The Fundraising Talent Podcast

How many prospective funders agree to meet as a simple courtesy only to pass up the opportunity that has been presented to them? What if a better understanding of how corporations go about their decision-making processes could reduce the fundraiser’s workload and increase the likelihood of winning a corporation’s support? These are the kind of questions that today’s conversation with Lori raises. Lori reminds nonprofit leaders that, while they certainly see their cause as a top priority, unless they have caught the attention of their prospective funders in a meaningful way, they’re simply one of many items on a to-do list that never stops growing.Lori is the author of The Boardroom Playbook: The Not So Ordinary Guide to Corporate Funding for Your Purpose Driven Organization. Lori’s book is an effort to ensure that nonprofit leaders don’t knock on the doors of corporate funders without first making sense of the dynamics that play out among those on other side of the table. Lori is the founder and CEO of Growth Owl, LLC, a consultancy aimed at empowering nonprofits, startups, and associations with the tools needed to achieve their fundraising goals. Before bombarding our prospective corporate funders with exhausting proposals, Lori wants nonprofit leaders to avoid the drama, design brevity in their communications, and understand the nuances of corporate giving.The Fundraising Talent Podcast is underwritten by Responsive Fundraising, a professional learning community committed to helping clients create places where fundraising can thrive. For more information, message our managing partner, Michael J. Dixon. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

I confess, I don’t read a lot of books about fundraising; I have always found them to be either too tactical or little more than chatter about manipulative gimmicks aimed at getting us into Mrs Smith’s pocketbook. However, Amy and Josh’s BeneFactors: Why Some Fundraising Professionals Always Succeed is neither of these. Rather, it’s a refreshing and enjoyable read written by two fundraisers who are both committed to their craft and understand the complexity of what it means to raise extraordinary dollars in the twenty-first century. Josh and Amy set out to create a book that not only inspires a new generation of fundraising leaders, but also provides a practical guide for nonprofit executives to raise up new development professionals for the field.In our conversation today, we cover a lot of territory, reflecting on Amy and Josh’s thoughts about how we relate to donors, what sets a good fundraiser apart from a great one, and what role mentors play in our professional journeys. I especially enjoyed hearing Amy and Josh talk about what it means to achieve “relentless alignment” with our donors and what impact their faith traditions have had in their pursuits as fundraisers.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.If your organization wants to make sense of raising extraordinary levels of support by way of meaningful relationships and higher expectations, our team at Responsive would welcome the opportunity to help you do that. If you’re interested in learning more, email me and/or our managing partner, Michael Dixon. We will be happy to volunteer an hour to get to know you and to explore with you what a partnership with our team might look like. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

