 Welcome to the nonprofit show. We are so glad you're here. Today's guest, we have back, she's been with us before, Claire Axelrad. And Claire is with clarification, which I couldn't think of a more fun name other than hyping up the rad and Axelrad. So the power of philanthropy facilitator is what Claire is here for to discuss with us. And it's a little bit of a disruption, which I love and fully embrace Claire. So we are so glad that you're here. And for all of you watching and listening, we of course want to remind you who we are if we have not had the opportunity to meet yet. Julia Patrick, she's here, CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. And I'm Jared Ransom, your nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven Group and honored to serve alongside day in and day out as a co-host. We wouldn't be where we are if it weren't for our amazing presenting sponsors. So thank you. And we want to give a shout out to our friends at Bloomerang, American nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, nonprofit thought leader, fundraising Academy at National University, staffing boutique, nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk. Do us a favor, but check out these companies because they're here to help you support your mission. And they're just amazing. Claire, I know you do some work in partnership with Bloomerang as well. So glad to have you here. We have, as we said, like over 800 episodes and you can find them on many channels, but the latest and the greatest is that you can download the app. So go ahead and scan that QR code. You can find us on the app in just a couple of hours. After our conversation here with Claire, you will find today's episode uploaded. You can also find us on streaming broadcast as well as podcast. So Claire, thank you. Again, we want to jump into you and who you are and what you do. And maybe you can bring us some clarification. So Claire Axelrad, JD and CFRE at clarification. Welcome back. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here. You know, Claire, you're such a thought leader in the nonprofit sector. And so it's really fun to see how you navigate this world of ours that has changed so much in not only how we fundraise and what we fundraise for. And so you've really come up with something that's an interesting aspect of how we navigate philanthropy. And I'm going to be really interested to start this conversation off with just having you explain to us what a philanthropy facilitator is. Let's start off with that because for a lot of us, that's going to be a completely new concept. Okay. So I really like to think about philanthropy, not fundraising. And philanthropy, it literally translates from the Greek to mean love of humankind. And that usually means one person loving, one receiving the love, and it often shifts back and forth. And that begins with you intentionally leading your donors on a transformative journey that gets them to what I like to call self actualization. And what might you ask us that? And it is if you remember Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's the highest level that people can reach on the pyramid. And he posited that once our basic human needs for food and shelter and safety are met, we begin to look for other ways to satisfy our existence. And we need this raison d'etre beyond mere survival. So we seek family, we seek community, belonging, a greater purpose. And we want to identify with that highest vision of ourselves. We want to really like the person we look at when we look into the mirror. So you, as a philanthropy facilitator, have the power to give this meaning to your donors, what they're seeking. And that's why I often call development people engagement Sherpas. We were just talking with Jared about how she likes to do a lot of adventuring. And sometimes you need a tour guide. Sometimes, you know, you need somebody who stands by your side, gently guides and supports you as you walk down this pathway to what I like to call the pathway to passionate philanthropy. And I was going to say, I so appreciate that. And ironically, I did call myself a Sherpa yesterday as I'm hauling, you know, bags from one place to the other. But I love, and this is the disruption that I alluded to you earlier, Claire, is, you know, it's not about fundraising. And to me, fundraising is very transactional. It's about that facilitation of doing good, right, that philanthropy. And you speak about it so eloquently. So when I saw you share, I think it was an article and some comments on LinkedIn. I was like, please come talk to all of us about this philanthropy facilitation that you really are a huge proponent of because, you know, and I've shared on this before Julia, you know, when, when someone tells me, oh, I better let you get back to work, you got to get back to dialing for dollars and it's like, Oh, you don't get it. You clearly don't get it. Yeah. And, and when you think about it, people hate the word fundraising. Yes, you mentioned that word. That's right. People just go, you know, they just hate it. So why do we keep asking our boards to do something they've already told us they hate. Right. I mean, staff feel the same way. I mean, staff used to come. I worked for a human services agency for many years. And the staff, the program people would come to me and say, Oh, I'm so lucky you do that. I would just hate to do that. And I would say, No, no, no, I don't like your job. Your job is scary. Like, this is easy because you're, you're really like helping people who love channel that love in a meaningful direction. So I really feel like the best fundraisers are these engagement experts. And my boss used to introduce me as the director of donor experiences. So you think beyond asking, or getting money in the moment, which is as you suggested transactional, you kind of think beyond this track to the next track. And you imagine strategies that are going to influence donors to stick with you to join that journey. And so you kind of are always just like one step ahead. You know, you talk about this. And I love that you kind of put us in the ecosystem of being donor