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

Angie’s journey as a writer has always been about making sense of leadership, taking risks, and helping people realize their potential. Her latest book, Bet On You, is about demystifying what it means to take risks and seeing risk as the path to opportunity rather than getting anxious and worried about what might come of our decisions. Today’s conversation with Angie reminds me of what we just heard from our previous guests: those who dare to make the boldest asks are those who achieve the most extraordinary results.

Our conversation has us grappling with the question of whether nonprofits are reliant on too much play-it-safe fundraising. Angie wants us to remember that there comes a time when playing it safe no longer works. How many of our organizations have been checking all the right boxes and playing by the rules only to realize that we’re not achieving our goals and would really enjoy more fun and excitement in our work. Angie suggests that, when we get to this point, we have to look at risk as an opportunity to lean into rather than an impediment to fear and avoid.

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

Several years ago I began paying close attention to the places where expectations of the nonprofit leader were evolving from an internally-focused leader whose expertise closely aligned with the organization’s program and services, to an externally-focused leader whose expertise aligned with leading a complex organization reliant on the support of a diverse constituency. I’ve had the greatest opportunities to make the most sense of this while consulting with boards that expected their senior leaders to assume the posture of what I routinely refer to as the Fundraising CEO.

Much of my conversation today with Bradley on The Fundraising Talent Podcast is reminiscent of conversations that I’ve had with board members, CEO’s, and their teams about what it means to have a Fundraising CEO at the helm. It’s not a role for everyone, and not every organization is ready for it. Leveraging the strengths of a Fundraising CEO isn’t about fundraising, per se. It has a lot more to do with organizational design, professional development, and distributed leadership.

As a serial entrepreneur and the CEO of a growing nonprofit organization, Bradley has had to think a lot about the role he plays and the expectations he has for those with whom he surrounds himself. In this role, he has thought a lot about how to design the organization in a way that allows him to develop meaningful relationships with donors who can be counted on for sustainable support. Bradley explained that much of it comes down to knowing what everyone’s superpowers are and then confidently delegating responsibilities accordingly.

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

Like many fundraisers, Kathryn describes her entrance into the profession as a search for meaningful work. For the most part, what she found was that facilitating the exchange of charitable gifts has been a rewarding experience and that it has afforded an opportunity to form valuable relationships with her colleagues. However, she also discovered that, at times, the job was lonely, stressful, and wrought with unreasonable expectations. She has dealt with demanding and creepy donors as well as bosses who lacked training and really didn’t know what they were doing; her last supervisor was a vicious bully. As she has shared these experiences with others, she has discovered that they are far more common than they should be.

Kathryn wants to know whether fundraisers are happy in their jobs and, if not, whether bullying is a factor in why they are unhappy. As a professor of practice at the John Martinson Honors College at Purdue University, Kathryn’s research isn’t aimed at just asking whether bullying is happening and to what extent; Kathryn wants to understand how bullying behavior manifests itself in the context of a fundraising environment. For example, are fundraisers going out in the field desiring genuine and meaningful relationships only to dreadfully fear returning to the office if they arrive without a check in hand?

As I shared with Kathryn, I have long been of the opinion that the dark side of the predictive tools we employ will become increasingly obvious as research like this is undertaken. I would insist that, in the next decade, studies like Kathryn’s are going to demonstrate that our wholesale embrace of tactics borrowed from the marketplace and designed to predict and control human behavior are going to backfire and that the evidence is going to be easy to find in this kind of research. It is my hope that Kathryn’s findings are the sort that allow us to clearly understand where our tactics cross the line and where we’re betraying the spirit of a gift.

If you’d like to anonymously participate in this study, click here.

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

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

For some time now, I have been contemplating what early twentieth-century activist and reformer Jane Addams would have to say to those of us who are asking tough questions about philanthropy. In short, I believe she would ask whether our work reflects a commitment to strengthening democracy, creating proximity among the haves and the have nots, and exemplifying what it means to be a citizen rather than a mere consumer. While I believe Addams would sympathize with many of the critiques that are being thrown at philanthropy today; I also believe she would encourage us all to be hyper-diligent in understanding what appropriate expectations we should have of it.

For those who are not familiar with Jane Addams and her views on philanthropy, she was the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, co-founder of the ACLU, and co-founder of Chicago's Hull House. Addams’ views on philanthropy afford us a contrast to Andrew Carnegie’s “responsibilities of wealth” and the notion that giving away money is hard work. Author Louise Knight explains that Addams was far more concerned about the “responsibilities of being human” and believed philanthropy should create space for interacting directly, making sense of each other’s burdens, and working together to address social issues.

Before the holidays, I had the pleasure of recording today’s podcast conversation with Paul Pribbenow, a veteran fundraiser, the president at Augsburg University, and a scholar of Addams’ work. During his time as Augsburg‘s president, Paul has been recognized for the transformation of a culture of philanthropy that hinges on deficit-thinking and focuses on what is lacking, to an asset-based perspective that emphasizes Augsburg’s high aspirations and unique strengths. In 2019, Paul was named Outstanding Fundraising Professional by The Association of Fundraising Professionals: the highest honor that AFP bestows to its members. In addition to numerous articles on philanthropy, ethics, and not-for-profit management, Paul is perhaps most admired for his bimonthly email newsletter titled, “Notes for the Reflective Practitioner.”

Prior to accepting his post at Augsburg University, Paul served as president of Rockford University where Jane Addams graduated in 1882. Building on her legacy, Paul created The Jane Addams Center for Civic Engagement and leveraged Addams story to recruit students and interest them in community service. As Paul writes, Addams believed that philanthropy, when properly understood, was the work of citizenship. As he desires for his students and faculty, Paul wants all of us to see and understand philanthropy as Addams did: a “common work” that belongs to all citizens.

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

As we have resumed our roadshows, we have found that shining a spotlight on local leaders greatly enhances the learning experiences for our participants. My guest today on The Fundraising Talent Podcast is Brandi Holys, Vice President of Advancement at Gross Catholic High School, and a member of the line-up for our Roadshow stop in Omaha next week. In partnership with The Nonprofit Association of the Midlands, Brandi, Kenley Sturdivant-Wilson, and Kevin Mahler have partnered with Responsive to ensure a high-energy, thought-provoking series of conversations about what it means to build and sustain meaningful relationships with donors in the twenty-first century.

Brandi is the Vice President of Advancement at Gross Catholic High School and the host of Philanthropy is NOT a Bake Sale Podcast. Brandi is a big believer in the fact that it’s the transformative power of philanthropy combined with genuine and meaningful relationships that allows our sector to solve complex problems. What I most appreciated about today’s conversation with Brandi was that she wants more of us conjuring up the courage to experiment with new and ground breaking ideas when it comes to our fundraising efforts. Brandi insists that we cannot continue to do the same things that we always have. Brandi and I pondered just how much of what we were doing pre-pandemic was showing signs of wear and that now we are taking advantage of the time and space to make some big and bold changes for the better.

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 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.

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