Myth Busters: Fundraising Falsehoods Exposed - A Petrus Development Show Episode on Fundraising Myths

Andrew and Rhen are back with a fun episode this week where they discuss and debunk all kinds of fundraising myths.  

Show Notes:

Rhen comes armed with nearly 20 fundraising myths that have been misleading nonprofits for years, and Andrew doesn't hold back in unpacks each one with hard truths and real-world wisdom.

A very small sample of the fundraising myths discussed includes:

• Skip hiring a fundraiser - people will automatically give to organizations doing good work. (Spoiler:  they won't!)
  
  
• Donors hate being contacted by fundraisers.  (Often, the opposite is true!)
  
  
• Organizations need to host big events to make big money. (Small moves, big impact!)
  
  
• A single big donor can fund everything!  (Recipe for disaster.)
• Introverts cannot be successful fundraisers. (Some of the best are quiet powerhouses.)

Do you think Andrew got it wrong on any of these?  We want to hear your take!  Drop us a line at [email protected] and join the debate.  

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

07:35.64 Host: Well, howdy, everybody. Welcome back to the Petrus Development Show. I am Rhen Hoehn from Petrus Development. Joining me today, Andrew Robison. How's it going, Andrew?

07:43.11 AROB: It's going great, Rhen. How about yourself?

07:44.92 Host: Good. We're into summer. It's warm.

07:47.20 AROB: Yep.

07:47.31 Host: My kids are finally out of school. I know your kids have been done for weeks.

07:49.08 AROB: Oh my gosh.

07:50.39 Host: My kids just finished this past week. So that's nice, I guess, to have them home.

07:55.62 AROB: Yeah, I mean, summer is, you know, one of those bittersweet times for kids. They love it, obviously.

08:02.18 AROB: Although I do think there's—even my kids that don't love school—I think that they still, there is still a recognition that they get bored in the summer and they want things to do and people to hang out with, and it's not as easy during the summer to find playmates and people that they might think. And certainly not, you know, days at school and doing things that they enjoy doing in between the math lessons and the homework.

08:30.35 AROB: But, yeah.

08:31.59 Host: Yeah, we're doing the slow transition out of school year into summer break where school finished last week. This week, they're doing a camp at church, which starts at 9 a.m.

08:41.04 AROB: Nice.

08:41.16 Host: The next two weeks, we're doing swim lessons that start at 10 a.m. So they get to sleep in a little bit each week, a little bit more and more, but have a little bit of structure to their day. I know one of your big activities lately has been kind of hiking and rucking, right?

08:49.08 AROB: There you go.

08:53.42 Host: Have you been on some big hikes lately?

08:53.43 AROB: Yes. Yes. Yeah, so I did—I'm planning. My goal is, as part of my—I wrote this 50 for 50 challenge.

09:04.34 AROB: And one of my goals is to do a 24-hour endurance challenge. And as I was thinking months ago, what can I do for 24 hours? I came up with some ideas that—I remember you said, yeah, running is not really running for 24 hours based on your experience. So, and I'm not really that passionate about running. So I thought I could walk.

09:25.73 AROB: And I thought, well, walking is a little bit boring, but rucking or hiking, those sound a little bit more interesting. So I am hoping to do a 24-hour—I've got another possible 96-mile hike that I would do on this trail by my house.

09:40.21 AROB: But I've got to build up. So I've been—

09:43.13 AROB: I did 20 miles in March and—or April, excuse me—25 in May, and June and July continuing to build.

09:54.29 AROB: So my feet are the part that is the worst. You just don't realize how sore your feet get and you get blisters if I take too long between hikes.

10:05.14 AROB: So that's my plan. And then taking the kids for a hike in Colorado next month, which will be a lot of fun.

10:12.35 Host: Excellent. I know you've been doing a lot of big kind of point-to-point hikes through some wilderness. It got me thinking, and a lot of people might be familiar with another podcast out there, Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World. It's probably the second most popular Catholic podcast after this one, I would guess.

10:26.14 AROB: Probably.

10:27.64 Host: But he does lots of investigating mysterious things. And one of his early episodes was about Bigfoot. And he concluded, you know, based on faith and reason, there's no reason to believe in Bigfoot. And recently, a few weeks ago, he came out with a new episode that said, you know, I've seen a lot of evidence that makes me at least open to the possibility.

10:43.55 AROB: Ah, yes.

10:44.21 Host: That got me wondering, on your big hikes through the wilderness, any signs of Bigfoot?

10:47.78 AROB: I have not seen Bigfoot. I go by water sources. I've never seen any lurking Loch Ness monsters or anything like that. But, you know, I don't know. There are a lot of unexplained phenomena, it seems, particularly out in the wilderness where we have unexplored areas. And, you know, I've done some night hikes as well. And—

11:13.77 AROB: You start walking through the night and the dark and your imagination starts to take over and you start to think, oh my gosh, what was that sound? Surely it wasn't something that could tower over me and pick me up and eat me in one bite. But maybe it is. I don't know. So.

11:31.24 Host: No? So far in your experience, Bigfoot is only a myth, huh?

