 Welcome to the nonprofit show and happy money. We are starting off a brand new week and we are thrilled to have you joining us today for the nonprofit show. Today we have with us. I'm going to call it out Susan, a birthday baby. Susan Kramer is here joining us. She's founder of Susan Kramer Consulting celebrating her birthday at some point this month, not today, but she's also joining us from the principal's office today. So more on that later, but there's a quick teaser, but she's here to talk to us about creating transformational philanthropy. Now, if that's not a mouthful, I don't know what is, but we are thrilled to have you. And for those of you that are watching and listening, if you haven't met us quite yet. Hello to you, Julia. Julia Patrick is here. Of course, she's the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. And I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group. And together we are so truly honored to have the ongoing support and commitment from these amazing sponsors that allow us these live daily conversations. So shout out of gratitude goes to our friends over at Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, fundraising Academy at National University, nonprofit thought leader, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, nonprofit nerd, as well as nonprofit tech talk. Again, these companies collectively with our help and their support have helped us to produce nearly 1000 episodes. So we started in March of 2020 and you can find all of these previous episodes on multiple platforms. So if you have your phone with you, which I know you do because who does it nowadays, you can go ahead and scan that QR code and download the app. You can also find us on streaming broadcast channels and podcast channels. So pretty much wherever you binge watch or listen entertainment these days, you can also find us there. And just later today our conversation that we're having with our guest, you will get a notification that it is uploaded onto these channels. So Susan, back to you. Thrilled to have you with us. Again, those of you watching and listening, we have Susan Kramer, where she's the founder of Susan Kramer Consulting. Welcome to you. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for having me. It's very exciting. It's I you know, when you say you're the nonprofit geek, it's like totally geek out on this type of conversation. Yes. What I love to talk about. Well, and I'm very fond of your glasses within your logo as well, because you know, I have them too. I love it. You know, you've got to share with us why you're in the principal's office today. Right? Yeah, so I live in Denver, Colorado and it's just the jungle, right? So I have some clients in Baltimore in a conference that I was going to attend and I knew that I had agreed to the podcast and wanted to participate. So the meetings here at one of the schools, which is a client of mine in Baltimore and the principal was very kind and she's like use my office and I'm just like, okay, you know, I could find a place for myself but use my office. So here I sit at the principal's office and I wasn't there that much, but I was in the principal's office in school a couple of times, I must say. Yeah, that's so great. Well, and as you said, right, like well behaved women rarely make history. So here you are making history. And again, just want to say thank you, Susan, because I know you and I connected a previous guest had joined us on the show and invited you on and what we're about to launch into is you talk about, there are really seven letters to fundraise and we're about to show those seven letters and I want you to talk to us about that because it looks like ice equals dealer and tell us about that and what that means and what are these seven letters? Yeah, so what happened when I had a 30 year career in the nonprofit space in fundraising and when I launched my nonprofit and when I launched my consultancy for nonprofits, people started to ask me, what do you do? So they kept saying over and over again, what do you do? What do you do? And I started to explain it and it came seven letters. I mean, it's like there's a method to the madness, a method to the menace where it was all done vis-a-vis, you know, intuition. My intuition led me throughout my career, but looking back there's actually a formula for what I was doing. That formula became the seven letters. So how do you fund raise? Well, you take an individual. Individual, you create a community from those individuals. Once you create a community, you engage and educate them. That's where you get your donors, investors, leaders and advocates. Let me give you an example from the kickball field. I'm an individual. I'm playing kickball. It's fun. I'm in an adult kickball league. All of a sudden they say to me, you keep showing up. Will you take the tools, the balls, the nets, whatever we need? Will you bring them each time you got a big car? Sure. Sure. I'll do that. Now I'm a little bit engaged, right? I'm part of a community because now I'm a leader on that field. Then they say, oh, you know what? You've done a great job of that. How about you bring snacks? I'm more engaged. You've done a great job of that. We're going to actually get a fundraiser this fall and you've really been such a great part