centric. And I love where you're going with this. But how do you actually navigate this in a way so that everyone around you understands this? Because I thought I think it's fascinating what you just said about how people in your own career and your own place of work would be like, Oh, Claire, I don't want to do what you do. And that perception that everyone has about what it means to fundraise. It's kind of toxic. Yeah. And I think you have to remember that if it's not good for them, the donors, it's not good for you. Right. And conversely, if it means a lot to them, it will mean a lot to you. Yeah. So if your purpose matches their purpose, if you enact the values they want to enact, then you're both going to wind up feeling fulfilled. Yeah. So if the focus shifts to helping the donor make a difference, not on getting their money, then everything gets a lot easier and that focus results in money. But it just follows really naturally. So I like to channel Maya Angelou. I think I wrote an article once about he Maya Angelou to retain more donors. And she said something to the effect of people won't remember what you said, they won't remember what you did, but they will remember how you made them feel. So do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you. You know, we're very conditioned in fundraising and specially boards to save things like, yeah, don't worry, I'm going to go hit him up. Right. I'm going to go twist his arm. Absolutely. That is not a pleasant interaction. Yeah. No, who wants that right like, yeah, wants to hit up or twisted arms and that's he feels like, you know, obligatory or forced and that's certainly, you know, not part of what we're doing. I'm curious Claire and I have to ask this question, are you finding that a lot of philanthropy facilitation is not happening and we're focusing on that fundraising and I'm going to say this from a from a metric standpoint right like are we seeing that it is too hard to kind of switch that mindset because of we have goals to meet like what if we don't raise the $3 million that we need to raise. I don't think it's really that hard. Once people stop and think about it. So, I often present to boards, and I don't do the classic board fundraising training. In fact, I call my sessions igniting philanthropy. I talk about how philanthropy is as addictive as chocolate. I talk about chocolate tastings at some of these sessions. So that makes people feel like this is a really good thing. And I really feel like asking somebody to invest in a cause that they really believe in that is going to really help them feel good about themselves. Is the biggest gift that you can give someone and it's totally the flip side of we don't want to ask. That would be a real imposition. You can kind of get. And so I often ask people, you know, what are some gifts that you've made that you felt really good about. And you get people talking about that and you realize that as long as it's something that they really believed in, or they were giving back to their alma mater, or they had a kid who had a certain kind of disease and they wanted to help find a cure for that. Or maybe just a friend asked them and they felt really good doing it for their friend. There's all sorts of reasons that people give that feel good. And then you ask them, when did you give that you felt bad. And that's when you pull out all the coercive practices that lots of nonprofits use. And you realize, hey, we don't have to do those bad things. You know, you're talking about something that I'm really interested to hear more about and you call it leisure listening skills. I think it's a fascinating thing that there's always seems to be a struggle with, we've got to tell our story, we've got to make the sale, we've got to make the pitch. And yet we're supposed to be listening to what the donor is saying. Very similar to what you just, you know, communicated with us about what is the donor's journey that they're looking for. Talk to us about how we can kind of straddle both of these concepts. Okay, so what you really have to do is listen. And I know that sounds really cliche, but there's no way that you can know where your donor wants to travel on their individual journey, unless you talk to them about it. And that's why, you know, we say that this is really relationship building business. And you can do it, you know, I mean, with major gifts, that makes a lot of sense, but you can also do it with larger swaths of donors who don't give you as much money, just by asking questions on social media or launching a survey or doing something fun like a, like a quiz. But really, you have to get curious. And it's like what a good coach would do with their client. It's like this radical listening where you ask generative questions to help their story unfold. You don't just ask yes or no questions. You don't ask a lot of why questions because that can make people feel defensive. But you ask, oh, you know, how did this feel? Or what did you enjoy about this most or just tell me more about that? Or my favorite question, is there anything I haven't asked you that you'd like to tell me? It's amazing what people will tell you then. So, you know, this time that you take upfront with listening saves you so much on the back end when you've sent out a message that just doesn't resonate with anybody. So it focus you and you can hit your target better and you have to understand that fundraising mostly is about the donors. It's not about the money. Yeah. So, you know, I love that you use the word leisure there because I struggle, believe it or not, because I know I promote often about finding this work life blend for myself. But leisure is hard for many of us that are either high achieving individuals, right? Or again focused on those metrics. Like how can we place this leisure first so that we're not coming into the conversation listening with our agenda, right? And that's what fascinates me is because I do find that every conversation, you know, we walk into it knowing, okay, we're having this conversation and this is ultimately what we want to get out of it. So how do we move? Again, I'm just hearing it's a mindset shift, you know, moving from what is it we came to accomplish, right? As opposed to let's just sit back and let it flow, speaking of flow earlier. You know, like so this leisure I think is maybe something that many of us including myself might struggle with. