 We are delighted to have Jack Elotto, a fundraising academy back with us for day two. So Jack, we've never really done this, but when I first started chatting with you about this concept, I was like, look, there's so much here. We need to really do two days. And you were very gracious and said, yes, you know, I'll do this. And you said something yesterday, which I can't wait to get back into. You said, I've done all these epic fails and more. And more, like a hundred more. I love it, Jack. I really do. Well, again, we're delighted to have you back with us. Again, if we haven't met, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. My trusted sidekick, Jared Ransom, the nonprofit nerd herself is not with us today, but she'll be back with us tomorrow. We wanna thank all of our presenting sponsors without them, we would not be here. The American Nonprofit Academy, Blumerang, Fundraising Academy, who Jack represents, the nonprofit nerd, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, nonprofit thought leaders, and the nonprofit Atlas. So thank you to all of our sponsors who join with us. Okay, Jack Elotto, CFRE back for day two. Day two. Yeah, it's exciting for me. I love being on the nonprofit show. I love the work you guys do. It's really great and important. So that's good. And it's one of my favorite topics, Epic Fundraising Fails. And just to repeat what you said earlier, I've made them all, I've made all the fails you could think of. So don't worry about failing. It's not about failing, it's about doing it right the next time. You know, and I'm gonna witness, I really love that you said that because when you said you've made these 10 plus hundreds more, I was just like, wow, it was awesome to have that lens. Because I think sometimes in fundraising, there's just so much fear. And then it's crippling. And so that really kind of like opened up my mind to hear what some of these things were. So we've gone through one through five. We're now on to six. And I wanna dive right into this because you write failure to uncover donor's interests, values and motives. Okay, that's huge. And how do you even uncover that? So I think that fail here is when we say, oh, they like our organization. We know enough about them. We never know enough about them. So one of the major things that we do in discovery is as you said, let's find out what their interest is. What is their ability, their capacity to make a gift? How are they connected to our cause? All of these things are really important to find out before we even get to the ask. And the way we do it, as we said yesterday through this whole process is we listen to them. We ask them open-ended questions and we listen carefully to their responses. So how do we do this? What we need to do is we need to create a questioning strategy based on each prospective donor. And why I think this, we fail at this so many times is that we forget that we need to discover the donor's primary motivation. We need to discover their interests in our organization and why they consider it important. We need to build a rapport and we need to foster trust. All of this is done during this discovery phase. I like to say it's the falling in love part with our donor or our prospect, finding out about them. We need to be sure that we are talking to the right person who has the authority to make the gift. And this is an epic fail. As I said yesterday, during each of these epic fails, there are these small failures. Have you ever gone and met with the donor and they say to you, Julia, I can't say yes to your request for a gift because I need to talk to my children or my wife or my husband or my parents. That means that they don't have the authority. So one way to avoid that fail, that fact that you're sitting with the donor and they don't have the authority is to find out as much as you can through a questioning strategy, whether they have the authority. Some things that I think are really important about this questioning strategy is to you draft your questions before the meeting. I might say to you before the meeting about our women's health center or our hospital, I might say to you, Julia, what specifically around women's health is of interest to you, that kind of thing. And then we have to explain to them. And I think this is really important. This is the transparency part of need discovery. We have to explain to them what we hope to accomplish with this conversation. I'm gonna say to Julia, Julia, I wanna explore further why you are interested in our hospital's women's health center. What specifically interests you and make it informational. We ask questions, the best questioning strategy are those that are clear and open-ended. Close-ended questions do have a purpose, but if you really wanna build a relationship and you really wanna find out about Julia's interest in women's health, then ask her clear and open-ended questions. Okay, so now I'm curious about this. I'm thinking of the cause-selling cycle and we're moving through that phase. And life happens and in life changes, we mature, our resources mature, and maybe our values don't change, but they might take a diversion. How do we keep this conversation going throughout our relationships with our donors? Or do you believe that this is really a one-and-done? That they don't want? No, it's never one-and-done. We have to, people are a change all the time. They're interest change. You may be interested in women's health now, but then next week you may say, I'm really more interested in behavioral health. I have a nephew or a niece who is an adolescent and having issues. So I wanna learn more about what your hospital is doing with teenagers around behavioral health, or oncology or cardiology. As I get older, my interest in health is becoming more about cardiology and oncology and keeping exercising and growing old gracefully so you have to constantly with your donors keep that conversation going and see how their thinking evolves and all of those things, the changes that come into their life, they've had a death in their family or they've lost a spouse or they've had a new baby. So now they're interested in pediatrics and that's so much in OBGYN kind of things. So you have to constantly adjust your conversation and your questioning so