What I Learned From 1,000 Major Donor Meetings

Hello, welcome. I am Julie Ordonez. I'm so happy you're here. Thanks so much for joining me for this Courage Lab Info session. This is going to be, More information on what this program is, who it's for. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you for your interest. I hope that this is helpful to you in making a decision if Courage Lab is right for you. That's really what the purpose of this time is together. So let's jump in. if you are new and Don't really know me very well. I am Julie Artia. I am a major gifts coach and strategist for nonprofit executives. I personally am also a major gifts fundraiser. I have been doing this work for 14 years in Los Angeles and all over the country. I have been on over a thousand major donor meetings in my career. I've raised tens of millions of dollars. I've helped my clients raise even more money than that. I've been running my business since 2018 and helping nonprofit executives create customized strategy to raise exponentially more in a shorter amount of time. And I've been, running Courage Lab, which is my signature group program to help you learn how to raise more major gifts in six weeks. And I personally care a lot about character development, so I am both a strategist and. Really into personal development. I'm obsessed. I read a lot of personal development books. I have taken pretty much every personality assessment that there is. Myers Briggs Strengths Finder, which is now called Clifton Strengths. the Berkman Assessment, the Four Tendencies. Uh, yeah. So I. Committed personally to becoming the best version of myself that I possibly can, which is sometimes annoying, but that's who I am and I wanna have the greatest impact I can possibly have, positive impact on others, and I absolutely love major gifts. Fundraising, I could talk about it all day. So that's just a brief overview of me who I am. Thanks so much again for being here with me and for trusting me with your time. So here's a snapshot of what I have learned from going to over a thousand donor meetings and coaching hundreds of fundraisers, founders CEOs, development directors, major gifts officers. Over the last five years. Number one, our relationship with time and money affects everything. So what I've learned is that fundraisers usually value money above time. Let me explain what I mean by that. We are so. Intimidated by these money conversations we've been taught that talking about money is rude, impolite, crass even. And that's usually because fundraisers are not typically wealthy people. A lot of us have grown up without a lot of money, so we have a deep value for more money. Whereas we are so, um, much more likely to spend our time. learning a skill or it's so much easier for us to ask for someone to volunteer for our nonprofit, for example, to donate their time rather than our money. This is pervasive. This is what I have seen, regardless of where you're from, what of nonprofit you run. This is overwhelmingly true. Fundraisers typically value money above time. Now take one. Guess which one Wealthy people value more money or time? Time. So what's fascinating that I've observed is nonprofit fundraisers are presumptuous in asking for people's time, which they can't get back. But really struggle. To talk with wealthy people about money and giving money, which wealthy people understand they can make more money, and they do. They make more money while they're sleeping. They're investing their money, and it is growing while they're on vacation. This is what fundraisers don't seem to understand. So while it's easier for us to talk about someone giving their time, for example, asking for a meeting, With a wealthy donor, the donor actually values their time even more than money. Now, this is not to say wealthy people don't value money. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that they have a different relationship with money and time than a fundraiser does. And this is a big challenge for fundraisers because they don't understand this dynamic. And if you put yourself in the shoes of a wealthy person, you can better understand that when we're talking about money, it isn't as precious as we feel that it is. And actually we should put a higher premium on our own time. How do I know this? Because. as fundraisers and nonprofit leaders, we waste a ton of time doing things that don't raise more money, that are essentially busy work, and The other thing I've noticed is we're afraid to do our jobs. This is also pervasive. People are so afraid they have a role in major gifts. You are a founder, c e o. You are the head of growth. You are a senior. VP of development, you are a development director. You are over individual giving and major gifts. You are a major gifts officer and you are terrified to not only reach out to donors, but even more than that, to ask them and talk to them about money. So what we end up doing is we say things like, I hope that we can rely on your support again this year, which is so vague and generic and leaves hundreds of millions of dollars on the table. We are afraid to do our jobs. If that's you, I'm, I'm not judging you. I'm saying that this is something that is common and it doesn't have to be normal. And how I can know this is we do not do the things that we know are gonna raise more revenue because we're afraid to do them. And so we prioritize busy work, we burn ourselves out. We don't actually move the needle on the issue that we're claiming we're going to tackle. It takes