 Welcome to another episode of the nonprofit show. We are delighted that you are here with us today. I am super excited because we have Yanni San Luis with us. She is going to be talking to us about creating boundaries with donors. And in the green room chatter, I was telling her, I was like, Yanni, we're now in your three of this going on close to 600 episodes. I don't really think that we've had this discussion. We kind of nip at the heels a little bit, but this is a really powerful, powerful discussion. So I say, let's get into it. But before we do, and before we start picking your brain, I want to reintroduce myself. If you don't know who I am, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. Jared Ransom, the nonprofit nerd, is traveling today. So she'll be back with us shortly. Again, we want to thank all of our presenting sponsors without them. We would not be here having these robust discussions. We want to give our gratitude and shout out to Blumerang American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, the nonprofit nerd, fundraising academy, staffing boutique, and nonprofit thought leader. And hey, you can get back to us in all of our episodes on Roku, YouTube, Vimeo, Amazon Fire TV. If you have a smart speaker with your TV system, speak into it, say the nonprofit show, and we will pop up. We're also now broadcasting or producing all of our episodes in podcast format. Kevin Pace, our interpret executive producer, just told us yesterday that we now have 100 podcasts that have been uploaded. So we're really excited about that and sharing that. Okay, Yanni, we've done the housekeeping. Now it's all about you, my friend. Yanni Saneliz, coming to us today from Miami, CEO and founder of The Wind Woman. What is The Wind Woman? Yeah, so thanks so much for having me on, Julian, and really appreciate everybody else who's listening in. So we are a fourth, we're helping forward-thinking nonprofit organizations and core foundations really maximize revenue, impact, and effectiveness. And how we do that is through a number of different things, whether it's term key fundraising campaigns, strategic partnership development, donor and board activation, and reorganizations. And so we have, for us, how we go about those things. We have a CSR, corporate social responsibility side of the house with corporate philanthropy, and then we have our nonprofit side of the house that we're working actively with higher education institutions and nonprofit organizations. So that's what we do. Amazing. Now, are you kind of working within a certain geography of this country or North America? Or are you? So we are nationwide. Nationwide is what we are. We do work in the Southeast. That's where our primary base is. But we do have clients in Texas and in California. And so we do a lot of, we have fortunate enough to have a lot of work throughout the country as well. Awesome. Well, let's dig into this. Because like I was saying, Yanni, I'm really intrigued with this concept of boundaries. And I think that we are afraid of this. I think it's sometimes crazy hard to say no. And we think of boundaries as no. So one of your pointers starting out is having clear communications with donors. Talk to me about that. Absolutely. And I would like to kind of share from the, it comes from the top of all before it goes into external. And so I'm going to give you a quick scenario because I myself and my background, I have been 15 year plus season major gifts professional. So I have been for those of your listeners who are in development, I understand you and I hear you and I've been there with you. So I understand and I do think, and I think what has happened in the pandemic, Julia and for everyone is your boundaries got a little stretched as it related to closing gifts. And I will share with you very candidly in this space a clear communication with donors and especially when they're principal gift donors or major gift donors or donor that you're trying to establish a transformational gift really starts with the internal culture on the top. And so I would say before I get into establishing clear communication with your donors, it really needs to be, and I'm sharing this with CEOs of foundations and the ones that are higher education institutions and CEOs of nonprofit, but you as the CEO have a really have to establish what your internal culture is because your team and your staff is seeing how you are reacting to things. So for example, I will say we had, in coming from the higher education space during the pandemic, so the heights of April, 2020, May, 2020, imagine were June 1st, this is the close of the fiscal year. What was happening is that you're on this rapid fire trying to close gifts as much as you can, but then you couldn't meet with people. So there was a policy, right? Policies that were happening that you, externally, you're like, you can't meet with people but then the leadership was meeting with people and then you felt if you had uncomfortable boundary or you had people at home, imagine think of yourself at April, 2020, what that looked like, you now were beholden to meet with your donors too. And so it comes from the top number one, leadership needs to set the example on how we are going to work with