Looking for inspiration to help you plan for the year-end fundraising season? You’re in the right place!

Since we’re privileged to work with so many different non-profit organizations, we have a bird’s-eye view of the latest fundraising trends and themes. From year-end planning to giving trends to technology in the relational giving space – exciting things are happening.

On this podcast episode, Jeff and Richard are joined by Lisa Robertson, our Director of Client Services, to share some fundraising tips based on what’s working well for our clients. Listen in for some great ideas and strategies to energize your fundraising program this fall!

Show Highlights: In this episode, you’ll learn about…

• Fundraising tips, trends, and themes we’re seeing with Veritus clients
• Strategies our clients are using to provide exceptional donor service (and how you can apply these in your own organization)
• Common challenges that non-profits are facing in the second half of 2022

Read the Full Transcript of This Podcast Episode Here:

Jeff Schreifels  

Since we’re privileged to work with so many different non-profit organizations, we have a bird’s eye view of the latest fundraising trends and themes. Today, we’re going to share some tips based on what’s working well for our current clients, so that you can replicate these best practices at your organization and see their success.

Recorded  

Welcome to the Nothing But Major Gifts podcast from Veritus Group featuring Richard Perry and Jeff Schreifels. Twice a month, we bring you the latest and best thinking about major gift fundraising so you can develop authentic relationships with your major donors. Here are your hosts, Richard and Jeff.

Jeff Schreifels  

Welcome to the podcast today. I’m Jeff Schreifels. And Richard and I are really excited about today’s episode because we’ll be sharing some tips from our clients to help you better serve your donors as you head into the fall fundraising season. And to add to this conversation, we’ve invited our Director of Client Services, Lisa Robertson, to join us. Lisa not only works along several of our clients, but also has great insight on what’s working with our other clients. Thank you for joining us, Lisa.

Lisa Robertson  

Hey, thanks for having me.

Richard Perry  

Well, you know what, I am really looking forward to this because it’s so valuable to hear actual examples, you know, actual examples, Jeff? What’s working from other fundraisers out there. So we’re glad to have you with us Lisa. Now, I’d like to kick things off with a question. What common fundraising trends and themes are you seeing with our clients right now, Lisa?

Lisa Robertson  

Well, it’s really interesting, right, because we work with about 250 fundraisers and 80 organizations across the country. And yet, when we ask this question of our team, the answers are always consistent. And so there’s there are these trends we can kind of follow. And there’s two things that are coming up right now. 

Lisa Robertson  

One is that donations seemed to be a little bit behind last year. So they’re not down necessarily, just seems like a little bit slow maybe, like molasses. And we’re kind of wondering, is this donor fatigue? Is there cooldown from the crises in the last couple of years? We’re not really sure. But we know that for some organizations, we saw this huge uptick of donations in 2020, at the height of COVID. And then those same organizations had like a one-year anniversary type drive, to show like, what was going on and how they impacted things during COVID. And so now, the slower giving may be because we just aren’t having the same type of programmatic fundraising pushes. 

Lisa Robertson  

And then the second thing we’re seeing is just a slower pace of giving. So again, it’s not alarming, it’s just enough to lead us to wonder like if and how the economy might be affecting the way donors think or how they respond to things. And especially we’re seeing that in mid level. For one of our clients, you can actually see the monthly donations that started higher in the first half of the year, month over, comparing month of 2021 to the same month of 2022. They were kind of on par or over. And now they’re like the same or maybe even a little bit down during the summer months.

Jeff Schreifels  

I’m wondering if you know, we saw this big, obviously, we saw big upticks in 2020. 2021 seemed a little less than 2020.

Richard Perry  

Yeah, it’s the COVID bump, right?

Jeff Schreifels  

Yeah, yeah. So I wonder if it’s best to compare 2022 with 2019. And look back further so we can see the trend line versus, well, we’re down this year. But you know that COVID bump is a real thing. We see it in every one of the data points. 

