Earlier this week, one of our clients closed a $2 million dollar gift.
Toward an annual budget of about $5.5 million.
It was a transformational moment – one that was the result of many factors, occurring over the course of several decades.
I took some time today to reflect on those factors – partly because I hope other organizations will be fortunate enough to facilitate giving moments like this, and maybe you’ll find some tips in the below; but also because I hope to demonstrate that any truly transformational giving moment is complex, much more complex than most folks assume.
Philanthropy is human.
And humans are anything but straightforward.
And truly transformational gifts are built on decades of relationships and decisions and changes and sometimes even drama – all of the things that make nonprofit work truly human; and therefore truly phenomenal.
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Trust
Foundational to all other factors that led to the very possibility of this donation was trust.
Several years ago I was introduced to Patrick Lencioni, a bestselling author and internationally recognized organizational consultant.
One of Lencioni’s most recognized paradigms for organizational health is summarized in the book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Jossey Bass, 2002). It’s an incredibly insightful paradigm, disproportionate to how short the book is.
Lencioni put together a pyramid of team qualities, each building incrementally on the one before it, that constitute what makes a team “functional.”
The first quality Lencioni observes is trust. Trust is the foundation of everything else a team does well – every constructive decision, every healthy debate, every team success.
For Lencioni, trust is not just believing that your teammate is going to get their job done. It’s feeling safe enough to be honest with your team and therefore challenge your team to make good decisions and become the best they can be.
In my experience, trust is also the foundational quality of any transformational donor transaction.
If a donor does not trust that an organization will use their philanthropic dollars well, they won’t give.
And I’d apply this to both the operations and the people of the organization they are giving to.
On the operational side, donors need to know that they are not simply throwing their money away – that the operational infrastructure and programs and leadership of the organization they are considering supporting are solid enough to fulfill the mission the donor believes in.
But also, and possibly even more consequential, transformational philanthropy is always personal.
Giving is personal.
Money is personal.
Contrary to what your Econ 101 prof told you, money is much more than simply “a system of value that facilitates the exchange of goods in an economy.”
We protect our money, fight over it, argue because of it.
Money is deeply personal.
It is an extension of ourselves, reflecting our work, our history, our decisions.
And in this particular instance, the personal nature of the giving was intensified, because the giving was being done by a family in honor of a matriarch whose health had been declining in recent years.
The family saw in their gift an extension of their mother’s very person. Their gift was made in the hopes that their mother would, in a sense, be present in the programming that their gift would make possible.
And if they did not trust the organization or the people who ran it, they would not have entertained the very possibility of the donation. The stakes were too high.
If you want to create transformational giving moments for your organization, work on building a trustworthy organization. And supplement your operational efforts by building authentically trusting relationships with the people and the families who make your mission possible.
History
It is incredibly rare for any transformational gift to take place apart from a rich history with the organization.
It can happen on occasion. We read about moments like this here and there. MacKenzie Scott’s philanthropy is one example.
But those types of gifts are rare. And I do not advise nonprofits to build a revenue model on the hopes that they will land transformational gifts from donors who do not have a history with the nonprofit.
If trust is the foundation for any transformational gift, history is the raw material with which that foundation is built.
You can’t build trust in a vacuum.
You can’t build it in an instant.
It is built over the course of many years, made up of many moments, that together demonstrate to a donor that your organization is worth making a gift to.
In this particular giving instance, the donor relationship had been building for nearly forty years. The matriarch whose wealth made the donation possible had been a volunteer at the organization, had served on the organization’s board, had friendships and partnerships and relationships that were intertwined with the life of the organization.
And this giving moment was a kind of culmination of all those things. It was a horizon that organizational leadership kept in their sight through the many years over which the relationship was built.
And that brings me to a third idea…
Patience
If trust is the foundation of transformational giving, and history is the material with which that foundation is built, then patience is the cement that holds the foundation together.
You’ll often hear that major gifts take “on average anywhere from 18 to 24 months to close.”
In this instance, the timeline was more like 37 years.
And organizational leadership had been carefully cultivating the relationship for decades – through the many ebbs and flows of giving. There were years when the family made donations of just a few hundred dollars – or no gifts at all. And there were years when they made six-figure donations.
But through all of those changes, through all of those challenges, organizational leadership patiently cultivated the relationship, sometimes seeing a tangible payoff but other times not seeing much at all.
In my estimation, this reflects one of the most important qualities of a fundraiser – the ability to show up every day believing that something good may happen.
Because fundraising is hard.
Maybe you’ve been discouraged with thoughts like these:
“Nobody returns my calls.”
“Our mission just isn’t something folks want to support.”
“I’m not seeing an immediate ROI.”
“This just isn’t the right time for giving.”
If you’ve said those things before, I hear you.
Been there, done that.
But you can’t let those emotions define you or determine whether it’s “worth it” to pursue big donors.
Make your horizon the possibility of a transformational gift.
And approach your relationships that way.
