Volunteer Fundraising

Multiplication

Thoughts by Aaron Davis

© Copyright 2018 Aaron Lee Davis. This draft manuscript is sent to be reviewed by the recipient only and is not to be shared,

forwarded, or copied without express written permission by the author. The views and opinions contained in this manuscript are

those of the author and not those of his places of employment.

Summary The purpose of this presentation is to focus on a method of volunteer engagement that can maximize

and multiply fundraising results. I explore the effective components of raising significant philanthropic

dollars through a social network. To build a system and platform for peer-leaders and philanthropist to

influence the philanthropy of peers, requires a mature understanding of the fundraising sales process,

psychology of donor needs, sociology of high-net-worth social groups. and behind the scenes

(backstage) leadership mobilization, marketing, and strategy. If the organization can adapt to this

innovative approach, it is my opinion that gifts will not only be raised, but may be multiplied beyond the

current scope of a traditionally-trained fundraising program.

Introduction Ronald Schiller writes, "Fundraisers spend way too much time strategizing about how to ask and far too

little time on creating an environment in which philanthropists can become informed and deeply

engaged partners."

Engagement can mean many things, and is often misunderstood in a volunteer fundraising context. A

recent Abila study discovered that donors report similar levels of felt engagement from volunteering as

they did from the act of making a large donation to a cause. To many donors, giving is engagement.

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Yet, I believe there is a way to join both philanthropic leadership and volunteerism to meet both the

goals of the organization and the goals of your donors.

Volunteers and Philanthropy According to the 2014 U.S. Report on Philanthropy, high net worth donors who volunteered gave a

higher average gift amount ($76,572) than those who did not volunteer ($44,137). Donors who

volunteered in a role other than a board member gave twice as much ($114,123) as those who only

served on a board or had an oversight role ($57,480).

Most non-profit’s preferred method of high net worth engagement is board service, but there is much

more money to be raised from those who aren’t on the board. How can we offer both non-board

engagement opportunities or and more engaging board volunteering opportunities to raise more

money? This is a complex question without an obvious answer.

Peter Drucker famously said, “What a company’s different customers consider value is so complicated

that it can be answered only by the customers themselves. Management should not even try to guess at

the answers – it should always go to the customers in a systematic quest for them.”

Donors will give to that which they value. This includes valuing the mission of the non-profit, but it also

includes giving to the projects that are valued by the people they value. If we try to guess at what our

fundraising prospects and donors value, and what motivates their giving, our fundraising efforts will be

much less effective. We must embark upon a “systematic

quest” to find them.

Purpose and Concept The purpose of this presentation is to focus on a method of

volunteer engagement that can maximize and multiply

fundraising results. I call this Volunteer Fundraising

Multiplication.

Traditional fundraising technique uses a sales model of 1. Get a

large number of face-to-face visits. 2. Introduce your programs and gauge interest. 3. See if there is a

match between the organization and 4. Present a proposal and ask for an amount. Fundraising

multiplication, however creates a donor-led social movement that engages donors to become

fundraisers for the organization and multiply scope and results.

In fundraising, you’ve all heard the words – it’s all about relationships.

Yet, what does that mean?

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For most of us – we automatically think about people who bring us comfort and security – and less

about those who do less. Why, because relationships are generally difficult. Petty jealousies, control,

fears, insecurities, anger, avoidance, passive aggressiveness, and misunderstanding are all part of

relationships.

Too much of the negative and not more of the positive – kiss your major gift goodbye!

To say fundraising is all about relationships is an understatement. It’s a relationship, but with whom?

● The fundraiser and funder?

● The organization and funder?

● The fundraiser and organization?

● Funders and other funders?

● Volunteers and funders?

I think it’s all-of-the-above. And I’d submit to you it’s never this easy or straightforward and is often

mixtures of all.

What works in relational fundraising?

Early in my fundraising career, I knew very little about fundraising. I remember reading Bill Sturdevant’s

Art of Fundraising, and Jerold Panas’s Mega Gifts and Asking, but it was all head knowledge.

Working in the administrative side of fundraising allowed me the chance to analyze why some

fundraisers excelled and others failed. I was able to observe ten fundraisers getting fired.

Based on my observations here’s what didn’t work:

Mark – Executive Director – All about the Ask. Had raised billions of dollars and very good at one-on-one

meetings. Mark would ask for at least $1,000 in the first meeting and often would ask for $25,000 in the

first meeting. Secured the largest gift in the orgs history by having the CEO in the room when he did an

ask. Mark was canned for trying to change the culture of the organization.

Lassie – salesy and energetic. Liked to ask. High energy to the point of off putting. Several small gifts of

$1,000. Canned in one year for not producing.

Ira – Raised $100MM or more in his career before working at my organization. Loved handwritten notes.

Not passionate about the organization and was a complainer. Didn’t even raise $1M in 4 years. Was

canned for spreading bitterness among the fundraisers.

Jeremy – During his interview said, “it’s all about relationships.” Used this line incessantly. Canned after

2 years for not raising any money.

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Jason – Raised lots of money for a labor group. Did this through powerpoint presentations in board

rooms to business leaders. Very good at getting meetings and setting up planned gifts. Huge complainer

that he didn’t get enough leads and socially awkward. In 3 years didn’t raise one $100,000 gift but total

giving was above $100,000 a year. Still sacked.

They all lived and died by the belief that they just had to build relationships and money would come.

When I chose to be a fundraiser, this is the environment I was entering. Most were getting fired!

But I also believed that fundraising was possible. 3 of the fundraisers made it 5 years or more. Doug,

Walt, and Humphrey.

● Doug was successful because he had been around for 30 years and built up a network of yearly

givers – who would have most likely given anyway – although at a lower amount without his

help. Used expertise to keep current donors engaged and happy.

● Humphrey was successful, in fact the most successful fundraiser in the history of the

department, because to him – relationships meant funder to funder to organization – the

fundraiser was the person who made giving happen. He did not consider himself a peer of the

funders. Aggressive and passionate about the cause. Demanded more from administrative and

management staff, which often put him at odds with them.

● Walt believed in funder to fundraiser and funder to funder relationships. Smooth talker. Most

raw sales talent.

Let’s focus a bit on Walt. Walt went from raising about $200,000 a year over seven years to raising

$2MM in 2015 alone. He credited his newfound success with blending his relational style with

peer-to-peer fundraising. He says Humphrey taught him how to raise money. He also was a thorn in the

side of the administrative staff and management.

I could list 5 other new fundraisers who tried peer-to-peer and saw minimal results. But what is the

difference in Humphrey and Walt? Was it a fluke that they were the most difficult to manage internally?

In an industry that has very few loyal steadfast Doug’s, Walts and Humphrey’s are more likely to be the

star performers in most fundraising shops.

Even so, star performers can do better using a peer-to-peer model. It could be the way to take a

$200,000 a year fundraiser to on that raises over $2MM a year.

Remember my comment about relationships, jealousies, insecurities, etc…?

If there are such negative parts of relationships, what makes some of them positive and result in a gift?

It is easy to picture a fundraiser building a relationship with a donor, because they need to perform at

work and meet a funding goal. In this context, performance is more important than the person giving

money. This is a problem that concerns every successful fundraiser at some point in their career.

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The first step of building great relationships with donors is the ability to listen and empathize with them

and put yourself in their shoes. For many donor relationships that is not always possible for the

fundraiser. It is however, often possible for passionate donors to act as fundraisers of their friends, who

otherwise would not connect with the fundraiser.

Psychology of giving

“After all, what can a first impression tell us about someone we’ve just met for a minute in the

lobby of a hotel? For that matter, what can a first impression tell us about anyone? Why, no

more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven, or a brushstroke about Botticelli. By their very

nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they

deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration—and our unwavering determination

to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every

possible hour.”

Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

Charlie and Bill

Bill was capable of making a seven-figure gift to a non-profit that advocated for strong families.

Charlie, who had just donated $25,000 said as much.

“Charlie,” I said, “let’s grab lunch with Bill and tell him our story and why we are looking for

funding.”

Bill was a no nonsense guy who only gave to organizations that he fully supported. At one point

in the meal, he looked directly at me and barked, “how much money are you looking for?”

“Well Bill, Charlie has given $25,000 and together we thought you could do the same.”

“$25,000 is a lot of money! I was thinking more like $10,000!”

Neither Charlie and I responded, and a few seconds later Bill said, “I’m going to the restroom.”

Charlie and I looked at each other, confused. Bill came back a few minutes later, took a sip of his

cola, and said, “Okay, I’m in for $25,000, but I can’t give it to you until next month. Stop by my

office and I’ll write a check.”

The next month, I visited his office. During the conversation, I told him that I have three things

that I wanted to share with him. “Bill, thank you so much for wanting to give. I was thinking

about you and the things you shared with me. So, first, I see you as a warrior, ready to fight for

strong families. Second, here is a quote that reminded me of your comment on the importance

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of fighting for those who don’t have a family….and third, you are one of the few in town who

get what we are doing, and we need you!”

Next we started talking about his values and how those were things that he deeply felt.

I asked him to participate in our upcoming fundraising event and share his passion with his

peers.