11:35.37 AROB: I have not seen anything to indicate, but I've got to say, I don't know. Maybe there's some—maybe there's some truth to it, but probably myth, yeah.

11:46.16 Host: All right. Well, that's going to bring us to today's topic, which is myths.

11:49.08 AROB: Okay.

11:49.55 Host: Myths.

11:50.27 AROB: I was wondering where you were going with this.

11:51.21 Host: Yeah. Yep. Myths and fundraising. And I think there's a lot more evidence against a lot of these myths, even more so than against Bigfoot.

11:57.97 AROB: All right. Yeah, there you go.

11:59.96 Host: Yeah. I've got a list of kind of common myths that you run into in fundraising. I want to run through them and just get your input, your take on each of these. And let's spend our time there today.

12:09.23 AROB: Sure.

12:11.37 Host: The first one I'm going to start with is one that when I got hired on as a fundraiser, my first week, this is something that came up with some parishioners saying, why are they spending money to hire this guy to go raise money? The myth, I guess, is that people will just give if you're doing good work. They don't need to be asked to give. Why are we spending money on a fundraiser to go ask people to give when they're going to give if you're doing good things?

12:32.54 AROB: Yeah. That is definitely a myth. People will give—well, I guess let's say it like this. People will sometimes make smaller annual fund gifts just because, but those people are rare. Those people are probably the more mythical beings that will give without being asked.

12:52.16 AROB: I remember years ago I met with a donor—he is a former teacher of mine—and I sat down with him and he had been a generous donor and I said, you know, would you consider giving again? And he said, yeah, what do you need? And I said, well, we need, you know, $2,500. We're trying to get this group up that gives $2,500. Would you be part of it? Yeah. How many are you trying to get?

13:17.11 AROB: And I said, I don't know, 30. And he said, OK, how many you got? I said, I don't know, like 12. He goes, so you want me? I said, yeah, OK, let's do it. And so it's just like a very simple—

13:28.87 AROB: He was ready to give. But because nobody had ever asked him, then he wasn't doing it of his own accord. So people will give much more if they are asked.

13:41.06 AROB: To your point, yes, the professional fundraiser who is hired to go out and ask people for money will be much more successful than the absent staff member or the absent effort to raise money, hoping that people will just give on their own.

13:56.13 Host: Yeah, the ministry where I worked had a 20-year history of sending out appeal letters, but didn't have a development staff member on staff. And they had, you know, a 20-year giving history from some of these donors, but they never had any five or six figure gifts until we started going and meeting them face to face and asking for those gifts. People who had given for forever gave at a smaller level until we asked for it.

14:11.27 AROB: Yep.

14:14.93 Host: So next myth, and these are in no particular order. This is a stream of consciousness myth list, I guess.

14:19.94 AROB: Okay. Okay.

14:20.94 Host: So we might be bouncing around here.

14:21.14 AROB: All right.

14:22.46 Host: Maybe I should have organized them, but we'll have some fun with it.

14:22.80 AROB: Yeah.

14:25.37 AROB: Yeah.

14:26.29 Host: Donors don't want to be contacted by fundraisers—that they find it annoying or as an intrusion on their lives.

14:34.21  AROB: That I would say is a myth as well. Most of my years in fundraising—well, I guess all of my years in fundraising—that was my job: to call donors, schedule meetings, email donors, schedule meetings and go meet with them.

14:47.81  AROB: Very, very rarely did I have somebody say, I really don't want to meet with you. The times that I did, the response was more like, I'm really busy right now.

14:58.51  AROB: Can we push this off until this time? And so, you know, sometimes that's a polite "I don't want to meet with you," but much more often, there is a willingness and an openness. And especially if you can sort of present your request to meet in a non-threatening way, if that's the sort of first way into the door.

15:18.88  AROB: And then once you get into meeting with your donors and scheduling these—you know, getting to know them—then, I mean, I would have donors that would text me and they would say, you haven't been to see me in a while. What's going on?

15:31.97  AROB: Come on up. Let's grab a drink. So donors, I would say as a whole are much more inclined to meet with you if you present as non-threatening, if you present with any sort of friendliness and if you are bringing them information and good news from the work that you're doing.

15:53.21  Host: Great. Next myth. People will stop giving if you ask too often. If you send two appeal letters in a year, that's too much. It's a lot. It's imposing if you make another ask. You know, if you ask too much, people are going to stop giving.

16:06.77  Host: Stop giving.

16:08.10  AROB: So there is a line that you can cross in too much and too often, but I would say that the vast, vast majority of nonprofit organizations never even come remotely close to that line of asking too often.

16:24.41  AROB: But one thing that you can do as a strategy—from what you're saying, you know, sending the letters and asking and sending the emails and asking—is incorporate an inform and ask strategy and schedule and rhythm.

16:37.84  AROB: And what I mean by that is that you don't want donors saying, I only ever hear from you when you're asking for money. And you also don't want donors to say, I know all about your organization, but I never give because nobody ever asks me to—that other point.