Build a history of meaningful interactions. And don’t let yourself give up when times are slim.
It’s possible the next big gift is right around the corner.
Momentum
If you’ve been following me recently, you may have seen me refer to an idea called a “Mission Feasibility Study.” It’s a way to hold a concentrated number of donor conversations in a short period of time and help catalyze your fundraising activity.
Last year, after the MGS team led a Mission Feasibility Study for this particular client, one of the participants in our study ended up making a $1 million dollar donation. And it was that donation that created a spark of interest in the matriarch’s family, which in turn led to the recent $2 million gift.
I call that momentum.
And I think about momentum a lot.
Because the actual “cause” of fundraising success is really elusive.
It’s hard to put your finger on one activity or group of activities and say, “We were successful at fundraising because of that thing.”
In fact, if any consultant ever tells you that they have the “secret to fundraising success,” run the other way.
Because sustained fundraising success is the result of many factors – a lot of which are actually out of the hands of your fundraising team.
Things like organizational reputation, communication strategy and effectiveness, online presence, programming and operations, the timeliness of your mission relative to societal needs, the personalities of your leadership and board, the history of your organization – all those things that, taken together, build what we can just call “momentum.”
I say it this way: Truly successful fundraising happens in the wake of a movement.
And if the movement you’ve been facilitating is in a bad direction, it’s going to be difficult to create transformational giving moments.
If you’re regularly burning bridges; if your reputation is tanking; if you haven’t been stewarding donors, or if your gift acknowledgements take three months to deliver; if you consistently get bad reviews or are constantly in crisis mode – all of these things will slow down momentum and create a situation where organizational leadership has to rev the engine back up – get the fly wheel going.
In this particular instance, the momentum for the gift had been building for a long time – over the course of several decades – but the renewed emphasis on donor interaction, facilitated through a focused outreach campaign, served as a catalyst that led to the family’s final decision.
Leadership
Motivating nearly every transformational giving moment is an exemplary leader – someone who is trustworthy themselves and who has built a trustworthy organization.
And that was certainly the case in this instance. The leader of this organization is a professional who has a rare combination of qualities that have resulted in many positive moments for the organization they run.
And as someone who talks to donors all the time at this organization, it’s a regular occurrence to hear that they “are awesome.”
But I want to dig a little deeper here, to reflect a little more substantially. Because I do think that “awesome leaders” can make transformational differences at the organizations they run. Just like “good fundraisers” can be good at driving revenue.
There are certain qualities one can observe, qualities that can be reasonably traced from “awesome” to “success.”
And here are a few:
– This leader patiently worked with family and stakeholders in the weeks and months leading up to the donation to find a gift agreement that made sense to both parties. They navigated some particularly challenging conversations with both grace and focus, allowing the family to feel heard while keeping the organization’s mission top of mind.
– The leader engaged in conversations with multiple parties throughout the entire process, bringing in board members, staff, advisors, legal counsel, and others along the way – heeding their advice while also remaining focused on what was the next best mission-related step for the organization.
– This leader likewise worked for many years to build an organization that the donor wanted to give to – surrounding themself with good talent, and holding that talent accountable, while simultaneously letting team members lean into their respective areas of expertise; and building workable systems that kept the organization on the cutting edge of its industry and scaling at an appropriate pace. And this particular journey has not always been easy. The Executive Director has not always been popular. They have transformed a grassroots movement into a recognized leader in its industry – without losing the soul and spirit of its grassroots origin. And that is extremely difficult. But this particular success story demonstrates that it can be done.
Imagination
And I’ll finish with a high-level observation that, I hope, will serve as a little motivation…
This gift was more than was expected, and I do not think it is a stretch to call it unprecedented in the organization’s recent history.
It should serve as a reminder that the very best fundraisers – the leaders who can make a transformational difference at the organizations they serve – those leaders allow themselves to believe in something expansive.
To have an imagination. To think big. And to keep that imaginative bigness on the horizon of their activity.
In theological terms, we call this an eschatological imagination – a sense of hope that something better is on the horizon.
And that although that thing is not here right now, it could be tomorrow. Or maybe the day after that. Or even next year.
But as that imaginative leader is pursuing that horizon, they don’t give up hope.
They allow themselves to be open to the possibility of the yes.
Yes, that good thing may happen.
Yes, that big gift may come.
Yes, that expansive vision that drives your organization – that vision could eventually be a reality.
And that should be the idea that centers all of us.
We have the privilege of working for mission-based organizations.
Nonprofits are the conscience of society.
They make the world a better place.
In all the ways that we know our world could be better.
So don’t let yourself think that you’ve topped out your fundraising potential.
There are donors out there.
Big ones.
Imagination
Momentum
Leadership
Patience
History
Trust
If you can use ideas like these as a set of guideposts for your fundraising work – good habits carried out over a long period of time – you may find that your next transformational gift is also right around the corner.
In fact, I’m putting this entire experience in the “we can do this” vault.
And I hope you will too.