Lisa Robertson  

Well, and I coach fundraisers too Jeff you know, and we do this in our assessments, don’t just look at the macro, look at the micro. So if you’re flat for June, figure out who didn’t give in June that gave last year, and then you realize, okay, who is that, what’s going on? It really does help tell the story. Yeah. There are other things on donors’ minds as we work with fundraisers, and that is the economy. There are some donors mentioning it, not a lot. But we you know, when they do mention it, it may or may not impact their giving. So we had an MGO whose donor said, hey, I’m not going to make the large gift this year. But he still renewed, he still gave the same amount as last year. So a little effect of the economy, but again, not down, just flat. 

Lisa Robertson  

And then the other thing that’s on their mind, obviously, this time of year is always fiscal year-end and calendar year-end. And there’s just common sort of push and pull of kind of direct response, the fiscal and calendar year-end pushes, balancing their own work and donors, internal coordination with other departments. That’s what’s kind of on their minds. 

Lisa Robertson  

And then I think about sort of the trend of okay, where are we focusing right now. And along with the economy and year-end, they’re spending a lot of their time working on the process that we talk about so much. So really, look, you’re thinking about sort of year-end and how am I relationally qualifying donors? How am I going to make meaningful connections with donors during the summer months? Am I ready for year-end with my plans, am I really updating those, and then it’s also a really busy event time. So this is the time of event golf tournaments and dinners and appreciations and tours. So you know, fundraisers are focusing on a lot of that personal interaction, invitations, follow-ups and that sort of thing. 

Lisa Robertson  

And then one really odd trend I’ll tell you guys about, I don’t know if it’s trend or not, but we keep hearing about it more and more, which is these donor database moves, or this really big push for the integration of artificial intelligence or AI technology. So one of the side effects, you know, the last few years has been really that I think technology is advancing to help us. But these tools can also sort of distract us, even though they are great to employ.

Richard Perry  

Well and on that point, because you got to really watch it that you don’t lose the relational aspects of what’s going on in the relationship with your donor as well. So here’s a question for you, Lisa. What are some of the main challenges that you’re hearing from clients? What are they saying out there?

Lisa Robertson  

Yeah, this is so common, it doesn’t matter if it’s a small organization or a large organization. There’s this difficulty of getting really great information about impact. So having really good donor offers, and then program details. So we talk about that a lot. But the struggle is real like on the ground. And we work with some organizations that just they want to talk so much about the process, like how many kids were fed, instead of the impact, which is how one kid got proper nutrition, and that changed their trajectory. Yeah, or, you know, the PR marketing, and the organization is so large, and it just creates these major roadblocks to getting concise and compelling touch points, and out the door in a timely manner. Like, you know, when you have a special month, like, you know if it’s National Adoption Month in November, you don’t want that information on November 5, you need it in October or September, right. So that’s the challenge. 

Lisa Robertson  

And then the other challenge is getting summer connections. And it’s funny, because we talked about well summer’s sort of slow, like maybe this is a good time to connect. And yet, people are traveling, they’re vacationing, you know, it’s nice weather, they’re outdoors, they’re enjoying the outdoors. So that’s another struggle is just getting those connections.

Richard Perry  

That whole thing about information on impact is I mean, I’ve, I’ve been hearing a lot of that going on, because we’re always talking about, hey, you have got to talk back to these donors about how their gift made a difference, or you’re gonna lose money and you’re gonna lose the donor. And it’s very hard for them to get that information. I mean, it’s a struggle.

