1. Wellbeing Quick Assessment™ and Self-Coaching Guide

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Insights: What did you notice from your ratings?

• Self-Coaching Plan: Please choose one element of the five above you would like to develop further:

• What is a goal you have for the chosen element?

• What level rating would you like to reach as a result?

• What are some natural talents/strengths that helped you in areas you rated as high?

• How will your strengths in the other four areas help you?

• What strategies might help you?

• What might get in the way and how will you manage it?

• What action steps may help you?

• Choose one action you will take in the next week or two.

• What will you learn from taking that action?

• What will change from taking that action?

• Who will support you as an accountability partner to take the action?

• How would working with a coach help accelerate your progress?

2. Relationship Building for Prosperity® Model

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1. Interview for a Donor Prospect

You can use this interview when meeting with a donor/prospect in order to get to know them and a story of a best experience with your organization. If you are simply getting to know them, use only questions # 1-3. If you know them and will discuss a project you are considering as a good match for them, use most or all of the questions.

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2. Introduction to SMART Goals

Once you’ve set basic goals, you should move to SMART goals or objectives. Your SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timebound) engagement goals will guide you as you read this book toward your 360Win™ Vision.

You probably have a fundraising budget and a measurable goal you need to reach. You may also have a fundraising plan and a major donor fundraising goal and plan. If you’re reading this book, you probably want to continue solidifying or enhancing your major donor efforts.

It works well to set a specific, measurable goal of connecting with a certain number of major donor prospects for each project you're responsible for or, in general, for your organization. You might consider projecting how many donors you want to make gifts at certain levels based on history and project needs. Whether you need to raise $50,000, $500,000, or 5 million (or more), it's essential to determine what gifts you will require and how many at each level will meet the project's goals. A rule of thumb is that you will need three qualified donor prospects for each major gift you'd like to secure.

It is helpful to set conservative, moderate goals the first time you do this or if you don’t have enough information about your donors’ and prospects’ giving habits. Better to exceed your goals than fall short, right? That said, if you tend to be a bit pessimistic, perhaps err on the side of a bit of a stretch. If you tend to be overly optimistic, this is the time to scale back to conservative. SMART goals are also helpful. SMART goals provide a layer of support for thinking through the goal as well as a specific action to be accountable for by a specific date.

Some people thrive on deadlines and deeply appreciate SMART goals. Others may not enjoy them as much. If you use them even though you don’t love them, they will help you reach your goals, and you may decide later that you actually appreciate them.

If you like forms and charts, see the ART section at the end of this chapter. Alternatively, you can set your goals and objectives using only the sentence form. Writing them down is THE KEY. Writing down goals and objectives creates something to measure, and what we measure gains importance!

As I noted in the introduction, it is helpful to focus on a SMART goal for donor engagement to make the best use of this book. The process has three phases: note where you are now, set a general goal first, and then turn it into a smart goal where you can measure progress.

My clients set SMART donor engagement goals like:

• “move our top [20, 50, 100, etc.,] major donors to their next level each of engagement by x date” or

• “identify our best (5, 10, 20 etc.) major donor prospects and engage them in our organization in a way that matches their interests and/or strengths by x date” or

• “increase engagement of our board in fundraising to the next level up by this time next year”

You want to set only a couple of goals at a time so as not to overextend your ability to work towards them. We can only focus on a limited number of goals at a time. Also, you may find that working on one goal will cause progress to occur on other goals because the goals are actually connected in that they are all part of moving your mission forward.

3. This is a very deep dive into Goal Setting: SMART (Quantitative) Goals and Qualitative Goals Applied to Stakeholders, including you (see 3A)!

SETTING SMART MAJOR DONOR GOALS

Potential major donor (SMART) goals to consider

Current major donors (includes Board members and staff who are major donors, if any):

• How many do you want to move up the spiral?

• What strategies will you use? (we will do x by y date)

• Who will lead this effort?

• Who else will be involved?

• Gift levels for multi-year and annual goals

• How many at each level, such as $1,000, $5,000, $10,000/year for five years ? (see chart sample below)

• What are your annual goals?

• Who will lead this effort?

• Who else will be involved?