A couple of weeks ago my friend Jim Langley managed to stir up a lot of conversation with his suggestion that the traditional approach to a capital campaign was ill-suited to the times. Jim likened the approach to the 1970 Oldsmobile 442, the legacy of which I discovered, after conferring with my dad, can be a rather controversial topic. Some suggest that the 442 is one of the worst cars on the planet; while others insist that it’s always gotten a bad rap and that, by comparison to other muscle cars, it deserves more credit. According to Jim’s argument, the 442 was a beautiful thing in its day; however, he insists that any rational person today would consider it overbuilt, highly inefficient, and clunky looking. My dad concurred that the 442 was high maintenance, but remarked that, despite that, it was certainly a fun ride - perhaps all that would be needed to “seal the deal” with particular major donors. He then managed to find a commercial which asked, “Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a 442?”Jim joins us on the podcast today along with our friend Bruce Flessner to further explore the comparison. Jim and Bruce, go head to head on whether the traditional campaign approach is out of date and in need of a replacement or, as some have said about the 442, is actually under-appreciated and worthy of more credit than its generally given. Both of my guests today have plenty of history with the traditional campaign: before launching his firm, Jim spent several decades carrying out capital campaigns in Higher Ed; and Bruce, who founded and led BWF, has spent most of his career assisting clients in Higher Ed and Healthcare to build successful advancement programs.Before we began our discussion, I shared with Bruce and Jim, I have been especially grateful for their willingness to engage with me, hearing out my criticisms of contemporary practices and never allowing our differences of opinion to get in the way of our professional camaraderie. What I have discovered about both of them is that, like myself, fundraising has always been more than a job; it’s a vocation and calling that warrants the sort of thoughtful and reflective debate that we enjoyed today.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.If your organization wants to make sense of raising extraordinary levels of support by way of meaningful relationships and higher expectations, our team at Responsive would welcome the opportunity to help you do that. If you’re interested in learning more, email me and/or our managing partner, Michael Dixon. We will be happy to volunteer an hour to get to know you and to explore with you what a partnership with our team might look like. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Andrew has committed himself to getting direct mail right for a long time. For as long as I have known him, I have watched as he processes what’s going on in the world and what’s being said or discovered and then applies it to his craft. Most recently, Andrew has engaged in a stream of honest conversations with the team at Dickerson, Bakker & Associates and he’s my guest today on The Fundraising Talent Podcast to talk about these conversations. In short, Andrew isn’t giving up on direct mail; he does, however, want us to admit where it notoriously lets us down and to revisit the underlying assumptions that have ensured its privileged role in our fundraising strategies for decades.Today’s conversation isn’t the stereotypical “is direct mail dead or alive?” conversation. What Andrew wants those who are always in direct mail’s corner to admit is that, if we don’t address some of its weaknesses - those we have known were there all along, we’re going to find ourselves in a lot of trouble very soon. Andrew wants direct mail’s strongest advocates to recognize that it’s time for some changes. To remain a viable contributor, direct mail has to evolve. After reminding us of some of its flaws and shortcomings as well as one of its dirty little secrets, Andrew wants us all paying attention to what may be the most consequential of realties facing direct mail: the fact that the middle class is shrinking. According to Pew Research, in 1970 middle-income households accounted for 62% of aggregate income, a share that fell to 42% in 2020. Meanwhile, the share of aggregate income accounted for by upper-income households has increased steadily, from 29% in 1970 to 50% in 2020.Today’s conversation confronts the fact that whether direct mail works doesn’t matter all that much when the population of donors it was originally intended for has shrunk dramatically over the last half century. And while direct mail’s intended audience continues to shrink, those for whom it wasn’t are now holding onto the most cash. Either way you look at it, like so many things that have to adapt over time, if direct mail is going to continue to play a meaningful role, it’s going to have to evolve quickly.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

I’m headed to Omaha later this week, and one of the first things I’m going to find is a great Reuben sandwich. As the origin story goes, while playing cards with “the committee” at the at the Blackstone Hotel, Reuben Kulakofsky, a local grocer, ordered the now famous corned beef and sauerkraut sandwich. Impressed with this original idea, the hotel owner made the sandwich a permanent fixture on his menu. While Kenley, my guest today on the podcast, evidently isn’t a big a fan, I rarely pass up the chance to have a good Rueben. Kenley is a member of the line-up for our Roadshow stop later this week in Omaha where he will be sharing his thoughts about how nonprofit leaders keep their heads on straight when it comes to the technology. In short, Kenley wants to impress upon us that perhaps our expectations are too high and, as one of my previous guest recently suggested, that we have put far too much faith in the CRM-centric approach to fundraising.Kenley assures us that he is a strong advocate for many of these platforms however he wants more nonprofit leaders to understand that our sector’s software applications and database management systems will not solve our fundraising issues. He points out that fundraisers are bombarded with messages that imply technology has capabilities it doesn’t actually have. Kenley insists that a lot the noise that tech companies create gets in the way of fundraisers being able to make sense of what will really ensure their success. Today’s conversation, like several others in recent weeks, reminds me of the assertion that Peter Thiel makes in his book Zero to One: we have to get better at discerning between those platforms designed to be competitive with versus complementary to our human endeavors. As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.The first stop of the Responsive Fundraising Roadshow for 2023 will be later this week in Omaha in partnership with the Nonprofit Association of the Midlands. If you’d like to register for this event, just visit their website at here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Lauren wants to remind us that “regrets don’t really solve problems, but taking action will”; and that “it’s never too late to try.” She wants to encourage us to start being more intentional about who and where we want to be in the world and to confidently take the necessary steps towards moving in that direction. Dissatisfied with where they found themselves, Lauren and her family recently made the decision to relocate to Charlotte, NC, a place that aligned with particular interests and hobbies, afforded a more progressive political scene, and was more responsive to the priorities of young Black professionals.Coincidentally, today’s podcast conversation with Lauren is in many ways a continuation of the one we enjoyed with Nancy last week. These two conversations, both centered on intentionality, beg the question of just how many of us are finding ways to be more deliberate about the decisions we make. Perhaps The Great Recession and experiences like the pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, and recent elections have shaken us up, compelling us to evaluate what matters most to us and where we want to prioritize our time, energy, and resources.That said, to make these observations about our own experiences while failing to consider the experiences of those on the other side of a charitable gift exchange is to have a bad read on the moment in time in which we are collectively living. Today’s conversation with Lauren challenges us to ask ourselves what we are doing to ensure that our donors, who are being more intentional, selective, and discerning about the choices they make, are making the decision to support our organizations over all the others that are packed into their mailboxes and inboxes.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.ARCHITECT Brand + Design Collective is a strategy development firm focused on community-centered and diverse philanthropy, leveraging the best practices in storytelling, strategic marketing and inclusive fundraising strategies. To learn more, visit www.architectyourambition.com to learn more The first stop for 2023 on the Responsive Fundraising Roadshow will be in Omaha, Nebraska on Friday, March 3rd in partnership with the Nonprofit Association of the Midlands. If you’d like to register for this event, just visit their website at here.We’re trying something new. The Butterfly Effect, our new publication on Substack, is where we make sense of the ideas and opinions that inform our consulting practices at Responsive Fundraising. Every week we will guarantee for our subscribers a thoughtful, long form article that will challenge how we think about contemporary fundraising practices. We would be delighted if you would subscribe. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