their donors and what are clear boundaries and where not. So that's number one as far as have clear communication Once that's set, the big thing here, and this is where we're seeing a lot more of in the industry is trust based philanthropy. I know that you've talked about it on your show before and that sort of thing, but the big communication with your donors not only on your own time, but when you are securing gifts for the future and your building gifts, we need to also establish communication and expectations. If things cost more than they really are, we need to say that because I've seen so many different times that clear expectations with your donors need to come in and saying, this gift is worth X amount in the past, with things with inflation, everything else, this is what it costs, but candidly, this is where we need to go. So I think clear expectations is the piece, but in the personal side, when you are going as, as far as establishing time frames, it's not about being available 24-7. I'd like to think if you have a robust CRM system and you're able to track meeting donors where they're at and you're communicating with them often in the stewardship cycle, then you don't need to forgo your weekends and you don't need to forgo your evenings if you have a system that's in place, right? And so I think that that's the piece that we have to think about in the way we're tweaking stewardship and we're meeting people where they're at, but also not compromising our pieces, our own time and our sanity. You know, it's really a fascinating thing to hear you speak about the mental side of being accessible. And when I hear you speak, I'm kind of captured by this notion of understanding fear and being accessible to honesty, being accessible to saying the honest thing. I loved what you just said about, hey, there's inflation, their costs are changing and we get so hogtied by this number that we gotta get to this gift number for this specific person. And then a boundary that we cross or that we turn away from is almost honesty or disclosure. I mean, is that right on or? Absolutely, you nailed it on the head and I will tell you, just to kind of dive a little deeper into that, right? What happens, and this is what was happening in the pandemic and it should have been happening more often and I hope it's a lesson that we continue to adopt now was the fact that on the corporate philanthropy side because that's our team's expertise and my own individual expertise on where my own philanthropic and when I was soliciting dollars for when I was a frontline fundraiser we had to really level set if a donor was giving project-based, very, very niche-based we had to level set with them and I had to have a lot of conversations at that time and I had to say, here's the thing I know you gave us 100K for X project however we're not gonna be able to deliver on these things this year because we don't know where the pandemic is going to turn. What I'd like to do is use this cash or I'd like to do earmark and let's really establish greatest need here and not just do project-based, right? And having those open conversations as you are not just when the impact report is happening but really having them and walking them alongside us and also treating them as an advisor and not just someone that's just giving you cash, right? Saying, here's the thing I'd like to meet you or your app or what I'm realizing is the expectations that we set at the beginning of the GIST no longer work and I want your advice on how we can figure it out. I have some suggestions, but can we co-create this? And I think that's the piece, right? How are we co-creating our relationships with our donors and how can we not just solicit them but take them on the journey with us so that when things come up in issues and you need more funds or you need to re-solicit that it's been an honest conversation to do so. You know, so I'm fascinated by this and to me, when I hear you say this it's an extension of that authentic conversation that puts the donor in the place of where you are. I've got to ask you this question, Yanni. Saying this to donors, what was the response? I mean, have you seen donors like, you bet I want to be a solution or have they been like, no, this is what I signed up for? Like, what's that dynamic been? You know, it's just a matter of how you, before you had the covering, this is the reason why it's the trust-based philanthropy and how you build trust, right? And the truth of the matter is it has developed in professional people. Yes, people are giving it. I'm going to say something a little controversial but I will say it anyway. So here's the thing. At the end of the day, regardless of the mission, donors and especially when you're talking about the first generation that we, first generation type donors, people of color type donors, right? They do business with people that they, we all do business with people that they like but they are very tied to the development professional that they are, that has a relationship and has the, that is conducting the solicitation. And I say this because it's how you've also kept up with them throughout, right? It's not just transactional, here's the impact report and we're touching base and we're