Lawrence Pierce-Durance Fundraising Part III

Good afternoon, this is Lawrence Pierce Durance. We’ve been doing a series of short videos on YouTube for small and medium size nonprofits on major gift programs. We completed Fundraising Part I (How important is it to a small nonprofit to have a major gift program?) and Fundraising Part II (How to develop a “case” for major gift prospects). You can find those online on YouTube by just going to Lawrence Pierce Durance.

Today we’re going to deal with Fundraising Part III. Here’s a common question or statement I get from small nonprofits. We haven’t focused on major gifts in the past. In fact we question whether we really have any major gift prospects. How do we get started? How do we find major gift prospects?

Lawrence suggests that before we answer these questions there is a prior issue you need to address. If you don’t mind, go back to Fundraising Part II which dealt with developing your case for support for major gifts. You’ve got to have a reason why people would want to give you money, especially major gift prospects.

You have to have viable case. If you’re not worthwhile supporting, Lawrence Pierce-Durance says it doesn’t make any difference what we do.

Second, we’re going to focus on individuals. Now Lawrence said in an earlier video that individuals give some 80 percent of the money we raise for nonprofits in America and if that’s where the action is, that’s where we’re to spend our time.

Also when you deal with major gift prospects that are individuals the identification, cultivation and solicitation of them is transferable to work with corporations and foundations. The converse is not true.

So for instance with foundations, if you want to find out what kind of money they give to whom at what levels for what purposes, nine times out of ten you can just go online find that out.

It does not mean you will automatically get a gift but you can get that information. It is not so easy with individuals.

Lawrence Pierce-Durance says to keep in mind this little simple phrase – major gift fundraising with individuals is a contact sport. You have to get to know and understand your individual prospects before you can expect major support.

Now to help you at least to begin identify major gift prospects, Lawrence says the key need to do is rate and screen prospects. This is an example that he has seen work. Take your donor list and look at it over the last two or three years and look at the top 10 percent of the donors see what kind of gifts have been coming in. You are looking for trend or patterns not the one off bequest or one time only special gift.

Lawrence Pierce-Durance say for example say $5000 would be a major gift to your organization. And now come up with three levels of possible giving, assuming $5000 is a current major gift donor and Lawrence is going to use a figure that’s twice that $10,000; then a figure of $5,000 and then a figure $2,500.

Now label so as we move along the $10,000 and up would be A’s. The $5,000’s would be B’s. And the $2,500’s would be C’s.

Now then what you need to do is probably a senior gift officer, or the chief executive or consultant take your donor list (all of them, say 1000) and go interview confidentially as many top board members, top donors, top volunteers, top staff as you can.

If you can find 20 to interview that’s great. If you find 40 that’s twice as great. But you want to have as many people as possible who are going to go over all your donor list.

Lawrence Durance stresses that you assure those being interviewed it’s going to be confidential and you’re going to ask them to go through the list and ask them to identify capability. Their best guess as to capability of an individual not the prospect’s inclination. Your organization should develop marketing and cultivation techniques to address “inclination”.

As someone goes through that list and they’ll mark down any A, B or C’s that they come across and in many cases they will not have a clue, and they can go through a 1000 names literally in an hour or so.

You just sit quietly as they mark down any A, B’s or C’s they see. Then you ask the question are there any other names we should include in here people who might be an A, B or C? Would you please share those with me confidentially? And how would you rate in them A, B or C?

Now you can see that the more people who do the screening the better information you will have. Let us assume you have 30 interviewees. When you completed doing all the interviews correlate the information.

Take a look at the trends you have. If somebody on the donor list has for instance 10 of the 30 interviewees saying they are an “A”, count the prospect as an “A”. And do the same kind of overview/correlation to find how many “B’s” and “C”s”. This is not a science but it is a beginning!

When you come back with the whole exercise going over maybe a 1000+ names, let’s say you came up with five A’s, 10 B’s and 25 C’s that’s 40 names. We started with a 1000. We have now culled this down on the initial run through to a workable manageable size.

Lawrence Pierce-Durance encourages you start with just the A’s. You now need a key Board member or two or three to work with you on strategies on what you are going to do to, for with each prospect to bring them along so you ultimately solicit them. The first contact is not going to be “hey why don’t you give us a big gift”.

Every major gift prospect should be seen as a campaign in and of itself. It is not a cookie cutter exercise.