For those of us who want to overhaul charitable giving and reengineer the status quo, Sara’s TedTalk offers a glimpse of what we need to do. Sara wants us all to make sense of the power of collective giving. Sara is the founding CEO of Philanthropy Together, a growing movement of people-powered philanthropy aimed at resourcing grassroots nonprofits, shifting power dynamics, and promoting widespread philanthropy. In her Ted Talk, Sara describes the four components of a thriving giving circle: belonging, discourse, trust, and to act. Sara wants us to see that collective giving affords us an opportunity to practice democracy in a way that our individual giving habits can’t. The decision-making process allows us to get outside of our own heads and to hear another person’s perspective, perhaps someone with whom we don’t have much in common. As we emerge from the recent pandemic, Sara wants us all to realize that we are hungry to find meaning in groups and understand that there is nothing better than coming together to deliberate and choose to support causes that we collectively believe in. As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.We’re trying something new. The Butterfly Effect, our new publication on Substack, is where we make sense of the ideas and opinions that inform our consulting practices at Responsive Fundraising. Every week we will guarantee for our subscribers a thoughtful, long form article that will challenge how we think about contemporary fundraising practices. We would be delighted if you would subscribe. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

David and Sam are both members of The Chartered Institute of Fundraising’s Supporter Experience Committee. This network of fundraisers is dedicated to identifying best practices and providing thought leadership aimed at ensuring quality supporter experiences. In today’s podcast conversation, David and Sam challenge us to ask whether less homogenous and less industrialist fundraising practices might improve the fundraising experience for those on both sides of the exchange. Many of David and Sam’s observations beg the question of why so many charities remain content to squeeze enormous populations of donors into a system that assumes that everyone shares the same motivations for giving. Throughout our conversation, David and Sam repeatedly brought us back to the opportunity they see for sector leaders willing to make changes that might turn around some of the troubling trends and remedy some of the mistakes we make over and over again. We explored some of the insights that these leaders might glean from organizations like BLM and Extinction Rebellion as well as the response to the conflict in Ukraine and the University of Tennessee’s crowdfunding campaign for new goalposts.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.———————————————————————We’re trying something new. The Butterfly Effect, our new publication on Substack, is where we make sense of the ideas and opinions that inform our consulting practices at Responsive Fundraising. Every week we will guarantee for our subscribers a thoughtful, long form article that will challenge how we think about contemporary fundraising practices. We would be delighted if you would subscribe. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Stuart wants us to carefully think about whether we’re designing resilience into our organizations and, if not, ask ourselves if difficult and uncertain times are really to blame for some of our financial misfortunes. I have been an admirer of Stuart’s work for quite some time. His research begs the question of whether our scholars have done more harm than good by borrowing as many theories as they have from the marketplace. Stuart’s “Nonprofit First” thinking insists that we should construct theory from what has emerged within our sector rather than from somewhere else. During today’s conversation, Stuart and I unraveled how nonprofit organizations often come about with the help of government subsidies only to later become increasingly dependent on charitable giving. As the government fades, many nonprofit leaders implicitly assume the donor will step up to the plate and play their role similar to how the government did. What these leaders miss is that these are fundamentally different types of relationships, distinct types of exchanges, all functioning in accordance with completely different playbooks. Stuart would insist that designing for resilience starts with knowing how to make these kinds of distinctions.Looking ahead, we have quite a line-up of conversations set for January centered around the notion of citizenship and what it looks like when our donors insist on something more than the passive, consumer-like role to which our organizations have grown accustomed. If you would like to be a guest on The Fundraising Talent Podcast in 2023, email me anytime; our listeners would be delighted to hear your big ideas and bold opinions.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

