 Welcome and thank you. Thanks to all of you for joining us. Another episode of the nonprofit show, and we have back with us today, one of our favorite guests, Mr. Jack Alotto with Fundraising Academy. And Jack is back to talk to us today about 10 Epic Fundraising Fails. Now we're doing this in a two part series. So today is part one, and we'll cover five of those fails. Tomorrow is part dose, and we will cover the other five of those fails. So again, we will dive into this with Jack here shortly. If we haven't met yet, Julia Patrick is here, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. And I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven Group. And Jack, your glasses look awfully familiar to my nerd glasses. So I love it. We've got to get you some tape, but it looks fantastic. So yeah, and thank you to our presenting sponsors that keep this show going and growing. We are so grateful to have the support of Bloomerang, the American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy, Nonprofit Nerd, your part-time controller, the Nonprofit Atlas, the Nonprofit Thought Leader, as well as staffing boutique. So thank you to our sponsors. Please check them out. They exist to help you and your mission do more good in around and throughout your community. So check them out, not now, but in just a brief amount of time. So again, thank you Jack for coming back. You are a trainer with Fundraising Academy and we are just so thrilled to tap into your knowledge today as we talk about and start talking about these 10 epic fails. Yes. So let me start off by saying that I've committed every one of these fails. Not only have I committed these 10, but another 100 that we're not gonna be talking about. Okay, perfect. Don't, if you hear something you say, ooh, yikes, I've done that. Don't feel bad about it. We all make these fails. And I like this, there's so many books out there guys that talk about how to do things. So some of these are hell not to do some things. Yes. I love that you said that. And we have a lot to cover and I will mention this at the end. Because there's so many things, we've taken all of your knowledge and put it into a one sheet. So that if you wanna take these ideas and maybe do an internal conversation with your development team or something kind of hopefully made that a little bit easier, but let's start off with number one. Failure to recognize fundraising is selling. Oh yes, this is a huge fundraising fail. Selling is cause selling, which is our model at the fundraising Academy is based upon building relationships. What we are doing is we are selling our cause. And every day we sell, we sell the idea that our children should eat their vegetables. What we're doing in fundraising, however, we're selling ideas, we're selling attitude change. Let me give you an example of selling attitude change. And you probably heard this expression before, friends don't let friends drive drunk. That's selling an attitude change. And it was very effective when mothers against drunk driving put this out there. They're selling ideas, perspectives, priorities. As a fundraiser, think of your programs and or services as your product. We are trying to end homelessness. That's our product. So now we have to sell that cause and we sell ideas, concept solutions. When you embrace the notion that you are selling, you are not being disloyal to a mission or your core values. Instead what you're doing is embracing a proven business model so that the future of your organization's mission can be realized. So selling is not a bad word. In fact, that's what we need to do. Sell our causes, sell our ideas. And when we fail to recognize that, then we are making an epic fundraising fail. Okay, I think we need to end the show right now. Just... That's a wrap. You know, that's a wrap. Because you know, Jack, I think you're right. And I feel, and Jared and I have spoken about this probably more off camera than we have on camera. And that is that we get trapped by this notion that selling is a bad thing. And then it just permeates across our whole, you know, development team into the rest of our organization. And I just am so frustrated that this issue, it continues to exist. And so I love that you started us out this way. I mean, this is just like brilliant. It's a lens for the rest of our two days together, I feel. Yeah. Well, when you remember, sorry to interrupt, Jack. Literally this past Friday, one of our questions from a viewer was specifically about is fundraising selling? And of course, Fundraising Academy, you know, was right there as our underwriter for our Friday answer. And I said, it's right there in their title, right? It is like right here, a cause selling model or cause selling education. So great way to start these epic fails. Okay, so man, I'm kind of worried that you're going to be able to even talk this because that was like so awesome. But let's get into number two, understanding the heart of giving to a nonprofit. What is that? And what is at the heart? How do we understand the heart of why people give? We have to understand what drives our donors to make a gift to our organization. If we don't try to understand that, then we are never going to be able to build a relationship that is eventually going to lead to a gift. I think the epic fail here is that where we say, our cause is so great. Who couldn't understand why we need to end homelessness or care for the sick or the poor? That's a fail when that's the only perspective we come from. If we try to understand why people give, then we can establish relationships and get to that gift. So what are some of the reasons? They want to change somebody's life. They want to get a tax deduction. They want to create a good image for themselves in the community. They want to leave a legacy to the community. They want to give because they see the benefit. So the key here is that when you understand the motivations for giving, you can tailor your presentation to meet the individual who you are asking for a gift to meet and understand their driving force behind their gift making. So when we neglect to try to understand that, we make an epic fundraising fail. Epic fail. Now talk to us, Jack. How do we do this? How do we really glean