16:49.83

AROB: So inform and ask is a rhythm where you send a newsletter that informs them. A couple weeks later, you send an appeal letter that asks them for a gift. A couple months later, you send a newsletter that informs them of the work.

17:00.95

AROB: A couple of weeks later, you send an email that asks them for support. So getting your organization into that inform and ask rhythm kind of takes away that argument: I only ever hear from you when you're asking for money. You're asking too often.

17:14.66

AROB: All of that because they are getting information from you and being inspired by the work that you're doing and then wanting to give.

17:23.34

Host: Excellent. And let's go to the next one. I'm just going to keep rapid fire here.

17:27.58

AROB: Yeah.

17:28.32

Host: Once a donor gives, they'll automatically give again. You can count on that.

17:32.92

AROB: So, yeah, I would say that your best future donor is a former donor, right? So that part is true, that people will give to organizations more than once.

17:40.47

Host: Right.

17:48.33

AROB: Now, that being said, we're going back to that other one. If you are not asking them to support, and if you are not building a relationship and building trust within the organization and within yourself, then there are a lot of organizations that a donor could give to and could support, and you're one of them.

18:06.34

AROB: And so I think that what you have to do is you have to be constantly sort of making your case to your donors, especially your sort of mid-level donors, right? Your big donors—they love you, they're making a difference, they feel that they're making a difference—and so they will give, you know, regularly when you're asking them. So you're looking at that kind of group that you're moving up the donor pyramid, and so you have to remain top of mind. One very simple strategy to do that is once you form your portfolio of major gift donors or prospects, which should be somewhere around 120 to 150 people—

18:44.33

AROB: —then put in your mind, I want to have a contact point with them once a quarter. So that's not an ask once a quarter, but that's certainly an email, a news article that they might be interested in, or you're sending a newsletter and you're putting a personal—you know, writing "thanks for all you give." So a personal touch once a quarter is a great way to stay top of mind.

19:08.25

Host: Great. How about the flip side of that? Another fundraising myth: If somebody says no, they're never going to give.

19:13.71

AROB: Yeah, so that's totally not true. There's a lot of people that say, no, I'm not going to give. But the reasons are: now is not a good time, or I have too many other obligations.

19:25.96

AROB: But that doesn't mean never. There's a line in fundraising that says a no is just a slow yes. Now, that's not always the case, but the reality is that a lot of people cannot support you right now or at what you're asking for.

19:42.11

AROB: And that's—it's just the timing. It requires you to be intentional about continuing to develop that relationship if there is interest and affinity, and then come back later for another project, another proposal, another time.

19:56.56

Host: Yeah, I've seen that so many times now. When I first got into fundraising, I was like, that's a nice platitude to make you feel good about the nos.

20:02.92

AROB: Yeah.

20:03.34

Host: No is still a no, but it's a—I would say one of the most negative experiences I had in a donor meeting was a guy who more or less chased me out of there saying, don't ask me for money. I don't like it. Stop sending me appeal letters.

20:14.73

Host: And I was radio silent, and that was eight, nine years ago. And I just found out a few days ago, he made a million-dollar commitment to the ministry out of nowhere.

20:21.70

AROB: There you go.

20:22.52

Host: So no sometimes turns into a slow—

20:22.54

AROB: There you go.

20:24.85

Host: —yes. And more often than you would think.

20:25.56

AROB: There you go.

20:26.83

Host: Love it. Let's see—a little bit of a change of pace here. You need to have a big event to raise big money.

20:35.99

AROB: So this is very much an old school approach to fundraising. And if you look back through history, a lot of organizations, they get started with their nonprofit work or their cause or their advocacy with a big event.

20:50.47

AROB: And so then it creates this culture that big events are the only way to fundraise. And so then that just sort of perpetuates. And so you have to have this big event or you have to have an event in order to ask for gifts.

21:03.67

AROB: And that's just not true. Special events, in fact, are galas and banquets and auctions and everything else. Now, there are some unicorns out there, people that have been doing events, and they raise a lot of money.

21:14.97

AROB: Even those, though, if you take that event off the table and incorporate good foundational development strategies like annual fund, inform and ask—

21:27.35

AROB: —like major gift prospects, use move management. Those—even those organizations I would challenge would raise more money without the event. And then they would ultimately keep more because the events cost a lot of money to put on.

21:40.16

Host: Great, next fundraising myth. Grant funding is the best way to sustain a nonprofit.

21:46.71

AROB: Definitely a myth. Grants can be effective and they can be a big part of an organization's revenue stream. However, just some numbers for you: approximately, on a best day, approximately one out of ten of your grant requests are going to be funded. So you're shooting 10% at a high level. When you look at—I know a lot of our listeners are smaller faith-based nonprofits—if you look at where those grant dollars typically go—

22:20.49

AROB: The average grant size for small faith-based nonprofits is like $14,500 per grant. The average for large organizations—

22:28.08

Host: Yeah.