• New prospects to identify and begin to move up the spiral

These are options for your major donor engagement SMART goals

Optional goal details that could be helpful for your SMART goals (you may not want or need all of these):

• # of total major donors

• # new major donors

• % increase in # of new major donors

• % increase in gift size of current major donors

• # of gifts at various gift levels such as how many @ $1,000, $5,000, $25,000, $100,000, $250,000, etc.

• total $ amount raised

• name a specific campaign or a generally defined period, such as “during this calendar year” or “over the next 18 months”

What is your current data?

• # of total donors now:

• Average gift size:

• # of major donors:

• Average major gift size:

• # of foundation donors (funders):

• Largest major gift:

• Largest grant:

• Other:

General level of engagement of donors now (1-10 scale with 1 low, 10 high):

• All donors:

• Major donors:

• Funders:

Once you’ve created a rough draft of your goals it’s best to discuss them with others who will help achieve the goals, before they are finalized. You will want to not only get their ideas, but also their buy in on the concept of spending time on major donor strategy.

Alternatively, depending on many factors, you might do the whole process with others. Those others depend upon your situation, your role, the current structure, and the level of engagement of the board, staff, committee members, etc.

QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE GOALS

Qualitative goals are subjective and usually indicate a descriptive end result. They should be set first. They indicate your destination. Quantitative goals tell you what you will measure in relation to the qualitative goal, which will usually indicate that you are moving towards your qualitative end result. Both are valuable to set, especially in relation to one another.

Qualitative goals are not objectively measurable. Examples would be descriptive such as “they act like partners,” “they want to help,” or “they enjoy being part of our organization.” Qualitative goals are about people’s experiences and are a good pairing with quantitative goals. For example, you don’t just want money (although you may think you do), you also need connection and shared vision from your donors. If you have only met the quantitative goal, i.e., the money, and not the shared vision and values that ideally would be part of your qualitative goal, that could lead to mission drift or worse, given what is happening as I write this at the Univ of CA, Santa Barbara related to a large capital gift. Here is an article about this gift and the issues around it- https://abc7.com/ucsb-dorm-munger-hall-windowless-dorms-charlie/11183852/.

You can evaluate qualitative goals by doing your own thinking about and/or surveying other people about their viewpoint or experience related to the goal. SMART goals are not qualitative, they are quantitative.

Quantitative goals are expressed with numbers and are easily measured. You either did or you didn’t reach the specific goals. Examples are 10 new donors within three months, $25,000 in new gifts by the end of the year, recruit three new board members before the annual meeting. SMART goals are quantitative.

Together, qualitative and quantitative (SMART) goals lead you toward what you want to have happen. Why do I say “together”? As per above, you don’t just want to raise a certain amount of money, which is a quantitative goal; that objective is in service of something larger. You want to create an organization that is sustainable long-term, has good staff and board leadership, has credibility in the community and fulfills its mission, among other things. You, therefore, need leaders (and donors) who believe in your mission and are willing to take action. That is a qualitative goal.

Another example is how quantitative goals could indicate you are moving forward in meeting your qualitative goals. If a qualitative goal is for your board to be more engaged and they have not all made financial commitments to the organization (a quantitative goal), then an indicator of higher levels of engagement may be if all board members have made gifts to your organization. It is a good idea to have a few measures (SMART goals) so that you have enough data to indicate change effectively.

Another potential indicator could be how many meetings each board member has attended/missed. Your SMART goal might be they attend every meeting, and miss one or 2 at most per board year.

A third SMART goal may be how many organizational events they attend per year. You may request a certain number of events. All three of these goals are quantitative and indicate if your board is more engaged or not. If their behavior changes in a positive direction according to your SMART objectives, it is likely they are more engaged. You might add in one qualitative evaluation by asking them on a scale of 1-10 (10 being high) at the beginning and again at the end of the board year how engaged they feel as a board member. If their engagement is low to start, then doing the peak experience activities noted earlier in the chapter will usually more fully engage them.

SETTING YOUR QUALITATIVE GOALS

• You may choose to set major donor, board, staff, volunteer (or even organizational) qualitative goals in one or more of these areas:

  • Capacity building (the United Nations defines this as the process of developing and strengthening the skills, instincts, abilities, processes and resources that organizations and communities need to survive, adapt, and thrive in a fast-changing world.)