the motivation of the donor? What are some best ways to do that so that we don't fail? Oh, I love this question. So the first thing is to ask questions. But the second part is to listen to their answers. We say in the fundraising academy, talk less, listen more. You don't talk your way into a gift. You listen your way into a gift by listening to them. They'll tell you one of the questions I used to ask all the time. Why do you make a gift? Why would you make a gift? Why have you made a gift to our organization? They're gonna tell you what their motivation is and listen to it. And that's where you meet them with their motivation and you tailor that presentation to their motivation. If Julia called me up and said, I'm interested in women's health at your healthcare facility, I'm gonna talk to her about women's health. I'm not gonna talk with her about oncology or the emergency room. She has told me what her motivation is in trying to understand what we're doing in our hospital. You know, I think it's so hard because for nonprofits, we're like, we do this and we do so much more. And I feel like we always wanna pour everything into that conversation. And really if we listen to the donor and they will say, I'm really interested in women's health then yes, let's focus our narrative, our presentation, our, you know, our appeals, everything too, that specific motivation, I love that. You know, and you're right, we don't talk our way to the gift, we listen. That is that right there is a quote that needs to be like worldwide. Yeah, that's awesome. And you know, okay, I thought that you wouldn't be able to top number one but this is pretty dang dang close. Oh wait, I'm gonna try and top every one of these jewelry. I know, he's got eight more. Oh my God, I'm like really getting stressed out for you here, Jack. Okay, so now number three, Epic fundraising fail which I love if you joined us in the beginning, you were like, hey, I've done all these and more which I just loved. You're like not including board of director members in prospecting, talk to us about that. So I've, this is another fail for me, you know, not going to my board members and asking them for referrals. You know, one of the things you guys are probably asked all the time, one of the things I'm asked on ask all the time, how do I acquire new donors? Well, one easy, non-stressful way is to ask our board members for referrals. You know, the second group who you would ask, ask your major donors for referrals. You go to your board members and you say things and your major donors and you say, do you know anyone in your circle of influence who might be interested in making a gift or hearing more about our organization to that you could introduce me to. After you ask for the referrals, what's the next thing you ask for? Can you send them an email? Can you set up a coffee with them? Can you give some connection to those? You know, one of the things that research shows that 80%, 80% of our donors are willing to recommend other donors to our organization. So if there are, if our major donors and our annual donors and our board members who are also donors, if 80% of them were saying, I would be happy, then our fail is when we neglect to ask them. And this is another epic fail that I've made, neglect to ask them. So I'm gonna throw this out there, Jack, because I have a feeling some of our viewers and listeners are thinking, that feels really slimy, right? Like that feels really uncomfortable. I'm not sure if I have the confidence in doing that with it coming off in the right way. And I'm sure because you help so many CFRE, Certified Fundraising Executives, I'm sure this has come up before. So talk to us about the slimy factor. So I don't see the slimy. What I think I'm doing, if I ask Jared who has made a gift to my organization, I'm saying to her, to you, Jared, do you know anyone in your circle of influence who shares our values? Who shares our vision and who would be interested in helping advance our mission? I mean, here's about the whole relationship. People in your circle of influence share with you. They share your values, I would assume. Otherwise they wouldn't be in your network. So it's not an uncomfortable thing for me to ask that because I love it. One of the things that some organizations do with their board members, they put in their board agreement, a board member agreement, I will introduce you to the following three individuals. Right, right. I love that connection to the value. Who else shares in our value, in our goal to eradicate homelessness, right? Like that's exactly what we're looking at. And I remember as a baby fundraiser thinking, that's a lot of money. I'm afraid to ask for that much money. And really once I realized that I'm providing an opportunity for an investment in the cause, right? Again, that value alignment, then it started to make sense to me, which is why I keep saying, I really wish that I had Fundraising Academy 20 years ago. Me too. Jared, I feel exactly the same way because, Jack, I know that I have made these fundraising fails and to your point, many more over and over again. And in some of them, I self-corrected because to Jared's point, I became more confident. And I think that the first time I asked for a million dollar gift and it came through, then I was like, well, sign me up. You know what I mean? I was so confident, but it took a while to understand that. And a lot of it wasn't revealed until I had more experience in his heartbreaking, because I feel like personally, I kind of wasted time, you know, for my community. And it's like, oh, I hate that. But okay, now this kind of dovetails to what Jared said. He's not done, there's more. I'm sorry, wait. Go ahead. So what I was thinking, Julia, as you were talking, you know, we ask our board members for referrals, we ask our major donors or donors in general for referrals, how about asking our volunteers and our staff and our administrators for referrals? All right, there's lots of ways to do prospect research. We could do database searches, we can look at other organizations, but these are really the closest people to our organization. These four or five groups that I've mentioned, asking them. And I'll tell you what, for my work