22:30.64

AROB: So your Red Cross, your cancer hospitals, those numbers are in the two to two and a half million dollar range. So that's how—that's the only way that there's even a reasonable average-size grant—

22:37.25

Host: Well—

22:42.91

AROB: —is because the big organizations are getting big grants, but small organizations, it's a lot of work for a very small gift on average. And it should be part of your strategy, but you should definitely not bank everything on it.

22:57.54

Host: Well, if not grants, then how about corporate sponsorships? Those must be the easiest way to raise money.

23:01.82

AROB: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, corporate sponsorships are probably even more tough for religious or faith-based nonprofits, small organizations.

23:10.35

Host: Yeah.

23:11.18

AROB: There's just so much—there's just so much risk when a—I guess I shouldn't say it like that. There are a lot of reasons why big corporations will not support smaller faith-based nonprofits.

23:25.26

AROB: Now, the exception to that is if you have business owners or people that run businesses as part of your donor pool. Now they may make their gifts through their business and call it underwriting or call it a sponsorship, but that's not a true corporate sponsorship.

23:45.91

AROB: That's, you know, the individual—you have a relationship with them and they're giving through their business. But outside of that, smaller nonprofits, faith-based nonprofits should—I mean, I wouldn't even have that as part of your strategy to go after corporate sponsorships. What comes in, you know, take it and put it to good use, but don't put any time and effort into it.

24:07.73

Host: Yeah. All right. Next fundraising myth. A single big donor can fund everything. We got one guy who's writing big checks. We don't need to worry about raising small dollars from all these other people.

24:20.88

AROB: Yes, that is a—it's a reality until it's a myth, right?

24:26.27

Host: Yeah.

24:26.71

AROB: That's the situation where, you know, Joe and Janie fund the organization for years until they decide they're not going to. And then the organization does not have a fundraising plan, does not have a strategy, has no other donors.

24:41.85

AROB: And Joe and Janie are in the past. So that is a very risky proposition to have your organization propped up by a single donor or a single small group of donors.

24:53.54

AROB: You're going to put yourself in a much better situation to broaden your pool of donors as opposed to building it up with small numbers of large-level gifts.

25:06.52

Host: Great. Let's talk about some myths about donors specifically. Sticking with maybe big donors, people only give for tax benefits.

25:09.81

AROB: Okay.

25:13.51

Host: Is that true?

25:15.00

AROB: So the two questions that a donor has to answer for them to make a gift is: why should I give to this organization and why should I give now? So the purpose and then the urgency are required.

25:28.93

AROB: Tax benefits come into play when you're talking about typically time of the year people make their end-of-year gifts because their taxes are going to close. That's not always the case—sometimes, a lot of times probably more so, it's just the general season of giving is at the end of the year, right? The other people that give for tax benefits are the people that are in very, very high income brackets where taxes and their tax deductions matter to them.

25:39.30

Host: Yeah.

25:58.96

AROB: And you're talking about, you know, the 1%—less than probably the 1%. So you're talking about a very small group of people where taxes have anything to do with why they give. The vast, vast, vast majority of donors give because your organization is making an impact, doing the work, and you've asked them for a gift.

26:18.07

Host: Yeah, it's interesting. Like logically, you would think—30% of donations come in in December, 10% come in the last three days of December.

26:22.95

AROB: Yep.

26:25.50

Host: Over the course of the whole year, 10% in those last three days. You'd think that that's related to taxes because that's kind of the only logical reason, I guess. But people just like to make gifts at the end of the year, by the end of the calendar year, whether they're tax motivated or not.

26:37.58

AROB: Yeah.

26:40.01

AROB: Yeah, I mean, maybe—I don't know if you want to look it up, Ren, but how many Americans now use the standard deduction over itemized deductions when they're doing their taxes?

26:51.79

AROB: You know, just thinking, as the standard deduction has gone up and has increased, I meet more people—certainly the people that I associate with—that are much more in the standard deduction bracket of their taxes than they are itemized. So standard deduction, you're not even keeping track of what you give to at the end of the year.

27:15.01

AROB: Did you get a number?

27:15.26

Host: Do you want to guess? I got a number. Do you want to make a wild guess here on what percentage of U.S. taxpayers opt for the standard deduction?

27:23.43

AROB: 72%? Higher.

27:24.43

Host: Higher. Yeah.

27:26.42

AROB: Oh, I thought I was shooting high. 80%? 88%? 90%?

27:30.52

Host: Higher. 90%.

27:32.56

AROB: Ninety percent?

27:33.83

Host: Ninety percent.

27:35.34

AROB: Ninety percent? Wow.

27:37.36

Host: So prior to 2018, which is when the standard deduction got kind of doubled, it was about 70%.

27:42.66

AROB: Yeah. Yeah.

27:43.99

Host: Now it's up to 90%. So almost everybody is using the standard deduction.

27:49.29 AROB So tell me that taxes have anything to do with the timing of gifts from people - those 90% of people that file their standard deduction.

28:01.22 AROB It just... It's not part of it, right? I guess I should say...

28:03.85 Host Yeah.

28:05.84 AROB You know, it's fun for somebody to say, "Oh, well, you know, I give to this group because it's a tax deduction or it's a write-off."

