Listening to Donors

Part of a Winning Gifts Strategy

AFP Webconference
February 19, 2008

Tom Wilson, Vice President & Western Region

Manager

Weblog @ www.MajorGiftsGuru.com
Tom’s Background
• Musician by training

• First fundraising job – consultant

• Executive director & CPO

– All types of staff fundraising

• 2,700 donor interviews

– 1,000 asks

• Hundreds of millions of dollars raised

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 Outcomes of Today’s Session
1) Realize it’s more important to listen than talk

2) Understand how to set up listening systems

3) Comprehend the role of listening during ask meetings

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 Winning Gifts
Make Your Donors Feel Like Winners

I. A Winning Gift for Your Donor

1) People Centered Fundraising
2) Donor Values
3) Listen

II. Winning Gifts for Your Organization

4) Make Your Case
5) The Win Win Ask
6) Thanks & Stewardship

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The Six I’s of Philanthropic Fundraising
1) Identify, Qualify & Research

2) Introduce, Interact
& Connect 6) Invest, Recognize &
Steward

3) Interests &
5) Involve, Acknowledge
Needs (Listen)
& Engage

With thank to Buck

4) Inform & Deepen Understanding Smith
Holce
& Tom

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Become a Deep Listener

Declan McCullogh Photography

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 Why Is Listening Important?
1) Listening can lead you to making
a) A higher gift request
b) At a better time
c) To the right person

2) Collective listening can provide

enhancements for all aspects
of your fundraising program

3) Listening keeps you motivated, it’s fun

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 Why Is Listening Important?
You must replace your “sales pitch” with a
questioning process that provides you with vital
information about your customers and their families
while helping them discover how what you offer can
successfully satisfy their needs and desires.

Matt Oechsli, The Art of Selling to the Affluent

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 Take a Marketing Approach
• Marketing starts with the customer
– Become people centered
– What do they need?
– What do they value?

• Listen before you sell

• Break the cycle

– Don’t make an ask at every donor meeting

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 Why Is Listening Important?
The questions, “What do customers value? What
satisfies their needs, wants, and aspirations?” — is
so complicated that it can only be answered by
customers themselves.

And the first rule is that there are no irrational

customers. Almost without exception, customers
behave rationally in terms of their own realities and
their own situation.
Peter Drucker, Self Assessment Tool

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 Collective Listening
• Board strategic planning summits

• Evaluation forms
– Special events
– Board meetings
– Committee meetings

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 Collective Listening
• Written Engagement Surveys (mail and email)

• Leadership Briefing Focus Groups

• Straw polls
– Paper ballots
– Color cards
– Electronic meeting

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 Individual Listening
• Thank you visits
– Get acquainted
• $1,000 or more gifts
– Request gift designation
• $5,000 or more

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 Individual Listening
• Kaizen calls
– Continuous process improvement

• Discovery calls
– Qualified prospects
– Long duration small donors (estate?)

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 Individual Listening
• Gift club benefit testing

• The Philanthropic Market Study (feasibility study)

– Supplemental interviews by staff

• Readiness interviews (after a study)

• The best prospect research is talking to the

prospective donor

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Listening to Corporations

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Listening to Foundations

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The “One a Day” plan

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Zen of Listening
Rebecca Shafir
Silence is virtuous in its ability to make your speaker
feel good about himself.

Silence allows the speaker’s deeper thoughts to

surface, thoughts that often contain solutions to
problems.

When you allow your speaker the time to think out

loud in a supportive environment, you set the stage
for her empowerment, and she will want to be in your
company more often.

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 Listening Tools
• Have a set of questions on a form

• Use a notepad to show you are listening

• Capture your interactions in contact reports

• Be patient with your listening

– You may only get a small sound bite at each
meeting
• One reason it can take 6 meetings for a big gift

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Requesting a Listening
Meeting

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 Questions
1) What do you do for a living?
2) What other nonprofits are you involved with?
3) How did you get involved with our organization?
4) What does your spouse / partner do?
– Any children?
– What are they up to?
5) What is your philanthropic giving philosophy?
6) Where do we rate in your philanthropic causes?
7) What questions do you have about our organization?
8) Have you been on a site visit? What impressions?

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 Listening
Donor comments
Permanence
from a 60 minute Flow Chart
meeting

Rough notes
made at the
meeting

barely legible Contact Report

even to the writer
Full thoughts for
in-depth future
reference by institution
 The 25 Habits of Highly Successful
Sales People — Stephan Schiffman
Taking notes during your meeting with the prospect
helps you listen, puts you in a position of authority,
encourages your prospect to open up, and sends
positive signals . . . .

“There’s something about having an empty sheet of

paper in front of you that really tunes you in to what is
being said, and makes it more difficult for your to miss
important points.

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Listening Tips

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 Talking & Listening
• The average person
– Talks at a rate of around 150 words per minute
– Listens at a rate of 500 words per minute

– Are you really listening?

– Is your donor really listening to you?