  • Leadership-what quality of leadership do you need?

  • Engagement-how will you know people are engaged; how will they behave?

  • Well-being

What would be wins in these areas? (see example in chart below)

Q Chart

SETTING YOUR QUANTITATIVE GOALS
SMART BOARD GOALS

Your Board engagement goals to consider:

1. 100% board participation in making a financial contribution (this should be in the board role description)

2. Number of board meetings board members attend per board year (this should be in the board role description)

3. Number of events board members attend per year (this should be in the board role description)

4. Number of board members who agree to take specific actions

5. Number of new events board members lead, such as house parties, VIP events, thank-a-thon card writing, or phoning session

6. Who you will develop as new leaders

7. How you will pair up new and current board leaders to create more engagement

8. What committees you will create 

9. Who can you identify as potential chairpersons for new committees

10. Other 

Your new board member prospect goals (this should be a shared goal-setting activity with your nominating committee or executive committee):

1. How many you will identify and by when

2. How you will use existing activities as part of your strategy

3. What other strategies you plan to use

4. By when and with whose assistance you will create criteria for who would be a good board member 

5. Other 

COMBINED QUALITATIVE AND SMART GOALS

Current Donors Sample Combined Qualitative and SMART Goals Chart for 5-year gifts 
This is appropriate for a nonprofit with a current major donor list
Note: This is just a sample; please don’t take it too seriously!  Use it as a guide for creating goals. Even if you’ve never raised a lot of major gifts, you still can. If you ask for gifts, you have a better chance of getting them than if you only think about asking! Of course, you need to build the relationship first and that is the purpose of this book-to help you build the relationship, ask for the gift, and then steward the gift.

COMBINED QUALITATIVE

QUALITATIVE AND SMART GOALS SAMPLE FOR AN ORGANIZATIONAL ANNIVERSARY/MILESTONE

Note: If your organization has a milestone/anniversary coming up, you can use that to set and attain higher gift-level goals. Perhaps you have already benefitted from an anniversary, and you can apply what you learned to this year.

Anniversary Year Major Gifts Campaign Examples: (any of these could benefit from a matching gift to increase the total raised)

• 10-year anniversary: goal is $10,000 for every year of operations. ($100K goal)

• 20 years: goal is to raise 20 gifts of 20,000 ($400,000 goal)

• 50 years: $50,000 for every year of operations! ($2,500,000 goal)

Dream big! What’s the down side-you raise a little less? Or maybe more!

New Donor Prospect

SMART STAFF ENGAGEMENT GOALS

What will you do this year to engage your staff, and how often?

a. Retreats to bring staff together? 

b. Celebrating organizational successes with all staff?

c. Staff appreciation activities and awards?

d. Holiday events and birthdays?

e. Training activities?

f. Coaching as a perk for high potentials?

g. Other?


SMART VOLUNTEER ENGAGEMENT GOALS

What will you do this year to engage your volunteers, and how often?

a. Retreats to bring volunteers together? 

b. Celebrating organizational successes with all volunteers?

c. Volunteer appreciation activities and awards?

d. Holiday events? 

e. Training activities?

f. Other?

3a. SMART Wellness and Engagement goals for you (recommended):

Measuring Progress: 

Where are you now? (rating this will help you track progress)
Rate yourself on 1-10 scale, with 1 low and 10 high, 
Current level of engagement in your work:_____
Current level of confidence in doing your work_____
Current level of inspiration for your work______

What will you do this year to take care of yourself in order to maintain your sustainability? Here are some suggestions:

• Take my wellness “Quick Assessment” (see Chapter 1 tool) to create awareness of you in this process; your wellness matters 

• One or two small SMART goals for the year (examples are sleep, dietary, fun, time off, friends, hobbies, or exercise-related)

• Note what accountability support you will set up for yourself to keep you on track

• Every three months, take the assessment again to track progress!