us so much longer to solve the world's most complicated problems because we don't raise more money. This keeps me awake at night. The fact that people are afraid to do their jobs, and I know because I was that person I. I went to a very wealthy person, asked them for an hour of their time, and then all I could muster was the courage to ask them for $2,500. And they were completely disappointed in that ask, and I think they were expecting something that was more exciting, more impactful. And I left so much money on the table. I'll never forget that experience. The reason I asked for 2,500 is because that felt like a lot of money to me personally. That's what I, as Julie, considered a major gift, and I wasn't actually thinking about the donor. I wasn't actually thinking about anybody else but myself really. The third thing that I've, Learned is that nobody is really talking about fear. And when I created Courage Lab, there was this huge gap in the market. No one was addressing that. This huge problem that is so common that we are afraid to talk to wealthy people about money and ask them to give. No one was talking about how do we deal with this fear? What in the hell do we do about it? And I was like, if you, let's, let's say that you can admit you'll have courage enough to admit, yes, fear stops me. Where do you go to get more courageous? Where do you go to not only learn the major gifts skills that you need? Like how to ask for money, how to talk about your organization, your mission. How do you message your impact in a sophisticated way that is simplified, that resonates with major donors? How do you get a gift? How do you close, how do you engage your board members in major gifts, fundraising? How do you do all of these things, right? The, the skills that we need that we all know we need, I. And how do you address, it's not just your mindset. It is your character. It is the fact that we are so afraid that we're cowards, we're cowardly. We ask people for money when we know that it's a sure thing. We need to change our relationship to risk. We need to take calculated risks. We need to become more courageous. Raising more money is not gonna get easier, so we have to get stronger. This is why I'm obsessed with personal development and character development. I. Because if you become a courageous person, you are unstoppable. There is no recession, there is no economic downturn, there is no massive fall in the market. There is nothing that can stop you because you are unstoppable because of your character. This is actually the way to recession proof your results to become a courageous person, and no one was talking about this. And so I became a student of courage. I decided to devote my career to helping people not only build really smart strategy for their major gifts, but to become the most courageous version of themselves. And that is why I created Courage Lab. It is my sixth week. Group coaching program to learn how to raise major gifts, 10 k plus gifts from individuals, which is the most personal, risky way to raise money, and the most efficient way to raise unrestricted support. And there's a huge reason why people don't prioritize this because it's less risky. It's less vulnerable. To apply for a grant ask a corporation to apply for government funding. You're just filling out an application. It takes hours, right, to complete a grant application, and you might get $0 from that. Whereas it might take a couple of emails and a one hour meeting to get a 10 K unrestricted gift from one person. So we don't prioritize grant making and corporate sponsorships because it's more strategic and more efficient use of time. We prioritize those things because it's less scary. This is what I've seen, and so I am committed to helping nonprofit executives get the courage and the strategy to ask for more from individuals. This is the way to get to a million plus an individual giving revenue. So the program is all about how to raise more 10 k plus gifts. In six weeks, you are going to learn how to build a culture of generosity, which I mean, what I mean by that is to inspire spontaneous giving. I'm gonna talk more about results and testimonials from courage crew who've graduated from the program, previous students who like, were just a plus kick ass. Awesome, courageous leaders. You're gonna learn, encourage lab, how to simplify your pitch. Some of you, your, the way that you ask for donations and the emails that you send and the information that you share is so long-winded that. Donors don't even take the time to read it. So how to simplify your messaging so that it actually resonates with your donors. That's what you're gonna learn, how to have a successful conversation with a donor. And once you book a meeting, what the heck do you do with that time? How do you close gifts? You're going to build confidence in yourself and your program. You are no longer gonna be so concerned about comparing what your nonprofit does to other nonprofits and letting that stop you from asking people for more. And perhaps most importantly, you are going to move into taking bold action if you are someone who overthinks. And is constantly wanting to get things perfect before you take bold action. This program is designed for you. So, how is Courage Lab different? Well, if you look in the market, which you should, most major gifts programs are anywhere from six to 12 months, and it is a ton of info. Oh my gosh. I don't know about you, but I do not wanna be in a 12 month program. I wanna go, I wanna move fast, I