experience, going to a volunteer and saying, hey, do you know anybody in your circle of influence? Your network. And they would come up with things and they would say, well, you know, I know somebody on the board of some foundation. Yeah, yeah. Or I'd play golf with somebody who works at, who was a corporate giving program officer at some corporation. So there are lots of things. You know, the thing about these first three that we've talked about, they're kind of related. Building relationships with our board members, selling our cause and the need for them to make referrals to us. Our understanding donor motivations, all of these things are about building relationships, aren't they? Yeah, relationship, relationship, relationship. It's the heart, it's the soul, it's everything that you could think of in not only in fundraising, but in life. I was just going to say, you know, it's the right way to live. And it's also, I think as we, you know, move forward. And again, with nearly 500 episodes under our belt, I think for me, Jared, this has really been cemented in that it's more sustainable. You know, you can get 10 bucks out of somebody pretty much by twisting their arm, but to get these longer term relationships, and I believe to your point, Jack, donors bring other donors. They do, they do. So, you know, I'm just a little aside of them watching the Gilded Age. Yeah, yeah. You know, all of the very wealthy women are giving to other causes that other very wealthy socialites in New York City are asking them to give to. You know, it's those relationships they have. You know, one of the episodes was about the American Red Cross coming to the US in the late 1800s and how these women got together and said, we've got to support this organization. We need this here. It was in England at the time. So it's, I mean, asking each other for referrals, having these social soirees and all those things. Another thing that your board members can do, they could do at a house party, very inexpensively, where they could bring that circle of influence. You know, all they have to do is invite them. And then it's your job to build that relationship with those people who attend. I heard a board member say not long ago, you know, that he hosted a house party for his friends and he called it wine, cheese and more wine. I am so there. Yeah, they're definitely there. Well, talk to us about researching because I think that was one on your list here. You talked a little bit about this, you know, prospecting. So you again, for those of you joining us, Jack has made all of these mistakes. All of them. And 100 more. And 100 more. I'm guilty as well, right? Like guilty as well. So what about the researching not doing enough? Is that what you mean here? So here's the thing. The problem and a fail is not researching your prospects and your donor. So let's take a scenario. Okay, Julia says, I know somebody in my circle of influence who might be interested in making a gift to our homeless shelter. That's where she's on my board or she's a major donor. So then I have to do my research about that prospect and a failure to do the research. Who's the first person I'm gonna talk to about this prospect? Julia, I'm gonna say Julia, who drives philanthropic decisions for this prospect that you're gonna introduce me to? I might look in my database. What is their giving history to my organization? I may say to Julia, what are their personal interests? What things do they like to do? What's their passion? What's their priority? And a really important question that I would ask her, do they share your values as it relate to our homeless shelter? So doing all that research before, what other charitable work and giving have they done? What are their connections? What other information do I want to know before I even have any contact with that individual? That's the way to, if you wanna be successful and not fail, you do your research about the prospect or donor before you even have any conversation with them. And who's the best person to help us? That person who gave the referral. Absolutely. I love that. I love hearing from the referral, let's say it's coming from Julia and Julia is gonna say, I think Jarrett would be a good person for you to talk to. Tell me more about that, right? What is it that Jarrett's involved with? Why do you think she might be aligned with these values? I think you hit the nail on the head there, Jack, because you're right, who else knows this person better than the one making that referral? And from all this information, what you can do is you can prepare the questions you're going to ask that prospect or potential donor beforehand. Because if she shares to me what Jarrett's values are, Jarrett likes to see healthy children who are not food deprived. Then my conversation with you when I meet you is gonna be around, what do you think, how do we solve this problem? What do you see as the major reason why some children are food deprived? Whatever the issue is, I think it's so important because when I meet with Julia and she tells me what your values and passion are, then I'm gonna craft my questions around those. And remember I said, you listen your way into a gift as opposed to talking, I'm gonna ask you open-ended questions. You know, Jack, hearing you talk about this, I think that this could be a really interesting, almost like a board teaching moment to go before your board and to say, we're looking for referrals, but this is what we need. We don't just need an email with somebody's name and an email address or phone number, but this is what we're looking for because it is more meaningful and more sustainable when you could frame it up. And I think you're gonna get better leads if the board members or other donors or whatever could understand the context. Yes, I love that idea. Here's another thing. If I'm calling Jared, okay? I'm calling her up and she's a very busy woman. I know she is because I follow her social media so she's extremely busy, but I call her up and I say, hi, Jared, this is Jack Alotto. I'm from XYZ Homeless Company, Homeless Nonprofit. I'm calling you because Julia gave me your name as a potential person who might be interested in learning more about what we're doing around homelessness. You