As a leader in Seattle’s arts community and a college professor, Jackson is just getting started. Southern Theatre magazine has recently named Jackson among a group of rising leaders who are paving the way for the future of fundraising. What I most appreciated about today’s conversation was that, while Jackson is explicit in his desire to do away with fundraising’s narrow focus on the top three percent, he’s evidently chosen not to be envious and make wealth-bashing part of his repertoire. Jackson isn’t typecasting anyone.In today’s conversation, Jackson challenges fundraisers to check themselves before they set out to raise money. He wants fundraisers to think carefully about their own relationship with money and wealth and to examine how they go about engaging with and soliciting the support of their donors. Jackson wants us to ask ourselves whether we’re creating opportunities for our donors to be better people and whether we’re creating experiences aimed at creating more than mere transactions. Like so many of my guests in the last couple of years, Jackson has high aspirations and wants to see qualitative improvements in how we carry out our work.Much of our conversation was about how fundraisers can best steward relationships with their donors. For example, Jackson described the opportunity that nonprofits have to curate meaningful experiences for those who began their life with very little and then, late in life, found themselves with more than they could have ever imagined. Jackson wants us to envision our organizations not only as places for raising awareness and providing services but also as places for demonstrating solidarity and expressing gratitude.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

My conversation today with Jillian was a great reminder to me of what I have always believed to be one of the most meaningful aspects of nonprofit work: the opportunity to create community around common struggles. For most of our lives, Jillian and I have shared a common obstacle that can interrupt our daily lives in life-threatening ways. 99% of the time, our seizure disorders are completely manageable, and we can exist in the world just like other able-bodied citizens. Unfortunately, in a matter of seconds and without warning, our lives and the lives of anyone in our care can be at great risk. Discovering that we shared this common thread in our stories is what initiated today’s podcast conversation.Jillian insists that the best fundraisers are always curious, authentic, and able to bring their whole selves to their work. This is what Jillian demonstrated today; she showed up, shared a part of her story that no one would be able to make sense of without the benefit of a conversation like this one, and she came to be curious and share an interest in learning about the stories of other colleagues who share similar experiences. The question Jillian raised was how unseen diversity impacts a fundraisers journey. And furthermore, how can our professional community demonstrate a commitment to listening to and understanding the aspects of each other’s story that exist below the surface?As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Stephanie Schwartz is the Founder and CEO of Little Bean Group, a fundraising consultancy in Washington, DC. Stephanie loves to work with leaders who want to dream big and who recognize that fundraising is often the path by which their dreams come to fruition. Stephanie affords her clients the benefit of extensive experience in both education and advocacy. In today’s conversation, Stephanie challenges us to change our expectations of board members and not necessarily, as I often say, “letting them off the hook” but thinking strategically about where they can most effectively contribute to the overall fundraising effort.Stephanie and I agreed that today’s nonprofit leaders are wise to distinguish between the ways and means that a fundraiser can shine versus where board members have similar opportunities. Stephanie wants us to grasp that, for the majority of our board members, this means finding ways to be engaged in fundraising that don’t necessitate an ask. It also means abandoning the myriad of overly prescriptive responsibilities that we often assign them. Experience has taught many of us that these formulas often translate into less than desirable experiences for our board members and a lot of frustration and disappointment for ourselves.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

This is the first in a two-part conversation with the editors of Collecting Courage: Joy, Pain, Freedom, Love which has been described as “an honest, raw account” of the experiences of 14 Black charity leaders and fundraisers in North America. In response to the project’s success, the editors are convening readers who want to continue on the journey towards racial reconciliation and collective healing in our sector.Nneka, Nicole, and Camila joined me to discuss both their book and The Path to Action Conference later this month. Nicole begins by helping us see in between the lines of her poetry and then challenges us to see the “jacket” - a metaphor for what our brown and black colleagues are expected to conform to in our sector. I can recall previous guests who have similarly described this jacket that many of us either remain unaware of or simply refuse to see. If this conversation stirs you, I would encourage you to accept the invitation that has been extended to us; for those who want to be co-conspirators in the fight for racial justice in our sector, for those who want to be equipped with the knowledge and tools that are required, and for those who want to make sense of their roles and responsibilities in ensuring greater freedom for everyone, register for the conference here. As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com