy 451 blog, and strategic philanthropist. But Lisa didn't come from money. In her new book, Philanthropy Revolution, Lisa describes how her family became "instantly" wealthy, and how that launched a series of philanthropic experiences that shocked and frustrated her. It was almost as if the nonprofit organizations she and her family wanted to support had no idea how to deal with her or her husband. They didn't fit the preconceived narrative of what "wealthy" donors looked like or how they behaved. They didn't follow the neatly scripted approach that most organizations are used to following in dealing with major donors. And this caused friction for both the organizations, and for Lisa and her husband Josh. 

In Philanthropy Revolution, Lisa shares her own challenging giving experiences, along with those of dozens of other donors, nonprofit executives, and leading academics in the sector. 

This groundbreaking new book also shares:

• Upfront ways to ask for money
• Effective communication strategies
• How best to be transparent in donor relationships
• Insights for curating meaningful nonprofit events

I got the chance to sit down with Lisa recently and talk about the book, her experiences as a philanthropist, and her recommendations for how nonprofits and high net worth donors can achieve greater alignment and make a bigger impact in our world. 

Special Offer From Velocity Strategy Solutions, Our Episode Sponsor:

You have people working in ways they’ve never worked, with people they don’t know, and for managers and leaders they’ve never met around projects they may not understand.

The reality is the only thing your competitor doesn’t have is your team. But if you don’t utilize them well and position them for success, you’ll send them looking for better opportunities elsewhere. It’s time to optimize your talent.

Use the code RAINMAKER to get your FREE talent optimization assessment

Gabe Cooper is CEO at Virtuous Software, Founder of The Modern Nonprofit Fundraiser Podcast, and Author of Responsive Fundraising. We got together recently to talk about the concept of Responsive Fundraising, and what it means for the future of the nonprofit sector. What's exciting is that the concept of Responsive Fundraising doesn't require you to throw out everything you're doing and start over completely. You don't have to lose ground in order to improve donor relationships and increase revenue.  Responsive Fundraising is really about applying the hyper-personalization that Americans are accustomed to in their daily life to their charitable giving experience. It's about using data you have at hand (or that you can get your hands on) to develop highly personalized donor experiences that communicate to your donors that you value them, you know them, and you are committed to providing them with a meaningful experience every time they interact with your organization.  Here are Gabe's key points about Responsive Fundraising:

1. It's less about tactics and technology and more about shifting your mindset. 
2. The success of Responsive Fundraising requires that you Listen (i.e., collecting more and better data, and understanding how it influences donor behavior), Connect (i.e., how can you use simple marketing automation to deliver relevant messages to your constituents at the exact time they are most likely to want it and engage with it?), and Adjust (i.e., creating a feedback loop so that you are modifying your organizational engagement approach based on what you see and hear from your donors as you deliver  them this new experience). 
3. Responsive Fundraising doesn't require to stop mass fundraising activities like direct mail, email, and telemarketing. Instead, it gives you a framework for making those interactions more meaningful (and more valuable) to the donor. 
4. You don't have to burn your entire program down and start from scratch. You can start small, with just two or three key elements. Once you prove out the value in small ways, use that success to increase the scale of Responsive Fundraising in your charity.
5. Embracing and deploying a Responsive Fundraising philosophy and strategy in your organization doesn't require you to upend everything you're doing and change staff. It does, however, require that everyone be aligned around the goal, and willing to learn and change the way they've worked in the past. 
6. Change of any kind -- but especially change like this -- requires a willingness to take risk and embrace failure in the service of creating something better for those you serve. 

As Gabe shared, ultimately results matter. Organizations that have adopted this Responsive Fundraising approach are improving their retention rates by as much as 15%, and are also moving the needle on average gift by as much as 10-15%.  You can download your own copy of the Responsive Fundraising Blueprint here.   

What’s the role of social media in today’s nonprofit landscape?  Why do you need to think about social media within the broader context of your overall marketing and fundraising strategy, instead of as a stand-alone effort?  Should social media replace your other marketing tactics, or should it augment your existing plan?  How should your nonprofit […]

Chances are your organization was NOT prepared for COVID-19. Even organizations that work in international relief and development or domestic emergency response weren't fully prepared for all of the impacts of COVID-19, and how it would impact operations, fundraising, internal processes, staff, etc.  That's why I was so excited to sit down with Amy McFeely and Laura Olean from Category One Consulting recently. Their firm helps organizations maximize their effectiveness through human resources support, strategic planning, program evaluation, and needs assessments.  When COVID hit, they jumped into action to create a Crisis Response Toolkit specifically designed to help nonprofits respond to the COVID crisis and succeed throughout the remainder of 2020. And even better, this Toolkit can easily be applied to help nonprofits navigate a crisis of any type and scope. I hope you enjoy this conversation about preparing for and responding to crises, and take a minute to check out their Crisis Response Toolkit to get your nonprofit ready to respond to a crisis of any kind.

Special Offer From Velocity Strategy Solutions, Our Episode Sponsor: 

Brent A. Hafele, M.A., is Senior Vice President of Talent Development at Dickerson Bakker & Associates. Early in his career, Brent held various leadership roles inside nonprofit organizations, including Development Director and Executive Director. 

Today, Brent leads talent development efforts for Dickerson Bakker & Associates, and provides executive coaching to fundraisers and nonprofit CEO's and Executive Directors.

Brent and I sat down to discuss how talent development impacts organizational success. In our conversation we hit some big topics, including:

1. How does talent impact an organization's capacity for growth? 
2. Breaking the myth that your nonprofit can't afford to hire top quality talent.
3. What it takes to effectively assess a candidate's abilities and qualities during the interview process.
4. Effective tools for candidate assessments.
5. Why you should hire more slowly, and what the benefits of a longer assessment period is to your nonprofit.
6. The value of using a strengths-based framework for talent assessment and coaching in your organization.
7. Building a collaborative culture across your team and organization. 
8. Giving realistic performance feedback to motivate and engage your staff.

If you lead a team or an organization, this conversation is sure to provide you with value!

This episode of The Rainmaker Fundraising Podcast was brought to you by our friends at Virtuous. We’re so excited to partner with them to promote the upcoming 2021 Responsive Fundraising Summit on April 14th and 15th. You can register for FREE today. 

You’ll be front-row with world-class nonprofit and thought leaders, participate in hands-on, discussion-driven workshops, and build lasting connections with like-minded peers. 

Sign up today for this FREE event!

https://youtu.be/56RwjgU-q9M

In many respects we're living through a period of time where we've forced a decade of disruption into (at this point) a 12-week period. 

Or at least that's what it's felt like between the COVID crisis and the ongoing struggles related to racial inequality, diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

This is a lot of change, requiring a lot of emotional investment on all of our parts, and all forced into a very short period of time. 

Those of us who lead teams need to recognize just how significantly this level of disruption and change impacts our teams. And we need to recognize that the way we engage with our team, and the way our people engage with one another, and with our supporters and volunteers has a very real impact on our ability to deliver revenue and accomplish our personal and organizational objectives. 

This is why I was so excited to have my good friend, Ben Stroup, Founder of Velocity Strategy Solutions and author of Master The Pivot, back on the show today for a second conversation. 

Ben has developed a new platform to give organizations an unfair competitive advantage to optimize talent and drive revenue improvements. 

This is a great conversation and will challenge the way you think about the link between people and organizational revenue -- it totally changed my perspective!

 

It was great to have Brady Josephson back on the podcast today for a second conversation. If you didn't catch our conversation last month on COVID fundraising trends, you should check it out. 

But today, Brady and I talk about all things testing. This is one of Brady's favorite things to chat about. That shouldn't be a surprise, given his role as Managing Director at NextAfter's Institute for Online Fundraising.

As a direct response fundraiser, I'm a big fan of testing. We test all the time. Sometimes we test something that makes a dramatic impact on revenue or results for a client. Other times, a test doesn't go the way we think. It "fails", if you will. But in the end, we still learn from it. 

To be successful with testing, you have to think differently about the philosophy and execution of tests. That's where Brady and I focused in this conversation. He covered a ton of important ground, like:

• Why testing is important to fundraising success
• What type of tests deliver the most impact and value (and which tests aren't worth your time)
• Creating a testing strategy/plan
• Designing tests for successful learning
• The value of iterative testing
• Low value vs. High value tests
• The importance of tracking, and why this is the first step in your successful testing strategy

I hope you learn a ton from this conversation, and that you take this opportunity to create or refine your own testing plan for the next year!

Special Offer From Velocity Strategy Solutions, Our Episode Sponsor: 

Eric Ressler is Founder & Creative Director at Cosmic, a social impact creative agency in the Bay Area. 

We sat down recently to discuss how brand and digital engagement can impact a nonprofit's ability to scale revenue.

While some in the nonprofit sector believe brand will always be in conflict with an organization's ability to raise revenue, Eric doesn't share that point of view. In fact, he's got some great insights into how the two can work hand-in-hand (alongside digital engagement) to both increase awareness of your cause AND help you raise significant amounts of money.

Special offer from our episode sponsor, Velocity Strategy Solutions:

You have people working in ways they’ve never worked, with people they don’t know, and for managers and leaders they’ve never met around projects they may not understand.

The reality is the only thing your competitor doesn’t have is your team. But if you don’t utilize them well and position them for success, you’ll send them looking for better opportunities elsewhere. It’s time to optimize your talent.

You can use the code RAINMAKER to get your FREE personalized talent assessment from Velocity Strategy Solutions today! 