After the meeting, I sent him a link to a video that our organization crafted on

seven-figure-donor that I felt he would relate with. A day later he sent me a text message

indicating that the video and donor could have been telling his story. He then typed, “I’m in for

$250,000.

Next, after congratulating him, I asked him to write a script to present to the group, and share

with his peers why he was donating even more.

We worked on the script together, and I worked with Charlie to bring mutual friends to the

event. The seven-figure-donor from the video was in the audience, and thanked Bill for his gift.

When Bill delivered his speech, he read it word-for-word, and not making eye contact with the

crowd. Overcome with the joy of giving, appreciation, and life mission, he ended his speech with

the surprising words, “And this is why I’m donating $1 million dollars to this organization.

The crowd gave Bill a standing ovation.

Fundraising is one of the most difficult professions, but when it works, it can be magical. In many ways a

fundraiser is to the donor, like an engineer is to a project, a nurse to a patient, or a mechanic to a car.

Some engineers build skyscrapers as a capstone to their career. Others clock in and clock out, never

feeling the swell of pride that comes from saying, “Wow, I helped made this possible...Look what we’ve

built.”

People are important to the success of a non-profit, but they are also the result of an organization’s

construction and systems. The nuanced motivations of an individual are mostly unknown or hidden from

plain view. Yet by observing socialization patterns and identifying basic human needs, we can better see

what individuals and groups want. This can lead to better understanding of prospects and individualized

fundraising approaches.

So, what do donors want?

One of the fundamental ideas of humanistic psychology – is that people have needs. In order for higher

level needs to be met, lower level needs must first be met.

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Consider this pyramid of Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as the needs belonging to a donor or a

prospect.

While Maslow saw the bottom “economic” needs as having to first be satisfied, others such as

management guru Peter Drucker don’t see the order of the pyramid as important. Rather Drucker saw

that once any of the needs are met, the desire for them will decrease, and the desire for unmet needs

will increase. For example, you may be a top-of-pyramid enlightened person who is God’s gift to

humanity, but if you don’t have food, you will even eat liver, cauliflower, and grape-nuts cereal. Things I

wouldn’t wish on my enemies.

Donors generally have their safety and physiological needs satisfied. Perhaps this is because of the value

that our society puts on achieving capital and economic security at the expense of belonging and

acceptance. While most large donors are older, transformative generosity is most likely a function of

financial security over age. Younger people with lifetime wealth security can be just as generous.

Fundraising approaches must be tailored to meet the desired needs, not just the needs of the

organization.

For example consider these needs and how they can impact a donor’s giving:

Physiological – If a donor is concerned with breathing, food, water, sleep, etc… will she donate to your

cause? Where will she give her money? Food, water, sleep. And perhaps the American Lung Association

for help with breathing.

Safety – If a donor is concerned with security of body, of employment, etc… she may donate if your

organization promises her that it can help her get those things. However, most will not because they are

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too concerned with saving the money that they do have. It is worth noting that some high-net-worth

individuals never feel financially secure. Don’t waste your precious time on them.

Love/Belonging – Can you think of donors who give because they feel a sense of love and belonging?

The majority of large donors are in this group.

However, the real fundraising magic happens in the top two tiers – Listen to these words used in

sentences:

● I give to the Zoo because it is the right thing to do if we are going to save species (morality)

● The non-profit wants my advice on how to raise money (creativity, problem solving)

● The community needs me to help keep its cultural institutions alive (respect by others,

confidence)

To put all of these higher-level needs in perspective – I like to condense them down to one word.

I give because the organization “validates” me.

Tim Brown, CEO and President of a top innovation company states it this way:

“As more of our basic needs are met, we increasingly expect sophisticated experiences that are

emotionally satisfying and meaningful. These experiences will not be simple products. They will

be complex combinations of products, services, spaces, and information. They will be the ways

we get educated, the ways we are entertained, the ways we stay healthy, the ways we share and

communicate.“

Recognizing the complexity of today’s donor landscape, I believe that a more elaborate understanding of

salesperson type and personality is needed.

The Challenger Sale In corporate for-profit sales, the common model of relational sales has been flipped. It has been shown

by Corporate Executive Board and others in publications such as “The Challenger Sale” that those who

consider themselves “Relationship Builder” as their sales reps, are also the lowest performers. For their

research, they broke salespeople into five categories:

Lone Wolves: Self-confident and have a natural ability to succeed and deliver results.

Reactive Problem Solvers: Highly reliable and detail-oriented from the customers' perspective and excel

at follow-up.

Challengers: Use understanding of their customers' business to assertively challenge their thinking and

maintain control of the conversation.

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Hard Workers: Self-motivated, show up early, stay late, and always go the extra mile.

Relationship Builders: Focus on developing strong personal and professional relationships and

advocates throughout the customer organization. These salespeople are readily accessible and enjoy

conversations with reps or prospects. They are generous with their time when with others. They

distribute information freely.

Results

● 40% of top Sales performers primarily used a Challenger style, rather than one of the other four

Sales styles the book identified.

● Top performers were more than two times likely to use a Challenger approach than any other

approach.

● Over 50% of all-star performers fit the Challenger profile in complex Sales.

● Only 7% of high Sales performers took a Relationship Building approach, the worst performing

profile, yet the one most sales people identify with.

According to CEB’s article “Selling is not about Relationships,” published in Harvard Business Review, challengers are far more effective than the other sales profiles because:

Challengers teach their customers. They focus the sales conversation not on features and

benefits but on insight, bringing a unique (and typically provocative) perspective on the

customer’s business. They come to the table with new ideas for their customers that can make

money or save money — often opportunities the customer hadn’t realized even existed.

Challengers tailor their sales message to the customer. They have a finely tuned sense of

individual customer objectives and value drivers and use this knowledge to effectively position

their sales pitch to different types of customer stakeholders within the organization.

Challengers take control of the sale. While not aggressive, they are certainly assertive. They are

comfortable with tension and are unlikely to acquiesce to every customer demand. When

necessary, they can press customers a bit — not just in terms of their thinking but around things

like price.

Proceed with Caution While this knowledge applies to nonprofits, nonprofits should adapt their approach and think deeply about how it applies to their fundraising teams. All fundraising requires relationships and the most effective techniques aren’t always the same in for-profit corporation. Yet, in both sales and fundraising, the seller must establish trusting relationships, and go beyond a simple relational approach. Here are some ways that fundraising can adapt to the Challenger Sale model:

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1. Be careful to not subscribe to any one method of sales or fundraising methodology as it relates to fundraising. Fundraising from the fundraiser’s standpoint is knowing the art of the soft-sell and comfortably matching and pairing donors with the people and programs of organization – not a bull-headed, demanding, wall-streetlike take-no-prisoners hard-sale. You will never meet the often hidden needs of a donor with this approach. Leave the used car salesman technique for those that sell used cars to people who need used cars. Says Jerold Panas, “...(donors) resist pressure and find it acutely repugnant. The most effective solicitor listens - and then moves directly to make the potential donor’s dream one and the same with that of the institution.” When the word challenger is used, it automatically brings up feelings of aggressiveness and pushiness. Yet, I believe that a hybrid between a sales challenger and experienced fundraiser yields extraordinary results. These mutants are somewhat aggressive, but it is the sort of aggressive dogged determination to mobilize the mobilizers, always move the relationship toward a goal, do the hard work internally to match the institution’s dreams with the donor’s dreams. 2. The Challenger sale is not an absolute for fundraising, but is very informative. It states that the best sales person knows the client and the client’s business better than the client does. S/he teaches, challenges, and guides the prospect to a better way of doing business while respecting the temperament and needs of the client and sales organization. This can be done in the philanthropic world as well and when paired with the right system. The fundraiser can multiply results by gracefully guiding and teaching the peers of prospects, who then become challengers and fundraisers of their peer network. 3. Beware of the hard-worker and problem solver for certain types of complex sales. They are the ones who stay late and react to problems with lighting speed. Their work ethic gets them promoted to high-level positions. In fundraising however, it is impossible to get all the work done and solve all the problems. You can never make enough calls, send enough handwritten notes, attend enough meetings. Major gifts effort is about winnowing down your list and time to key prospects and donors, prioritizing the essential, and abandoning strategies that aren’t effective enough for the needs of the organization. Of course it is hard work that very few development professionals understand, but the best value smart work, no matter how difficult or easy, over hard work. 4. Challengers love the challenge. They enjoy closing gifts that are transformative and required a nuanced and complex approach. When Jerold Panas is describing the ideal fundraiser, he is describing the behaviors of a challenger:

“Fundraisers can be characterized by what William James calls “the faithful fighters.” It is what the Greeks called the Agon - the struggle, the match. (It is also the derivative for the word agony!)

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Fundraisers are an unusual lot. They love the battle and the struggle. Every day, they roll their rock up the hill. They enjoy the exhilaration of the fray. The strategy. The winning. When the tardy and reluctant Crillon arrived too late for a great victory, Henry IV said: “Hang yourself, brave Crillon! We fought at Arques and you were not there.” To be an effective fundraiser requires a quality of intrepidity, persistence, and timing. For the fundraiser who has surrendered a mega gift to another institution: hang yourself - the precious moment existed, and you were not there. Next time, seize the opportunity.”