wanna get results. I wanna learn. The necessities. That's what this is. I have distilled my 14 years of experience, all of the incredible mentorship and things that I've learned from the best of the best into my course and into my live coaching and training. So you get access to all of that, plus you get one-on-one customized support from me in a group setting. So you will receive. One-to-one feedback from me and in a group so that others can also learn from the feedback that you receive. So you get that customized feedback and support from someone from me who is a coach and an expert in major gifts as your mentor. You get a proven system that is going to inspire spontaneous generosity from major donors, and you will know how to ask for 10 k plus gifts and you will get them in the door in six weeks. Again, you're not gonna need to wait months and months and months to get a return on your investment in this program. So I have a money back guarantee. You will get results in 30 days or I'll give you your money back. I have yet to give anyone a refund. If you show up to the calls and if you actually do the challenges, there's weekly challenges, you will get the results. This is also different program from other major gifts programs. because I understand who this is for, I understand your challenge. I learned about the four tendencies quiz, which was created by Gretchen Rubin, and it helps you to understand what motivates you. Take action. And this made a lot of sense for me and for my clients. So there's four different tendencies. There's four different types here, the upholder, the questioner, the rebel, and the obliger. And there's usually two different types of motivations or expectations. There's external expectations, meaning other people, and then there's internal expectations, meaning your own expectations of yourself, right? So the outside world and your inner world. Those are the two things that usually motivate us or where we experience expectations about what we should be doing, right. The reason that this program is different is because I understand that most nonprofit fundraisers are obligers, which means that you are more likely to meet outer expectations and resist your own inner expectations. What does that mean? Well, it looks like when someone asks you to do something, even though it's outside of your job description, you're probably gonna do it. But when it comes to you keeping promises to yourself, like, oh, I'm gonna go for a walk today. I'm gonna get my yoga in, you typically break promises to yourself before you will break promises to someone else. Another way to think about this is you might be on the Enneagram. If you're familiar with the Enneagram assessment, you might be a helper, which is Enneagram two. You typically put the needs of others before your own. You're more prone to burnout and you have a hard time keeping promises to yourself. So if you set a fundraising goal, unless you have outer expectations from others, which some of you don't, then you'll have a hard time. keeping those goals and, and things that you've set for yourself because you're more likely to meet outer expectations than inner expectations. And I have designed courage lab specifically for the obliger tendency. Obligers do really well with having accountability outer expectations. So myself and the group help to provide that accountability and support. It changes everything for you. That's a big reason why Courage Lab is different. It is a group program, and I have built in accountability that you probably don't have right now. That will help you to actually meet and exceed your goals. That is usually the number one thing that is missing for a lot of fundraisers, and it makes a massive difference for them in terms of being able to get results that they need. I. So is Courage Lab a course or a live program? The answer is yes. You get access six months access to my course. Major Gifts Pro in there are videos, templates, toolkit. It's about two hours of video that you watch over the course of the six weeks that we're together. There is a one hour a week live coaching call and training with me. You get weekly accountability and support, a private Slack channel, and the quote homework in the program is just doing your job. It's what you're doing already, but doing it more efficiently, doing it better, getting better tools so that you can have even greater success in your major gifts. So what exactly will you be doing as soon as you sign up for Courage Lab? You get full access to my course. Major Gifts Pro. Inside of there are the videos and the templates and the toolkits, and I'll get to more on that later. And then each week you have a one hour coaching session, and they're typically on Tuesdays in the morning, Pacific Standard Time. Week one is about building a culture of generosity. How do you do that? Usually you're not raising enough money because you don't have a culture of generosity. I will show you how to create that. It's really simple. Week two, how to prioritize your donors, your portfolio, and actually book more meetings. Week three, pitch practice and role play. You'll bring a donor scenario to the meeting and you will practice your pitch. You'll give yourself feedback, I will give you feedback, and you'll get feedback from your peers on your pitch. This is usually one of the most favorite sessions that we have in the six weeks. It's so helpful to get all of that feedback, and usually fundraisers are starving for that feedback because they don't, they don't