of the community. Would you be willing to chair that fundraiser? I went from playing kickball to carrying the balls to bringing the snacks to chairing the fundraiser because I became engaged. I am engaged in the activity. If you don't have people engaged with you, your gifts will not be in the transformational space and we'll talk about that a little bit. But you go from an individual to a member of a community, you become engaged and then you become your donor, investor, leader and advocate. And I challenge everyone on this call to think about the places where they spend the most time as a volunteer or donate the most amount of money. And I would say that in most of these cases, if not all, you're going to go, yes, because I am a part of a community and I'm engaged in that nonprofit. I love this because it is so logical. It actually speaks to the core of who we are and I think it's also that secret sauce for sustainability. A lot of times we think, oh, we just need the big score. We just need the big wealthy person to walk through our door and that's just not the way it goes. If I say it ten times a week, wealthy does not equal your next donor. Wealthy does not equal your next donor. I can tell you a lot of wealthy people in this country so what there's just a try and so what your next donor is hiding in plain sight inside of your organization already doing things with you already and I create that Venn diagram. They click your links to open your emails. They attend your events. They give you a gift the center of that Venn diagram. That is where those individuals are hiding in plain sight and we can do the moves management or the stewardship that engages them further into our community to result in those transformational gifts. Wealthy people because they're wealthy are not those donors. Isn't it fascinating? I mean we hear this all the time, right? It's like we need to get rich people at our galas or we need to get into gated communities and provide workshops. Why? Like what seem to be the answer to people's you know prayers? You know it's interesting because I think they don't look at it strategically. So I think that they're looking at it as transactional right and and so if you're looking at strategic philanthropy and you know your your database. I'm sitting in a school right now that has 8000 non donors in their database 8000. I'm like cool perfect. Now let's figure out who has capacity who has affinity and who has propensity to give to you. Let's create that sorting hat and once that hat is sorted you know where your next potential major donors are. They're not on the on those in those gated communities. You don't even know if they care about what you're doing, right? I got so excited almost through my laptop. I know I'm like 8000 non donors. Yes, like let's go. That sounds really exciting and you talk about that engagement journey, right? Especially when you provided that kickball example, which thank you for that. Love to be on Adult Kickball League and you're making me like being nostalgic. So I know so I might have to go back to it. Talk to us about creating the engagement journey because imagine right Susan that like not everyone's going to say yes, I will take the gear. Yes, I will provide the snacks. So like how do we create these journeys? Well, it's like, you know, you're fishing. So there's a lot of rods in the ponds and you're asking different things of different people. So the journey is not top down. That is the one thing I can say you don't start with you need somebody to be your board chair or you need them to be your $10,000 donor. That is not the place to start. The engagement journey comes bottom up. So it's grassroots. It's classic grassroots development. So you're looking at what I call your pond, everybody in your market in your community. So that's the pond. Then you move up to the next level. They attend your events. It might be a summer picnic. It might be a winter celebration. They attend your events. I had a client that was a farm and you know, they had open farm day. I said, are you keeping track of everybody who comes to visit the farm that day because they stepped in to an engagement level with you. Once they're engaged, then you move up a little bit more. Would you be willing to sit on a committee? Once they sit on the committee, are they interested in chairing the committee? Once they chair the committee, do they want to join the board? Once they're on the board, do they want leadership roles in the board? Now this could seem like a lifetime sentence because the first time that they step into this environment, they were just, you know, they wanted to come to the farm. And next thing you know, they're the board chair, but that's how it happens. It happens because I see them at the tour of the farm. I understand their mailing address, which would tell me the cost of their home. I data mine them. I'm a big one on data mining using any of the search engines. I'm going to sort my data mine for those who have the capacity and everybody that comes through my door. I understand not just the art of who they are and the story we know about them, but I understand the science of who they are. So that takes you through an engagement journey. I like to say not everyone's created equally. If they have capacity, they move