 happy to. Thanks to all of you for joining us live or the recording for another episode of the nonprofit show. Just like we start every episode, we really like to extend our sincerest appreciation and our deepest gratitude to all of these presenting sponsors you see right in front of you and behind us. So thank you so much for these corporate sponsors supporting the show and truly supporting each and every one of our guests as well as our attendees as they come we like to say or I should say I like to say that these sponsors really like Julia and I but they love the work that you're doing so they're here to support you and to really elevate your missions and your causes around the globe. So thank you to our sponsors and of course welcome to Julia Patrick's CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy and there's me with my little cha cha and so I'm Jared Ransom also known as the non-profit nerd CEO of the Raven Group coming to you today from Mexico. So really excited to be here and also get our show started. So this week is track full we've already had some really amazing guests on but today I am thrilled to announce and to welcome Julie Ordonez and I hope that I said that properly. CEO and you're joining us Julie from the West Coast in Los Angeles so welcome to you and thanks for joining us for our show today. I am so thrilled to be here thank you so much Jared. Yeah so Julie I think that when we meet again we need to be with Jared having our show. It's got to be in Mexico I won't accept anything else I'm totally in I'm all in okay. Oh my gosh well I'm just really interested to hear what you have to say over the overarching concept of major asks and the strategies that we need to be looking at because this just seems such a fear point for us in the non-profit sector and we hear this all the time. It seems to me we get folks that are like let me at it I can't wait to ask I love it or oh my gosh I can't do it you know step away and so I'm really interested to know about your approaches and your thoughts on this but first I gotta ask how do we define a major gift? Yes great question so it really depends on the size of your annual budget is what I would say and a really great way to think about it is the larger your organization than the larger a major gift needs to be right so my background is I was a major gifts officer for four years at United Way of Greater Los Angeles which was so fun I loved that job I got to meet people for breakfast, lunch, coffee, dinner, happy hour and go to all the events and meet people and really get to know why you know they give and the difference they want to make in the world and it was a total blast and at United Way and typically in the United Way system and United Way of Greater Los Angeles is a massive organization right tens of millions of dollars a year and I personally was raising about 2.5 million from individuals each year and a major gift oh thank you I just want to share that it's possible right not necessarily to toot my own horn but to show that that of course I'm in Los Angeles where there is tremendous wealth and also a lot of poverty yeah I've got a lot of people doing a lot of good so ten thousand dollars was a major gift there and I think that anything lower than that we called a leadership gift right so a thousand to just below 10k was was a leadership gift and that was really our pipeline for prospective major donors right if you're it stands to to reason that if you give five thousand dollars a year you could eventually in a short amount of time give 10k a year or maybe right now you know if we get to know you and understand who you are so if you're a smaller nonprofit if your budget is less than a million a year then I would say a major gift is most likely maybe five thousand dollars twenty five hundred dollars depending on you know you're the size of your organization and and I think it matters defining what a major gift is right because it determines not the quality of the relationship right we treat every donor with the utmost respect um but it it matters for the quantity of of reaching out right so with someone who is a major donor we say okay these people are probably going to hear from us more often we're probably going to go deeper with them so it's important for us to define what a major gift is can this be aspirate I'm sorry Jared I interrupted you no go ahead I'll I'll tag on afterwards can this be aspirational or should this more be should this be more of a data focus like you can look at your journal entries and say yeah this is this constitutes a major gift do you see what I'm saying yeah so I think um I think it can be aspirational absolutely let's say you've got you know if you're really small and you've got just a handful of people who give you 10k gifts right you know that that can be um your your major gift um threshold if if you find that you have more people who are in that leadership level range who could potentially give more um I think it's important to to just decide and be clear and have everybody on the same page honestly right that's that would be my biggest thing yeah okay I was going to say I love that you really identified the correlation of a major gift to the operating budget of the organization because what that tells me if I'm hearing correctly is every organization has a chance to evolve the definition of a major gift um so one that's that's one thing I wanted to acknowledge and I really appreciated that correlation that you provided Julie but furthermore and and I'm really like known to ask these questions that maybe some of our viewers wish they had asked but here's my question to you and by no way shape or form is it meant to back you into a corner but what I've noticed through my career Julie is the individuals that do invest at that major gift level