saying thank you cards and we're sending them little chalk keys. No, that's not it, it's just a matter of if you're able to kind of level set and you know, sometimes even just text message, right? And just be able to say, hey, have a quick, can you have a couple of minutes to chat? Can we do this? It's just a matter of the consistency beforehand to be able to answer your question. I will say there was a lot of them that were like, we understand, we want you to be able, like, and here's the thing. It was a matter of like, and it wasn't in the tone that it was basically in the tone that was set but it's a matter of how we say either your money sits in the account and we don't do anything or we have this group of people that we can impact and I can show you that impact fast. And frankly, I really did not have and our teams and the clients that we serve did not have a lot of people, if any, that were like, we know we wanna hold until this, right? Cause we didn't know, it was the uncertainty at the time. No, and we still don't. I think that's the thing. I mean, we still don't. I mean, there's a lot going on on so many level and Yanni, we've talked a lot about this on the nonprofit show is that, we use the word pandemics plural. It's not just a health pandemic, but social justice, social, civil unrest. You wanna add gun violence. I mean, there's some pandemics that in economics, the economic situation that are truly exerting stress and pressure across so many sectors of society. And so these things are at the forefront of what the nonprofit sector does. This is like a reality. Well, and that's a thing. If you've been watching the markets, right? And after everybody here, if you've been watching the markets right now and you've been watching what the banks are reporting, where the close of quarter two of this year, reporting loss, we are, it's very likely that we're gonna be going into a recession. And with that, I mean, I wanna tell you something. I was a fundraiser in 2008 and 2009 and 2010. And we weren't prepared for that, right? We weren't prepared for those pieces. So how, one of the things that I wanna talk to you all about as well and just kind of share is how are we really creating those relationships and making fostering it a little bit more in preparation, recession proofing our nonprofits and making sure that we're establishing boundaries now because the last thing that you wanna do is then it feels like it's transactional, right? And your donors can feel it. And that's the piece that we wanna avoid. So part of creating boundaries with your donors and kind of understanding what your direction is, you're like speaking my love language, everything you've said, I'm like right in there with you. But this is something I'd love to explore because I'm not sure I fully understand or can see this in practice. And that as you mentioned, connecting in meaningful ways and supporting your passions, hello, outside the nonprofit. So what does that look like to you? So I will tell you very honestly, I'm a lover and supporter of the arts and it's a combination of things, right? It's Broadway, it's ballet. There's a number of things that I am especially passionate about for me. And then I also serve on United Way and there's a number of things and there's events within the United Way. There's a lot of times that for me, my own donors also supported the arts, also supported those things. And yes, maybe your organization buys tickets to a table to something and that's fine. However, that's not what I'm talking about. Sometimes you connect with your donors in a different way. And this is where the boundaries are set. Not saying that you're doing this with every single person. These are, you build a relationship that becomes almost friendship wise, right? There's a number of donors that started off as donors for me, but really became friends and just colleagues. And here's how I see it in the sense of being of service and understanding where they're at is a lot of times my conversations with donors or individuals or prospects are like what's going on and if they're business owners or if they're partners and firms, what's going on with your business right now that we can help you with? Like what's the troubleshooting piece of what's happening? And I know I had a number of donors that are like, you know, we're really trying to make our headway into the arts. We have no idea where to start. And I said, you know, I serve on the board of XYZ organization. Why don't you join me for a meeting? I just kind of, and this was outside of your, this was outside of the organization I was soliciting for and I was a development office for it. But it was one of those things of like come with me to this. What are those things? There was even a, there was a donor that I had that him and I, and this is so funny, but we used to like, well, he liked very much just murder crimes and like, you know, like not just the crime junkies and podcasts and things like that, but there's a lot of history here in Miami. I'm sure a lot of other states as well, but he was a board member with the History Miami Museum and they would do these graveyard sessions. So I got him tickets and I was like, hey, do you want to come and do this graveyard