Building A Solid Foundation

All those are great. That's not what I mean when I say major gifts. I am talking about individual human beings, households who. Are donating $10,000 or more a year to your nonprofit. So the first thing to have a solid foundation is you actually need to know how to identify who these people are. Prioritization is everything. Some of you are not raising enough money because your priorities suck. They are out of alignment with what will really raise more money. If you understood.

That building relationships with people raised more money. How would you change your calendar? How you prioritize your time? You might be in less meetings internally. You might excuse yourself from doing internal crap that doesn't raise more money. You might talk with people more, right? You might pick up the. More, you might go on meetings more. You might fly and get on a plane and go see people in person. These are the things that you would do to build relationships, right? Be with people.

Think about the love languages. How do people feel? Loved? They appreciate quality time. They appreciate words of affirmation. They appreciate acts of service. They appreciate gifts and physical touch. Don't go touching your donors. Okay? That's not what I'm trying to say. But this is just to jog your memory, to remind you here that how we build relationships with people is we spend time with them, we talk with them, we get to know them.

Some of you are not spending your time doing that because you think you don't have time, and that is ridiculous. It's. If you don't have time to build relationships, then you will quickly not have money, and you won't have money to run the nonprofit that you think you're so busy running without spending time with your donors who are funding the dang thing. Do you hear what I'm saying? It's crazy. It's like somebody being a homeowner and they're.

Yeah, I, I don't have time to go get a job to pay my bills to pay for this house because I'm too busy taking care of the house. What, like, do you see what I'm saying? It doesn't make any sense. Like you go get a job. If you want to pay your mortgage, period, that is a priority. You will pay your bills.

Just because you got a plumbing issue and you need to get the roof repaired and you, you know, need a new paint job is not enough reason to not pay your bills cuz you don't have time to go get money to pay your bills for the house that you're too busy taking care of. Do you see what I'm saying? That's what we're doing with our nonprofit. We're like, oh, I don't have time to raise money and build relationships with donors. This don't make no sense.

We gotta start making some sense You gotta make yourself laugh too. You know? It's all good. Don't judge yourself. It's okay. We all make mistakes. We all mess up, myself included. I don't get it right all the time. We're not expecting perfection here, right? This is Courage Lab. This is a lab. You are meant to test out a new. And I assume, dear listener, that you come to this podcast because you want to change, you want things to change, but you want to change.

How do you think that things change? You change? So number one, to building a good foundation is you need to know how to identify who the right people are. And let me give you a really big hint. That you're not probably gonna like the answer. It needs to be the donor who is already a donor. It's not somebody who's rich out there.

It's someone who has given you a hundred dollars yesterday and you think that you don't have time to personally thank them and pick up the phone and call them Sincerely. And express gratitude. It's that person, the person you're taking for granted, the person, you're neglecting, the person who's already given you money, and you think that you're entitled to their money, you're not.

We need to quickly humble ourselves and just prioritize the current donors that we have and build relationships with them. Now here's how you can quickly identify who you should spend more time on. Are they eager? Are they telling you that they wanna help you? Are they responsive? Are they communicative? Do they increase their giving? Do they give every single flipping year for the last 13 years? Good grief.

What other signals do they need to give you that they're into this organization, they believe in what you're doing, and you're still scared to call this person. It's crazy. They're telling you in every way that they possibly. That this matters to them. This is important. They want to be of service. They wanna be on your team. They wanna partner with you to change the world in this specific way. Those are the people you need to identify as the ones who should, you should be bringing closer.

So you need to be able to identify who those people are. If you don't know how to do. then you need to get inside Courage Lab, because that's one of the first things that we focus on, is how to identify your top donors, who are your top priority. Doesn't necessarily mean that they're giving you their biggest gift right now. Could be.

But you've gotta learn the skill of identifying and then constantly reprioritizing your list because you're gonna learn as you get to know people, you're gonna learn new information about them. That's going to either make them become. An even higher priority or a lower one. So you're constantly reshifting and reprioritizing who you're building relationships with. You see it doesn't stay static. You don't have top 25 donors for year over year. They're the same people.

No. So you, you've gotta learn the skill of identifying and re-identifying who those people. The next thing to build a solid foundation to raise major gifts is you need to change the way that you see yourself. You need to change you and the way that you see yourself, that you need to keep the peace. You need to be polite. You need to be a people pleaser. You need to have very few boundaries. You need to be vague and ask people to support That's my least favorite way to ask for money.

By the way, hey, we'd really love for your support this year. Can we count on you? Blah, blah, blah. There's no creativity. There's no intention. It's not clear. Like, stop putting so much work on the donor to interpret what you mean when you're straight up asking for money. Just, just say, will you donate this much money? You need to change. You need to get the guts to ask for more. You need to have the internal character of a courageous person. and right now you don't.

If you're not raising enough money, you're likely not asking people for more, or you are only asking them for more. You're not really building relationships. There's usually two different scenarios here. There's people who ask for more but don't build relationships enough, and there's people. Who build relationships so much. You're texting with your donors, they're inviting you to their kids' birthday party, and you still don't ask them for more good grief.