really get it from their team, from their boss, from donors. Week four, you will have a strategy for donor meetings. How do you have a successful one? What do you do with that time? Great. You got a meeting. Now what we will answer that question week five. How do you engage your board in fundraising? So this is where I will coach and mentor you on how to coach and mentor your board members so they can actually go from being a unhelpful cheerleader. To being truly supportive and an extension of your major gifts team. I can show you how to do that. And then week six is Major Gifts 2.0. We're gonna talk about planned giving. We're gonna talk about how to leverage events, and we're gonna talk about non-liquid assets. My expectations of everyone inside Courage Lab is that they will use the private Slack channel every week in reporting their wins, asking questions, and asking for help. And at the end of every week, you will fill out a three question survey. It takes 90 seconds. That is your accountability for the week. You will give yourself feedback on how you are doing. I. Again, if you're an obliger in the four tendencies, then this type of support is going to be a really big game changer for you. Julie, I'm totally overwhelmed with work. Is Courage Lab going to help me? Well, there are three things usually at play if you're really overwhelmed. So if that's you, I don't want you to judge yourself. This is so common and I want to help you. I. Number one reason why you're overwhelmed, you're doing too much. Number two, you're doing the wrong things, and number three, you're doing the right things, just not very well. Okay? It might be a combo deal here. You might be, you might be a combo of all three of these in raising more money. You're going to need to stop doing the things that don't raise money. That is about having the courage to have conversations with your boss. If you're a development director, if you're an ED with your board, maybe they have expectations of you that you need to renegotiate. I will help you to build those boundaries and get the courage to have conversations that you know you need to have. I had a client. Who worked in a school, private school, and she had an office on campus and had really great relationships with students, students would just kinda barge into her office and talk to her, ask her for advice, ask her for help, and you know, recommendation letters for college, all kinds of stuff. And she was struggling to raise more money. And in one of our coaching sessions she talked about how she just doesn't have the time. And I proposed the idea, well, what if you put a sign on your door and you close your door and you say, Hey, come back between two and 4:00 PM Those are my office hours. The very next week she comes to the coaching call and says, well, I did the sign on the door thing and I closed a hundred thousand dollars gift this week. My jaw was on the floor. Everybody on the call was cheering for her, and she said, who knew that what I really needed was boundaries to raise more money? And I mean, you know what y'all, I resist saying I told you so all the time. I'm like, I knew. I knew that's what you needed. So you're usually doing things. That are not raising money. So, hey, what a concept. Let's stop doing those things. You're doing the wrong things, so you are doing things that you think are gonna raise money, but they're actually not working. So I typically help you to get to the root cause of why you're not raising money. And help you to build the skills to do what you're doing better. So our main focus in Courage Lab is you connecting with donors who you enjoy, donors that you admire, you're curious about. You want to build relationships with, reach out to those people. This is a sustainable way to raise more money. Because you're not, gonna burn yourself out this way. If you enjoy your work and if you're doing less and actually maximizing and optimizing the efforts that you are doing, you're gonna raise more money and you're not gonna be working so hard. Will we work on language and how to package our work? Yes. I've been told that I'm a master storyteller. I would love to help you in crafting your impact messaging and reporting impact back to your donors. I can help you talk about your work in a way that is compelling, that resonates with donors and is also accurate. And in week three, we co-create your pitch together. You get. Feedback from me and from your peers on how to improve your pitch. Is this just for executive directors? No. Usually executive directors join, but if you are a development director, if you are head of growth, if you're a major gifts officer, this is an excellent program for you. This is for anyone in the nonprofit space who is building relationships with major donors. This program is for you. Will this help you to map out a major gift strategy? Yes. I have a, what I call a dead easy major gift strategy, one pager that you will have access to when you sign up. It's inside the course portal. You will learn how to create a culture of generosity, which is better than a strategic plan because your culture is your strategy. You will get the confidence to actually reach out to donors more often, to book more meetings, to raise more money. I'm smart and I'm exploring options. I've invested with coaches and consultants before and it didn't work. Why should I trust you? Number one reason my clients get results. I would not be in business still since 2018. I'm, recording this in 2023. I would not still be in business if