that you can uncover changes in their life. Remember, cause selling is a relationship building thing. We cannot build relationships with people we're not really interested in finding out about. Right, I love that. And I think Jack, that is an amazing frame of how we go about this. And the more I've worked with you and your team, at Fundraising Academy, I realized that it does come back to that R word, relationship, relationship, relationship. It's all about relationship. It's in which is super cool because I think that's the most genuine and sustainable path that we can take. Another thing you talk about in the Epic Fundraising Fail is not rehearsing the presentation before meeting with the donor. And I'm really curious about this because a lot of times in the development world we don't work in teams. And so what does this look like? And are you saying like, stand in front of a mirror or try and sell somebody else? What does this look like? So the first fail is not knowing what your presentation style is or not having a presentation style. So, and we think at the Fundraising Academy that there are three types of presentations on. The first is that you have to understand what is your presentation style? Are you a person who wants to memorize your presentation? I know you're interested in women's health. And I say, Julia, this is what we do at St. Elsewhere Hospital. Here's what's happening. Here's what we do. That could sound very robotic, right? So we don't wanna do that but some people do have memorized their presentation style. The other one and the one that I really like is the outline presentation. This is where I, before I meet with Julia and want to talk with her about women's health, I'm gonna say I want to hit these seven points with her about women's health. And I don't have to have the outline in front of me but I wanna talk about breast health. I wanna talk about our birthing center. I wanna talk about oncology as it relates to women, OBGYN, whatever it is. And I'm gonna talk about the impact where her gift will do for us. That's an outline. But here's something that happens to a lot of us. And maybe in your career, Julia, you've seen this. That's the impromptu presentation where you're sitting somewhere and someone comes up to you and says, hey, Jack, don't you work at the homeless shelter down the street? Tell me, what are you guys doing? So that could be where you have this impromptu meeting with somebody who is a prospect that you've never met but they know who you are and they wanna talk about what you're doing. So if you, this impromptu presentation it follows the same things as the outline presentation or the memorized presentation. But the most important thing about an impromptu presentation is mastering the art of reading that prospect. What are they really interested in? Especially if you have no prior knowledge of them because they just came to you. What the impromptu presentation, the successful at this is you have to understand people, you have to ask questions, you have to listen and then you have to create this impromptu presentation based upon what you've heard. So if you say, I'm kinda interested in women's health and I've never met you and I'm saying, well, I would ask you, well, what specifically around women's health are you interested in? Why is this important to you? Why are you so interested in this? Whatever that is. So those three types of presentations you could develop and you could hone based on what you know about that prospect or donor before you even meet with them and not preparing your presentation. That's a fail, guys. Okay. That's a fail. You know, it almost seems to like once you, you get in the habit of doing this and being more strategic and listening and responding, it probably becomes more natural. And I can see how it would really strengthen your opportunity to communicate what you need to in a short period of time. Yeah, you know, when I worked in healthcare, I am not a healthcare professional. I don't know anything. I think if I went into the operating room and saw blood, I'd probably pass out. But still, I had to have some general understanding what happens in the ER in the emergency room. What happens with a vulnerable baby? What's the neonatal intensive care unit all about? So, and if it's homelessness, we have to understand some key facts about homelessness or social services or poverty or hunger or whatever your issue is. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We always need to be learning so that we can share that with our donors and our communities. I mean, undoubtedly. Now, this is a really interesting thing. And I was fascinated by this, Jack, not developing positive attitude towards donor objections. You seem to me to be a super positive person, very much like Jared and I, you know, looking forward and being thoughtful, but really not being, trying not to be encumbered by objections that come at us. So, I'm like so excited to know what you see as like how we can do this. If you could fade back on some of the objections you received and objections for most people are the most feared part of a presentation. After you've honed your presentation style, your skills, the most feared part for fundraisers are getting an objection. But here's what we say at the fundraising academy. If it weren't for objections, there would be no need for fundraisers because people would just open their wallets and give money to every cause that came in contact with. If it was so obvious to a donor why they should give to your cause and they do so freely and without hesitation, then literally there would be no need for us as fundraisers. We wouldn't be needed. So, I think the first thing we have to do about objections is redefine them as a positive occurrence. Okay, okay. That is something more. Okay, so most people think the word of, when they think of the word of objection, it brings to mind some sort of clash between a fundraiser and a donor in which case someone wins and someone loses. The problem here is that people fail to understand that hearing the word no and hearing an objection is not the same thing. No means no. Handling an objection is just a sign of something that the donor or the prospects wants to resolve in their mind before they get to