to the head of the line. If they don't have the capacity, then maybe I just keep inviting them. They become our connectors. So the engagement journey is not top down. It's bottom up then. They love you. They become really part of your family of your nonprofit and really advocate for you. Yeah. Go ahead, Julia. It's about the tip of your tongue. I know it. I know so much. I will forever hold in my heart your kickball journey because that's brilliant. That if you don't remember anything else that happened today, remember that that story and that example of a journey because I think it's fascinating and I think that it's also perilous to know that it can be that simple, but it has to be cultivated. And we have to look at this and say, Okay, what are we doing and how are we doing it? I've got to ask you to go back a little bit. Did you know that you were being cultivated and that this would happen when you were a part of this or were you just so excited to be engaged? I mean, can you speak? Because you're in the sector and so you're more educated than the average kickball team member. Well, let me give you another example and then I can answer it. So let's talk about Peloton, okay? So Peloton, we're on a bike, right? So you're on a bike and you're riding individual in the eye. Then you become a part of the community. What community? The community of the teacher that you decide you know and love. So now you're riding with that particular person. They're engaging you because Peloton does a genius idea of sending swag. You know, 100 rides, you get this, you know, 200. Your birthday, you get a video from your teacher. They are engaging you. So Peloton has an IPO. Do you invest? Likely. If you were riding your Schwinn bicycle, for those of you who remember Schwinn, circa whatever in your basement and Schwinn had an IPO, did you even know about Schwinn's IPO? No, because you weren't part of the community. So Peloton is another example. Do I, okay, so to the question, do I know when they're playing that with me? No, because I am just excited about what I'm doing. So I don't, I unpack everything. I mean, send me to Cirque du Soleil. I'm like, how'd they do that? How'd they do that? How'd they do that? But in the journey of a community member involved in community, I think I've, I felt an authenticity, an authenticity that I'm a valuable asset to this group. I am a part of this community. And I guess I default to the authenticity of that. But, and when I do it with donors on behalf of clients, it is also authentic. It's authentic. You've come to our parties. You have engaged with us. You open our emails. Tell me what you think about them. So, so doesn't feel like it's manipulative because it really comes from a place of authenticity. It's so natural, right? Like if we're doing it with an authentic base, then it should come natural. You had teased us before. We're going to talk about transformational. And I'm curious how, how the natural authenticity also builds into this transactional versus transformational. And I can only imagine, Susan, this is all part of the engagement, the stewardship, like building together that community overall. Talk to us about this. Yeah. So transactional is when somebody says to me, how do I convince them? And I'll say, well, you get an etch-it sketch and you write the word convince on the etch-it sketch and then you shake it and you make it disappear because we are not sell, tell and convince the donors. If you're going to try to sell, tell and convince, you're going to live in transactional. Why? Because you don't understand anything about the donor. Nothing. In, in Stephen Covey, he says seek first to understand before you're understood. In marriage, they say what's important to you is important to me. So if we treat our relationships with our donors and prospects like Covey would advise us or a marriage counselor would tell us, then the transformational comes from me knowing what's important to you and me understanding you. So I have created questions, discovery questions for the donors or prospects that start with questions like, where did you learn to give? Interesting. Those stories are magnificent when you sit and actually listen to the answer. So I'll ask strangers. Why? Because I'm an unapologetic fundraiser. I'll be sitting next to somebody and ask them, are you, are you a philanthropist? Yes. Where did you learn to give? Because the heart space of my father, my uncle, my grandmother, it's, it's just, it's magnificent. So where did you learn to give? It opens a heart space. Why do you give? So if I want to move to transformational giving, I want to know why they give. I interviewed a donor once and he must have said helper like 30 times in the interview to help. I'm a helper. I'm a helper. He needs to be solicited to help the nonprofit. Their language turned around on them in order to make it resonate for them. I'm not selling, telling and convincing. They are not ATM machines. What I'm doing is excavating their passion so that I can align it with the nonprofit. So I'll ask, where did you learn to give? Why do you give? What's the most meaningful gift you've ever given? They will always say the amount or the place. And I'll say, whichever you want to tell me about, and they will often tell me the amount and the