Nonprofit Expert Episode 10 – Mastering Nonprofit Impact: Fundraising Wisdom & Organizational Change with Robbe Healey

DonorPerfectAnnouncement00:03

Welcome to Nonprofit Expert presented by DonorPerfect.

Robbe HealeyHost00:14

Hello, thank you for joining us today. Welcome to Nonprofit Expert presented by Read More

DonorPerfectAnnouncement00:03

Welcome to Nonprofit Expert presented by DonorPerfect.

Robbe HealeyHost00:14

Hello, thank you for joining us today. Welcome to Nonprofit Expert presented by DonorPerfect. I’m Robbe Healey and I’m glad to have you join me for this wrap-up session on our series Case Culture and Courage. We started this series of conversations talking about how to create an amazing case, how to develop and work in a culture that supports everything you do in development and the courage to call it out when it’s not working, and I hope you would agree, if you’ve had a chance to listen to all of them, that each one of them stands on its own and has really wonderful ideas and suggestions and things you can implement in your own practice in order to make your fundraising work more effective. When we talk to each of the experts, a lot of their advice overlapped and I want to highlight some of the things each of them pointed out and then hopefully make some sense of how all they knit together as they shared things with us. They were really really powerful takeaways.

01:24

We talked to Ray Pegli Rulo from Fairmont Adventures. Ray is an amazing writer, creative writer, and uses her skills in the nonprofit sector, but she didn’t give us the impression that you have to be a masters of fine arts creative writing expert in order to do amazing work. She talked about many important things that will help us as individual professionals. She also cautioned us. She said there is a limit If you work in an organization where the focus is internal rather than external. She reminded us and of course most of us know this, but it was nice to have reaffirmation from her that if your storytelling is internally focused, it will never be as compelling as when you’re talking about the stories, the outcomes, the things you create that give your donors and your prospects a chance to see in their own minds the kinds of work your agency creates. But she also gave us a punch list of six things that will help us focus on being a better writer. The first one is voice. Whose voice are you representing as you write? Hopefully the voice of the people you serve, of the lives you’re changing, but also spoken through the experts who are on your staff.

02:52

She also talked about sentence construction and clarity. If that sounded like eighth grade English to you, it certainly did to me, but the fundamentals are there. We have to write clearly. We have to write concise sentences so that our readers can stay with us. She also talked about writing for different audiences, which I don’t know about you, but I’ve been accused of it sounds like bait and switch when we tell the story, depending on the audience. No, it’s not. It’s customizing the story so the story resonates. She also talked about structure of the information putting things in a sequence that allows our readers to follow along with us. She also talked about sensory details using the kind of language that creates really compelling outcome stories so that people can feel the work you’re doing. Her last one, my all-time favorite the Dirty Dozen, the 12 Things Never To Do.

03:59

We then talked with several experts about culture, organizational culture and what makes the culture work. We talked with Leanne McKelvie and David Kramer from Casa Youth Advocates of Delaware and Chester County. They’ve taken their board from one that really didn’t want to talk about fundraising at all to one that realized good fundraising was mission critical, to one that now works collaboratively to the best of their abilities to raise the money they need to serve the children who are depending upon them. They talked to us about philanthropy as a tool, not a task. They are truly a power team getting this done. They recognize and they’ve helped the full board recognize this is not about money. It’s about making sure they have what they need to fulfill their mission. They also have begun to realize and to really internalize donors are an integral part of our mission.

05:02

Working with donors is a program, serving children is a program, collaborating with donors as a program, and as they combine those two, they can do the work they need to do in order to serve the children they’re serving. The key points they had for us are so interesting the respect for each other, respect for each other’s roles. Staff has a lane, board has a lane. They’re traveling the same highway but they are in it together, so ultimate respect for each other. They talked about supporting and training board members and understanding that philanthropy is a mission critical revenue stream and that, as board members are brought on to the agency, they are very transparent about the work the board does and is expected to continue to do. They talked about pipeline development and recognizing there are entry level donors, there are mid level donors, there are major gift donors, and it’s a progression. But without a qualified pipeline, mid level and major gift donors are never going to happen. They talked about recruiting recruiting on the board level to get the right talent and at the same time, as people join the board, especially those who joined before the transition happened if this kind of work is not what they can do, want to do, need to do, were able to do, allowing them to stand down with dignity and, last of all, having a timeline that was achievable, ambitious, achievable but also gave people enough room. So it’s that idea of if you need to take a pause, take a pause, but don’t backslide, don’t go from where you are to where you used to be. Take a pause, go from where you are to where you want to be.