Sounds like a challenger approach to me!

Adapting the Peer-to-peer fundraising model to the Challenger Sale The peer-to-peer technique is not needed to validate donors, but it does bring additional validation

when used appropriately. An experienced fundraiser

may only use peer techniques slightly, to open a

door, or sit in on a meeting. Sometimes during a

fundraising canvas, just mentioning a peer’s name

and donation amount can close a new gift. The

prospect will have their own reasons for giving, and

it is the job of the fundraiser to listen, ask the right

questions, and adapt to the style and pace of the

funder.

However, I believe that a proficient understanding

of the peer-to-peer process is something that every

fundraiser should have in their toolkit. What the model does is maximize validation for a larger group of

people and make fundraising systems more scalable. Depending on the peer group, fundraising systems,

communications, and fundraising ability, I believe it can realize exponential results.

Any new fundraising professional can tell you the frustration with asking for money without the

validation of a prospect’s peer. Most transformative gifts ($100,000+) are given through a social

network, no matter who does the actual ask, or even if you know who is in the social network. Timothy

Sandoval explains in the Chronicle of Philanthropy:

More wealthy donors rely on family & peers when making decisions about giving, not necessarily

on professional staff or evaluations, according to a survey of 219 people, most of whom donated

at least $100,000 last year (2017).

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● Some 57% of the donors said they lean on peers in the industries where they work when

deciding where to give or what investment to make.

● Another 56% said they tap family & friends for their input. (Donors could choose more than

one option).

● About 72% said they participate in "philanthropy networks" - collections of donors who

receive education on charitable giving & causes.

● Some 60% of respondents said they had no staff members to assist with their philanthropy.

● Many donors appear to believe they can handle decisions about their philanthropy on their

own.

● While 70% of wealthy donors said they have strategic plans for giving, only 55% said they

require nonprofits to submit reports on how their donations have made an impact.

● Nearly 25% of donors said they prefer to give unrestricted dollars that aren't tied to any

specific projects.

● Only 19% of big donors said they prefer to support promising but unproven projects.

● Only 17% said they preferred giving to new organizations, while 58% said they preferred

growing nonprofits & 25% favored established groups.

Note the point “Many donors appear to believe they can handle decisions about their philanthropy on

their own.” As a broad statement, there are many nuances in these decisions. In my experience there is

indeed a large amount of autonomy in philanthropic decisions, yet a social connection with the top

leader at the organization is always present. In fact, the CEO of your org may even be the peer.

Peer-to-peer in its simplest form is one donor who has given – persuading a friend to join and donate.

Sometimes this means that the peer-leader will be asked to give to the peer’s charity of choice. It would

be wrong, however, to assume this is the only motivation behind asking friends to give. Many times, just

an indirect suggestion of an ask, among peers, can be more than enough to persuade the prospect to

give.

Sometimes, what is not said, can be more powerful than that which is said. At the top of the hierarchy of

needs are those such as morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, confidence, achievement,

respect of others, and respect by others.

A fundraiser or a peer who gives a prospect the opportunity to have these needs met, will be much

more likely to get a gift. Some peers are very direct with each other. Others are subtle, allowing their

friends to dream about a project or gift with them.

Sally and Anne

Sally flew to Cincinnati from Houston for a lunch meeting. Sally and Anne both loved the

organization and had many common interests, but Anne had yet to give a major gift to the

organization. The fundraising team knew that Sally was very good at asking her peers to donate

large amounts, and she agreed to ask Anne to do the same, even though they had never met.

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We asked Sally to ask Anne for $100,000, to which she agreed. During the meal, I asked Sally to

share what she had done for the organization, and then make the ask.

But when the time came, Sally couldn’t do it. She had regularly asked for $100,000 dollars from

her peers, but felt uncomfortable in this hurried fundraising format. Sally went on to explain

that she had donated money to the cause, but did not indicate how much.

To save the goal of the meeting, I asked Sally to share how much she had given, hoping that she

would still ask for the specific amount. She shared that she gave $100,000, but then changed the

subject, and didn’t make an ask.

After the lunch I received a call from Anne. She said, I’m going to donate, but can’t tell you how

much. Can you give me Sally’s number so that I can call her?

Sally shared the news with the organization. Anne had mailed a check for $100,000. Over the

next week Anne began to call on ten others to give $100,000. One agreed, and still others

chipped in $25,000 gifts. The lunch meeting turned into a much more funding for the

organization.

It is therefore critical that the fundraiser recognize the leadership of the peer, yet at the same time be

the driver of the fundraising process. This can include scripts, reminders, joining the peer on trips or at

functions with other organizations, introducing the peer to other donors in the organization, and making

certain fundraising visits alone. Potential donors see the fundraiser as the representative of the

organization, and fundraisers must be comfortable with both leading and working behind-the-scenes.

While peer-to-peer fundraising is based on simple laws of connectivity, social networks have many more

variables than any one person or a team of fundraising professionals can grasp. However, a basic

understanding of networks of folks who have the capacity for several major gifts, is important.

Peer-leaders and the Power Law <Read or watch TEdTalk -- Appendix A: Simon Sinek, Start with Why.>

The research of the science behind networking is a fascinating field that is still growing. Influential

networks were once believed to be based on three degrees of separation or other laws such as the bell

curve and the Pareto Principle. Most fundraising shops live by the Pareto principle which states 20% of

your people contribute 80% of the work or money, and 80% contribute 20% of the money or work. This

principle can be applied to development office. By focusing time and resources on the most effective

20% of tasks, while significantly decreasing tasks that focus on the 80%, is in of itself is enough to get

excellent results.

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This concept is implied in management of a fundraising office, as it is to donors. Peter Drucker in his

watershed book, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, writes:

“The first administrative job of the manager is, therefore, to make effective the very small core of

worthwhile activities which is capable of being effective. At the same time, she neutralizes (if she

does not abandon) the very large prenumbra of transactions: products or staff activities,

research work or sales efforts, which, no matter how well done, will not yield extraordinarily high

results (whether they represent the realized opportunities of the past, mere busy-ness, or

unfulfilled hopes and expectations of the past, that is, the mistakes of yesterday).”

Since Drucker’s reign as management guru of the entire universe (yeah, I like the guy), we are

increasingly able to show this principle scientifically. While the Pareto principle is an effective and

accessible tool, research shows us that in any given network there are far fewer than 20% who influence

the entire network. Some organizations have seen over 90% of their giving come from 5% of their

donors. Some donors may not be to top givers in an organization, but wield enormous influence for

raising gifts from others. Influence as a context is more akin to our solar system, the influencers are the

planets that everything and everybody revolve around, including financial resources. Influencers who

can affect any system and create explosive growth are more likely closer to 1% of the involved donor

population. In high-stakes region-wide fundraising, these are your donors who make the peer-to-peer

system work, and influence many of an organization’s donors and programs.

In scientific literature, this phenomenon is known as the power law for social systems, or scale-free

networking, and is based on interconnected systems and observations in biology, web traffic,

ecosystems, finance, astronomy, and so on.

Physicist James B. Glattfelder has shown through analysis of multinational financial firms that only 146

individuals control 40% of the world’s economic decisions, and of that 40% less than 800 control 80%.

This has enormous implications for the true locus of power in a network that can make or break the

world economy. It is easy to see this principle at work even in large non-profits.

And it applies to the behaviors of a fundraising team, and donor network. The spirit of philanthropy can

grow inside networks with lightning speed. Social researcher Nicholas Christakis found an interesting

connection to weight gain and friendship, which holds true for giving among friends.

“...if your friends are obese, your risk of obesity is 45 percent higher... if your friend's friends are

obese, your risk of obesity is 25 percent higher...if your friend's friend's friend, someone you

probably don't even know, is obese,your risk of obesity is 10 percent higher. And it's only when

you get to your friend's friend's friend's friends that there's no longer a relationship between that

person's body size and your own body size.

Well, what might be causing this clustering? There are at least three possibilities: One possibility

is that, as I gain weight, it causes you to gain weight. A kind of induction, a kind of spread from

person to person. Another possibility, very obvious, is homophily, or, birds of a feather flock

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together; here, I form my tie to you because you and I share a similar body size. And the last

possibility is what is known as confounding, because it confounds our ability to figure out what's

going on. And here, the idea is not that my weight gain is causing your weight gain, nor that I

preferentially form a tie with you because you and I share the same body size, but rather that we

share a common exposure to something, like a health club that makes us both lose weight at the

same time.

When we studied these data, we found evidence for all of these things, including for induction.

And we found that if your friend becomes obese, it increases your risk of obesity by about 57

percent in the same given time period. There can be many mechanisms for this effect: One

possibility is that your friends say to you something like -- you know, they adopt a behavior that

spreads to you -- like, they say, "Let's go have muffins and beer," which is a terrible combination.

(Laughter) But you adopt that combination, and then you start gaining weight like them.

Another more subtle possibility is that they start gaining weight, and it changes your ideas of

what an acceptable body size is. Here, what's spreading from person to person is not a behavior,

but rather a norm: An idea is spreading.”