I wasn't getting people results, period. Typically, people who show up to every coaching call for X, their investment in eight weeks or less and long term, they double and triple their individual giving revenue in two years. So I've seen tremendous exponential growth for people who have graduated Courage Lab. Students who implement what I teach get results, period. what I teach is evergreen. So these strategies, this method that I teach will work for you. Regardless of what the economy is doing, regardless of if the market is up or down. I teach recession proof, major gift strategies. When times are tough for corporations, their philanthropic dollars might go away. It's usually the first thing on the chopping block for their budget. Grants are extremely time consuming and you might get $0, but the way that I teach major gifts, you will know how to close 10, 20, 40, 50 K gifts for the rest of your career, period. So here's some of the results. I had a client raise $225,000 in six weeks, and they're new to major gifts fundraising. Another client raised $73,000. another client raised over 35 K with additional 11 K pledged. And, another got, a spontaneous 10 K gift from a volunteer because they implemented my, my method and they just got a spontaneous major gift for the first time. The results are there. It is so powerful to see people change the way that they view themselves in their donor's life. You will start to see yourself as a leader in your donor's life. You also get done for you tools, email swipe, copy templates. Here's a list of all of the things that you'll get access to. You get access to my donor engagement monthly tracker, which all of my clients use and love. You'll get an engagement checklist, like what are some, some ideas or things that you can reach out to donors about. It's all there. You get my donor research guide and template, you get my pitch framework, which has been probably one of the most valuable tools in this toolkit. more courage lab results. I helped, uh, an organization get their first six figure gift who went through Courage Lab. They emailed me and said, we use the pitch framework. We knew exactly what to say. We were so nervous with this high net worth individual. We asked for a hundred thousand dollars and we got it. And just thank you for ma helping us to, to make that happen. which was probably one of my favorite emails that I've ever gotten. Oh my gosh. I just secured a $20,000 donation. My mindset have shifted around board engagement and asking for help. I always try to do it myself and try to figure things out on my own. There are people who are willing to help and I just have to have the courage to ask. My confidence has grown and my mind has expanded about larger asks. Love that. We received a gift today for 12 K, new giver, and she wants to give more in January two. Bam. This is the type of results that you'll get if you come to every single call and you implement what I teach. So the next cohort begins September the 12th. 2023, and I usually run two cohorts each year, one in September. That really maximizes your end of year giving season and one, in February so that you can learn how to build relationships with donors year round. It's really important. So if you choose the pay in full option, which is one payment of 49 97, You get a bonus of a pitch rewrite done by me. You can send me, you email me your pitch, a time where you asked for a donation, and I will rewrite it for you and you can use that however you like. that's a bonus. There are also monthly payment options. You can choose six monthly payments of 8 97, or you can choose 12 monthly payments of 4 97. This is likely the last cohort that I will offer, the 12 monthly payments of 4 97. I'm most likely going to get rid of that for 2024 and beyond. but this is what that includes. You get six weeks of live coaching and training with me in a group of anywhere from eight to 10 peers. In one cohort, I keep the calls intimate so that everyone receives one-on-one customized feedback from me. That's very different with group coaching programs and any other major gift program that you can sign up for. You will also get six months of full access to my course and the entire toolkit inside. There's email templates, there's planning documents. you will get my one sheet, major gift strategy template that you can use. And you also get a private Slack channel, which I am inside Monday through Friday, during my business hours. You can ask questions, ask for help, share wins, get support throughout the six weeks. All of this is 49 97 and typical results for my clients are that they double their r o i by week two. So you're paying 49 97. That's a 10 K gift. By week two is typical. And I would love to have you. So if that's you, if you are interested, let me know. You can DM me, you can find me on LinkedIn. You can go to my website, julie ordonez.com/courage lab. That's julie o r d o n z.com/courage lab. You can sign up there, you can get on the wait list if you'd, if you'd like to join for February, 2024. this current cohort is already 50% full, so I would love to have you join me. If you have questions, you can email me, you can dmm me on Instagram. You can message me on LinkedIn. Those are the places I hang out on the internet. I hope this is so helpful to you and that you understand that you have the power to become a courageous person, and that is the number one way that you can recession proof your fundraising strategy. So thanks so much for listening and I'll see you on the internet.