piece? Like he was so delighted. Yes, absolutely. So I say about being creative and meeting them where they're at and where their interests are at. You know, obviously if it's your own, if you have your same passion projects, what I'm not saying is to be inauthentic and purchase tickets to something that they like. Like I have nothing to do with NASCAR, not to say that, you know, I understand the sport and everything, but you won't catch me at a NASCAR event, right? And I'm not going to go there for a donor essentially sometimes, you know? That's basically- Yeah, but wait, but Miami just had that big F1. It did, you're right, you're right. Okay. I'm not gonna have been interesting. No, absolutely. I was like- I've been there- Huge philanthropy. There was huge philanthropy going on there. Yes, absolutely. No, and I will tell you, not to say that if I, under the guise of the organization, we would have sponsored something and we would have done, right? That's different, but in my own personal time and passion projects, the fact that you are able to kind of say, hey, I have an extra thing to this or I'm going to this, do you wanna meet me there? That fosters and deepens relationships much more than anything else, right? And so that's where I mean, like outside of the organization, outside of sponsored events, outside of the traditional, right? Meeting them and I had a, when I was working in higher ed, I had a dean that was, we would have a tab on the CRM that was called quiet observations, right? So these are things that, it's just instinct and intuition that you would just kind of put in to the CRM so that we can remember, but what are those quiet observations that you can really, that are one that are gratifying for you, but also that you can bring them along too? So just some examples. And I love that because I think you started off this conversation, this piece about servant leadership and community building is what we're talking about. And so I love that you said that because I think this is another issue of that fear and that scarcity mentality of like, oh, well, I'm not gonna share this information with my donor, I don't want them to be giving money somewhere else or you know, we close the door to the greater community and that doesn't serve anyone. That does not serve anyone. So I love that you brought this up. Okay, now another one of the things that you talk about really strongly in terms of creating boundaries and really working with your donors is being consistent in working delivery. Wow, that's hard in a changing landscape when the very first part of our day together on the nonprofit show was the realization that where we started with programming and things that we thought we were gonna do couldn't necessarily be done or still can't be done because of the pandemic. So how do you deal with this? Right, and I think it's kind of comes back to having that open line of communication in the sense of if things are changing, don't wait till that last minute to communicate that they're changing. There are times where I've had to have very tough decisions and or very tough conversations and say, you know, what the gift that what we allocated for and when we started spending, we realized that was not utilized to the best of its ability. And I wanna just come clean about that and just share with like, how can we, this is a solution of what we're gonna do and this is what we're gonna be. Or, you know, especially with being consistent in work and delivery, I think the expectation is is if they have found out about it before you had a time to get to talk to them about it, that's where we're lacking the trust and the pieces, right? So if we have to redefine where what delivery looks like, then that's, we need to have the conversation on the front end. Or even if you don't know what that looks like yet, you can say, we're figuring this out at this time, I wanted to give you a heads up, give me until the end of the week, give me until next week, and I should have a solution for you, right? It needs to be holding that hand if we're establishing that boundary, so that they understand where that looks like. Now, I think that what ends up happening is, we underestimate and we forget that these people are, I mean, they're human, right? We are, and that they make mistakes too, and we make mistakes. And I think that it's the level set at the beginning of the working relationship or even the reporting, right? Because a lot of times gift agreements are very stringent. And when we are putting those parameters in place, we need to be able to execute, and I know people are just even sometimes even rolling their eyes about it. They're like, oh, I have to amend the gift agreement that's going to take forever. Which is why it's like, as keep it as big as possible for gift agreements. However, the expectation with the donor and the consistent delivery, to me, it's more so consistent, consistency in the way that you communicate is to me far none what trumps everything else, right? So how are you communicating with your portfolio on a monthly basis? How are you actually reaching out not just to invite them to something of your organization, but how are you checking in? How are you making sure? And how is that CRM that