So you see you're probably in one of two buckets, or maybe you're in both. Maybe you do a mix of both. It's not necessarily one or the other. There is nuance here, so wherever you are at, you need to change your habit. And you need to become someone new. The great news is that this is something you have 100% control over, and that is what I help people to do to become the most courageous version of themselves. That they actually have bold conversations that are clear, direct, and concise.

Remember, clear is kind with rich people. And inviting them to join you in the fight to serve your community, to overcome injustice, to make the world better in the specific way that you do that. And so you need to stop seeing yourself as a doer, as someone who has a task list. You're just a helper. You're just a whatever you are to, you are a leader. And not just any leader, you are a leader in the donor's life.

You are leading them to fulfill their calling of becoming the most generous version of themselves. This is the, the true essence of a great fund. If you want a solid foundation, you need to have courage at the core of your strategy. Seth Godin talks about how culture is strategy, and culture is just who you are, who everyone is, the character of the people on your team, and as a result of your character, your habits, your thoughts, your attitudes, your behavioral values, your practice.

All of these things come from who you are. And so if you want to have a bold strategy, but you're not a bold person, then guess what, babe? You gotta become a bold, courageous person. And how do you do that? Well, I show you how to do that in Courage Lab. I can't show you how to do that on a podcast. It is something that you need accountability. You need support from your peers. You need to see other people doing it. You need to change your relationship to risk. That's a big part.

You think that it's a risk to invest in your skillset and training, but the real risk is not doing that. The real risk is not learning how to do these things. and just hoping and wishing and praying that your charisma is gonna be what draws in more money. That ain't it. There's a ceiling to that. If you have a real strategy and you are a courageous person, if you have a plan in that is thoughtful, that is based on the relationship.

That you have with a donor, the best data you will ever get is what comes out of your donor's mouth, what they tell you in the context of a trusting relationship. Google wishes they could hear what your donors will tell you. For real, I, I mean, that is such a massive c. of having a solid foundation in major gifts, fundraising. You must change and you must change the way that you see your donors, the way that you see rich people, and even some of you are bristling a little bit.

When I say rich people, I say that because it violates your mind a little. that's what we're talking about here with major gifts, right? We're talking about building relationships with rich people who give a damn. And a lot of the donors that I talk to, they know that they can make more money. They don't see money the way that you do. They cannot create more. Time is a limited high value resource.

And some of the challenge with nonprofits that I see is you have, such a high, high, high value for money that you fear it and you have a scarcity mindset. So you, you don't take risks, you don't wanna spend. But you waste your time all the time. There's a lack of wisdom and discernment in how you spend your time, and you are too willynilly with how you expect your volunteers or your donors to spend time with you and your donors don't see time the way that you do.

They understand that 30 minutes with you is 30 minutes. They can't get. They can make more money. They make money. In fact, while they're sleeping, their stock portfolio is growing year over year. They have investments and equity and businesses that are growing. Their money grows and grows and grows exponentially, and the rich continue to get.

There is tremendous economic op opportunity in a recession for those who already are rich, really for for many people, but especially those who are already wealthy. They get wealthier. Look it up, A lot of these household names today were born out of the great recession.

If you look at Uber, if you look at companies like that who have become massive powerhouses, There was so much economic opportunity that was taken advantage of in a recession, and so you have to change the way that you see wealthy people. They are human beings who have created wealth, who have created success, and they have a high value on their. and they would probably like for you to get to the point, That they don't have to give you a dime.

So when you have that perspective, nobody owes you anything. You will change the way that you relate to your donors and you will change the way that you talk to them. This is a solid foundation. For major gifts, fundraising. Do not take people for granted and do not think that you are entitled to their money because they're rich and they are supposed to give their money away. This attitude, even if you're right, it doesn't help you. It ultimately doesn't serve you because that resentment comes.

And it stops you from asking for more. It stops you from being grateful. It stops you from creating abundance, from being a generative person. That's who I want you to be. I want you to be a generative person, so you need to be able to identify who the right people are and prioritize your time wise. Some of you don't understand that there are people you're ignoring who should be your top five donors. This is what I help you to learn inside Courage Lab. And then you need to change who you are.

And that is a really big ask, and it's a journey. It takes time, but it starts with prioritizing courage. You need to become a courageous person with a thoughtful strategy who builds strong relationships with your donors throughout the course of the year. And you need to change the way that you see rich people. And I'm gonna get into this more in an episode to come on how we need to have greater empathy for the.

Because if you want to raise major gifts, you need to be able to empathize and connect with and put yourself in the shoes of your donors more. And some of you refuse to do that, and as a result, you will not be growing You just won't raise more money. I hope that this was supportive to you. If you are interested in working with me, I want you to reach out. I hang out on LinkedIn. I hang out on Instagram. You can join my mailing list on my website, nonprofit courage lab.com.

My emails are bomb and people raise 10 K, 40 K gifts from just getting my emails. Y'all, I don't know why. If you're listening to this podcast and you're not on my mailing list, that'll make a lick sense. Get on in there, nonprofit courage lab.com, and I email once a week at least, and I provide a lot of value and it's really fun. I enjoy it. So thank you for joining me and uh, I'll see you next time.