place. Sure. The million dollar endowment. I had a donor that was giving away 100,000 a year whose most meaningful gift was the trumpet he bought for a little boy at the school in Africa that he built. So you get, he built the school, but his most meaningful gift was the trumpet. Why? Because a little boy was being bullied and he was himself bullied. So if I'm soliciting this donor, it's not about building a school. It's about taking someone who is an underdog or a perceived underdog and giving them a leg up. Once you do this listening journey with the donors, the rest is magic. And people will say, Susan Kramer, it's magic, but they think like hocus pocus magic. It's like, no, it's magical. It's magical when you unlock the passion of the donor and you align it with the work of your nonprofit. Well, I have to ask and you know, fundraising is my jam too. I love it. I love seeing the magic. I love seeing people's eyes light up and their hearts just, you know, really become so full. Is there a dollar amount to those words transactional versus transformational? Because as you mentioned, the trumpet story and a million dollar endowment, the trumpet really was the thing that was so emotional. So as our listeners and watchers are thinking, does this mean we need a million dollars for it to be transformational? No. Okay. So that's a great question. Thank you. And I apologize for the bell, but like I'm in the principal's office, but anyway, so if you hear it. So, okay. So what is transaction or transformation was really based on the donor. So let's say I give away and I'm using this number because I can do the math in my head. Let's say I give away $10,000 a year. I would say that my transactional bucket is a thousand of that 10 and in the transactional would live my friends doing the walk for the cure. Another friend is doing the cancer this or that or there's a race or something. Those gifts that I am not in a relationship with the nonprofits, but the people will come out of a transactional bucket. Right. I recommend that the donors have transactional buckets. Sure. The transformational gifts are the other $9,000 that are reserved for those that I am in relationship with. So when talking to the donor, they might be a donor of totally a thousand a year where I would say keep $100 for your transactional gifts 10 here 25 there when you get to a when you get to your 100 you're done with your transactional. Let's talk about using $900 in your transformational. You want that to go to four people one person just think about your giving in terms of that transactional and transformational. I happen to love the philanthropist where their transactional is four or five figures love them. But no, absolutely not the case. What I'm calling for is for the the professional the fundraising professional to have that type of conversation with the donor. Have you thought about your transactional giving versus your transformational giving and what is in those buckets and how can I help you? So when I coach philanthropists who tell me it's December and I feel like fish food. Everybody like needs my money for something. I don't know how to sort it. I talk about transactional versus transformational and that they are not the same and you won't feel good giving transformational money to those really should be a transactional gift. I really appreciate that definition definition. I've never heard it described truly in that way. Yeah. And even that, you know, if someone's giving a thousand dollars annually, how do we make a percentage of that transactional versus the you know, the largest of it truly being transformational? So thank you for that. And and I would love to know, you know, I always like to say the elephant in the room. Board members. What the heck do we do with board members? How do we bring them into this engagement? How do we bring them into transformational opportunities? And what does that look like because you're going to tell us a little bit about how the board members can be storytellers? Yes, you know, how many books are there on Amazon or in Barnes and Noble of getting your board to fundraise hundreds of books? Yeah, maybe yes. And with no disrespect to any board member of which I am one in general boards don't fundraise. And I believe the reason is they're not comfortable in the story. So when you give a board a task and a list of talking points, it's not from their heart. It's from the outside in not the inside out. So what I do is lead board members through storytelling workshops to get to their why. Thank you, Simon Sinek. I like to say three letters. You know, your why he was genius. So if we get the board to understand their why of why they are at the table, why this organization matters to them, and then you look for a common language amongst all the board members. So they all sort of own the story. I find that if a board member comes to a meeting, leaves the meeting, doesn't talk about the organization until the next meeting, then leaves the meeting. It doesn't even work of the organization for you to come in with an opinion two hours a month. Yeah, I want to advance the work of the organization. We have to do the work of what is your story? Not what's the story? I'm asking you to tell about ABC organization. I did this with the Novarian Cancer Alliance. They