you have supporting you in that effort, right? If you're not putting things into the CRM, then we need to have a conversation about that because I don't know how you're raising, you cannot have, you cannot raise, and I'm gonna say this, you will not be able to scale your organization if you don't have a CRM in place of all. I appreciate you saying that. I mean, we know from AFP that the average tenure of a major gifts officer is like 18 months. And so talk about a catastrophic change in portfolio. Management, you know, if we don't have that information, then we're gonna be starting over basically every year and a half and that's kind of just the reality. Now I wanna get back in and again, gosh, I can't believe our time is almost up. I have so many questions. I have so many questions for you. And this is one of the things that you've a theme that I have been hearing you share with us this morning give transparent expectations to donors. And I wanna add a word and have you respond to this. I think you need to include the word courage. You know, have courage, exactly what you said. You know, we make mistakes, we have external threats and external things that cause us to change our directions. I'm really curious about this. Like, how do you do this and still feel confident? Because we work with such a degree of fear in fundraising. And I don't treat. Absolutely, I had a client share with me and had to have a very kind conversation with their seed funder about the fact that the turnover in the team and the staff has really depleted the funds, the seed funding that was given to really elevate and steal the organization. And I remember having the conversation with our client and I said, you know, before we start troubleshooting and thinking through what needs to happen and beautifying and fluffing the language, why don't we just come out and say, ex donor, we're broken right now. And I just want to, I want you to know that we're broken. And as a seed funder, I know, and it's a health. And it was, and I can't imagine the CEO of my client was like, you want me to say what? I said, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I need you to just come out and say, we're broken at this time. And what I'm really needing is for us to help. I'm really needing for you to come on the journey with me, I'm rewriting our strategic vision and our strategic plan. And because you have been such a fundamental piece of this, I need you to come, what I need from you is to come to help me build this out. And that's, and to me, the donor, she was just incredibly frightened to just do this to begin with, but the donor was so just kind of like and the guard was down and was like, you know what? I can reroute my schedule, what so soon as you can meet. And let's just try to figure this out. And it was, and ended up giving another seed funding gift to help this happen. And I'm telling you, when you are able to bring in and just say, we're broken, I need your help. I just, this is, it's not working. I thought we had a handle on this. We don't, I realize that this is disappointing, acknowledge it, it's disappointed in the investment that's being made. We don't, we value your opinion and what I would love is for you to come with me and really fortify the strategy that we're having moving forward. So it doesn't happen again, so that we are prepared and so that we're learning from this. Don't be afraid to fail. And I see that for me, it's a matter of, you know, solid relationships require solid boundaries, they require solid expectations and level setting. So feel free to level set. Okay, Yanni, I have loved everything that you've said. I feel like you've articulated a lot of things that maybe we think about and we dance around, but the way you phrase things, it's been magical. I wanna make sure that everybody gets a chance to see Yanni's information. Yanni San Luis, founder and CEO of the Win Woman, thewinwoman.com, check her out. Your website's great and you really give away a lot of information and it's really powerful, incredibly motivational, so I can't say enough about it. I'm also, I'm putting your feet to the fire, sister, and getting you back on, talk about that first generational donor, because this is a huge topic. It's a big, big deal. I'm happy to get on the calendar for that. Yes. Well, we're gonna do that because that is just so important. Yanni San Luis, thank you so much. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. Jared Ransom, the non-profit nerd, will be back with us shortly. Again, I wanna thank all of our presenting sponsors who've been with us day in and day out. We are almost at 600 episodes in year three. Thank you, Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, non-profit nerd, fundraising academy, staffing boutique, and non-profit thought leader. Yanni, you have just fired me up today, and I am so appreciative that we could get you and share this time, and I look forward to having you back on with us. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day, Julia, and everyone who's listening in. Thank you. Hey, everybody, as we end every episode of the non-profit show, we want to remind you to stay well. So you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow, everyone.