In social networks some people attract many more links than others, or you could say a very small

number of people act like connection hubs for networks of almost an infinite amount of others. And as a

hub, they have a tremendous amount of influence over behaviors, including generosity. As humans are

biologically competitive, so social systems explain how well-connected people are connected to people

with even much larger networks. In my experience, there are about five families in Cincinnati that

control over 50% of philanthropy. Even the large givers who aren’t a top five family, enjoy the solid

connections with the top five.

While the chain of influence and power law works brilliantly for mega gifts, a shift is needed in the way

fundraising operations work. While staff may be highly connected in a network, they are not a top

influencer. But, with the right methods, they can have considerable influence over those that are the top

influencers. The exceptional fundraising team knows how to validate the needs of an influencer/peer

leader and manage and focus these leaders for overall campaign success.

(Note, you can’t make someone this type of volunteer or influencer, but you can learn to spot the

behavioral profile, remove organizational obstacles, and fan the flame. Many donors used these

methods for business success and can easily transition to be a leader among peers for a

fundraising campaign.)

In the book, The Challenger Customer, the authors speak of mobilizers, who are in effect your best

fundraisers and most influential donors. For purposes of relating their findings with fundraising, those of

magnified influence and stature we will call the peer-leaders.

….when you think about your very best reps -- your Challenger reps -- it’s no surprise that they’re

naturally drawn to Mobilizers. Because Mobilizes are just like them. They are the Challengers of

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the customer organization. Meanwhile the Relationship Builder sales rep will naturally gravitate

to Talkers because Talkers are just like them. They are the Relationship Builders of the customer

organization. They’re likeable and generous with their time. But nothing ever seems to get done.

Before you can influence a peer-leader, it is important to be exceptional at networking, fundraising, and

systems. Fundraising is different than many types of business sales in that it requires a soft touch to the

sales process. Rather than increasing business production and efficiency, the exceptional non-profit

salesperson sells more abstract benefits such as giving the donors access to top leadership, recognition,

and ego boost, opportunity for community leadership, the feeling of joy that comes from giving, and so

on. The individualized needs require individualized satisfactions.

Here is an example of using the soft touch to influence a peer-leader to raise money among their peers.

See Appendix B.

The fundraiser who uses the challenger sale model should do so with a velvet glove. It is far more

important that the fundraiser act as a backstage leader, who inspires the peer-leader for fundraising

work. Peer leaders shine when they are given meaningful volunteer work and don’t have to navigate

organizational and bureaucratic obstacles. Removing obstacles should be a top priority for the

discerning fundraiser. This requires an intrapreneurial approach that creates victories for both the

peer-leader and different organizational departments. It also requires structured governance, a concept

that is foreign to relationship builder sales personas. Again Peter Drucker:

“It is a law of governance that it restrict itself to the necessary decisions. Any governing body will

be the more effective, and more powerful, the more it eschews decisions it does not have to

make. An incidental decision which does not materially add to the performance capacity of the

institution takes just as much time as a basic and necessary one.”

To bring increased focus to a results-oriented system that raises money through peer leadership, it is

important to understand the role of the fundraiser, the peers of the leader, and the psychology of the

leader themselves.

(The words in parenthesis in the following section indicate the “need” being validated)

Fundraising Roles of Leaders, Peers, and Staff

The fundraising role of peer leaders:

1) Challenger type personality or at least exudes confidence. Loves to make deals and understands

favors both emotional and economic. Note, these types of personalities come in many shapes

and sizes, so it is prudent to not judge a book by its cover. Many are more subtle.

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2) Biggest funder or funders is/are also the leader/peer fundraiser(s). Must have a track record of

big philanthropy and already highly involved in the organization.

3) Helps create the program (creativity, problem solving).

4) Helps set the monetary goal (problem solving, achievement).

5) Lends name to the entire program, signs correspondence, makes phone calls private and public,

send weekly emails drafted by staff (recognition, self – esteem, respect of others, respect by

others).

6) Invites others to join cause and or events as they come to mind (spontaneity, confidence).

7) Reports on progress to peers (achievement).

Donors give to peer-to-peer asks to:

1) Gain respect of the leader and peer group.

2) Have the asker and peer group give to one of their causes.

3) Build friendship with the peer group.

4) Donors will give in relation to their social standing, peer expectation, and belief in the cause.

5) Friendship or family. All my friends are doing it or the whole family is chipping in for this cause

(typically seen with cultures with high levels of tribal identity).

6) Belief in the project – but more importantly already trust the leader’s judgment that this is a

worthy cause to give to and believe in.

7) Peer pressure – don’t want to be left out of this great project.

Fundraisers role:

1) Constantly validate them as the leader(s).

2) Scale the effort or work of the leader, so that they don’t get bogged down in decisions and

meetings.

3) Motivate and inspire the biggest giver or top tier group.

4) Act as their chief of staff – Must be super organized. Set up meetings, do discovery meetings

alone, provide materials, draft correspondence, write presentations.

5) Work closely with communications and prospect research.

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6) Connect them at least once a month with top officer at organization where top officer gives

praise, recognition, and attention.

7) Gain respect by removing unnecessary obstacles from the organization. Don’t take no for an

answer from those who don’t understand fundraising. Educate staff on why the donors needs

come first. Focus on results, not rules.

8) Keep them in the loop and update on success.

9) Constantly ask for advice on how to approach peers.

10) Set time for peers to connect and/or get together – both near and far.

11) Recognize them in front of peers in any and every way possible.

12) Speed of action is your friend. Too much time allows for jealousies, politics, anger, incompatible

personalities, etc…

Events and Peer-to-Peer While some of these techniques are unfamiliar to professional fundraisers, most are intuitive, and are

learned through experience. One way this plays out in fundraising organizations is through the

effectiveness of events. As events and rituals are social in nature, they are an important part of

energizing and engaging some peer-leaders’ network.

Much has been said in fundraising academia about the return on investment of fundraising events. For

most non-profits, there is a disconnect between events and revenue. They are expensive and require

much more work than it takes to cultivate and solicit a successful mega gift. However, one important

role of the distinguishing fundraiser is to set time for peers to connect and/or get together - both near

and far.

During my first year of frontline fundraising, leadership was questioning the effectiveness of events to

raise large gifts. I later realized this was because low performing fundraisers relied on them heavily,

using them to have the appearance of raising money. For example, if a certain philanthropist attended

the event, the fundraiser would claim that they were cultivating the prospect. Because the

philanthropist had attended, this was rightly called a first step in cultivation. From the fundraisers point

of view, this validated their strategy. Yet, the low performers seemed to never be able to cultivate the

prospect further as they failed to discover the needs of the prospects beyond their need to be at an

event.

This intriguing dynamic taught me to question the statements I was reading and hearing about events.

The best fundraisers I knew were experienced at setting up large formal events, but they were also

masters of the informal type of gatherings. When they traveled abroad with a prospect and a small

group of peers, the prospect would tend to either make a smaller gift of around $5,000 or a larger gift of

$100,000, with very few mid-level gifts in between.

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After year two of fundraising, I was interested in how I was identifying prospects that were beyond the

first phase of cultivation and had the potential to give $25,000 or more. As less than 5% of my top 25

prospects were identified by previous fundraisers, I began to analyze the system I was subconsciously

using to cultivate donors and get face to face meetings. The chart below shows that a more

individualized approach was being used and that meeting a prospect at an event was just as important

as making a phone call.

Additionally, for those on my top 25, list I began to look for trends to get meetings, a very important

step in cultivation for both peer-to-peer and fundraiser only systems.

Number of actions 290

Average number of actions 11.6

Average actions to get visit 2.23

Met face to face 22

Number with at least 25 actions 4

Number with at least 10 actions 11

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In fundraising, your top 25 list is everything. I like to keep other donors on lists for future networking and big event invitations, but 75% of my time is spent with my top 25 at all times. Further analysis indicated that peers were the best way to identify prospects, make contact, and create a top 25 list. The first year of fundraising showed different sources of lead generation than the second year. Note how “peer introduced” is the most important and “data analysis” is a clear second. Top 25 - 2013 Number Percentage Peer introduced 13 52% Office/Database 8 32% Met at event 3 12% Other 1 4%

Number made contact 14 56% Top 25 - 2014 Number Percentage Peer introduced 12 48% Office/Database 12 48% Met at Event 1 4%

Other 1 4%

Number made contact 23 92%

As the donor list became more focused, events factored less into the identification phase.

As I began to close more gifts, my focus also changed. While face-to-face meetings are key to any mega

gifts work, the concept of volunteer fundraising multiplication becomes the driving force of a major

campaign or project. New techniques can be used to organize and make the work of fundraising more

efficient.

Now, after five years of frontline fundraising, I will attend events and make an effort to seek out and

connect with one or two mega gift prospects, follow up exclusively with them in various ways, and give

them the time they deserve and desire from the organization.

Prospect researchers data mine for potential donors, but lack the necessary in person data needed to

assess interest from these large prospects. Often attending an event is of mild interest to a large

prospect. They will be looking out for friends and assess the organization by an overall feeling, not

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looking to understand the case statement of the organization. If the fundraiser can make the first

interaction with them pleasant and meaningful and find a way to graciously integrate mutual contacts

into the conversation, they are well on their way to the cultivation and listening phase. Then the journey

of discovery and exploring the organization and their mutual needs and desires can begin.