1. Additional StOrientation™ Materials

Key Elements of a Story Ambassador Role Description:

1. Sign on as a Story Ambassador (or other term you like) willing to tell your story

2. Participate in a StOrientation™   to create your story and hear other stories

3. Tell your story and/or ask others for their story 
   a. Do this informally in your daily life, or in pre-planned small groups or
   b. Do this more publicly two-three (or more) times a year, such as at a donor thank you event, board event, fundraising event, volunteer event, graduation, tour, open house, in written communication, etc.

When you have your recruitment conversation with each of your story ambassadors, you will want to do these 7 steps, which should take about 20-30 minutes: 

1. Describe the group and its purpose

2. Share the benefits of being a part of this select group

3. Let them know why you selected them (use your list of reasons by their name)

4. Share your own story of a peak experience at your organization

5. Ask them about a best experience connected to your organization

6. Let them know about the StOrientation™   and what will happen there

7. Provide a written role description to follow up, with the same items on it.

Detailed agenda for the StOrientation™, after the demo: 

• Tell them in the beginning that we are not used to talking about positive things we did, and it may feel uncomfortable because we are taught to be humble. We are going to suspend humility for the few minutes it takes to share stories because we are collecting valuable data that will help our organization do its best work.

• Divide people into pairs

• Review the peak question (see question below) and ask attendees, while they are listening to their partner’s story, to jot down some notes for easy recall

  • You might also say that if they can’t think of a story right away, all they have to do is be the story listener first and the second person to tell their story. By the time it is their turn, they will know what story they want to tell.

• Give them about seven minutes to hear the first story (I use a timer - only for myself - as I’m facilitating)

• When the room is quieting down, you know it’s time to begin to switch roles

• Allow a couple of minutes between the “interviews,” saying this time is for partner A to make a few summary notes to help them form what they will say in their intro of their partner.

• Call out to switch roles

• Start a timer again for yourself for seven minutes

• When done, allow a couple of minutes, saying this time is for Partner B to make a few summary notes as per the above

• After a couple of minutes, call time to wrap up

• Ask people how they liked the exercise 

  • People are generally very positive in their comments, often smiling broadly and glowing. Some people say it is uncomfortable to tell a story about themselves because it feels like bragging. As noted above, the way to head this off was in the beginning. It’s very important to talk about the humility issue and suspend humility for a few minutes to allow us to gather data on our strengths.

• Have ppl introduce their partner by their summary story, one person at a time

• After each story, ask the group about positive personal qualities they heard in the story and positive qualities about your organization and jot them down on a chart. If you’re online, you might use chat, as that is easy (or you can share your screen and use a Word doc to capture strengths; or if your online platform has a whiteboard-type tool, you can use that if you’re familiar with it). 

• After you get all the positive qualities of individuals and your organization, you can read them out to the group and even organize them a little bit if you want. You can ask the attendees to reflect on them and share ideas about any themes they see.

• Finally, ask for any insights or takeaways that came up for people after hearing the stories

• Let them know you will be contacting them to share upcoming opportunities to share their stories, and also bring a sign-up sheet with you to the StOrientation™   so those who are ready now can sign up for your upcoming events.

• Stay in contact with everyone, especially those who are going to speak at an event. Help them practice/rehearse by listening to their story and give tips about what they did well and anything they should emphasize, more or less. 

  • Help them experience any emotion they talk about in the story (or any you could ask if they experienced) because emotions are contagious and will affect their audience. The way to help them is to ask “how did it feel when x happened?” And then ask, “Do you feel that same emotion now as you tell me the story?” Then let them know that it will support their story and their connection with the audience to feel the emotion as they tell their story.

Supporting the storyteller team to feel and function like a team

Team Name:

It is helpful to choose a name for this team before you start recruiting, like “story ambassadors,” “community engagement team,” or something similar. That kind of name will likely be much more attractive to potential volunteers than calling it a “fundraising” team, especially since they are doing “friendraising”, and none of them will need to ask for money. Besides “story ambassadors”, I have also called a team like this a “friendraising team” and volunteers were willing to participate. When volunteers think about fundraising, they think about asking for money, which is not part of their role on this team. They will be making friends for your organization.