28:14.11 Host Right, right.

28:14.15 AROB Right. So maybe in sort of conversation, it comes up. But in any sort of practical sense, yeah, it has very little to do with virtually all of your donors.

28:25.79 Host That makes sense. All right. How about this one? This fundraising myth: Young people don't give. It's all older people.

28:32.18 AROB So that is very much a myth, but they give in different ways.

28:36.79 Host Right.

28:36.72 AROB So most of your older donors, let's say 65 and up, are giving through direct mail. They're responding to direct mail appeals, they are writing checks, and they're coming to your events and they're buying tables, right?

28:54.67 AROB Younger donors - so millennials and even younger Gen Z - is that... did I get that right? Is that the right... is that younger than... is it Gen Alpha?

29:02.39 Host Gen Z is after millennial, then it's Gen Alpha. Yep.

29:13.92 AROB So they're still giving, but they're giving in different ways. They're giving - number one - they're spending more time contributing their time to their causes. So they're giving that way. But the gifts that they're giving are smaller gifts to more organizations, given digitally, given through their phone or given through some sort of crowdfunding platform or campaign.

29:29.59 AROB So they do give, but you have to be mindful of what those strategies are to bring them into your organization and then make sure that you build those relationships just like you would with anybody else.

29:42.27 Host Great. Next fundraising myth: Imagine you're doing, say, a matching gift challenge. All right. Donors are going to stop giving as soon as you hit that goal, whatever that challenge amount is.

29:52.77 AROB Yeah, so there is an element of - at the end of the matching gift challenge, the end of the capital campaign, the end of the end-of-year appeal, whatever it is - that push to "it's your last chance to give to make a difference. Please help us put us over the top." That does generate gifts. Now, that being said, when you hit that goal, you change your messaging to "we've hit our goal. Please help us to continue to exceed so we can do even more - greater impact." And I have seen countless times that organizations continue to raise money even after they've hit their goal on their campaign, on their matching gift plan, whatever that is.

30:36.09 AROB And it's just a matter of you change your message and you continue to ask.

30:41.08 Host Yeah, it's almost like a second boost sometimes. I was always shocked when that happened on challenges I was working on.

30:43.41 AROB Yeah.

30:46.52 Host People, once they see it successful, they want to be part of it. I wish they would have jumped in early on, right? Get you some early momentum. But once you get to the end and you pass the dollar amount and there's still some time before the deadline, it keeps going.

30:57.81 Host So keep pushing.

30:58.01 AROB Yeah.

30:59.04 Host Love it. All right, let's see. A few kind of about fundraisers or fundraising itself. We kind of touched on this, but nonprofits shouldn't spend money on fundraising.

31:11.22 Host And maybe let's take this even to the angle of - you think about different ratings of nonprofits out there and what percentage of their money goes directly to the people that are served versus how much gets spent on overhead.

31:22.69 Host Should that number be zero spent on overhead?

31:24.34 AROB Yeah. No, absolutely not. So Dan Pallotta wrote a book called "Uncharitable" and he's got a great TED talk as well, but he talks about overhead. People paint or use the word overhead in sort of a diminutive sense to talk negatively about an organization.

31:47.98 AROB Overhead isn't programming, it isn't impacting the recipients, it's all of the administration and the fluff that should not be funded. And the reality is that organizations - whatever your organization: a school, campus ministry, a parish, a university, a hospital, whatever the organization is - would not exist without the administration making decisions and running the organization, casting the vision.

32:15.39 AROB Doing all of the different things that are required in any organization to be able to function and remain sustainable. So I would say that the organizations that are on the charity watch list as being 1% or 2% overhead are just simply calling their administrative staff different things to be able to sort of present that case.

32:42.27 AROB That's never been the case. If you're not spending money to raise money, then you're not going to raise any money, or you're going to raise significantly less. So I would say that that's a myth.

32:52.75 AROB You have to invest in - just like a business has to invest in sales and marketing - a nonprofit has to invest in raising money and fundraising if they want to be successful.

33:07.09 Host Yeah, if that number is zero, you're not growing. And therefore, there's a lot of people that you would otherwise be serving that aren't being served by you.

33:13.30 AROB Yeah.

33:13.50 Host Your impact isn't happening in the world. That's a bad thing.

33:15.80 AROB Yeah. What you end up doing is you end up reducing your level of programming to what you can afford without investing more into fundraising. I had a friend of mine who served on a finance council for a large parish for many years, and the majority of the finance council's mentality was "here's our money. Let's reduce our programming to fit this amount of money that we have."

33:25.66 Host Right.

33:41.08 AROB And his contention was always, "Wait a minute, if the programming need is there, why aren't we increasing the money that we have to be able to match that need?"

33:53.49 AROB And the way that you increase the money that you have is by investing and spending smartly, but spending more money in the act of fundraising and bringing those dollars in.

34:04.45 Host Makes a lot of sense. A few more here. Next fundraising myth: volunteers. We don't need a professional fundraiser that's paid. We can have volunteers go and do that work.