07:03

Next, we talked with Jeff Schreifels, principal of Veritas Group, who had a very interesting perspective because, of course, he’s a consultant. So he was looking at this not as a practitioner currently an experienced practitioner before he became a consultant, but now as a consultant working with a variety of organizations and there were several trends he had identified that he tends to see in organizations that are becoming more successful in their fundraising. He talked about the path to success and how successful organizations are making a major investment in growing this revenue stream, and the way they are doing that is by investing in relationships, not just any relationship to say you had one, but the right kind of relationship with the right kind of prospects. Some of his most significant recommendations were around resources. They were around having board members understand and make the commitment to appropriate resources to staff the development operation. Having goals that can never be achieved because the resources aren’t there to allow it to happen doesn’t work. So being very mindful of the amount of time it takes to grow a strong program, the amount of resources and people and back office infrastructure it takes to maintain a program and grow the program, has to be part of the budgeting process and a clear affirmation that the board believes in this program, as important as the direct services programs. He also talks about keeping good staff. The turnover in the development profession has always been a challenge and it continues to be a challenge. But if you appropriately resource your department and staff know they are a priority, they have the right tools to do the work you’re asking them to do and that says a lot about board philosophy, board culture and board commitment. So appropriate resources to make sure the work can get done was one of Jeff’s key takeaways. He also pointed out this isn’t secret sauce, it’s the fundamentals.

09:35

We talked with Lauren Sheehan, president of Donor Perfect, and Lauren was in a unique position to have led a cultural evolution as the person in the organization that really could lead that work. She talked to us about a lot of things, but one of her primaries was the importance of listening and I’m sure if you’re like me, you’ve worked for a lot of leaders who talked more than they listened. And Lauren emphasized listening to everyone and pulling out of people not just what they think you want to hear, but what they really want to say, and creating a safe space so people can lift up the things they see that aren’t going as well as they could. I think it takes a courageous leader to be willing to listen to that and it takes a courageous colleague to be willing to say that. But if you create a space where people are willing to share the good, the bad and the maybe ugly, that gives you an opportunity to hear what you really need to hear.

10:46

She talked about the impact of COVID-19. Every nonprofit has been impacted by COVID-19. It’s not an excuse for why things aren’t going well. Everybody had to work through that. What Lauren suggested is we use COVID-19 as an opportunity to really look at not why we did things differently, but the things we did differently, and which of those should we carry into the future, because that adaptation, that sudden adaptation that was forced on us was kind of a live learning lab, for how can we work differently? In some cases we didn’t want to stay with that, but in others that forced adaptation may have given us an opportunity to really see changes that could work very well for us. She challenged us to look at the lessons of COVID-19, not as something we endured, but perhaps opening up a new way of doing work. She talked about listening and adaptation as a cycle, a cycle that’s never ending Listening, discovering both what’s said and perhaps what’s between the lines. She talked about using that as a launching point for an evolutionary process and then to make sure that, as we want to make changes, we’re not just grasping at the next shiny thing, but something that really will improve us in the long run and something that we want to endure, that we’ll have a potential for significant impact.

12:29

When we talked about courage, we talked with Tysole Williams, and Tysole, for me, is the personification of a person with real courage. She said to us, knowing what needs to get done and getting it done are two different things, and it’s courage, then, that makes the difference there. There may, in your organization, like many, there may be this philosophy that if I compromise, if I win, you lose. If you lose, I win, and really cautioned us to try to avoid that and, if that’s the way our brains work now, to try to move away from that. Because if we’re working in this sector, if we’re working on behalf of vulnerable populations or environments or whatever our call to action is, we want to make sure that our mission is the winner, not that we as individuals are winners. So Tysole urged us to start with an internal look. What are your internal strengths? What are your places where you have a unique ability to do something? She also said to us what’s really in your reach? Something within your reach is good. Something out of your reach may be aspirational, but probably not the place to start.

13:48

She talked about identifying our personal values and our personal superpowers. Know and be a lifelong learner. Lifelong learners are people who are always open to a new thing. Kind of goes back to what Lauren said we don’t want the next shiny thing, we want something enduring. But if we’re lifelong learners, we really want to think about what are the things that we’re hearing, what are the things that might be new, what are the things that might challenge us? How might we adapt the way we are thinking about things to be more successful as individuals and bring that success to our organizations. She also talked about how we introduce varying opinions and being respectful and mindful of that. I think it’s that old saying the way you say something may be as important as what you say, and respecting the way you introduce a new idea can make a real difference in your success.