Donor Journey and Social Change The following example shares an example of how that journey developed for a peer-leader donor and

myself:

Recall Appendix B

However, knowledge and fundraising experience alone cannot increase chance of success with this

model. A fundraiser who can make this happen intuitively knows much about creating and orchestrating

social movements, and most likely learned the skill somewhere other than the organization. Also,

traditional sales people struggle with the complexity of this model and especially those who are familiar

with a more simple approach don’t see the need to change and put in the extra effort. While it is very

simple for those seasoned and strategic salespeople who know how to look for it, it takes more

administration than the typical “Identification - Interest - Cultivation - Solicitation - Stewardship”

fundraising moves management model.

Practically speaking, the fundraiser who builds a multiplicative system through network choreography,

manages a systematic organizing platform to mobilize peer-leaders. Former psychiatrist turned business

strategy guru Leandro Herrero explains this organizational concept in a 2017 blog post. Notice how the

concept of peer-to-peer relates to change and multiplicative results.

Rules for Social Change by Leandro Herrero

1. Cater for many motivations. Don’t kid yourself everybody will join in with the same motives.

Super-alignment is overrated. You need to aim at ‘compatible dreams’. But, be very clear and

ruthless about the non-negotiable, no matter what motivations may be behind. A good focus for

the non-negotiable is behaviours.

2. Create a compelling narrative, one that explains ‘the cause’ and ‘the success’. In organizational

terms, use ‘the cause’ as well as term to frame purpose and direction. Success does not have to

be articulated in numbers (only).

3. Segment, segment and segment. One single overriding, top down narrative of

mission/vision/strategy that comes down from the top in monolithic form does not make sense.

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Be aware of the tribal listening. Who expects to hear what? This is normal in political marketing,

and very unusual in organizational internal marketing.

4. Engage as many people as you want but the key ones, if you are into scale (and you should be)

are the hyper-connected, the ones who have a natural pull effect, and can influence many. It has

nothing to do with hierarchy. If you don’t know who these people are, you have a big problem.

5. Fix role assumptions, expectations, labels. Advocates, activists, volunteers, passionate,

mavericks, rebels, doers… these are very different types of people. Obvious as that may seem,

we mistake them all the time

6. Passion per se is overrated. It’s hard work first! 50 passionate people in the room exhibiting

passion won’t change many things. Passion is a great bonus when associated to 24/7

commitments

7. It’s grassroots, or it isn’t. These ‘nice words’ ( a grassroots movement) won’t generate a bottom

up system per se. The greatest force of influence is peer-to-peer, but it needs to be

orchestrated; it needs to be organized. ‘People-like-me’ plus organization (platform) is the

change dynamite equivalent.

8. Leadership is needed. Big discovery! But not anything leadership. There are at least 2 types. The

top down –leadership needs to support, endorse and provide resources. That’s their first hat.

Their second hat is Backstage Leadership, the art of supporting the distributed peer-to-peer

network in an invisible (backstage) way.

9. ‘Readiness’ is a red herring. No revolution started when everybody could be ready for it. In fact,

most likely, not many people may have been ready. Don’t wait for full alignment, full

endorsement and full support unless, that is, if you have a second and third life in mind. If you

work on this one, go, go, go; people will get ready then.

10. Build in a tracking process, but be careful what you measure, it may be irrelevant. Be clear what

you want to see, then figure out how you can capture and extract meaning.

11. Master bottom-up storytelling at a scale. Impactful, even game changing stories are often small

and prosaic, but an indication that progress is made. Make sure they are not hidden, a kind of

precious secret. Get them out. Big heroic stories are overrated. They don’t speak to ‘people like

me’.

12. Recalibrate all the time. Stay in beta. Don’t aim at perfection, or you’ll be perfectly dead soon.

Change takes patience, courage, and to commitment to outcomes, but the golden key is to get going

and be willing to grow and make mistakes. Wisdom, that teacher in disguise, comes through experience

and failure.

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Focus on building a grassroots social movement around a cause, not a top down strategy. And never

start learning, questioning, and working for explosive results.

Peer-to-peer marketing and technology

Technology and social marketing can help create an organized platform for network-choreographed gifts

by increasing the amount of segmentation and tailored communications to a donor base. Donors are

increasingly using technology to build their relationship with an organization. Just as a face-to-face

meeting quickens the trust in a relationship, donors look to organizational communications to build a

relationship with the org.

From Content, Inc. by content marketing guru Joe Pulizzi (2016)

Take a look at the current state of consumer behavior:

● 61 percent of consumers say they feel better about a company that delivers custom content, and

are more likely to buy from that company (Content Council).

● People spend more than 50 percent of their time online looking at content (Nielsen).

● 70 percent of consumers prefer getting to know a company via articles rather than ads

(Content+).

● 90 percent of consumers find custom content useful, and 78 percent believe that organizations

providing custom content are interested in building good relationships with them (CMO Council)

As websites, online articles, blogs, and social media have the potential to act as a sounding board or

community hub, they can serve as a connector, communicator, influencer, and relationship builder of

prospects and donors.

Yet, high net worth donors rarely use these channels to give or learn more about the organization. The

donor open rate for emails is under 10%, and for many organizations it is under 5%. However, as 98% of

high net worth individuals over the age of 75 have a smart phone, the right strategy can work and break

through the noise.

So…. Which email are you going to most likely open?

1. A message from your partner that says, “OMG. Please! Send money quick!”

2. A message from your wayward second cousin in L.A. that says, “Please! Send money

quick!”

3. Exciting news from your organization! You can send money quick!

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4. Dude or lady that I don’t really know, do you have a moment to discuss?

5. Thank you for your past support of money….May I ask a favor?

6. Press release: Someone you know just made a request for money.

7. This email is all about YOU, the reader...read more!

Very obvious, but it makes a point. We as development marketers are notorious for crafting emails like

#2-#7. Yes, donors and prospects open email from their friends and those they are closest with. Take it

one step further. If a friend sends a post on behalf of the organization, with relevant and interesting

content, audience participation will skyrocket.

The current trend in donor communications is to make the message all about the reader. Endless

fundraising teachers encourage using messages that start with YOU, the donor. These hundred of

statements can be boiled down into a few words, “It’s all about you!:

I believe this is terrible advice. It’s a overreaction to marketing tactics that don’t interest the reader

created by well-intentioned folks who are only casually interested in the fundamentals of modern day

marketing. If I tell my wife. Hey babe, it’s all about you tonight, she no doubt will be intrigued, but my

behavior must follow. For the two of us, that means that I start listening, engaging with her, and asking

meaningful questions. Without these interactive behaviors, my statement, “It’s all about you” becomes

empty, destroys trust, and frankly, is a lie.

If a message is really all about me, “Then why are you, the organization, the only one talking?”

We did a nine-minute lifestyle video of a donor that captured their love of the organization’s mission

and celebrated other important things in their life such as family, cooking, and volunteering.

The result? The donor’s husband said, “That was the nicest thing an organization has ever done for my

wife. I sent it to 200 of my closest friends and everywhere I go, somebody mentions it.”

When is the last time you watched a nine-minute video? I can safely guess that it wasn’t a fundraising

video from a non-profit. Yet, it was watched and loved by a very high percentage of high net worth

individuals. I know for a fact several of the viewers were billionaire philanthropists that subsequently

gave a small gift, thereby starting a deeper relationship with the organization and resulting in a six-figure

gift. You can’t pay a marketing agency for that sort of exposure.

But how can content marketing close gifts for a non-profit? Here is the extra step that most

development professionals miss. Prospect interaction with content rarely raises large scale funding.

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According to the Corporate Executive Board’s follwup book from their landmark “The Challenger Sale”

book, “The Challenger Customer, Selling to the Hidden Influencer Who Can Multiply Your Results:”

(Parenthesis are mine; Traditional Content Marketing says:) Be useful - “Create content that

speaks to customer pain points. Look to customer search patterns and create content that

provides answers to what customers are looking for. Have content that is practically useful in

the customer’s day-to-day routine.”

By definition, this line of conventional thinking has suppliers (non-profit development

professionals) speaking to customer pain points that customers (donors or prospects) realize

they have. What are they searching for? Let’s write content that speaks to that. Even if it doesn’t

relate directly back to the suppliers solution. It’s an attention play.

That’s well-intentioned advice -- in a very noisy marketplace, many marketers (or development

professionals) will take that attention. But it’s grossly insufficient. If suppliers (nonprofit) are

going to upend mental models (or the level of financial importance a person invests in the cause)

with their Commercial Insight, they ought to be talking about problems that Mobilizers

(peer-leaders) don’t realize they have. Mobilizers won’t know to be searching on it in the first

place, so analyzing search patterns and writing content that speaks strictly to those search terms

isn’t going to help us shift how Mobilizers think about their business. In other words, suppliers

who follow the be useful advice might be ringing up blog clicks and “engagement” metrics, but

none of that is feeding through to any kind of meaningful sales activity.

Marketing qualified lead? Sure.

High-quality deal closed? Not likely.

