The Fundraising Talent Podcast

What are the most insidious myths about planned gift fundraising?

What I initially appreciated about my conversation with Tony was that, after he found himself dissatisfied with his work as an attorney, he re-engineered himself as a fundraiser and has since found planned giving to be very meaningful and rewarding work. Tony describes himself as an evangelist of planned giving and is the founder and the creator of the Planned Giving Accelerator which helps nonprofit leaders design and implement a planned giving program for their organizations.  As we have had very few podcast conversations about planned giving, I was especially grateful that Tony came prepared to address several of the myths that often get in the way of launching a successful planned giving effort. 
After Tony addressed what is perhaps the most insidious of planned giving myths - the idea it is a conversation about death - we explored a few others that linger close behind on the list. As I shared with Tony, I recall early in my career making the assumption that planned giving was highly technical work that only highly trained individuals were qualified to do. I also recall numerous times throughout my career hearing that discussions about planned gifts would undermine an organization’s opportunity for more immediate support. 
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If you’d like to learn more about Responsive Fundraising’s sense-making retreats, email me for more information.

Can digital champions strengthen your online fundraising efforts?

My conversation today with Melanie reminded me of the work of that Damon Centola has done on understanding how digital networks affect social change. Very similar to Centola’s observations, Melanie wants to us to make sense of who our digital champions are and what value they can bring to the organization. These individuals create the social reinforcement that is often essential in compelling others to act. As I suggested to Melanie, the less predictable aspects of this approach will be unsettling for those who prefer to see a straight line between themselevss and the donation. However, as we all know, such “assembly line” fundraising has been waning for some time; and perhaps the nay-sayers just need some encouragement from the people like Melanie to convince them to give this nonlinear approach a try. 
What I most appreciated about our conversation was hearing how this concept applies to the baby boomers and those we may assume are not especially responsive to playing meaningful roles in our online strategies. I think we can very easily make sense of the idea that boomers are just as inclined as the rest of us to share what’s important to them and want to know that they are influencing the decisions of others in positive ways. I also appreciated the idea that digital champions could resolve some of the weaknesses in our new acquisition efforts. Rather than acquiring a large number of “warm glow givers” who can’t be counted on to give again, the digital champion affords an efficient (albeit less predictable) and gradual yet steady way of creating a donor community that can be counted on for many years to come.
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If you’d like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising roadshow in your local community, email me for more information.

When did professional fundraising become “guru-city”?

Tim insists that the fundraising community has become “guru-city” - chock full of self-declared experts who believe everything they say is golden. Tim believes that there really is no such thing as a fundraising expert and instead of having all the answers, he has designed a company that allows him and his team to be about the business of learning. The team at NextAfter wants to journey alongside their clients in order to understand what the donor is saying to them. Tim describes their team in much the same way that we refer to ours at Responsive as a professional learning community. 
Tim’s approach to learning and expertise evidently informs his opinions about the how and why of messaging that we employ in fundraising. He explained that thanks to the Don Drapers of the world, we have all developed impressive bull-shit detection capabilities which allow us to see right through much of what of what shows up in our inboxes. Tim wants fundraisers to wrestle with what should be glaringly obvious: no matter how shiny and impressive it might appear to us, many of our messages aren’t getting through resulting in a donor response that doesn’t match all the hype. Tim explained that much of the disappointment that we encounter is a consequence of having allowed our marketing impulses to get in the way of our ability to demonstrate that real human beings are hitting the send button. 
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If you’d like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising roadshow in your local community, email me for more information. For those who would like learn more about the NextAfter, visit their website here. 

Should rested Black women take the helm of today’s nonprofit sector?

Today Nneka started our conversation by sharing some additional perspective into the thoughts that she shared in Collecting Courage, a collection of personal experiences written by Black fundraisers whose stories make us think twice about the inherent goodness we often assume of our sector. Nneka shared how fundraisingafforded her an opportunity to find herself; from there she began to understand the meaningful role that fundraising plays in starting movements, preserving history, and telling the stories of oppressed people. 
After celebrating the work of the Collecting Courage authors and some of the history of this project, Nneka challenged us to contemplate the possibility of rested Black women taking the helm of today’s nonprofit sector. To clarify, we’re not talking about tokenism or another committee. Nneka insists that there are perfectly capable, willing, and ready Black women who have the power and influence to completely overhaul the culture of our sector. Nneka argues that, instead of continuing to descend into irrelevance, such a collective move may be the essence of what’s necessary to effectively address many of the challenges our sector currently faces.
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If you’d like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising roadshow in your local community, email me for more information.For those who would like learn more about the Collecting Courage project, visit their website here. 

Are fundraising professionals being ruthless advocates for themselves?

It seems a lot of us are thinking about career changes lately; and my conversation today with Kristi begs the question of whether fundraisers are, to use her words, being ruthless advocates for themselves. Kristi started our conversation with the topic of adequate compensation; however, as I shared with her, I remain skeptical that compensation alone in our space is the real challenge. Regardless, Kristi insists that the next generation of fundraising professionals must keep reading; keep experimenting with new ideas; and, when it comes to adequate compensation and benefits, keep brining it up!
Among the many compensation and career development questions that we contemplated today was whether fundraising as a career path has a tendency to plateau and inevitably leave us looking for something else. Why is it that after a decade or so, so many of us are looking for opportunities that our employers can’t offer? As I shared with Kristi, I have often wondered how many of our challenges in the sector would remedy themselves if more of us never confined our careers aspirations to fundraising in the first place and instead aspired to be “fundraising CEO’s” who are as confident and capable of ensuring mission delivery as they are mission advancement.
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If you’d like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising roadshow in your local community, email me for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here.