board had never told their story to the women on the board realized that they had the exact same story. Their mothers died when they were in their 20s of ovarian cancer and these two women did not know. They've been on the board together for six years and they did not know that they have the same story related to why they're there. It creates that community again. When you understand from the board, your why, why are you here? It allows them then to be energized and motivated to go out in the community. Go, let me tell you about this board that I'm on. It's amazing. Let me tell you why. Yeah, and then Susan, I have to ask is as you're telling this, my brain just clicked to transactional transformational. I wonder if we're treating our board members transactionally as opposed to that transformational space, right? Because when we know our board members, why not just that they have a pulse and they said yes. Right? It's that wow, let's get to their heart center. Why it is so important for them to spend their volunteer hours and time and dollars, right? Like that just clicked to me. Maybe we're treating board members as a transaction themselves. Listen, in the discovery, if you if you said to the board chair or the CEO of the organization, do you know the most meaningful gift that every one of your board members has ever made? Right. Do you know the where they learned to give or have you ever talked to them about a quote about their giving and when you ask them for a quote about their giving, there's a donor. I asked for the quote and he said, if you have what I have and if you know what I know and you don't give, we're in deep doo doo. Right. That was his quote. Another quote was. Herces have no luggage racks. What are we taking with us? So so so this is the donors speaking about what was important because I have this term on apologetic fundraising. I'm very comfortable asking donors about their philanthropy. I'm not a doctor. I'm not asking them about their health. I'm not an accountant. I'm not asking them about their their, you know, taxes. I am a fundraiser and I am very comfortable in the unapologetic fundraising space to ask them about their philanthropy and I will tell you when clients say, isn't that rude? Isn't that rude? I'm like, rude because your conditioning about money makes you think it's rude. Now let's unpack your money narrative before you go out there into the field to understand that it's not rude because it's what they do with a major part of their life is consider their giving. So let's talk about it. I had a great story. I asked a gentleman over dinner. Where did you learn to give? And he said from my wife and I said, oh, tell me how well she doesn't let me buy new cars unless I give the same amount to philanthropy. And I'm like, I didn't even know him. Okay. I didn't even know him. And it was just one of those dinner events and that's what he told me. Did he mind? Did he think I was rude? He didn't. He was happy to tell me that. Yeah, he answered your question. Well, Susan, you've answered a lot of our questions today. It has been amazing. I love your perspective. I love the work that you do. I am so grateful that you are in our community across this country, you know, working with nonprofits, helping them to understand how to look at this ecosystem differently and how to be more responsive. Check out Susan Kramer consulting Susan Kramer consulting.com. The website's wonderful. You can really learn more about Susan and her approach along with her team. It's a it's a beautifully done website and the imagery on it. Susan is fabulous, by the way. Thank you. Susan, we just had a guest right in that says, I need another 30 minutes with Susan. Such great information. Thank you so much. It's it's I am deployed to do this work. I call us the do-gooders on the planet. We are doing good every day and we have nothing to apologize for. We are doing good for this world every day. So it's a blessing to be amongst you. Yeah, well, you've been. Yeah, fantastic. Julie and I both have really enjoyed your conversation and what you bring to the sector truly and like really adding levity, adding like just stories that I think are so tangible. We can all understand. So I'm so glad to have you here with us today. Thank you. You know, the the the magic of what we do is we have a lot of wonderful voices that come on and they're supported each and every day by Blumerang American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, non-profit thought leader, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, non-profit nerd and non-profit tech talk. Like Susan, these are folks that have made a commitment to our sector to help us understand how we can take our passion for emissions and do well and make them sustainable. So Susan, this has been great. Like I said, wonderful way to start the week and especially for so many of us of us who look at this end of the year in a stressful way with a different type of lens. This might be the magic sauce that we all needed to hear today. You know, check back with us tomorrow because yet again, we have another fabulous guest every day is new and different and every day we end with this message and it goes like this to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here. Ladies, thank you so much.