Lisa Robertson  

Yeah, well, and it’s funny because like, with the small organizations, they say, oh, man, I wish we had a department to make stories. And then large organizations, sometimes they have too many stories, like I had a fundraiser send me links and said, which story do you think is compelling Lisa? And I had to click through five to seven times before I got to their firewall where I couldn’t see like any more details, but it was like, here are seven stories. And then if I clicked on the story about Richard, then it’d be like Richard’s video, Richards postcard, Richard’s, you know, web story, whatever. And then if I clicked on the postcard, there’d be seven photos. But they’re all airbrushed and beautiful. And, you know, isn’t this organization great? Not like, Hey, we’re so glad that Richard was, you know, able to come out of this incredible disease, because of the research we’ve done or what there wasn’t any sort of like, how this impacted Richard. No, it was, it was so intriguing. And also the time it took like, it took me five minutes, and I was just trying to help find one story of that fundraiser. Yeah, so there’s, there’s not a win there, unless you really work to find those stories and make those stories easy for fundraisers to tell about the impact. So it’s a struggle.

Jeff Schreifels  

We just don’t prioritize it, you know, either. Either we don’t do it, or like your example, we have all this stuff, but we don’t curate it. We don’t, you know, talk about how the impact is happening with these particular stories. You just log them in and say, well, if you want a story, just go here and and find one. Yeah, and so if we prioritized it as an organization, we would do that. We would have a department or a person that’s just focused on okay, how do I get these stories for someone, that has an impact. And I know, these people have these donors and this thing, you know, it would all be there.

Jeff Schreifels  

Right. And they would know that their job is to serve the fundraiser and to tell the story for the donor, not to market. That’s the other issue is, if we have that department and they think their job is to market and just flood the fundraiser with stories, that’s not helpful either. So that whole curation piece has to come with an education piece of why are we doing this? To build relationships, and to tell the impact.

Richard Perry  

Yeah, but I think Jeff, the point that you made about prioritizing is like when budgets come around, there’s a whole bunch of money that goes to the front end of the pipeline, acquiring donors and doing direct mail and all that stuff. Very little money to the back office and looking up information that’s going to say, essentially say that the donor, you know, your giving really did make a difference.

Jeff Schreifels  

Right. So those are some of the challenges. Let’s talk about, what are some of the strategies that have been winners for our clients.

Lisa Robertson  

Okay, so to that content piece, we do have some fundraisers that are basically creating some little libraries for themselves, you know, so they’ll share amongst each other, and that’s really beneficial. And so that’s one strategy. Another one is,

Jeff Schreifels  

Hold on. Explain that one.

Lisa Robertson  

Okay. Yeah, I had examples later. But sure, so so. So for instance, like, you know, I’m going to share and let’s say, I am super passionate about one of our programs, and I’m technological enough to make a really great email with a pretty link and concise and it sounds good. I would make that and say, Hey, everyone, I made this great story, and why don’t we use this in October? And then Jeff, you’re really good and you’re really passionate about, you know, like numbers. And so you might say, Hey, I made this, I think I made this really great touchpoint about how we really impacted people and the and the kind of financial benefit to people or the you know, whatever. How about if I make that for January? And so you’re cooperating and building to each other strengths instead of siloing the fundraisers as well. Yeah. 

Lisa Robertson  

So it’s, you know, that whole idea of sort of sharing resources, and then like, if something good comes to mind for a donor, I’m just gonna share that so other people can use it. Like, we had an idea the other day, that might be kind of obscure. But on one of our our national learning calls, a donor had said to a fundraiser, “Man, I wish I could win a lottery. I’d give you guys all the money.” And so she went out and bought a scratch ticket. And 10,000, what’s that candy bar? 100 Grand. Yeah. And she sent it to him. And she was, you know, with a little card, say, Hey, thanks for talking hope you win the lottery someday, whatever, right?

Richard Perry  

Oh, it was fun.

Lisa Robertson  

Yeah so you know someone else is gonna hear that and go, I’ve had a donor mentioned lottery, right. And so like, we just need to share ideas amongst ourselves as well and not feel like I have to rely on another department. Yeah. So that’s one idea. 