Team Leadership:
The storyteller team will need a leader or co-leaders! The leader’s role is somewhat emergent, but would likely include this scope (unless you have an outside coach or facilitator who would do some of the tasks):

• (co) recruit the team

• (co) facilitate the orientation (StOrientation™)

• determine and adjust the storytelling calendar based on upcoming events 

• coach the storytellers to help them tell their story in the most heartfelt, authentic and succinct way, using words that mean something to them and to memorize it

• coordinate logistics of getting the storytellers in front of the board, donors, and your other stakeholders at gatherings and events (online or in person) 

• provide feedback and recognition to the team and members

• lead the vision and the effort to gather other stories about the impact of your organization’s work from board members, program participants, donors, community members, students, parents, alumni, etc.

• interact with your marketing or communications dept, if you have one, to leverage the stories in materials, newsletters, and other media (if your marketing staff person were on the storyteller team, that would make this seamless)

You may want to be the leader or a co-leader, or you might prefer to support a volunteer chair person. This all depends on what works best for your situation. Each has benefits and drawbacks as you may know from experience. Leading promises the most autonomy as well as the most work. 

Co-leading gives you someone else to work with, can make it more strategic (two heads are better than one) and fun, gives you a wider support base, and you will probably spend more time than if you do it on your own. If you did that, it would be best if that person were someone you enjoy working with and if they were a staff member, for logistical ease. 

If you have a volunteer for whom the role of chairperson would be just right, then that is another leadership option. The role of chairperson is a great training ground for a future board level volunteer and for developing your relationship with that person. Their scope would be much more limited than the above duties.  But they could do some things and be the face of the team for the community.

2. Interview for Board/Committee Members and Volunteers

The interview guide below can help you get to know your volunteers a little better. It’s a chance to sit down and give your attention to a volunteer who you think has the potential to grow in their engagement with your organization. When my students and clients have used this interview, hidden gems have been revealed that support the organization.

DOWNLOAD THE INTERVIEW FOR BOARD/COMMITTEE MEMBERS AND VOLUNTEERS

1. Partnership Roles and Tasks of Staff and Board Moving up the Spiral: Elevated by Stories

DOWNLOAD PARTNERSHIP ROLES AND TASKS OF STAFF AND BOARD MOVING UP THE SPIRAL: ELEVATED BY STORIES GRAPH

2. Board Orientation and Retreat Sample Agenda

Sample Board Orientation Objectives/Agenda for an Education Based Organization

Objectives:

1. Experience a personal connection to [org] and to one another, encouraging further commitment to [org, community] and its students.

2. Increase knowledge of [org] and its impact: past, present, and future.

3. Increase knowledge of key trends impacting [org] and its stakeholders now and in the future.

4. Increase knowledge of individual roles, staff roles, and the board’s role in supporting [org].

Sample agenda

1. Relationship Building for Prosperity® Donor Engagement Strategy Session Guide

The purpose of this Guide is to lead to breakthrough ideas and insights for engaging your donors and prospects, followed up by action, with support!

DOWNLOAD GUIDE

2. Strategy Map

RELATIONSHIP BUILDING FOR PROSPERITY® STRATEGY MAP

3. Story Paths

DOWNLOAD HEAD STORY PATHS

DOWNLOAD HANDS STORY PATHS

DOWNLOAD HEART STORY PATHS

4. Team Action Tracking Form

DOWNLOAD FORM

An “inspiring” Harvard Business Review article about inspiration that will support you in thinking about and moving in the direction of your inspiration.  Why Inspiration Matters.

1. Success Log (or potential Ta-Dah List)

SUCCESS LOG

Some occasions my clients note in their logs are:

• When a donor has transformed into a partner, such as they offer funds without being asked

• When a significant grant is received, a donor comes through with the gift level you’d asked for, a new staff position is created, etc.

• When you have changed your habits to consistently hold regular strategy sessions! 

At periodic intervals, it may help you to reflect on what you’ve written down, like after you have 4-6 successes. At that time, you can note what you observe about your successes. There may be some commonalities, such as how you used your strengths or how a team member used their strengths. My clients appreciate it when they realize common themes among their successes, and it powers their motivation. For example, one client, Cora, noticed that when she used her ability to influence others towards what she valued most, she had positive results. She realized that what helped her be successful was to think about her values before talking with a donor.