...we’ve come to postulate a sort of “golden rule” of customer-supplier (donor

prospects-fundraiser) engagement: Left to their own devices, customers (prospects) will always

engage a supplier (fundraiser) as late as they possibly can.

Because of the highly nuanced factors in fundraising and skill of prospects at slowing down the

engagement process, we are developing a content marketing and development strategy at the Zoo that

will both qualify leads and put in motion a chain of touchpoints that ultimately build deeper

relationships and close gifts. This will partially happen through a website that serves as an organized

platform for peer-to-peer fundraising. First, we are in the process of creating a dedicated site just for

the $150 million dollar campaign. By having our own space, a sense of peer-leader ownership and

custom content will be possible.

While still in beta form, the site will be authored and run by the peer-leaders. We’ve already chosen 3

“blog” authors and hope to have six in the next couple of months.

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The Challenger Customer continues:

“the best reps work very hard to tap into a large social network, extending far beyond personal

contacts and current customers. These reps are accessing the entire ecosystem of the

marketplace that the rep sells into...So the best reps find the “watering holes” or those online

communities (or not online, mine) where people in the their industry gather and learn. In

advanced cases, the very best reps will serve as teaching connectors -- serving as a hub,

bringing this group of people together in order to engage in a learning conversation around a

common interest. Done well, sales reps who play this role as teaching connector are much more

likely to attract Mobilizers into their orbit.”

While staff will choreograph the content, the “authors” will post content that matches their interest

with the Zoo, and will sometimes include information about the capital campaign. The Zoo will then help

the authors send an email asking their friends to go to the link to read about interesting content that is

near and dear to the authors heart. Through this teaching connector platform we will increase

readership, participation, and build a network of highly motivated donors for the Capital Campaign. This

is fundraising backstage leadership in action.

As the authors begin to “sell” the Zoo, the backstage staff leadership gathers data about the social

network through close communication with the authors. The authors and staff then work on creative

individualized ways to build closer engagement with the peers. A fundraising ask is likely if the entire

process is comfortable and “upends the mental model” of the peer. The pitch for money is only about

5% of the strategy, but increases in effectiveness based on the journey that the peer-leader and staff

have taken the peer on.

Kathy

Kathy loves photography. She and her husband have already hosted a high-net-worth event at

her vacation home and partnered with the Zoo on an art show. When she emails, many of the

top 1% in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky see her posts. She is also on our list for $1 million

dollar prospects and connected us to a close friend who is being cultivated for a $1 million dollar

ask.

Because of her love for the Zoo, influencing her peers, and photography, she has agreed to

come take photographs of the Zoo while sprinkling stories about the capital campaign. The Zoo

will post the photographs on her section of the website and for each post send an email on her

behalf to all of her friends. The network of wealthy prospects and donors will continue to grow.

Steve

Steve is an seasoned expert in social movements and knows the exact right way to mobilize and

communicate his friends for success. While not a fan of Zoo animals in cages, he loves the

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gardens and the health benefits they provide for guests. He brings peers to the gardens to have

them dig in the dirt, connecting them with nature. This gives her network a level of involvement,

they would never have with the fundraising team.

Both of these future authors/peer-leaders love their interaction with the Zoo and the value it brings to

their personal lives.

As a website, we will have the opportunity to pivot around the strategy and content and keep it creative,

readable, and donor-centric. As donors get more involved, we will ask the peer leaders to help us set

meetings or invite the best prospects to meaningful events and opportunities at the Zoo. It is the role of

the seasoned fundraiser to close the gift and ask for funds at the appropriate time.

The website, of course, is just a tool. Many other strategies could work just as well. However, the key is

for the development team serve as backstage leaders and inspire and organize the best from the

peer-leadership.

Non-peer-to-peer or fundraiser-to-prospect What about those who don’t fit into a fundraising network. Many gifts come to an organization from

those who are not part of the social crowd. The process of moves management will most likely secure

gifts in the right circumstances. For many reasons, these folks are not dependent on direct social

mobilization, but can respond to the Identification - Interest - Cultivation - Solicitation - Stewardship

model.

As there are social and non-social donors, the idea is to build a peer-to-peer “system,” where more than

50% of the fundraiser’s time is spent on the system, while the other percentage is with donors and

prospects who don’t fit this mold. In shops with more resources, it may also be wise to have one

fundraiser dedicated fully to the system, while others spend time with those who do not fit in the

system. This decision is made best by experienced management and individualization.

When the peer-to-peer system is in place, is highly organized, and filled with fundraiser choreographed

“asks” and introductions, the system starts raising money and the principles of fundraising multiplication

increases momentum. One further note of caution that can make or break a campaign’s success - If the

peer leader(s) thinks there is a chance they could be embarrassed, or are embarrassed by the

organization for any reason – the will NOT help or lead. Mostly this embarrassment stems from lack of

follow through and organization on the part of the development team. However, if a peer-leader knows

that the fundraiser and organization will steward their reputation through an organized platform, and

validate their needs, they will lead, ask, and give beyond expectation.

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In Closing He was an avid reader of astronomy, geography, and history, and learner of several languages -- and a

was a successful businessman to boot. Yet he dreamed of something larger. This Renaissance man

yearned to explore other markets, and achieve riches beyond the wildest of imaginations.

He was known as a dreamer -- a courtier -- who raised funds from kings and queens. But, as these things

go, exploring new markets, was not shared by others in the business community. He learned great

rejection. He went to the King, but the King wasn’t interested. This was a major blow as this King was

known to be the linchpin for exploring new markets.

But he kept trying. He tried for 7 long years. He visited other royals. All the experts told him that his

program was insufficient – poorly planned – and not feasible. Some thought it meant certain death and

was a waste of money. However, they underestimated his bull-headed spirit and had no idea that he

would forever change history.

Some biographers have noted that he was so successful because he was experienced in the courts of

kings as much as he was experienced in the field away from home base. In fact, it was a king and queen,

from a nearby country, that gave him the gift of a lifetime. And it was the queen who was his biggest

advocate.

When he was with the Queen in her court – their official form of fundraising relationship was called by

others to be “flirting.” And he finally won her over with his passion, his flirting, with his crazy promises of

treasures untold.

This queen, Queen Isabella of Spain, after years of listening to Italy’s Christopher Columbus’s ludicrous

idea to sail around the world, granted him a gift and business proposition of three ships and crew for a

voyage to find a overseas trade route to Japan and India.

At the time, portugal was leading the race in the age of exploration. If Columbus delivered as promised –

the wealth of the world would be Spain’s to have. For better or worse, It would turn out to be one of

the biggest watershed moments for western civilization and the birth of America. But, in my opinion, it

also is a lesson on fundraising technique.

In fundraising, our current systems don’t always work, there are layers upon layers of politics and silos at

our organizations. Sometimes it can feel like 7 years before a new system is approved, and by that time

it is obsolete. Information and communication travel at a 1990’s dial up internet speed, and many times

no one really knows what is going on.

However, more than any other position, I believe as a fundraiser you have all the tools necessary to

succeed. Why, because you have been asked to do a job that is just as much about exploring as it is

fundraising. You’ve been entrusted with a ship, given a budget, and there are lands within your purview.

And finally the key to the major gifts fundraising kingdom. We must leave the allure that perfect data

and a perfect headquarters will lead to more money. While we love our teams and do what we can for

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their success, we can’t entrust our results to anyone else. This is not narcissism. It is reality. Constant self

– improvement. An insatiable desire to be better and become the kind of person folks and networks will

easily give $1M gifts to and staff members will partner with. The organization needs us to be the best we

can be.

Like Christopher Columbus, there is treasure untold over the horizon. It’s going to require bravery,

intense self learning, flexibility, diplomacy, and grit. May we each like Columbus sway kings and queens

as we discover a new world.

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Appendix A. Simon Sinek, Start with Why B. Case Study #1: Choreography C. The Four Listening Profiles D. Wisdom from 1891

A. Simon Sinek – Start with Why

We assume that we know why we do what we do, but then how do you explain when things don’t go as

we assume. Or better, how do you explain when others are able to achieve things that seem to defy all

the assumptions. For example, why is Apple so innovative year after year after year? They are more

innovative than all their competition and yet, they are just a computer company. They are just like

everyone else. They have the same access to the same talent, the same agencies, the same consultants

and the same media. Why is it that they seem to have something different? Why is that Martin Luther

King led the Civil Rights Movement? He wasn’t the only man who suffered in pre civil rights America and

he certainly wasn’t the only great orator of the day. Why him? And why is it that the Wright brothers

were able to figure out control powered manned flight when there were certainly other teams who

were better qualified and funded, and they didn’t achieve powered manned flight. The Wright brothers

beat them to it. There’s something else at play here.

About three and a half years ago, I made a discovery and this discovery profoundly changed my view on

how I thought the world worked and it even profoundly changed the way in which I operate in it. As it

turns out there’s a pattern. All the great and inspiring leaders and organizations in the world, whether

it’s Apple or Martin Luther King or the Wright brothers – they all think, act, and communicate the exact

same way and it’s the complete opposite to everyone else. All I did was codify it. It’s probably the

world’s simplest idea and I call it the Golden Circle. Why? How? What?

This little idea explains why some organizations and some leaders are able to inspire where others are

not. Let me define the terms very quickly.