may not consider themselves a major donor so what do you um I don't know what do you suggest when it comes to us as the development professional when it comes to our vernacular and how we talk to that major donor do we actually tell them that that's the category in which they're they're giving yeah so that's a that's a great question yeah and I think it you know I'm very much about an individualized approach so I think it depends on the donor and um if having recognition for being a major donor is important to them then yes you should let them know yeah you're you are a major donor for us but I think if someone is maybe more discreet or they're not really interested in being categorized in that way for whatever reason right whatever the reasoning might be I think it's smart to just focus on building the relationship and you know Julia you mentioned the fear piece right connected to major gifts and I think that that's what this has a lot to do with is when we start to focus on the money above the people and the relationship that's when things start to get scary and a little icky feeling um and so if if we really focus on building relationships and partnerships and I think it kind of takes a lot of the fear out of it and there's less of a need to externally categorize someone right for internal language it's helpful to be on the same page right um but I think it's it's maybe less important externally unless that's your strategy right we have an affinity group that is people who give at this level and it's prestigious and you get to meet other people who are also committed at this level if that's your strategy then yes you should be clear about that marketing you know I appreciate that because I know I've been caught in that kind of situation um and someone had said which you know for them it was a ten thousand dollar gift and she didn't see it really as a major gift and she's like oh gosh I'm really not a big donor I'm sure you have bigger donors you know and so I just wanted to ask that question because I do think previously in my career maybe I wasn't as informed of how do we talk about this to the actual investor if you will yeah and I think you know listen to them right so if they're telling you 10k is not a large gift hello yeah okay so that could be a chance to say well then what would you consider a major gift right right and pick up the cues and conversation yes and listen and and okay well that's so fascinating because to us actually 10k is a major gift for us there are not a lot of people who give at the level that you do you should know that right and even just saying that and being get real you know like there's no reason to hide this from them um you know and I think people want to help so maybe she she will end up giving more knowing that that's a need and that not a lot of people are stepping up in that way right so let me ask a question that dev tells to that and kind of comes at it from the other direction is how often do you think donors would like to be known as a major gift you know donor I mean is that a value yeah I think it depends on the organizational structure and and the culture and what they've come to expect um from that organization so you know if you're you know fundraising at an organization like a united way or you know where there's a really well-known tote toteville society right or you're you're fundraising at a large um university where there is this really robust alumni network then yes I think that's just a piece and a component of the myriad of reasons why people get donate and one of them right is that they they get to be a part of these groups um but again I think sometimes we assume that it really matters to donors but maybe it doesn't you know maybe what matters more to them is that they can help people and it just takes getting to know someone and I think the non-profit sector we kind of make a lot of assumptions about people that don't necessarily help us raise more money right I think you're right I think you're right so you use that great word that I love icky and everybody can identify that I could just see our viewers going oh yeah so can you talk about when we are working with major donors why is there just this fear and then I would also counterpoint that to why is it that there are some people that are excited and chomping at the bit to do it and they don't have that associative fear that's that the majority of us seem to have well how much time you got Julia I mean the whole I mean I mean gosh yeah I mean the first thing that I would say to you is if you are feeling fear in asking for major gifts please stop judging yourself it is normal even though it's your job I mean and you know as as you continue to grow as a professional you know I remember earlier in my career like what 12 years ago asking for $10,000 seemed like oh my gosh I could never ask for that amount of money now I'm like will you consider giving 10k k great let's follow up tomorrow if you need time to think about it you know it's just like it's it's and so now there's there's new amounts that kind of make me feel a little nervous and you know psych me out that you know at the time later or earlier in my career I couldn't have even fathomed to say that number out loud so I would say it's normal and even as you grow you're going to overcome some fears you know there might be amounts that that are easy for you now but there's an amount that you're just like trembling shaking in your boots and you know that's and and you know the same I think the key for kind of getting over those fears is being around other people who are also building courage right and having a manager a mentor a coach whoever it is who believes in you and maybe more than you believe in yourself you know and and I think courage doesn't get built in a vacuum so you you've