saying yes. Objections are vital to moving prospects closer and nearer to making a gift. What objections do as we reframe what they are, they uncover the concerns of the donors. And that is so important. Objections reveal the key. This is such an important concept. Objections reveal the key to a successful ask. That's what they do. If we didn't get objections, I love objections for a couple of reasons. One, it tells me that that prospect and donor is still interested. If they weren't interested, they would just say thanks, Jack, for the presentation. I'll get back to you and they would leave. But if they asked objections or they tell us about their objections, they're telling me that they're still interested. And I think the fail here is not recognizing that objections are a normal and natural part of every conversation. In me talking to you about women's health, you might say, well, I'm objecting to the fact of something that you're doing around women's health. I think you should do more mammographies for poor women or whatever it is. That's telling me that that's your interest. You're interested in caring about poor women who may not be able to afford mammography. So those things are important. And when we list one thing that we could definitely do before I meet with Julia about women's health, I might try to figure out what are, anticipate what some of her objections may be. What might they be? And if we develop a list of these common objections that we see from other prospects around women's health, then we can create our responses and commit them to memory. So to Julia ask those same objections or brings up those same objections, we will have responses to them. All right, you know, I almost feel like the word that I maybe just mentally supplant in my brain is I try and put the word question instead of objection. Love it. Because I love what you said. And we just back up a little bit. You said, you know, this is an indication that the donor is trying to discover you. That's right. The donor is trying to, you know, a no is a no. And you walk out the door and as the great Terry Axelrod has always said, you know, bless and release, you move forward and you go to the next process or donor prospect, I should say. But this is really, I love the concept of saying, no, they're trying to determine what's gonna be a good fit and you're trying to provide an avenue that could be a good fit. Because there are so many choices for most organizations. It's not just right to check and it's all gonna go here. I mean, there are ways to support different things. Very interesting. It's very interesting. You know, before we move on to Epic fundraising fail number nine, I'm intrigued by your, I know you've worked in fundraising for the hospital sector. And wow, have you opened my eyes today about how many choices there are? And I'm wondering, I'm like a little curious about this. Do you think it's sometimes a better strategy to narrow things down? Or do you find that it's, that's not a good way to go when you have so many choices? I think that what, in my experience working in healthcare, typically people identify a global interest. Like they may say, I'm really interested in the emergency room. Gotcha. How quickly you respond. Then through those conversations, we will narrow it down. Are you capable of dealing with a massive heart attack? Yeah. Or what about a child who is hit by a car? What about gunshot wounds? Or other violent crimes that you experienced? So then we start to narrow it down. The same thing if it's about women's health, we start to figure what specifically, women's health is a big area. Mental health is a big area. You know, oncology, there's all types of cancers as you probably know. So you have to through conversations, building a relationship. The relationship model of fundraising is my mantra. I'm sorry people, but I go back to let's build a relationship with that person who just calls us up on the phone and says, I'm interested in women's health. And then meeting them and then what they're really interested in is prenatal care. Then focusing our attention on that aspect of women's health because they're gonna have a baby. And they wanna know what kind of nutrition they should have. What should they be looking out for? All of those kinds of things. So interesting. And again, it comes back to the relationship. Okay, now this is a really interesting thing, number nine. And I really do wanna spend some time on this, not adopting a closing frame of mind and rejection. Deal with that. You know, talk to us about this, Jack. So what we say at the fundraising academy is that most people think that the asked and you know, asking for a gift and getting a response is the close. We say that closing begins at the very first part of this fundraising cycle. It begins during prospecting. That's how it starts. It begins during that conversation. It's not an isolated segment of the fundraising process. In fact, asking is something that happens all along the fundraising process. Every single step of the way, we are asking for something. Maybe not for that $10,000 gift. So closing begins at the moment you speak the first words to the prospect and continues throughout the whole process until the gift has been received. You close on many points. I call Julia up and I say, she's a prospect. I've never met her and I say, Julia, can we have coffee so I can tell you more about women's health? That's part of the closing process, okay? And then as I'm talking to her, I find out that she's really interested in prenatal care. That's part of the closing process or that she has a need to support women who cannot afford mammographies, okay? That's her need, okay? And the acceptance and explanation of the organization's benefits as successful fundraisers will tell you, closing begin the process of closing at the very beginning when the prospect agrees to meet with you. And then you get agreement on a variety of things all the way through. I may say to Julia, so it's really prenatal care that you really want to focus in on as it relates to women's health. That's really bringing it right down to what her specific interest and need is. Donor hesitation is natural throughout the process. We see that. You know, your efforts should be to