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Share Yourself

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Restate to Clarify

What You’ve Heard

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CHEER Method of Listening
Carolyn Thompson
Interviewing Techniques for Managers

C Concentrate
– Get rid of distractions so you can focus
H Hear totally
– Words, voice, and body language
E Empathize
– Think of a time you were in the same situation
E Elicit information
– Ask questions and paraphrase
R Remember
– Take notes in your interview tool

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 Listening Reminders

Content, 7%

Nonverbal,
55%

Voice, 38%

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Listen Up
Larry Barker, PhD & Kittie Watson, PhD
• People Oriented Listeners
– Listens to understand the emotions of others

• Action Oriented Listeners

– Prefers to listen in outline form

• Content Oriented Listeners

– Carefully evaluates everything they hear

• Time Oriented Listeners

– Clock watches
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 Six Parallel Ways of Thinking
White Thinking Hat
– Objective facts
Red Thinking Hat
– Subjective emotions
Yellow Thinking Hat
– Valuable benefits
Black Thinking Hat
– Careful assessments
Green Thinking Hat
– Creative modifications
Blue Thinking Hat
– Focus and organization
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 Constructive Dissent
Peter Drucker

All the first-rate decision makers I’ve observed had a

very simple rule:

– If you have quick consensus on an important matter,

don’t make the decision. Acclamation means
nobody has done the homework.”

– Trust requires that dissent come out in the open.

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 The Tipping Point
Malcolm Gladwell
➤The Stickiness Factor
– A message with a memorable impact

➤ The Law of the Few

– Mavens: people who accumulate knowledge
– Connectors: know lots of people, deliver a message
– Salesmen: can persuade the unconvinced

➤ The Power of Context

– The big impact of setting and small factors

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 Listening During the Ask
• Don’t over present
– Make sure your prospect gets equal time
– As you’re presenting, is your prospect listening?
• Watch nonverbal cues

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 Listening During the Ask
• Give the donor a written proposal
– You’ve given them a lot to think about
– They need to convince others

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Why Is The Pregnant Pause
Important?

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 Listening During the Ask
• Ask questions to determine objections
– Empower their thoughts, doubts, questions
– So if understand what you are saying, you mean . . .
– Tell me more

• Restate the questions before answering

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 Listening During the Ask
• What would you like to see happen next?

• What do you want to accomplish with this gift?

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The Philanthropic Fundraiser’s Job
Chief Listener
– Listen to build relationships
– Listen to sharpen your programs, strengthen case
– Listen to draw out comments, questions, and
objections
• Adults learn by challenging, questioning

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Listen for “gifting” noises

Cues and clues that money

is coming

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When You’re Invited to Listen

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 Identify Your Top 25 Donors &
Go Listen to Them
• Call just to say thank you

• Personally visit to find out why they gave &

who they are

• Build a relationship over time

• Find out their philanthropic values

• Test a gift club, event, activity

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 Prioritizing Your Listening Calls
• Top Down
LeadershipGifts:

• Inside Out 75% of Goal

• Old Major Gifts:

20% of Goal

Gifts of All Types:

5% of Goal

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 Prioritizing Your Listening Calls
• Top Down Board & Staff

Constituents
• Inside Out
Community
• Old

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 Prioritizing Your Listening Calls
• Top Down

• Inside Out

• Old

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Now Expand Your Visits to
Your Top 100 Donors

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 How to Raise Funds (Circa 1891)
Frederick T. Cates in Study in Power by Allen Nevins

9. Let the victim talk freely, especially in the earlier part

of the interview, while you use the opportunity to
study his peculiarities.

10. Never argue with him. Never contradict him. If he is

talkative, let him talk, talk, talk. Give your fish the reel
and listen with deep interest.

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 Outcomes of Today’s Session

1) Realize it’s more important to listen than talk

2) Understand how to set up listening systems

3) Comprehend the role of listening during ask meetings

Tom Wilson
(877) 957-0000 x8930
tom.wilson@campbellcompany.com
Weblog www.MajorGiftsGuru.com

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 Resources
Rafael Aguayo Dr. Deming: The American Who Taught the Japanese About Quality
(New York: A Fireside Book, Simon & Schuster, 1990).
Larry Barker, Ph.D. and Kittie Watson, Ph.D. Listen Up: At Home, at Work, in
Relationships: How to Harness the Power of Effective Listening (New York: St.
Martin’s Griffin, 2000).
Stephen R. Covey, The 8th Habit: from Effectiveness to Greatness (New York: Free
Press, 2004).
Richard A. Krueger Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research, Second
Edition (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1994).
Matt Oechsli The Art of Selling to the Affluent (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
2005).
Stephan Schiffman, The 25 Sales Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople
(Holbrook, MA: Bob Adams, Inc., 1994).
Rebecca Z. Shafir, The Zen of Listening: Mindful Communication in the Age of
Distraction (Wheaton, IL: Quest Books Theosophical Publishing House, 2000).
Carolyn B. Thompson, Interviewing Techniques for Managers (New York: McGraw-
Hill, 2002).
Thomas D. Wilson, Winning Gifts: Make Your Donors Feel Like Winners (New York:
Wiley & Sons, 2008).

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