34:15.13 AROB Yeah. So volunteers have a very critical role in a development program. So that's sort of data point number one, right? Capital campaign - the campaign committee is helpful. And event - the event volunteers are very helpful.

34:31.03 AROB But what I tell people is - kind of applies to part-time fundraising as well - people will ask me, "I don't have the money or I don't want to spend money on a full-time fundraiser. Can we get away with a part-time fundraiser or can we get away with volunteers?"

34:44.39 AROB And the very simple response that I have to that is that part-time fundraisers generate part-time results.

34:52.65 Host Yeah.

34:53.34 AROB Volunteer fundraisers, or free fundraisers, generate limited results. And the reason for that is that fundraising is not a one-day-a-week endeavor, right? It's not a when-you-can-squeeze-it-in-between-other-activities project that leads to success.

35:13.67 AROB And with a part-time staff member or with a volunteer, that's just what you end up getting naturally. And so a full-time fundraiser to focus on fundraising and strategy and effort and activity - all of that all the time - is your best way to generate more dollars and revenue for your organization, which ultimately then creates greater impact.

35:35.73 Host Great. Next fundraising myth: Fundraising is begging.

35:40.30 AROB So I saw this on the list and I was like, "How do I answer that?" It's just not. I mean, it's a myth. When... fundraising, fundraising, you have a story?

35:52.92 Host Can I offer a story, I guess?

35:57.44 AROB Go for it.

35:57.98 Host So when I started fundraising, several of my family members - their idea of what I did was I went and shook people upside down and took whatever money fell out of their pockets, right?

36:06.86 AROB Yeah.

36:07.56 Host Which is more like swindling, I guess, than begging. There was a couple that I went and met with - a donor couple who had been giving a few hundred dollars a year to our ministry - and went and had lunch with them. As we sat down to lunch, they said, "Do not ask us for money. We don't like to be asked." And I said, "Oh, that's totally fine. All right, we'll just hang out. I'd love to hear your story, how you were connected with the ministry."

36:25.90 Host Had this nice lunch. At the end of lunch, as we're getting up to leave, I gave them some books. So at the campus ministry, Father Ben would buy a whole bunch of books every Christmas and Easter - hundreds of them in bulk - and give them out to the students as gifts.

36:38.15 Host And I would just take the leftovers and give them out to our alumni or our supporters, etc., when I met with them. So I give the couple these books and tell them the story. It was like some Scott Hahn books, I think. And they said, "Oh, this is amazing. We love the idea of getting catechetical materials in the hands of young people. If you're ever doing anything else like this, let us know. We'll help." I said, "Oh, well, you know, we're giving out Bibles and catechisms every fall. We're getting ready to order those now. It costs us a few thousand dollars every year to do that. Would you help with that?" And they said, "We'll pay for that entire project every year as long as we're alive." So that one lunch went from "don't ask us for money" to "this is the impact that we want to see in the world and a chance to do that. Please take our money and do that," right?

37:17.69 AROB Yeah.

37:19.88 Host So that's kind of how I think of that. I wasn't begging them for money. In fact, I was told not to ask them at all. And yet I lined them up with the opportunity to make the impact in the world that they wanted to make, but couldn't do with their own two hands because they just weren't in a situation, you know, to be with young people, giving them catechetical books, right? So I guess that's how I would illustrate my own experience with that.

37:42.04 AROB Yeah. I think that you're spot on. The best fundraising - true development - is where there is mutual benefit. There is mutual reason why a nonprofit and a donor will find common ground, right?

37:58.99 AROB A nonprofit is able to make an impact in some way that the donor feels passionately needs to happen. And so when the donor and the organization meet and there is a relationship there, then it is not begging. It is a way for that donor, that individual, those individuals, that couple, that family, whatever, to live out their mission - their personal mission in life - through the work and the effort and the impact of a nonprofit.

38:32.74 Host Excellent. Two more here about fundraisers themselves, kind of maybe in the same vein a little bit. Fundraisers are people who have to be smooth talkers, kind of used car salesman mentality there.

38:44.49 AROB Yeah, so that's a belief from a lot of staff members and volunteers who want to hire a fundraiser - that you have to get somebody who's very charismatic, who's very friendly, who's very gregarious.

38:56.40 AROB And that's who's going to end up raising money for your organization. And the truth of the matter is that fundraising, as we've talked about before - you're building relationships. So having somebody who is able to communicate and talk with donors and build those relationships and build trust is important.

39:16.17 AROB But there is so much more to fundraising than just talking with donors. There is the organization. There is the strategy. There is the activity. There is all of that that - if you have an individual who is lacking those, then fundraising will suffer. And so I would say that a fundraiser - an extroverted fundraiser, an introverted fundraiser, a loud fundraiser, a quiet fundraiser, a... maybe not an angry fundraiser, right? There's some... there's some... I was like, "Where... how else can I go with this?"

39:48.65 AROB That has no inherent reason to be better than the other, just simply because of their personality. But you put any of those people on either side of that sort of coin flip into a situation where they are doing the activity, they have a strategy, and they're being consistent in their effort. And all of them have equal opportunity to be successful in fundraising.