Review the Success Log and note how you and your team are using their strengths, perhaps more than in the past or maybe in different ways than before.

SUCCESS THEME

All of the above are part of your ROL (return on learning) and your ROI (return on investment-of time and energy) from using this model. It is also part of your ROR (return on relationships). 

2. Examples: Clarifying your quantitative/qualitative goals and measures to use for evaluation

In order to evaluate goals, you will need to have the goals already set. Chapter 2 discussed setting qualitative and quantitative goals. This toolkit provides guidance for doing that (see Chapter 2 section). In this section for Chapter 7, we discuss how to measure your progress or evaluate your success in achieving those goals.

You might have qualitative goals such as:

Our major donors are engaged.

Enjoy major donor work more.

And you might have combined qualitative and quantitative measures such as:

Your combined measure for your major donor goal might be to count how many attended an important community event (quantitative) and if they responded with positive comments to you and other staff when you spoke with them (qualitative), or how many responded (quantitative) with positive comments (qualitative) to an email asking for their opinion about a timely topic. 

Your combined measure for your personal goal might be, at the end of the day, being able to identify 2 things (quantitative) you enjoyed that day and why you enjoyed them (qualitative) related to major donor work.

Or a qualitative goal might be to use your strengths more at work.

A measure might be at end of the week be able to note three-five times (quantitative) I used my strengths (qualitative) at work. 

You might also have quantitative goals for a given timeframe you can measure against for your evaluation (assume these are minimum and exceeding them is encouraged for the financial goals):

1. 10 new donors at the $xyz level by xyz date

2. 10 new prospects by x date

3. 1 new committee chair by x date

4. 3 new good board member prospects by x date

5. 4 new opportunities for donors to participate in our programs

6. 4 donors participate in our program in a new way

7. 1 new visibility and thank you event for our donors

8. Gather some good stories/testimonials to use in fundraising

Quantitative goals are measured by quantitative measures because it is easy to determine whether you met the goals or not. You don’t need separate measures for quantitative goals. Did you have 10 new donors, or less? Or more?

For monitoring, choose a point in time, maybe close to half way through your fiscal or calendar year. At that time, ask yourself questions about all the quantitative goals above and note the answers. These are your current results. This makes the next board major gifts report easy, right? You have all the data right here…

3. Your 360Win™ Results

Example: Planning and Evaluation Chart 

The definition again of 360Win™ Results is that when donors make gifts there is a wide net that wins. When a new volunteer leader comes onboard, there is a wide net that wins. The following chart shows what the groups are and what their wins are.

• Rating scale 1-10, 10 being highest level

• Pre-project ratings (i.e. how would you rate your success now?) 1-10 scale

• Post-project ratings (i.e. how did you actually do?)

Questions to ask yourselves: what strengths did you use for each stakeholder group to get this far? How might you use your strengths to move them to the next level?

SUMMARY

Summary of 360 Win™ Results:

We have more new leaders for our board pipeline, more volunteers, and more long-term donors who have made five-year pledges and fulfilled the first-year pledge. Our community supports us financially and in many other important ways.

Once you have your 360Wi™ Results you can add a column to the form called Next Steps to help you determine what to do to keep the momentum going.

1. What might come before a solicitation

Some people, and this includes donors, do better when they come up with ideas themselves, or, even if you’d mentioned it prior, if they consider it their idea. It’s important to leave room for this to happen for a donor, in fact, to encourage it by painting a verbal picture of a future vision and/or by asking open-ended questions about their potential involvement in an exciting vision when you think it’s appropriate.  This is not a solicitation; it occurs prior to a solicitation. It is asking for their thoughts about the future vision you’ve expressed.  How would you know if it’s appropriate? In your donor strategy meetings, as noted in Chapter 5, you will want to discuss what’s already taken place with a particular donor or small group of donors. When you discuss the past behaviors of your donor(s) you will have a sense if they tend toward wanting something to be their own idea. This gives you a clue as to how to interact with them around major gifts. 