Every single person and organization in the planet knows what they do 100%. Some know how they do

it, whether you call it your differentiating proposition or proprietary process or USP. But very very few

people and organizations know why they do what they do. And by why I don’t mean to make a profit –

that’s a result. It’s always a result. By why I mean, what’s your purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your

belief? Why does your organization exist?

As a result, the way we think, the way we act, the way we communicate is from the outside in. It’s

obvious; we go from the clearest thing to the fuzziest thing. But the inspired leaders and organizations,

regardless of their size or industry, all think, act, and communicate from the inside out. Let me give you

an example.

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I use Apple because they are easy to understand and everybody gets it. If Apple were like everyone else,

a marketing message from them may sound like this: We make great computers. They are beautifully

designed, simple to use, and user friendly. Want to buy one?

Meh.

And that’s how most of us communicate. That’s how most marketing and sales are done and that’s how

most of us communicate interpersonally. We say what we do, we say how we are different or how we

are better, and we expect some sort of behavior – a purchase or vote or something like that. “Here’s our

new law firm. We have the best lawyers with the biggest clients. We always perform for our clients – do

business with us.” “Here’s our new car – it gets great gas mileage, it has leather seats – buy our car.” But

this is uninspiring.

Here’s how Apple actually communicates – Everything we do we believe in challenging the status quo,

we believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products

beautifully designed, simple to use, and user friendly. We just happen to make great computers. Want

to buy one?

Totally different, right? You’re ready to buy a computer from me. All I did was reverse the order of the

information. People don’t buy what you do, people buy why you do it. This explains why every single

person in this room is perfectly comfortable buying a computer from Apple. But we are also perfectly

comfortable buying an MP3 player from Apple, or a phone from Apple or a DVR from Apple. But as I said

before, Apple is just a computer company. There’s nothing that distinguishes them structurally from any

of their competitors. Their competitors are all equally qualified to make all of these products. In fact

they tried. A few years ago Gateway came out with flat screen TVs. They are imminently qualified to

make flat screen TVs, they have been making flat screen monitors for years. Nobody bought one.

Dell came out with MP3 players and PDAs and they make great quality products and they can make

perfectly well designed products and nobody bought one. In fact, talking about it now we can’t even

imagine buying an MP3 player from Dell. Why would you buy an MP3 player from a computer company?

But we do it everyday. People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with

people who believe what you believe. Here’s the best part. None of what I’m telling you is my opinion.

It’s all grounded in the tenants of biology. Not psychology – biology.

If you look at a cross section of the human brain, looking from the top down, what you see is that the

human brain is actually broken into three major components that correlate perfectly with the Golden

Circle. Our newest brain – our homosapien brain, our neocortex corresponds with the “what” level. The

neocortex is responsible for all of our rational and analytical thought and language.

The middle two sections make up our limbic brains and our limbic brain is responsible for all of our

feelings, like trust and loyalty. It’s also responsible for all human behavior and decision making, and it

has no capacity for language. In other words, when we communicate from the outside in then yes,

people can understand vast amount of complicated information like features, benefits, facts, and

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figures, just doesn’t drive behavior. When we communicate from the inside out, we are talking directly

to the part of the brain that controls behavior and then we allow people to rationalize it with the

tangible things we say and do. This is where gut decisions come from.

You know, sometimes, you can give somebody all the facts and figures and they say, “I know what all the

facts and details are but it just doesn’t feel right.” Why do we use that verb? It doesn’t feel right.

Because the part of the brain that controls the decision-making, doesn’t control language and the best

we can muster up is, “I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel right.”

Or sometimes you say you’re leading with your heart or you’re leading with your soul. Well, I hate to

break it to you, those aren’t other body parts controlling your behavior, that’s all happening here in your

limbic brain. The part of the brain that controls decision-making and not language. But if you don’t know

why you do what you do and people respond to why you do what you do, then how will you ever get

someone to vote for you, buy something from you, or more importantly be loyal and want to be a part

of what it is that you do. Again, the goal is not just to sell to people who need what you have, the goal is

to sell to people who believe what you believe. The goal is not just to hire people who need a job, it is to

hire people who believe what you believe.

I always say that if you hire people just because they can do a job, they will work for your money. But if

you hire people who believe what you believe, they will work for you with blood, sweat, and tears. And

nowhere else is there a better example of this than with the Wright brothers.

Most people don’t know about Samuel Pierpont Langley and back in the early 20th century, the pursuit

of powered manned flight was like the dotcom of the day. Everybody was trying it. Samuel Pierpont

Langley had what we assume to be the recipe for success. I mean, even now when we ask, “Why did

your product or company fail?” People always give you the same permutations of the same three things.

Undercapitalized, the wrong people, bad market conditions. It’s always the same three things. So let’s

explore that. Samuel Pierpont Langley was given $50,000 by the War Department to figure out this flying

machine. Money was no problem. He held a seat at Harvard and worked at the Smithsonian and was

extremely well connected. He knew all the big minds of the day. He hired the best minds money could

find and the market conditions were fantastic. The New York Times followed him around everywhere

and everyone was rooting for Langley. Then how come we have never heard of Samuel Pierpont

Langley? A few hundred miles away in Dayton, Ohio lived Orville and Wilbur Wright. They had none of

what we consider to be the recipe for success.

They had no money, they paid for their dream with the proceeds from their bicycle shop. Not a single

person on the Wright brothers’ team had a college education. Not even Orville or Wilbur. And the New

York Times followed them around nowhere. The difference was that Orville and Wilbur were driven by a

cause, a purpose, a belief. They believed that if they could figure out this flying machine, it will change

the course of the world.

Samuel Pierpont Langley was different. He wanted to be rich and he wanted to be famous. He was in

pursuit of the result, he was in pursuit of the riches and lo and behold look what happened. The people

who believed in the Wright brothers’ dream worked with them with blood, sweat, and tears. The others

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just worked for the paycheck. And they tell stories about how every time the Wright brothers’ went out,

they would have to take five sets of parts because that’s how many times they would crash before they

came in for supper. And eventually on December 17, 1903 the Wright brothers took flight and no one

was there to even experience it. We found out about it a few days later.

And further proof that Langley was motivated by the wrong thing – the day the Wright brothers took

flight, he quit. He could have said, “That’s an amazing discovery guys and I will improve upon your

technology.” But he didn’t. He wasn’t first, he didn’t get rich, he didn’t get famous, so he quit. People

don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And if you talk about what you believe, you will attract

those who believe what you believe. Well, why is important to attract those who believe what you

believe?

Something called the law of diffusion of innovation. And if you don’t know the law, then you definitely

know the terminology. The first two and half percent of our population are our innovators. The next

13.5 percent of our population are our early adopters, the next 34% are your early majority, the late

majority, and your laggards. The only reason these people buy touch tone phones is because you can’t

buy rotary phones anymore. We all sit at various places at various times on this scale but what the law

of diffusion of innovation tells us is that if you want mass market success or mass market acceptance of

an idea, you cannot have it until you achieve this tipping point between 15 and 18 percent market

penetration and then the system tips.

I love asking businesses what’s your conversion on new business and they love to tell you proudly, “Oh,

it’s about ten percent.” Well you can trip over ten percent of the customers. We all have ten percent

who just “get it”. That’s how we describe them. That’s like that gut feeling. “Oh, they just get it.” The

problem is how do you find the ones who just get it before you are doing business with them versus the

ones who don’t get it. So, it’s this here, this little gap that you have to close as Geoffrey Moore calls it,

“Closing the Chasm.” You see, the early majority will not try something until someone else has tried it

first and these guys, the innovators and the early adopters, they are comfortable making those gut

decisions. They are more comfortable making those intuitive decisions that are driven by what they

believe about the world and not just what product is available. These are the people who stood in line

for six hours to buy an iPhone when they first came out. When you could have just walked into a store

the next week and bought one off the shelf. These are the people who spent $40,000 on flat screen TVs

when they first came out even though the technology was substandard. And by the way, they didn’t do

it because the technology was so great. They did it for themselves, it’s because they wanted to be first.

People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it and what you do simply proves what you believe.

In fact, people will do the things that prove what they believe. The reason the person bought the iPhone

in the first six hours was because of what they believed about the world and how they wanted

everybody to see them. They were first.

So let me give you a famous example – a famous failure and a famous success of the law of diffusion of

innovation. First the famous failure. It’s a commercial example. As we said before a second ago, the

recipe for success is money, and the right people and the right marketing conditions, and you should

have success then. Look at TIVO. From the time TIVO came out about eight or nine years ago to this

current day, they are the single, highest quality product on the market. Hands down there is no dispute.

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They are extremely well funded, market conditions were fantastic. I mean we used TIVO as a word, “I

love TIVO stuff on my piece of junk Time Warner DVR all the time.” But TIVO is a commercial failure,

they never made money. And when they went IPO their stock was about $30 or $40 dollars and then

plummeted and it’s never traded above $10. In fact, I don’t think it’s traded above $6 except a couple of

little spikes. Because you see, when TIVO launched their product, they told us all what they had. They

said, “We have a product that pauses live TV, skips commercials, rewinds live TV and memorizes your

viewing habits without you even asking.” And the cynical majority said, “We don’t believe you. We don’t

need it. We don’t like it. You’re scaring us.” What if they had said, “If you are the kind of person who

likes to have total control over every aspect of your life, boy do we have a product for you. It pauses live

TV, skips commercials, memorizes your viewing habits etc.” People don’t buy what you do, they buy why

you do it and what you do simply serves as the proof of what you believe.