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that you have to shift your, your notion or your understanding of what it is that you're there to accomplish. Yeah. And, you know, sometimes the first visit that you have is a visit where you're going to ask for money. But most of the time it's an opportunity to get to know each other better. That's right. My favorite tool is curiosity. Yeah. And if I just remind myself, let's get curious. I'm really interested in finding more out more about this person. It really kind of shifts your approach and it slows you down. And sometimes you can remind yourself by just taking a breath. And when the person is speaking and often instead of interjecting, they'll keep talking. Oh, yeah. You have two ears and one mouth use them in that proportion. Yeah. And I think that what it gets back to ask, I'm going to ask you a question, which sounds a little weird, but for the people on this call, do you have in your mission statement, or in a book somewhere, we exist because people need to give. No, I don't think I've ever seen that. I've never seen that. Or we exist to help donors find meaning. Okay. Why should you consider this? Because philanthropy really is a symbiotic relationship. And if you're largely supported by contribution income, it should be obvious that without donors, you cease to exist. That's right. But without you, your donors can't be the change that they'd like to see in the world. Yeah. You know what? I love that. That's really cool. That for me is the gem today. You know, we have another gem that came in and I would love to share this with everyone because it's really an interesting comment to our conversation today. We have a viewer that's written in that says, I like that you know, Claire, that a philanthropic advisor is a noble profession. Gift officers need to be respectful and treat their clients with dignity, not just as cash machines to be hit up for a gift. It's about trust and building a relationship where you get to help them make an impact in a particular area, which is just exactly what you rephrased. Isn't that fascinating? Yeah. I mean, it's absolutely true. And it's funny because I just did a two part series on my clarification blog about why do so many fundraisers leave the profession. Yeah. And two parts because if you ask them, they'll tell you it's money. Right. Money is part of it. But the second part, I said what it really boils down to is the Aretha Franklin song, R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Right. Yeah. The way fundraisers are treated largely is yeah, they're put over in a corner and they're said your job is to go raise money and come back to us when it's raised. That's right. When you have it. Yeah, come back to it. Yeah, when you have it. Yeah, I did read that article Claire, you put out some really good thought provoking articles and just so, so appreciative of all of that and to have you as a leader in this space. I would love for you to share with us about generous gratitude as well as energetic engagement. What does this mean and how are you, how are you seeing this show up in our sector? Well, I do talk a lot about bringing, not just an attitude of curiosity, but an attitude of gratitude to our work. And I think that if we can think about don't we want donors to think about us as their family, you know, we want them to leave a legacy to us just like they would leave a legacy to their family members. And the first step towards that is, is gratitude. And I like to keep a donor gratitude journal. And it's just like a journal where you write what you're grateful for but you write specifically what you're grateful to specific donors for. And you just make this as daily practice where it can be something very simple like, I'm really grateful to less today that he brought a coffee cake to our meeting. And what it does is it shifts you to thinking about the donors in relationship to you. And it's generally not money that you're grateful. You know, it's, it's you're grateful because they saved that grove of trees or they fed that hungry family or they spoke out about an injustice they call their Congress person. And you really have to think more concretely or deeply about what you're grateful to your donors for. So you don't make the mistake of saying, thanks for the money, which is what most of our thank you letters do. You know, the real key to effective donor acknowledgement and philanthropy facilitation is emotionally moving your donor, making them feel like they are more important to you than they even thought that they were. And that's the only way that you turn an otherwise one time transactional gift into a transformative life altering experience for them. And also, hopefully for your organization. So, to me, I'm like always constantly thinking of how can I send in some hugs. So thank you letter to me is like a hug and envelope. And I think about my daughter when my husband turned 55 she did this thing, which was 55 ways that I love you. And, of course, he was beyond delighted he was moved to tears. And, you know, what if you brainstorm 55 or whatever number of ways to love your donors. You know, I wager you will start thinking about donors differently if you do that. And I have a book on my website, which is creative ways to thank your donors and I've been adding to it over time. Things that I've done things that I've seen other people do that I think are really cool. I think there's 72 ways at this point. You know, it's like gather this raw material. So if you wanted to, you could send a different thank you every week of the year to your donors. And think about everything is gratitude like annual reports don't have to be these dry as dust financial reports. They can be gratitude reports. I've seen some organizations actually titled them gratitude reports. You want stuff that resonates emotionally with