For example, after you share your vision with some donors, they may ask you what you need to make it happen.  This has happened to me related to quite a few transformational level capital gifts, and other major gifts. I described one such experience in my book. It has happened to some of my clients as well, whom I’ve coached to create and share their vision. I described two of those instances in my book. It can be a “fall off your chair” exciting experience to have this happen. Sometimes, having a strong relationship built with the donor is important and other times, especially if they are very analytical, it is having good data that they can sink their teeth into. 

In the end, there needs to be trust built up, towards you and towards the organization and how the donor’s funds will be used. As described in the video of my model, trust is a result of you and your organization connecting well with your donor over time. Trust is powerful. It can build a partnership with your donor, leading to remarkable, unprecedented successes. As I’ve noted in my book, that is what we are going for with the right donors – a partner-type relationship.

2. Strategies to encourage an offer of a gift vs asking

The great news is that the steps to take to support an offer from a donor are the same steps you are already taking in using this model because this model came about partly because I noticed that donors were more likely to offer gifts vs being solicited when my clients and I approached the relationship with them in certain ways:

• By asking open-ended questions and listening to them and their answers 100%

• By sharing your vision for the organization’s impact that you are enthused about

• By clearly showing the field of opportunity or gap between where you are now and where you need to be financially and in other ways, to realize the vision. This creates a kind of tension that people who are interested want to help resolve.

• By connecting the dots for them (about the intersection of their values, wants, and interests with the work of your organization) that they couldn’t make on their own because they don’t have all the information you have.

• By providing third-party credibility, usually in the form of in-person or written evidence of other donors’, community leaders or funders’ support

• By understanding their strengths and motivations- and by knowing these things through their peak experience story

• By understanding their “go to” way to relate to the world (Heart, Head, or Hands) (see Chapter 5 in the book)

3. A Donor Case Study to Practice Preparing for the Ask

Here is a case study to practice on: Sonia is a 55-year-old successful business owner and community leader who has been a donor for eight years. She gives a yearly gift of $1,000. Her gifts to your organization are larger than to other charities. She is divorced and so makes her own financial decisions. She has two grown children who are also involved in the community. 

You’ve found out that she responds to “hands” in the head, hands, and heart categories of the Relationship Building for Prosperity® Model. She likes to show up, do, experience and observe. She cares about projects that change lives. She told you a story about a pivotal program she attended as a young adult that changed her life. It was funded by a foundation as well as individual donors. She is where she is today, partly because of what she gained from that program.  

What would you do as a next step, given the above information? What projects do you have for a donor like this for which you could ask for a donation? What research would you do to help determine the ask amount? Assuming you’ve done the research, what did you find out? How much would you ask for, and would it be in the form of an outright gift or a multi-year pledge? This is not an actual case; it is a composite of a few donors to maintain anonymity and give you practice for your solicitation planning.

4. Donor Engagement Mindset Assessment™ (DEMA™)

(Your post-test!)

I put the following chart in the introduction and asked you to rate yourself. Now is your chance to rate yourself again. I like this chart for describing a helpful mindset for approaching donors and for approaching fundraising strategy in general. 

Appreciative Inquiry is the base for the chart, as it is a foundation for my Relationship Building for Prosperity® Model. As a reminder, Appreciative Inquiry asks “what’s working?” instead of “what’s wrong?”

Please take a moment and scan the chart below.

Here are some reflective questions to consider:

• What jumps out at you right away, if anything? 

• What would you like to try out?

• What do you think is not realistic?

• What needs to be disrupted or intervened on in your organization?

• How might the chart below help you have what you want?

What if you picked one of the rows below to try the appreciative shift for a week, and see what happens? You may want to track any unusual or interesting things that happen that week, and perhaps, if you like to write, record your experiences, challenges and successes. And if it works well for you, you could always try it again with another one of the mindsets under the Appreciative Approach column the following week! 

In order to move forward in building relationships with major donors, the right mindset is important and helpful. 

On a scale of 1-5 rate how often your thinking aligns with “B. Long-Term Approach”

1 = rarely or never

2 = it does occasionally

3 = it does sometimes

4 = it does quite often

5 = almost always or always

Rate yourself now that you are at the end of the book to see your progress from when you first rated yourself in the beginning of the book. How did you do?

DOWNLOAD THE DONOR ENGAGEMENT MINDSET ASSESSMENT™