understand how the donor feels when they hesitate during that closing process. I think the thing that is really important during this stage or having a closing frame of mind, as we like to say, is remember to be mindful that closing a gift begins at the start of the fundraising process and not at the end. You know, I'm fascinated that you teed it up this way because that's not what I would normally think. I would normally think that it's the end piece, but I really, really like how you helped guide us through this because it makes it more natural. And I would almost say, I don't know if you think this is right, but almost more collaborative, you know, which is kind of an odd way to look at it. But as we go to Epic Fundraising Fail Number 10, this is interesting because this is like the future part, the role of stewardship and retention, loyalty and attrition. So you're just saying, hey, you're not done once you get the A-OK on the gift. You gotta look at this. So I like to say this, we say this at the Fundraising Academy, the best way to increase your value as a fundraiser to your organization is to build a loyal donor base. And how do you do that? I'm gonna give you some really easy things that you don't have to necessarily fail at. You know, the first is to give first rate service and consistent follow-up. You know, I've talked in other classes and webinars that I've been on. When I make a gift, I don't want some online service to give me a receipt. I want the organization to reach out to me and thank me personally, not, you know, Salesforce or Donor Perfect or PayPal or any of those various services. We think, you know, I think it make a gift to them. I made a gift to the organization. So remember to give first rate service and consistent follow-up. Here's the first thing I like to say. First, think like a donor. If you want to strengthen your stewardship activities and increase donor retention, which by the way is abysmal, 46% or whatever AFP says it is, it's an abysmal donor retention rate. That's horrendous. If you are working in a retail store and your store sales only, you only have repeat customers of 46%, they probably fire you, you know. If you were Bloomingdale's or Nordstrom or whatever the retail place was. So if you want to increase your donor retention and build loyalty, the first thing is to think like a donor. Get in their head. How do you think like a donor? Be a donor. You want to know what a donor thinks? Go out and make a gift. It's such an essential step to learning how to think like a donor. Get to know them. Haven't we been saying this over these last two days? Get to know your donors. The best way to get to know your donors is to offer them the opportunity to become more involved in meaningful ways that go beyond writing a check. That is so important. Go the extra mile. I love this. Be willing to give your donors more than they demand and far more than they expect. That's how you keep donors. That's how great retail outlets keep their customers coming back by great donor service. Say thank you like you mean it. Don't make it some form letter that you sent out. Remember, only one in four donors receive a thank you letter. That's terrible. 45% of donors. This is the national statistic from Penelope Burke, the great guru of fundraising. She says in her book, Donor-Centered Fundraising, that 45% of donors said it was an outstanding thank you letter that inspired them to give again. I love it. I love it. That's a no-brainer, guys. Your donors are not expecting to see their names in lights. They just want a warm personalized letter, a call, whatever it is, saying thank you. Create personalized messages. You know the four piece of thank you letters? Be prompt, be personal. Don't send me a dear friend letter to thank me for my $25 gift. Okay? Be passionate about your cause and their involvement and be grateful to them about that passion that you bring. Be positive. Here's the final point that I will end with. Think like a major donor. Love it. Treat every single donor like they are a major donor. You know why you should treat them like they're a major donor? Because they think they're a major donor. If $50 is the best and largest gift they can give you that in their mind, they're a major donor. So treat them like a major donor. Those are simple things that do not cost any money to do. I love it, Jack. You know, we made this offer yesterday. If you have been with us and you wanna get this all on one page, these 10 Epic Fundraising Fails, email me. I can't tell you the number of people who had done that. I left my studio, went to my office and there were a whole bunch of folks that had already emailed me, which was super cool. I gave out my personal email address, JCPatAmericanNonprofitAcademy.com And we will get this PDF to you. It would be fabulous to take to your team, to do an exercise to talk about, to tape up in your office so that you know kind of where you should be thinking. I love it. And Jack, as always, you have been just a delight and such an amazing voice of leadership and thought in the nonprofit sector when it comes to fundraising. So we wanna thank you so much. Hey, again, I'm Julia Patrick. Jared Ransom will be back with us tomorrow. Check out back episodes. And if you wanna refer to part one, you can do that on some of our streaming platforms. We also have a new podcast that's going where we're taking all of these episodes and putting them into that format. So if you'd like to consume your information that way, you can find us on the most popular streaming services out there. Again, thank you to all of our presenting sponsors from Blumerang to your part-time controller, American Nonprofit Academy, the Nonprofit Nerd Fundraising Academy, nonprofit.leadership, the Nonprofit Atlas and Staffing Boutique. Again, they help partner with us every day so that we can share this amazing knowledge. Jack, you are a treasure, my friend. Thank you. It's been a lot of fun, so much information. Jack's gonna actually be in the hot seat with me next Friday on Ask and Answer. And so you'll get to see some more. Yeah, you'll get to see more of him. Again, as we like to end every episode, we want to remind all of you and I think ourselves, stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow.