3 Strategies For Fully Understanding Your Donors’ Stories

For six years, I taught in a major gifts strategy program at Kellogg School of Management while being a major gift donor myself. One thing puzzled me greatly. Fundraisers mostly learn from other fundraisers who are very rarely major gifts donors themselves. How do they know if their messaging actually resonates and their fundraising strategy actually works?

If you want to truly understand your audience and craft stories that will resonate with them, you want to get to know that exact group of people and understand their experiences. They are the best source to tell you what it is like to be them! 

Such consumer research is common in the for-profit world. As Eric Ries has noted in The Lean Start-up, “Don’t ask why people don’t use your startup. Ask why the people who continue to use your startup keep using it.” In other words, study the people who consistently choose to use your product. 

Businesses take this very seriously. They hire consumer anthropologists and invest in understanding their users’ experiences. They observe closely and ask questions as users interact with the product. Sometimes they even visit people’s homes to watch them use products in their natural environment.

But too often, in the nonprofit world, fundraisers don’t reach this depth of ethnographic research on the people who keep donating.

While they do often conduct background research, there is no replacement for talking with donors directly and with a sense of childlike curiosity. Fundraisers have a huge opportunity to make connections and learn if they are willing to talk with donors with the sole intention of finding out who they are, what they worry about, and—most important of all—what they dislike.

Unfortunately, what often happens instead is that they learn major gift solicitation strategies from other fundraisers—senior, successful fundraisers, or former fundraisers turned consultants—not from the very people who are actually major gifts donors.

It’s time to go to the source. It’s time to understand the stories of your donor base.

“There is no replacement for talking with donors directly and with a sense of childlike curiosity.”

Why Leadership Storytelling Matters for Fundraising

Leadership storytelling is vital for fundraising executives. I define leadership storytelling as the intentional assertion of a point of view. Intentional is key. Fundraisers do tell stories, but the intent of their stories is not always well thought out. And, too often, the point of view of the story is often misaligned with their audience because they haven’t studied their donors in-depth.

When fundraisers and consultants do study their donors, the results can be eye-opening. For instance, after surveying donors who had contributed to nonprofits for an average of 32 years, fundraising consultant Penelope Burk discovered that “donor attrition is not yet on the radar screen of the fundraising industry even though it is the number one problem in the business,” as she noted Donor-centered Fundraising.

Why is attrition such an issue?  Looking at the donor experience on a granular level reveals that donors find fundraising practices archaic, and feel these practices do not demonstrate empathy.

Few donors have shared their experiences as publicly and candidly as Lisa Greer does in her new book Philanthropy Revolution, the first book on philanthropy written by a donor. She recently shared three takeaways fundraisers can learn from major donors.

1. Update Your Archaic Strategies

Philanthropy has been relying on the same strategies for far too long, says Greer. “Although fundraising, in some form, has been done for centuries,” Greer told me in an interview, “the current version is very similar to the way it was done in the early 1900s.” 

At that time, Greer explains, fundraisers began “collecting data to identify and qualify prospects, arranging a lunch or similar meeting to ‘learn about the organization,’ and then to conduct the ‘ask’ that has been rehearsed prior to the lunch. It’s followed by a pile of papers being pushed across the table– documents that are likely to serve as a doorstop once brought home.”

This process is “arcane and even illogical,” says Greer, “especially for younger or newer donors.” 

She cites Beth Breeze, director and co-founder of University of Kent’s Centre for Philanthropy, who notes that the only real change over the past several decades is that fundraising has been reframed from “at worst, a general irritation, to being commonly understood as an aggressive act.” 

It’s time for an overhaul—one based on authenticity.

2. Be an Authentic Listener

Greer has mentioned that she does take some cold calls from fundraisers. I was curious—what makes the difference between those she takes and those she declines?

“Just like those marketing calls you get at dinnertime, if the call is someone just talking – and not listening, I’m not interested (regardless of what they’re selling’),” says Greer. 

“If, on the other hand, the caller starts the conversation like any call with a colleague or acquaintance, I’m likely to let the pitch begin. If the caller or writer conveys a love of their organization’s mission, and if they know a bit about me that suggests I might also be interested in that mission, then we’re likely to have at least a decent chance of a successful result. If the call feels transactional from the outset (i.e. just get the money and run), then I’m out.”

From the fundraiser’s perspective, time can feel crunched. They know a wealthy donor is a busy donor. Not only that, the pressure’s on to make “the ask” correctly. All those things can lead them to say as much as possible right away. But aggressive listening is far more authentic and will lead to a stronger connection than a rushed pitch.

“Donors want to be more than a checkbook, ATM or piggy bank,” says Greer. “They also want to feel that they have an authentic relationship with the organizations they support.” 

One fundraiser Greer spoke with took this to heart. He wondered how each of his organization’s major donors would like to be authentically thanked for giving. Greer suggested he simply ask them. Following her advice, he conducted an online survey to find out. He received over a 70% response rate—remarkable since most surveys receive somewhere between 20% and 30% response rates! From these survey responses, he learned a great deal from his donors.

“Asking them about how they feel about something is a direct attribute of a relationship,” says Greer, “as opposed to a transaction.” 

Find out how donors prefer to interact, including how they want to be thanked. It’s deadly to assume that you already know, or that the old way of doing business is fine.

3. Research Your Donors’ Stories

To jump-start the process of listening well, research your donors before you call or meet with them.

“In my book I suggest what I call the ‘5 minute Google search,’” says Greer. “It really only takes five minutes to learn about the prospective donor as a human being. Knowing their financial ‘capacity’ is fine, but it’s pretty meaningless if the person clearly has interests that don’t include the sector that your nonprofit is in.”

What should fundraisers try to learn about a prospective donor? It can “run the gamut,” says Greer, “but some of them are their interests, their family, and their background (educational, work, etc.). Not only will that give you some background on the whole person – it will also give you connection points to further your relationship.”

My curiosity about donors’ life experiences led me to complete a research study on first-generation wealth creators (FGWs), and their relationship with wealth and philanthropy. The report reveals that “wealthy” represents a set of values FGWs simply don’t adhere to. Request an advance copy of Leadership Story Lab’s research, “Transforming Partnerships with Major Donors: Aligning the key values of first generation wealth creators and fundraisers in the age of ‘Winner Takes All.’”

To further understand your donor’s stories, start by interviewing your most loyal donors. Check out my article “3 Questions That Reveal Your Donors’ Stories” for a guide to interviewing these longtime supporters.