think she's gonna respond from that message quicker? Yeah, she is. Absolutely, because of the relationship, right? Like it comes from that warm relationship, absolutely. So that kind of moves us into our first impression and that is one of your top 10. And again, for those of you joining us, this is a two-part series. So today we are covering five and tomorrow we'll cover the remaining five. What about these first impressions? So I love that you mentioned the referral's name in the introduction. How else might we look into our first impressions? So the first 10 words that come out of your mouth must include a form of thanks. Thank you, Jared, for meeting with me this morning. Thank you, Jared, for agreeing to take my phone call today. Thank you, Jared, for visiting our organization to see what we're doing around homelessness. The first 10 words out of your mouth must include thank you. When I met with donors who had given previously, the first thing I would say to them, thank you for your past support of our organization. We really appreciate it. Here are some other tips. And you probably, if the prospect is a person who shakes hands, shake hands like you mean it. Yes, yes. Oh, this limp hand like this, I've had those hands shakes, we all have. It's off-putting for many people. So shake hands like you mean it. Here's the other thing, be confident. Project yourself as a leader, not as insincere or apologetic. Oh, please make a gift to our homeless shelter. No, that doesn't exude confidence. Be confident. Confidence signals to donors and prospects that you believe in your cause. You're selling your cause, remember that. Be different. Everyone starts this. How are you doing today? Try to be different. That expression has lost all meaning, it really has. No one's gonna say, oh, I had a terrible, my dog would need her kibble this morning or this, people don't wanna, that's really not what it is. Ask people, tell them, especially ask them questions if you're sitting in their office, look around their office, if you see they like to camp or a backpack or whatever it is, ask questions, start that conversation with that as opposed to that very trite way of how are you doing today? Take the lead. Here's another thing, go ahead. For those of us that are also still meeting or we've incorporated this hybrid approach, that we're also meeting not only in-person, but virtually many times we can learn a lot from the background, even this here, these squares. I, same story, Jack, I was talking to someone, I saw a photo and in that photo told me a story and I asked, wow, is that what I think I see in the photo behind you? Which then kicked off this beautiful story which told me a lot about this person's background. Right, that's a beautiful example of not having that first thing that you talk about. And you know what you're doing, what you did by doing that is you engage them immediately in themselves, talking about themselves, which is really good. What a couple of other things that I really think are important. And what you did as a beautiful example of this is you asked a question to get them talking about themselves. Yes. That's what you did, that's so important. Here are a couple of tips that I like. And again, these are many fails within this first meeting, okay? Treat a donor meeting as you would in an interview. That's a really key thing, you know, dress for it. Make sure you're not wearing logo shirts or you know, you just smoked a cigarette and you're coming into a meeting and you smell like tobacco. All of those things are epic fails with donors. And that first impression, it really is to that first impression. Okay, Jack, you've got a couple of minutes to squeeze out that last mini fail. Okay, choose the right time and place. If you're going to meet and ask somebody for a $10,000 gift, make sure it's not a noisy restaurant. Make eye contact. Yes, that eye contact. Well, and that eye contact also like increases your confidence, right? It really levels up that confidence. Right, it's so important to smile but not in a fake way. Project optimism. Have some questions ready to go and project that lead that you are going to lead this effort with this prospect. I love it. So this again, as Jared mentioned, it's really unique. I don't know, Jared, if we've ever really done this, you know, two day discussion, there's a lot to unpack here. And what we did is we took all of Jack's 10 epic fundraising fails. We put them on one sheet of paper so that maybe you could take that back to your development team or you could do it as a board exercise or you could do it as a staff-wide exercise and make it be something that's conversational and fun and honest and help lead your team to be really the great fundraisers that they can be. You can access this through emailing us. You can access this. I'll tell you what, I'll give you my personal email address today, jcpatamericanonprofitacademy.com. Can't believe I just did that to our giant ecosystem of viewers. But yeah, I really believe in this. And so I'm willing to give you that information. Email me and we will pop this PDF over to you. It's really great. Jack, as always, you give us amazing insight and ideas with Fundraising Academy. It's just been such a wonderful thing to be able to get to know you and your team and to learn these things. As Jarrett and I say all the time, if we'd had this earlier, the trajectory of what we were bringing to our communities might've been radically different. Again, I'm Julia Patrick. I've been joined by the nonprofit nurse herself, Jarrett Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. If you want to learn more about what Fundraising Academy has done on our episodes or any of our other wonderful guests, nearly 500 episodes, you can find us on Roku, YouTube TV, Amazon Fire TV and Vimeo. And again, we want to thank all of our sponsors, Bloom Rang, American Nonprofit Academy, Your Part Time Controller, the Nonprofit Nerd Fundraising Academy, the Nonprofit Atlas, Nonprofit Thought Leader and Staffing Boutique. You make these conversations possible. And as we end every episode, we want to remind you and ourselves, stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here for part two tomorrow. Thank you.