got to get around other people regularly who are also doing that work. I remember recently last week in fact talking with Jason Champion at Windspire and we were looking at Gala packages and really looking at experiences that were a high price tag to me or to others with the organization that I was working with and he said which I believe really correlates with today's conversation is we're not shopping with our budget in mind right we're shopping with the the attendee or the donor or the investor's budget in mind so when it comes to asking for ten thousand dollars for someone me included that is a really large commitment and something I would really need to spend some time thinking about but not everyone as we were saying earlier and Julie said this as well you know ten thousand may not be a big gift to some people so we're really shopping if you will with their budget and what's major in you know in their reality and to realize that everyone's money correlation and money story and minimums and maximums they're all different yes so much yes that is so good yes I have to remind myself to you know be like oh my gosh fifty thousand dollars that's that's a lot of money but for some people as you said Julie you know they may be like great fifty thousand where do I where do I sit in the check so yep and that's how you know you left money on the table when you get an instant yes we want the instant yes we want it with it we just want to win and we want to move on because we're sitting on our plate and if they didn't even need to consult their spouse their partner their accountant their CPA their anybody business manager whoever right then like you you what I really try to teach people is find find that amount that they need to pray about it you know they need to think about it they need it's it's something when you get to that place you know that it is a meaningful amount to them and and probably the amount that your nonprofit actually really needs right and and that's what you really want you don't want your donor to be like oh hey um Chris what did I give last year I don't even remember can you tell me right right hello is that when you go back and say great was that a fifty thousand dollar commitment quarterly or monthly I love it that is genius yes that's genius yeah that's so good Jared that's so good I love it so Julie we have not a lot of time left and I didn't want to get away from you without talking about the courage lab of course love the word in the nonprofit sector every day we get out of bed we need to have courage we need to have courage for ourselves courage for our clients courage for our community yes so when I saw this I was just like wow I really want to know what this looks like and and and just talk to us about it yeah absolutely so it is my flagship six-week group coaching accelerator it's called courage lab and it is kind of what it sounds like it's a place for you to build courage and to test it out and to go for things and to to really push yourself in an environment where you're surrounded by peers um other nonprofit founders executive directors vps of development people within leadership roles in organizations who are ambitious who want to raise a lot of money they're they're not just trying to move the needle necessarily or grow by a small percentage they want to double their individual giving they want to really focus on major gifts and so that's what we do we focus on building courage strategy and relationships and it is a lot of fun and people truly it is crazy people truly transform in just this six-week container from really struggling with imposter syndrome with feeling like who am I to be asking anybody for anything and I'll just I'll just take whatever you want to give you know and struggle and be overworked and overwhelmed and over committed and strung out really if they're honest right to really stand advocating for themselves asking for more um and not just from their donors but even from their teams and um asking for more I think sometimes looks like renegotiating a lot of commitments nonprofits are notorious for over committing themselves and frankly doing too much uh you cannot now you know courage lab and it's an online community is it built and designed to be an online community great and so go ahead how many individuals go through together are there cohorts or is it entry points that are rolling that's right so it's a cohort and the next one launches May 18th so we're kind of a month out and it's a really intimate group it's usually no more than eight to ten individuals and we go really deep fast and you know six weeks goes by like that you know so and you and you really learn everything from a to z of what you need to to raise major gifts regularly and when I say major gift I mean at least five figure gifts good good I love it and all sectors I mean all different parts regions across the country it really is not just tied to your own group right it's not a it's not a focus group within your within one organization that's right yeah so we've had folks um here in California and different parts of California in Texas on the east coast so it really yeah it's all it's all over I love that well I think what it probably um adds to the richness of discussions and experiences when you can have you know different voices coming in talking about things that could be similar or things are completely different yes and they I think it helps you to be around other people who just asking for major gifts is is normal and fundraising can feel so lonely sometimes unfortunately and so that's part of why I created this group experience so that people could be in community yeah and it's so needed yeah before we let you go I'm really interested if you could kind of give us a purview of the landscape for um this part of the nonprofit