Now let me give you a successful example of the law of diffusion of innovation. In the summer of 1963,

250,000 people showed up on the Mall of Washington, DC. to hear Dr. King speak. They sent out no

invitations and there was no website to check the date. How do you do that? Well, Dr. King wasn’t the

only man in America who was a great orator. He wasn’t the only man in America who suffered in pre

civil rights America. In fact some of his ideas were bad but he had a gift. He didn’t go around telling

people what needed to change in America. He went around and told people what he believed. “I

believe, I believe, I believe,” he told people. And people who believed what he believed took his cause

and made it their own and they told people. And some of those people created structures to get the

word out to even more people. And lo and behold, 250,000 people showed up on the right day, at the

right time to hear him speak. How many of them showed up for him? Zero. They showed up for

themselves. It’s what they believed about America that got them to travel in a bus for eight hours to

stand in the sun in Washington in the middle of August. It’s what they believed. And it wasn’t about

black versus white. Twenty five percent of the audience was white.

Dr. King believed that there were two types of laws in this world: those that are made by a higher

authority and those that are made by man and not until all the laws that are made by man are

consistent with the laws that are made by a higher authority will we live in a just world. It just so

happens that the Civil Rights Movement was the perfect thing to help him bring his cause to life. We

follow him not for him, but for ourselves. And by the way, he gave the I Have a Dream speech not the I

Have a Plan speech. Listen to politicians now with their comprehensive 12 point plans, they don’t inspire

anybody. Because there are leaders and then there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of

power or authority but those who lead inspire us, whether they are individuals or organizations, we

follow those who lead not because we have to but because we want to. We follow those who lead, not

for them but for ourselves. And it’s those who start with “why?” that have the ability to inspire those

around them or find others who inspire them. Thank you.

B. Case Study #1: Choreography

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H.K., Investment Banker, Cincinnati (Case Study). Given and gathered: $212,000. Largest gift in Cincinnati prior to peer-to-peer model - $10,000 “Choreography”

1. Identification – June 2013. Found through membership zip code search as having a $1M + home and gave $10,000 in 2013. He was in RE but with no research or giving indicators.

2. Sent letter to HK and three others at the $10,000 level. 3. Phone call – HK called back. In fact, I have sent well over 100 such letters and HK is the first and

only to ever call back without additional phone calls, emails, meeting at event, etc… 4. Phone call (2) – set meeting. 5. Lunch in his office – Gave donor magazine – H says he will give $, but no time. Said he would

give more if we showed that we are working closely with others to win the Senate. Talked about RP.

6. Mailed handwritten note. 7. Joined HK’s activity club at his recommendation. Contacted names that HK gave me. 8. Mailed article on organization success in Colorado. 9. Phone call to set another meeting (3). 10. Lunch again – Showed HK my prospect list (2). 11. Activity with HK at the club. Gave photo book (3). 12. Mailed handwritten note (2). 13. Started planning an event with colleague GP (JKs prospect manager). 14. Called HK (4). He said that the single biggest thing we could do is get RP to do an event with us. 15. One on one activity with HK (4). 16. HK talked to RP at a RP fundraiser at SF’s house. 17. Placed HK on a 7 person host committee for the event. 18. I called RP’s people, visited them, many follow up calls and finally got a date. 19. Once date was set, GP set schedules for BK and JK to fly to Cincinnati. 20. Set up a private lunch at HK’s club (Queen City) with the BK, JK, consultant, HK and myself (5). 21. JK shared vision at lunch and told HK he had just made another $100,000. 22. Held a successful event that night with JK, KB, RP, AC, etc… (6) 23. March 2014. A week later HK mails $100,000 from his foundation. HK had two guests at the

event that gave $1,000 each. 24. Attend an activity that HK holds on the RP farm (7). 25. Mailed handwritten note (3). 26. GC, HK’s girlfriend sets up a phone call with HK and DB. 27. HK calls DB. 28. HK has a conference call with DB, himself, and me (5). 29. Go to DB’s office to pick up a $100,000 check from DB. 30. HK asks PN for money by phone. PN gives $5,000 (and another $5,000 in Dec 2014) 31. HK declines an invitation to Annual Meeting. 32. HK asks SF by phone. for $100,000. SF declines. 33. HK asks PA who attended the event. for $100,000. Peter gives $5,000. 34. JK invites HK to Houston – where they spend time together. 35. JK invites HK to fundraising update calls.

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36. I continue to send invites to HK to join me at VIP events with CEO. HK indicates he still has no time, but will try and make a lunch with WP a priority.

37. Says future gifts are contingent on our success (April 2014).

C. One-on-one fundraising strategies: Listening Profiles

In the absence of peer networked prospects, or in the case that a peer leader sends a fundraiser to a

peer for a fundraiser – peer meeting, much has been taught in the fundraising schools and

pop-literature. For the sake of brevity, here are two techniques that will help the fundraiser.

1. Observe the listening style of the prospect and mirror their preferred style. The following

describes the four types and then gives strategies for how to mirror the prospect:

The Four Listener Preferences by Larry Barker, Ph.D. and Kittie Watson, Ph.D.

Strengths

Weaknesses

People Oriented Characteristics

● Cares and is concerned about others ● Is non judgemental ● Provides clear verbal and nonverbal

feedback signals ● Identifies emotional states of others ● Interested in building relationships

● Becomes overinvolved with feelings of others

● Avoids seeing faults in others ● Internalizes/adopts emotional states of

others ● Is intrusive to others ● Is overly expressive when giving feedback ● Is nondiscriminating in building

relationships Action-Oriented Listeners

● Gets to the heart of the matter quickly ● Gives clear feedback concerning

expectations ● Concentrates energy on understanding

task at hand ● Helps others focus on what is important ● Encourages others to be organized and

concise ● Identifies inconsistencies in messages

● Tends to be impatient with rambling speakers

● Jumps ahead and moves to conclusions quickly

● Gets distracted easily by unorganized speakers

● Asks blunt questions of others ● Appears overly critical ● Minimizes emotional issues and concerns

Content-Oriented Characteristics ● Values technical information ● Tests or clarity and understanding ● Encourages others to provide support for

their ideas

● Is overly detail-oriented ● May intimidate others by asking pointed

questions

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● Welcomes complex and challenging information

● Looks at all sides of an issue

● Minimizes the value of nontechnical information

● Devalues information from unknown individuals

● Takes a long time to make decisions Time-Oriented Characteristics

● Manages and saves time effectively ● Lets others know listening time

requirements ● Sets time guidelines for meetings and

conversations ● Discourages wordy speakers from wasting

time ● Gives cues to others when time is being

wasted

● Tends to be impatient with time wasters ● Interrupts others, putting a strain on

relationships ● Lets time affect the ability to concentrate ● Rushes speakers by frequently looking at

watches/clocks ● Limits creativity in others by imposing time

pressure

Office cues

Personal cues

Strategies

People Oriented Characteristics ● Personal pictures on

walls. ● Personal objects in

room or desk. ● Some clutter on desk

● Makes/holds eye contact

● Varies vocal inflection ● Smiles and nods in

approval frequently

● Tell stories and show illustrations that contain human interest value

● Use “we” rather than “I” in conversations

● Use first names ● Use self-effacing humor or

illustrations Action-Oriented Listeners

● Desk organizers ● Certificates and

work-related pictures on walls

● Organized bookshelves

● Clean desk

● Brisk, firm handshake ● Speaks at a more rapid

rate ● Shows cues of

disinterest such as doodling, finger taps, and foot swings

● Keep main points to three or less

● Make presentation short and to the point

● Speak at a rapid but controlled rate

Content-Oriented Characteristics ● Neat stacks on desk ● Research and

reference books near desk

● Computer turned on at all times

● Serious facial expression ● Challenging or

combative verbal tones ● Looks up frequently

while processing information

● Provide hard data when available

● Quote credible experts ● Use charts and graphs

Time-Oriented Characteristics

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● One of more clocks observable from behind desk

● Has secretary call and remind him/her about appointments

● Sets reminder beeps on computer or watch

● Looks at watch frequently

● Displays impatient facial expressions

● Uses beepers and other signals to indicate time

● Try to go under time limits when possible

● Be ready to cut out unnecessary examples and information

● Be sensitive to nonverbal cues indicating impatience or desire to leave

Group strategies:

● Get a feel for your target audience ● Use a smorgasbord approach ● Target content to the primary stakeholders ● Keep your ideas concise

D. Wisdom from 1891

The best document on traditional major gifts fundraising I’ve come across was written in 1891, when

John D. Rockefeller’s fundraiser Frederick Taylor Gates was mentoring an aspiring fundraiser on how to

make a call (or canvas). While the language used is sometimes offensive, the letter is worth reading

word for word.

Click here if no image available: http://rockarch.org/collections/individuals/gatesletter.pdf

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