people that paints a picture that they really want to jump into with you that showcases the value of philanthropy, and all that it does to create change. So, you know, I just always say, you got to keep wooing the donors, and you have to energetically do the woo. Yeah, yeah, you know you bring up a great point and ironically I had a very interesting conversation with a gentleman here in Utah but he we were talking about you know what do you do for work what do you do for work. And he is, you know, like a wilderness adventurer, and he said he used to give to this one nonprofit organization, and he stopped because he was rubbed the wrong way because all they did was ask, ask, ask, ask, ask. And I was like, Oh, they never thanked you they never showed what the impact of your support did. And I told him you know the whole ask think report repeat and he's like, Wait, say that again, you know, like, like if I had just built a rocket ship. And he was like, Yeah, they never did that it was always ask and so I love that you're switching, you're not switching but you're really like focusing in on this attitude of gratitude. Because people want to be a part of a winning team, like they really do want to see success in the making. And I mean, we know this the fundraising effectiveness project report for over the past 10 years shows this terrible donor retention with first time donors it's like 80% don't renew. So we know this. I don't understand why every organization doesn't have a formal gratitude program, a donor love and loyalty plan. It shouldn't be an afterthought. And so often it is you do the whole appeal and then like two seconds before the return start coming in, or after they start coming in, you're like, Oh, gotta write a thank you letter. Right. Yeah, drives me nuts. It makes me crazy that we don't, to your point, have that in our strategy. And, you know, we talked a lot about strategies on the nonprofit show. I think sometimes it's overwhelming to think about what is it we're going to work on next. But, you know, I think after hearing your comments today, a gratitude strategy has got to be on that list and moving that forward. I just love that concept because it's actionable. Everybody can get behind it and it's a great way of communicating impact. Yeah. Yeah. And thinking about it as a donor love and loyalty program, which is how I like to think about it is it's more, it's on this sort of customer experience spectrum or donor experience. It's like, how do we keep these people coming back? Like you are focused on that being an objective of yours. Because, you know, people are constantly like, where do we find donors? Where do we find donors? And I'm like, okay, who do you have as a donor right now? Yes. And people don't think about that. They're just adding to the people. They stuff them in the database to just leave them there. And I read an article the other day about why do we have this concept of annual giving that we just think people once they give, they're obligated to give back. And we send them a letter that says time to renew your annual gift. And like, they didn't know that's what they were doing. Yeah, that's not donor centered. No, it's not. And we talk a lot about there's 1.8 million nonprofits registered in the US, right? So there is a lot of options out there. And so to make an assumption that someone will give again and again and again, whether it's an individual or a sponsor, right, a company sponsor or, or a foundation, any of that, like shame on us to kind of make that, you know, assumption on our end. But Claire, you do bring clarification. And I just love this about you. You know, I among many others in the sector watch you online and read so much of what you put out and it's just, it's inspiring, it's motivating. And I have to say it's refreshing. So thank you for being here, Claire. From one nerd to another, I really appreciate you. So thanks. You're welcome. And I would just like to close with reminding people that there's 2 parts to this philanthropy facilitation. One is the definition of philanthropy as love of humankind. The other is making it easy. Facilitation. You want to make it as easy as possible, both for yourself and your board members, you know, where, where it's not this really like detested thing they're doing this money grubbing thing. But really match, matchmaking, you know, putting together people who have a yearning to do something meaningful with the meaningful work that you do. And also on a practical level, make it easy for them to give. I mean, things like your website and mobile responsiveness, things like that are really important. And you shouldn't just leave them to marketing or to it. You should look at, you should pretend I'm a donor and I want to make a gift. Let's see if I can do it. This happens to me all the time. I cannot tell you how many local nonprofits that I want to support. I have to call them up and I want to say like, guys, I've been trying to make a gift to you and I can't do it. Yeah, that's brutal. That's brutal. Well, you are always such a wonderful thought leader as I said for our sector and I agree with you, Jared. Claire gives us a lot of clarification. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy, been joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself, Jared, our ransom CEO of the Raven Group. We are here today with our friend Claire Axelrad because of our generous sponsors and they include Blumerang, American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, nonprofit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, staffing boutique, nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk. Claire, this is a great way for us to re-center in a busy season and really get going so that we can end strong for our nonprofits moving forward. Thank you very, very much. Thank you, Julia. Thank you, Jared. Thank you, nonprofit show sponsors. That's right, gratitude. A moment of gratitude. Hey, everybody, as we end this episode, we want to remind everyone, including ourselves and our wonderful guests here today, to stay well so you can do well. Thank you much, ladies. Have a great day.