14:55

She talked about focusing on all of those control liberals. She also said successful, courageous people in her experience forge relationships with people who are different than themselves. So if you surround yourselves with people who agree with you, you surround yourself with people who agree with you. If you make an effort to get outside of, perhaps, your comfort zone, your experience zone, your lived experience, what a much more well-rounded person you can be. So do your best to engage with people who are different than you. One of the things she concluded with is understanding the difference between varying opinions and opposing opinions. Opposing opinions are just that. It’s the opposite of what you think. Varying opinions and opposing opinions extremely different. Varying isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just different.

15:57

One of the things she said to us in conclusion I really wanted to quote. She said when feelings, when our feelings and beliefs are activated in spaces and systems where people coalesce. It creates culture. If it’s a healthy culture, there’s room for all of us. But in a struggling culture, everybody may be holding tight, afraid that there isn’t enough to go around. And she reminded us we’re much more successful when we believe in abundance rather than scarcity. She also reminded us there’s no one more powerful than you. You’re the CEO of yourself, your own boss, and make sure that money, mission are important, but don’t be a martyr for your mission.

16:56

As I was reflecting on all of these comments by all of our outstanding experts, I realized they are all talking about three things. They’re talking about resources, they’re talking about respect and they’re talking about relationships. And you may know I like to think of things in three, so it didn’t surprise me entirely when three things popped out for me. But resources think about that. Each expert talked about the resources we need as development professionals to be successful in our work. If we are understaffed, if we are underfunded, if we don’t have the back office infrastructure we need, we can raise some money, but it will never be enough and it will never be as good. They talked about human resources, the people we need to do the work. They talked about infrastructure, whether it’s support, staff, technology, budgets to be able to do good cultivation and stewardship. And they talked about donor engagement. So if we don’t have the bandwidth to do good donor engagement, we’re never going to be as successful. So an appropriately staffed and funded development office is essential. But it’s a conundrum for many board members and staff leaders. They see development as overhead. They don’t see the people who staff our programs as overhead. So if and as they begin to see development as a program as important as all their other programs, hopefully that thinking will evolve. Because if it’s not appropriately staffed, if it’s not appropriately resourced, it will always struggle. So the first of the three R’s resources. The second, respect. And we don’t get the budgets we need and the staffing we need unless we’re respected as a function. So when you think about that, what’s the big deal about respect and resources? Without those we will never develop the mission critical relationships that we need to move from pipeline point of entry donors to mid-level donors and major gift donors. So there’s a huge connection.

19:22

Each one of our speakers talked about developing relationships. Some talked about it internally, some talked about it externally, but the obvious relationship is between the development officer and the donor. But the essential relationships go much farther than that. The essential relationships are not just us with the donors, but the board members, our relationship with them. Do we have access, appropriate access? Volunteers? Do we have volunteers within the development office who are available to us, who work with us, who will help leverage our work? Participants in the program the stories our participants share are such compelling, going way back to what Ray talked about, the emotional impact of the work we do. Clients access to clients and their transformational change as a result of their work with us. Do we have members? Do we have relationships with members? Not all organizations do. And then, of course, relationships with our colleagues, not just our fundraising colleagues, but all of our colleagues, and I know we talked with Ray about how every colleague in the organization can be a very powerful storyteller.

20:45

When an organization respects the culture and the development function, there are several hallmarks, many of which Jeff pointed out to us. First, and perhaps foremost, the chief development officer reports to the CEO. When that reporting relationship is strong and respected, that is a huge grounding in our future success. The board is appropriately engaged. Boards go through different lifestyles. Not every board will be at the same stage, but whether you’re at the beginning stages of good fundraising, the middle or really blooming, the board accepting and engaging in its appropriate role is huge in terms of our success. All staff colleagues are appropriately trained and comfortable being storytellers and in sometimes advocates, and in sometimes part of the asking team.

21:45

Voices of our participants and clients are heard and understood. The conversations today around community-centric fundraising and donor-centric fundraising are so emotionally charged. But if our clients don’t have a voice in the work we do and how we do it, we’re missing an opportunity to really know how to move the needle for them. And if all of those are working, our relationships thrive.

22:15

If you’re lucky enough to work in an organization where it is all coming along perfectly and listening to these conversations was an affirmation that you were on the right path congratulations to you. If you’re not and I suspect many of us may not be I hope these conversations have given you a structure for thinking about what are some of the concrete steps you can take today within your own department and program to begin to evolve, what are some of the things you might be able to do going forward to begin to introduce the idea of culture change to your organization and what are the things in the long run that you can do to make sure that your organization thrives and that you thrive as an individual professional? I hope that as you do this work, the success you have for your organizations will be amazing and that you will feel accomplished and proud of the work you do in our sector to make lives better for everyone every day, because I have long believed it’s philanthropy that makes the exceptional possible, and congratulations to you for being part of that work.

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