Lisa Robertson  

The other one is to really use some small Zoom events. So some people are having the coffee Zoom, or lunch, like, Hey, would you like to Zoom for coffee or lunch, and then small events. So one organization we work with is holding like, they have a weird name. But it basically is centered around coffee. And so it’s for different countries. And so for instance, this month is on India. So they’ll invite people they know care about India. And when you RSVP, Jeff, they’re going to send you a coffee or tea from India, so that when you’re on the call, you’re sipping the coffee or tea from India, but what’s been great is they also train their program folks. And so someone who’s in country, or who manages that country, here in the US will talk about what’s actually happening on the ground for 15, 20 minutes. And the rest of it is for the donors to ask questions. And what’s been happening is the donors actually interact with each other as well. So that’s been kind of fun. And all of them have either increased what they’ve been doing in that country or increased their giving, or asked for more information like, hey, when travel restrictions lift, I definitely want to go there. So that’s been kind of neat to connect on that small level, because I think Zoom fatigue is kind of setting in, you know, if they say, Hey, you can come here our president talk for 20 minutes, there’s no interaction. It might not get as much play. But if you say, Hey, you’re one of 10 donors who’s going to meet with our CEO, learn about our latest research, have a chance to ask questions. Would you like to come? It changes the tenor. There’s an opportunity there to make some connections. Very cool. Alright. Yeah, I like it.

Jeff Schreifels  

We got them all? Do you have any others? Winners?

Lisa Robertson  

And then the other hint we just picked up recently is, you know, in our trainings, we talk about how Thursday nights and Saturday mornings are good for phone calls and connection. And oddly, in the summer, it seems like Wednesday and Friday mornings are too. So if you’ve had trouble connecting, maybe just try a different time of day and try those Wednesday and Friday mornings to see what happens.

Lisa Robertson  

Nope, there’s one more. There’s two more actually, one of them is kind of techie. But you know, we use our Donor Engagement Plan, and we say to list all your donors. Well, a few organizations have figured out how to put a hyperlink into the donor ID number. And so what that means is then if you want to go look at Lisa Robertson’s record, you just click on the hyperlink, it’ll take you right to Razor’s Edge, Salesforce, whatever, that records. So you don’t have to like copy and paste the ID number. You don’t have to go open it and search for Lisa Robertson, you just click a button. So it sounds silly, but it’s kind of a cool time saver if you have to build it to begin with. And you have to have some techie skills, but it’s not hard, I promise. 

Jeff Schreifels  

Awesome. 

Richard Perry  

So now I think there’s one other example of things that our clients are doing that the audience could replicate. Like that whole thing about fiscal year-end asks, so could you talk about that?

Lisa Robertson  

Yes, yeah. So we’re seeing more and more fundraisers that are able to impact direct response asks, and so where there’s good interplay between the departments, the MGO, or the MLO, can help determine if or who to suppress, and how to change the ask. So one of our clients has this list now and they’re able to say, okay, suppress Jeff, because he just gave $10,000 over his normal amount in May. And so we’re not going to ask them for a calendar year or fiscal year-end ask in September, right? We have a larger ask plan for him December. Or Hey, Richard’s ask array is 147. He’s never given less than 500. So can we increase that ask array? So they’re able to actually impact that, and it sounds like a lot for mid-level. But it’s necessary like that just, it’s honoring of the donor to say, I know Richard well enough to tell you, that is not a good amount for him. That’s not gonna work. And so that’s been one of the really good things is to make sure that they’re able to speak into the direct response piece.

Jeff Schreifels  

Well, I think that also then goes back to making sure we have good relationships with all of those. Right? Because a lot of times we hear major gifts, never talk to the direct response people, so they don’t know what’s even happening out there. So creating those relationships, now’s a good time to do that. Because we’re gearing up for the fall. Yeah, we need to be all on the same page as we go out in the biggest giving time of the year.

Richard Perry  

I think the other thing, Jeff and Lisa, is this whole, and we’ve talked about it so much, it just kind of wears everybody out hearing it. But it’s like, I mean, you think about the economy being down, and all these other things, you keep going back, keep going back to those passions and interests. And remember that that’s the thing that’s really, really a driver, behind the folks giving. And it’s funny, we can get into all these other techniques, which are all very good, or strategies, and then bypass the whole passions and interests thing, which is, which is very critical and central to people’s giving. 