40:13.59 Host All right. And you kind of took away my last myth there. Fundraisers have to be extroverts.

40:16.83 AROB Oh, sorry.

40:18.71 Host And we've talked about that in a past episode, maybe a year, a year and a half ago, I think.

40:18.90 AROB Yeah.

40:22.42 AROB Yeah, false.

40:23.00 Host There's just at least as many introverts in fundraising, maybe even more.

40:26.54 AROB Yep, it's true because a lot of fundraising is organization. It is being strategic. It is having a plan and working the plan. And not to say that an introvert can be better in those areas, but that it means that they are not excluded from being successful as a fundraiser just because they are exhausted after a night of talking with people and shaking hands because of their personality. Everybody can be successful if they have a plan and they work the plan in fundraising.

40:57.59 Host Great. I love it. That was a lot of myths. I think 18 is what we went through there.

41:00.42 AROB Yeah.

41:00.67 Host Anything else you would add? Just about anything around the mythology of fundraising, I guess.

41:07.20 AROB Oh my gosh. I don't know. We did talk a little bit about how some donors that an individual thinks about are, you know, very unicorn-ish, right? The donor who... well, I don't know. I was trying to kind of go into this, you know, the mythology of unicorns, and there are unicorns out there. I don't know where... but how that fits in with our myths. But I think that there are commonly held beliefs when it comes to fundraising - as with anything else - that as you apply lens and you apply true look into the strategy, the plan, the execution of fundraising, that just... that they don't bear out to be true.

41:55.05 AROB And so I think we covered a lot of them today - maybe all of them, probably not all of them, but a lot of them. And I think this was, you know, sort of helpful in dispelling a lot of those myths.

42:04.42 Host Excellent. Before we leave, do you have time for a little game or activity? Something fun?

42:09.67 AROB Sure. Yeah, let's do it.

42:11.04 Host All right. We're going to do... I scoured the internet. I was telling you before, I found some of the trends out there of different activities, games, whatever you want to call it, on social media. It's going to make us very hip with the youth.

42:24.80 AROB Okay, good.

42:27.19 Host As I'm sure they can tell we are.

42:28.97 AROB Now that I know the names of the youths - Gen Alpha, Gen Z.

42:34.12 Host So I don't think you've done this before. It sounds like... we're going to do a little bit of blind ranking.

42:38.17 AROB Okay.

42:38.63 Host And so I'm going to give you five things. You have to rank them one through five. One is the best. Five is the worst, but you're not going to know... I'm going to give you one at a time. You're not going to know what's coming next.

42:46.78 AROB Ooh, all right.

42:47.16 Host So you might trap yourself into, you know, putting something you hate as number one or something you love as number five.

42:51.73 AROB Oh, gosh. Okay.

42:53.43 Host I'm going to start with a low-stakes one. Just something fun to play with here.

42:56.07 AROB Okay.

42:57.36 Host So today we're going to do foods provided by donors when you meet them at their house. You sit down on the couch.

43:03.59 AROB Okay.

43:04.47 Host They put down something on the coffee table. I got five things for you. You got to give them a ranking one through five.

43:09.59 AROB And this is my favorites or least favorites of the five?

43:12.20 Host This is totally your opinion, so you can put whatever item at number five, you can put whatever item at number one. You gotta fill in one through five.

43:13.71 AROB Okay, great. Got it.

43:20.14 AROB Okay.

43:20.57 Host Like a plan.

43:21.69 AROB That sounds great.

43:22.70 Host All right, we're gonna start easy with coffee. Where would you put that one through five?

43:28.80 AROB Two.

43:29.98 Host All right, I'm gonna keep track of these. We can revisit them later. How about apple pie?

43:37.13 AROB Oh, gosh. I would have put that above coffee, but I don't want to give away my number one. Three.

43:42.16 Host All right.

43:42.59 AROB Because it is a little bit messy to eat apple pie if you're sitting with donors. So there is a little bit of risk in dropping some on my shirt. So I wouldn't... I don't know that I would put it number one anyways, but it is tasty.

43:53.34 Host I had a fundraising mentor at one time who told me the one thing I hate most in the world is pie of every sort, and it's the one thing I've had to eat the most in my job - pie.

44:06.19 AROB Oh man, I love pie.

44:07.86 Host How about coffee cake?

44:09.34 AROB Coffee cake.

44:10.35 Host Yeah.

44:11.02 AROB Oh gosh. You're going with two sweets back to back.

44:13.44 Host I know.

44:14.27 AROB I would say because of the messiness, it would probably rank lower than apple pie. So I love... I do like coffee cake - it's good - but you're stuck in this, like, eating it with a fork and then it falls in your lap and then, you know, then you stand up and you drop crumbs all over. That's just embarrassing.

44:30.17 AROB So...

44:31.16 Host Well, where would that be? Four or five?

44:33.18 AROB Oh, four.

44:34.06 Host All right. You got one and five left. We'll see.

44:36.26 AROB Shoot.

44:37.36 Host We'll see where you end up.