sector and the professionals do you see people coming in running out I mean what do you see as the overall health of major gift officers or just development teams in general I know it's a I something that I think we talk about and worry a lot that we see problems systemic problems um in the sector I mean we you mentioned it burnout frustration people are like are you kidding me I can go work in the you know in the for-profit sector and make twice as much money and have my weekends I mean you know so what do you see do you see it like yay team going forward or or sliding back oh gosh um you know I I don't think it's um black and white right I think it's it's it's really more complex but I would say that in regards to major gifts um this is going to be maybe a little tough to take but we're probably all thinking it so I think boards nonprofit boards everybody who's on a board wants to do a good job give them the benefit of the doubt right but they're largely ignorant about what it takes to raise money in general and specifically what it takes to raise major gifts and the same can be said for a lot of senior leadership whether it's a large organization or a small one I've I've seen I talk with a ton of executive directors and CEOs and um their expectations I think of of it being near instantaneous well can't you just pick up the phone and you know raise money and I think um that along with because of because of the ignorance there's just these unrealistic expectations of raising a ton in a short amount of time um and not really valuing employees and I don't think that this is a new thing this is a this is an age old story I guess I think even before my time too so um I think it it comes down to humility honestly and having real authentic conversations about hey we don't actually know what we're doing um and so we need to let people and employees lead the way in a lot of these decisions and strategy and that's pretty radical but I think that that would be one solution to this problem I love that word radical Julie I was talking to someone else about you know where we are in the sector and about a year ago I had said Julie uh Julia you'll remember I had said our sector is due for a shake-up we are due for the disruption and in a radical way you know for it to be just completely shifted in a manner in which none of us have truly experienced before and I I just want to add to this because this has been such a wonderful conversation I would echo your sentiments Julie truly when it comes to the board and then also for the staff to truly you know um share and communicate the expectations because as we're learning you know also from Tony Bell with Fundraising Academy when it comes to cause selling just when you start a conversation with someone doesn't mean you're going to see the fruits of that labor instantaneously right so it really is a long journey for some donors when I had mentioned you know this major donor and I had said thank you so much and she truly didn't identify herself as a major donor you better believe that I put that note in the donor database so that you know whomever acquired her in their portfolio was able to take on that conversation to the next level so I think that's really important to you to share with the board is to truly level set our expectations and to let them know that this is a journey right this is a donor journey and it doesn't happen overnight but every step along the way is so important to seeing the fruits of that labor yeah yeah it's amazing well wow you have been great I mean we have just so enjoyed having you with us and I know that there's so many viewers with us live and that are going to join us later today on you know road through Amazon Fire TV Vimeo on our site everything that are going to be like shaking their heads and maybe reaching for a little bit more of that courage when they know there's work to be done but work to be done on internally and so here's Julie's information check her out she's got a great website with a lot of information going on talking about the struggles that we all endure and sometimes that we don't talk about but that we should within our sector you'll also be able to see the Courage Lab with with their trajectory it looks like what did you say again May 18th that's right that's the next cohort start so yeah check it out I think it's a really interesting way to look at how we can navigate ourselves to be better and to be stronger so we can do well again I'm Julia Patrick CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy I've been joined today by Señorita, Jared Ransom, coming to us from Mexico, what part of Mexico are you in? Playa del Carmen. Beautiful okay so I nearly wept one time live on camera and that was with the amazing leader of Cindy May I think of Cindy May of an amazing nonprofit it's going to make me weep again this could be the second time hearing your like that you're in my favorite part and I heard a rumor that you can see the ocean from your room. True okay we got to get off this slide it's making me depressed hey we want to thank all of our sponsors without you we would not be here or there having these conversations that are so important and so again we want to definitely let everyone know that without these folks we wouldn't be here so we're super super grateful. Wow a great conversation I'm totally revved up Julie Ordonez you really sparked something in me today actually many things and so we're super grateful that you would join us and share your your mission and your passion about all things major gifts. Jared Ransom see you tomorrow huh sister? I will see you tomorrow absolutely excited to have Joshua Ward on and as we end every episode and we have for the last year please stay well so you can do well we'll see you all tomorrow and thank you so much Julie.