Lisa Robertson  

Yeah. Well, I was gonna say too, to both of those points, that it’s not just forming a relationship, but it’s also educating, right. I always tell fundraisers, that part of our job is really educating other people about what we do. And to that point, like in direct response for one organization, they go, we’ve got to send fiscal year-end to everybody, because it’s one of our best performers. And we said, Okay, well show us our assigned donors. The assigned donors gave $40,000 out of 1800 records. So really was it that important that they all get it? Or was it more important to be strategic, knowing that one of those donors could give $40,000 if we tapped into their right interests and we had a plan for them? Right. So that whole education and communication and understand the donors is really important.

Jeff Schreifels  

Yeah. Okay, so let’s talk lastly, about some of the most important priorities we see for non-profits as they head into the fall season. And Lisa, why don’t you start and then Richard and I can chime in on this, what we see as some of the big priorities.

Lisa Robertson  

Sure. Quick answer is year-end, year-end, and year end. It’s just, you know, it is a priority, right? Whether it’s fiscal year-end or not. So no one’s going to be surprised at that. So even if the fiscal year in was spring or summer, the priority now is preparing for calendar year. And that’s about making plans and sharing, we have really good communication we have plans to cultivate to ask and increase gifts.

Richard Perry  

Yep, yep. And that also, I mean, that also includes many other pieces, like coordinating with program and finance and to ensure the proposals are buttoned down. And more practical plans about how to ask if any, are in person, you know, now is also the time to plan visits or travel. It’s also good time for, you know, practical measures of making sure you have supplies. There’s nothing worse than having, you know, letters ready to send out you realize you’re out of stamps or something like that. And you can’t, you know, also forget Thanksgiving. You know, I order early online to make sure I get the Thanksgiving thank-you stamps, for instance. So that’s I mean, just thinking about those kinds of things is important. Yeah.

Jeff Schreifels  

Yeah. And I think it’s also good time to coordinate with the direct response team, as we were talking about earlier and balance the high number of touches. I mean, we want to engage but not overwhelm or annoy. So when we work together with direct response team, it puts the donors first. And in the case where direct response can be impactful, fall is the time to establish those timelines. Is the appeal being pulled out in-house for handwritten personalization? Or is the cover letter being adapted? And can the fundraiser help? And can they help edit and determine the gift ask array as we were talking about? And then when will the list be pulled for them to examine every donor? 

Jeff Schreifels  

Those are all really important things to talk about and understand. And, you know, as we start planning for the fall, this is the time to do it. Sure, you’re already, you’re ready to go, and you’ve got those meetings set up, you’ve got your plan in place. And you know, if you haven’t done already, you should be looking at every one of your donors that has a goal. Where are they to goal? Right? Yeah. Are they behind? And if they’re behind, what can we do between now and the end of the year, to get them back towards the goal that we set for them? This is a perfect time for that. 

Jeff Schreifels  

Well, Lisa, thank you so much for joining us today and for this inspiring conversation. 

Lisa Robertson  

My pleasure.

Jeff Schreifels  

And I hope this has been helpful to you as well, and that it’s giving you some tips and strategies for better serving your donors in the months to come. And if you’d like to learn more about how we partner with our clients to provide regular coaching, accountability, and encouragement to them throughout the year, you can head to our services page linked in the description for this podcast. To learn more and start a conversation with our team about how we could partner with you to support your mission, just go to that service page, click on that link. And we can start that conversation. So thank you and we’ll see you next time. Thank you.

Recorded  

Thank you for joining us for the Nothing But Major Gifts podcast from Veritus Group. Richard and Jeff also write an ongoing blog that you can subscribe to for free at veritusgroup.net. Please join us again next time.