Can fundraisers be recognized as our community’s best boundary spanners?

Today I enjoyed a thought-provoking conversation with Killian, one of the newest members of our consulting team here at Responsive. Killian has found fundraising to be very meaningful work and enjoys assisting his clients in getting it right. Killian and I began our conversation by asking how many fundraisers actually want the responsibility of building meaningful relationships with their donors and will stick with relationships long enough to ensure the the most significant and sustainable levels of support. We went on to discuss whether fundraisers should aspire to be our community’s best boundary spanners, admired and recognized as being confident at the lunch table with people who are unlike themselves and whose experiences and world views are very different from their own.
Killian reminded me that it was Tocqueville who applauded Americans for their tendency to voluntary organize associations rather than rely on the marketplace and the state to orchestrate social relations. It has often occurred to me that, as our society becomes increasingly diverse and pluralistic, fundraisers have an opportunity to shine in a myriad of ways that extend far beyond their ability to secure large checks. Fundraisers have the opportunity to learn how to be especially confident in coffee shops and across lunch tables with people who see and understand the world very differently than they do.
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If you’d like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising roadshow in your local community, email me for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here.

Is your nonprofit benefiting from both high and low context fundraising?

My conversation today with Collin reminded me of an important point that we often make during our roadshows and when working with clients. Do fundraisers know how to differentiate between and ensure their organizations benefit from both low and high context fundraising efforts? One of the fundraiser’s primarily responsibilities is to discern when low context fundraising efforts have done their part and when high context fundraising practices are now in order. It is at this point in the relationship that a fundraiser must have a strategy in place that transitions the relationship from mailboxes and inboxes to coffee shops and lunch tables. As I argued in my first book, this can be as easy as distinguishing between the strategies that ensure the initial gift and those that secure the subsequent gift. 
Colin is certainly right about the fact that our friends who deliver on low context, “lane one” tactical efforts lack the incentive to move donors out of their preferred channel. He points out that reducing volume hurts everyone who is invested in this initial-gift oriented part of the process. Their systems are designed to always deliver on volume in the most efficient way possible. Knowing this to true, the discernment process for shifting gears is on those most accountable for the overall effort and who are responsible for creating and implementing fundraising strategy.
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If you’d like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising roadshow in your local community, email me for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here.

Is the fundraising community growing wiser in these challenging times?

In her recent contribution to Carefully & Critically, Meena used the word “struggle” to describe her professional journey over the last two years. I have similarly used the word “angst” to describe what so many of our colleagues have articulated in the more than 170 podcast conversations that we have broadcast since March of 2020 when the pandemic became our reality. Meena’s article and today’s conversation are an exploration of the wisdom that she’s gained with the help of her LinkedIn Community in the last two years and how she has been able to apply that wisdom to her work.
So many of our guests have described the last couple of years as a journey towards understanding the struggle of being committed to meaningful work that can so easily let us down. As a data enthusiast, the struggle has afforded Meena an opportunity to explore questions that otherwise might have been ignored and overlooked. For example, how could analytics evolve in such a way so as to provide us with more desirable qualitative outcomes rather than the mere the quantitative outcomes we’ve come to expect? And how might we identify those who are as inclined to sustain meaningful, long-term relationships as they are to write a check?
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If you’d like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising roadshow in your local community, email mefor more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here.

308 | What if fundraising relied on more asset-based thinking?

Early in my career, I learned pretty quickly that a sure-fire sign that you’re dealing with a wizard is that everything is focused on what you’re lacking. Then, after being convinced of what you’re lacking, the wizard is relentless in promising to deliver of solutions that will forever ensure he’s at the center of your thinking. This isn’t a story our team at Responsive buys into; and Mallory, our guest today on The Fundraising Talent Podcast, evidently doesn’t buy it either. Mallory wants more fundraisers to recognize that they already have what it takes to be successful and that focusing on what’s missing only gets in the way of learning this most important truth. Today’s conversation was all about asset-based thinking and the unfortunate tendency in our sector to focus on what’s missing. Walk around the exhibit hall at any fundraising conference and you’ll quickly discover just how many wizards are betting on our deeply entrenched deficit mindset. 
Whatever we feel we may be lacking, Mallory wants to us to be especially aware of the fact that our ability to build genuine and meaningful relationships, arguably the most important ingredient in renewing a donor’s support, is a characteristic that most fundraisers have in sufficient supply even before accepting a job. Mallory wants us to remember that it’s often in those sincere and sometimes emotional moments that we put ourselves out there and yield the most significant and sustainable levels of support. When we show up as our genuine selves, willing to be vulnerable and honest, many of our beliefs and assumptions about how things work no longer matter all that much.
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If you’d like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising roadshow in your local community, email mefor more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here.

How do today’s employers prepare for tomorrow’s workforce?

Today I asked Janelle and Nikki if the aspirations employers have for their employees are missing anything that we should consider about those we will be hiring in ten years. Jobs for America’s Graduates helps young people succeed both in school and on-the-job to ensure that they have opportunities that afford them productive and rewarding careers. Having served millions of students since 1980, the team at JAG recognizes that this moment in time is unlike any other and demands exponential growth in the next several years. 
My conversation today with Janelle and Nikki had me wondering if we’re preparing the right path for our next generation of fundraisers and whether the challenges we’re encountering today will be the same in another decade. In order to create the workspaces that will meet the expectations of tomorrow’s young people, those whose educational journeys have been abruptly interrupted by a worldwide pandemic, tomorrow’s workforce will need to be agile, go deep and meet young people where they are in the world.
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If you’d like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising roadshow in your local community, email mefor more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here.