Bob Carter is Founder and Chairman at Carter Global, the leading global philanthropic consultancy serving nonprofits, international non-governmental organizations (INGO's), and ultra-high net worth philanthropists. Bob is personally an expert in the development of major and mega gift fundraising campaigns and philanthropic giving strategies for mega givers. Throughout his career, Bob has also served as chairperson of seven different nonprofit boards, giving him an incredibly broad understanding of the inner-workings of our sector. 

We recently sat down with Bob to talk about the state of philanthropy in 2021, and his perspective on what the future holds for our sector, including:

1. What he's most encouraged and concerned by in our sector for the coming year
2. The biggest opportunities on the horizon for nonprofits over the next five years
3. How data and technology are changing the philanthropic landscape for the future
4. The potential impact of changes to donor privacy laws that are currently under consideration by the Supreme Court
5. Bob's thoughts and guidance for new and emerging nonprofit leaders
6. What we as fundraisers should know about philanthropic supporters -- particularly the differences between those who have created wealth vs. those who have inherited it
7. Challenges to nonprofits of philanthropic investors who are willing and comfortable bypassing the traditional nonprofit ecosystem to create impact for a cause, and what nonprofits need to do to address this challenge
8. The role of boards in addressing complicated issues like diversity, equity, and inclusion, and other tough conversations

Bob shares a wealth of valuable insights and perspectives in our brief conversation. Get your pen and notepad out, because this is like a free masterclass in philanthropic planning!

If you want to lead your organization more effectively and help your team avoid costly mistakes that drain your organization of time, talent, and revenue, check out my Amazon #1 best-seller, 101 Biggest Mistakes Nonprofits Make And how You Can Avoid Them.

 

Welcome to the 100th episode of The Rainmaker Fundraising Podcast!

I’m thrilled to have had the opportunity to visit with Russell James, J.D., Ph.D., CFP for this milestone episode. 

If you know Dr. James, you know this will be a great conversation. If you don’t know him yet, you’re in for a real treat!

Dr. James is Director of graduate studies in charitable planning in the Division of Personal Financial Planning in the College of Human Sciences at Texas Tech University. His research into human behavior and charitable giving has shaped how institutions large and small engage major donors and maximize revenue all across the U.S.

Dr. James recently published a five-book series, the Fundraising Myth and Science Book Series. In our conversation, we talk extensively about one of those books, The Storytelling Fundraiser. 

This new book series is also the foundation of a great new training program that Dr. James and Greg Warner at MarketSmart have partnered to bring to market. 

We covered so much ground in this conversation. It’s an in-depth review of the book and the foundational thinking that went into it, including:

1. The One Big Thing in fundraising, and why it’s something you might not expect.
2. The difference between donor-centered and community-centered fundraising, and why organizations that want to secure transformational gifts should double down on donor-centered fundraising. 
3. The neuroscience behind high-impact philanthropic activity, and how your organization and your donors can benefit from it. 
4. Why talking to donors about giving from their wealth (assets) vs. their disposable income is critical to your organization’s long-term financial security and growth.
5. The exact phrase(s) you should adopt to help your supporters unlock transformational generosity. 
6. How philanthropy is both altruistic and self-serving at the same time, and what you need to understand to effectively navigate these differences. 
7. The key decision-making processes that people go through when deciding to give a charitable gift, and how focusing on asset-based giving can help your donors make better decisions (for them and you!). 
8. Why fundraisers have a difficult time talking with donors about legacy giving, and the exact language and tools to help overcome those difficulties (including his 65 video trainings available for FREE). 
9. Why wading into math conversations with your donors may not be the best idea, and how to use storytelling to make key financial points that will motivate your donors to act. 
10. The interconnected role of overhead and restricted giving in philanthropy, and how you can navigate these to unlock significant giving from your supporters. 

These are just the top 10 highlights from our conversation. You owe it to yourself to pop some popcorn, grab your favorite beverage, and settle in for this great conversation. You’ll learn a ton, and be able to apply it immediately to positively impact your fundraising efforts!

Dr. James is sharing his new book series for FREE with the world. You can download electronic copies below:

The Storytelling Fundraiser

The Epic Fundraiser: Myth, Psychology, and the Universal Hero Story

Everyone pretty much everywhere is talking about change right now. Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, change seems to be the word of the day. And if you’re not talking about change, you might be talking about transformation. That’s just bigger change, right?  What so many of us get wrong about change and transformation efforts […]

Katie Lord is Vice President of Nonprofit Development at Proof Positioning, a market research company that uses emotional research to better understand donors and motivate them to act for nonprofits.  Katie and I talked recently about the disconnect between marketing and fundraising in nonprofits, as well as the impact of behavioral economics and emotional research […]

Dr. Patton McDowell has spent his entire professional career leading organizations and developing high-performing leaders across the nonprofit sector.  You might have caught my conversation with Patton a few weeks ago on his show, Your Path to Nonprofit Leadership. If you didn’t, you should check it out. We had an in-depth conversation on the impact […]