44:37.27 AROB I have no idea what you're coming back with here.

44:40.15 Host And these are all ones I've had with donors. So they're not too out of the ballpark. The number four is, or the fourth option here is blueberry muffins - another kind of sweet.

44:52.74 Host Number five or number one?

44:55.74 AROB Five.

44:57.24 Host Blueberry muffins, five.

44:58.02 AROB I'm hoping that this last one, I would actually eat. It's probably like baked cod or something.

45:06.88 Host Actually, my first ever donor meeting, I had fish tacos, which I had never had before. And I was terrified and I loved them.

45:11.08 AROB Oh, there you go. There you go.

45:12.72 Host So you never know, but I did not put that on the list.

45:13.41 AROB Yeah, I love a fish taco.

45:16.71 Host Your number one is going to be green tea.

45:19.68 AROB Green tea?

45:20.35 Host Uh-huh.

45:20.88 AROB Oh, no. No!

45:24.14 Host Bummer.

45:26.24 AROB You said it could happen.

45:26.65 Host So...

45:27.90 AROB My number one I would not be a fan of. Am I allowed to put honey in this green tea?

45:34.59 Host Oh no, definitely not.

45:35.68 AROB No? Oh, jeez.

45:36.31 Host No. Green tea as it is.

45:37.94 AROB Sugar? Even worse.

45:39.21 Host Yeah, but oh...

45:41.27 AROB I'd put that at like eight out of my five options if I had it.

45:44.16 Host Again, that was kind of a low-stakes one.

45:44.41 AROB All right.

45:45.48 Host I have some other ones prepared for future episodes that are a little more fundraising specific, but your number one choice to be served when sitting down with a donor: green tea, followed by coffee - heavy on the liquids here - followed by apple pie and then coffee cake and then blueberry muffins.

45:47.64 AROB Right.

45:57.08 AROB Yeah.

46:00.14 AROB Okay. Well, oh, a hundred percent.

46:00.75 Host Would you make a switch there if you had the option?

46:03.63 AROB Yeah.

46:04.36 Host What would be number one?

46:05.84 AROB I'd probably move coffee up to number one, keep everything else in that... move coffee cake down below blueberry muffin and then put green tea at the end.

46:14.95 Host All right. Now we know.

46:16.66 AROB Yeah. You know...

46:17.52 Host We know. Well, I'll get you warmed up so we can do some more of these on a future episode.

46:20.26 AROB But you know what?

46:21.48 Host And...

46:21.78 AROB You know what? I would eat or drink anything offered in a donor meeting, even if it was number... even if it would be my eighth option in a list of five, because that's just what you do as a fundraiser.

46:35.26 Host That is exactly right. Now, if you could communicate that to my children, I would appreciate that.

46:39.18 AROB Yeah.

46:40.19 Host I guess that's what we'll spend summer break on.

46:42.02 AROB Yeah, exactly.

46:43.24 Host All right. Well, before I wrap up, I just want to mention, if you are going to want to take advantage of this summer break - if it's the downtime of the year for you - I want to kind of go deeper into learning fundraising and getting your fundraising program set up.

46:55.60 Host We're doing an accelerated version of our BOAT program - Basic Online Advancement Training. It's kind of our boot camp. Usually it's a 10-week program, cohort-based. We meet live for 90 minutes every other week. But this summer, from the week of July 7th, right after the 4th of July, until the first week of August, we're doing five straight weeks.

47:14.40 Host We're going to have two modules of content every week and a 90-minute live cohort call every week for five weeks and we're gonna do one big sprint to get you all set for the coming - I guess school year you would say - over the course of the summer. So if you're interested in that, you check it out: petrusdevelopment.com/boat. And if you use the promo code "podcast" you can get 20% off of your registration price. So that'll...

47:38.41 AROB Wow. How about that? One correction I'll make. You said June 7th, but it's actually July 7th.

47:44.64 Host Oh, I'm sorry. It is July 7th. Yep. Registration closes right before the 4th of July on July 3rd.

47:46.97 AROB Yep.

47:49.93 Host So make sure you get in by then and prices go up. I should actually know the date. The prices are a little bit lower right now and they're going to go up on June 25th. So you have a few days here to sign up before prices go up.

47:58.80 AROB Okay.

48:02.62 Host And again, you can save 20% with the promo code "podcast." So go check that out and come join us July and August and do the deep dive on fundraising.

48:09.29 AROB Got it. Can we, since it starts right after 4th of July, can we also create a coupon code that is "merica" and that gets you 21% off?

48:21.61 Host If you would like, I can do that. Yes.

48:24.78 AROB Well, it's up to you. I'm just here to cause problems. So you could take that and run with it or not.

48:32.18 Host "merica" - 21%, 21% off.

48:33.85 AROB Yes, exactly. 21% if you use the code "merica."

48:39.81 Host All right. We'll do that.

48:41.51 AROB All right.

48:42.55 Host All right. Well, thanks for joining us today, Andrew.

48:44.31 AROB Absolutely. My pleasure. Thanks for putting this together.

48:46.20 Host Have a good one.