Now that’s a really brief overview of how you might get started with a major gift program identifying and beginning to cultivate. If you’d like to talk about any of this or have any questions, you are welcome to contact Lawrence Pierce-Durance through his website – pdsolutionsfundraise.com and there will be no charge, really!

You can also connect on:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lawrence-pierce-durance-708b5929

http://lawrencedurance.com

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Lawrence Pierce-Durance- Fundraising Part IV

Good afternoon.. This is Lawrence Pierce-Durance and this is the fourth in a series of short videos for YouTube on major gift programs for small and medium sized nonprofits.

This video and the three earlier ones can be found on YouTube by simply searching Lawrence Pierce Durance name. Today’s topic is the role of Board members and senior volunteers versus the role of staff in major gift fundraising. The different roles can be a confusing area for some small and medium sized nonprofits.

Here’s a basic premise to keep in mind. Major gift programs, notably the planning and actual solicitations, should be Board led and staff supported and not the other way around. Why is this important? When Staff are out raising major gifts they can be as committed and as passionate as anyone about their organization.

But Lawrence Pierce-Durance says at the end of the day no matter how much passion and knowledge a staff member brings to the table, staff are paid to do what they do. That is not meant critically, it’s just fact. On the other, hand with most Board members and key volunteers they don’t have a vested interest in your cause beyond caring and supporting the programs so the organization does not just survive but thrive.

What this says, in terms of perception, more often than not those key volunteers are seen as stronger advocates for your cause. That may seem unfair, but Lawrence believes it is true. Think about this statement. When a volunteer says “Will you join with me in making a major gift?” ..that is a very powerful statement!

Now let’s look at a couple aspects of what Board members have responsibilities in major gift programs and the role of staff.

First, Board members have a responsibility to help identify major gift prospects. Staff member is to nudge those Board members to be thinking about possible prospects.

Second, Board members have to take the lead in helping to think through strategies for cultivating major gift prospects and to be involved as appropriate.

The role of the staff is to join in those discussions on cultivation strategy and to facilitate meetings where that kind of discussion goes on.

Lawrence Durance believes the third responsibility of the Board is the one that’s probably most common to all of us. Board members have a responsibility to “open the door” with potential prospects with whom they are personally connected and have some influence. The staff role is to help ensure the right person or persons are going through the “opened door”.

Lawrence notes the fourth role of Board members is to be involved in soliciting major gifts. The staff role is to help determine whether the solicitation should be by a Board member alone or perhaps a team; and help determine the solicitation timing.

Lawrence Pierce-Durance believes that every major gift prospect is a campaign in and of itself and individual strategies for cultivation and solicitation need the thoughtful time and efforts of both Board members and staff.

Now there’s an area that Lawrence Durance differs with some of his professional colleagues in drafting the annual plans for the major gift program. Some of his colleagues will say this should be staff driven in determining the goals, etc.

Lawrence Pierce-Durance comes from the other side and thinks the key elements to your plan and goals initially should be driven by Board members. Staff need to get their input of what they think should be the dollar goals and how many prospects could be handled and what the focus of program support with major gifts should be.

And if that discussion goes all over the map that’s OK. Staff can then go back and put together a draft of a plan based on the discussions with Board members.

Lawrence firmly believes there will be more ownership and real tangible support from the Board if they have been truly involved in developing the plan.

Finally, it is most most important to remember and remind all that the ultimate financial or fiduciary responsibility for the organization rests on the shoulders of the board not on the staff not on other volunteers not on a foundation not on a donor. Staff have to be a teammate in fundraising and they do have some special responsibilities.

Lawrence Durance believes one of the most critical responsibilities is for staff to help educate Board so they know how to “tell the story” for supporting the organization. They’re not used to doing that and may well need staff or consultant guidance to articulate the case for support in a clear, compelling and concise fashion.

Second, staff need to keep accurate donor records. And third, staff have the responsibility when prospects are identified to do the homework to do research.

The bottom line is it’s a team approach between the Board and staff in developing and implementing a major gift program. But the ultimate responsibility rests with the Board.

If you would like to contact Lawrence Pierce Durance, please feel free to do so by going to his website – www.pdsolutionsfundraise.com where he can be reached by email or phone. There will be no charge. If he can be helpful, he wants to be.

Connect on Linkedin: Lawrence Pierce-Durance

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