Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to The Responsive Lab, presented by Virtuous. In this podcast, we're exploring how nonprofits leverage technology to deepen donor engagement. Join us in the lab as we mix innovation with impact, tackling challenges and discovering new possibilities for the nonprofit sector.
If it feels like a major gift to you, then you're a major donor. I remember early in my time here talking to one donor in particular who was sharing with me how, she was figuring out whether she could make a donation and, like, she was counting her pennies. Her donation ended up being about $25, but really, that was all the money she had. My feeling is if someone is giving the charity all they have to give, they're a major donor no matter what the dollar amount is.
Speaker 2:This is the Responsive Lab, a podcast that talks about fundraising, technology, and nonprofit leadership for modern nonprofits.
Speaker 3:We have conversations with practitioners, teachers, and experts so you and your organization can leave behind outdated tactics and embrace responsive fundraising. Welcome to the Responsive Lab.
Speaker 2:Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Responsive Lab. We are so glad to be here with you for another episode. Another conversation hopefully to encourage you, to strengthen you, and to help you and your organization continue to make an impact. We are super pumped to be, having a conversation today with Dean Axelrod.
Speaker 2:Dean, how are you? Glad that you are here.
Speaker 1:I'm great. I'm I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker 2:Amazing. We like to start this way where where we kinda toss it to you to give a little bit of your bio, your background, just maybe an overview of the journey that's led to where you are today.
Speaker 1:Sounds like a great place to start. My journey's been a fun one, and it's been, it's been kinda diverse and full of surprises over the years. I guess the the short version of it is, you know, it's funny because I kinda began my career in nonprofit, although I wasn't looking to. And where I am now, I've landed back in nonprofit after decades, although I didn't necessarily intend to. Nonprofit is a great place to be.
Speaker 1:And and in between, I've had positions in business, in law, financial services. So I've covered a lot of territory in my career. One of things as I was thinking about our conversation today, and I and I knew you were gonna ask me this, is I was thinking about my career path, journey I've been on. And I think the common thread throughout it over the decades has been I've always been drawn to roles where even if it's not like explicitly defined as the purpose of the job, I've always been drawn to opportunities where I can help individuals or organizations or teams be successful. And as I look back and as I think about my work now here at Direct Relief as vice president of partnerships and philanthropy, my role really is to help my team, help my organization, and help our donors be successful, reach their goals.
Speaker 2:That's great. Now, I do wanna dive in a little bit. I know direct relief lies on kind of many fundraising sources. Can you give our listeners maybe an overview of if you kind of focus more on major donors, general donors, just kind of give people a bit of a lay of the land?
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's a great question. And I know that across the the nonprofit sector, there is so much diversity in how organizations build donor strategies. And it's fascinating and I love talking to my peers about how they you know, what approach they take and why and how they came to do that. And I've always been a generalist and maybe that informs my approach here.
Speaker 1:But a direct relief, we really do embrace and build a strategy around all donor dollar levels. It's very common in our industry to segment donors based on annual giving levels and that sort of thing. And we're fortunate to be in a position where, you know, we reach people in all walks of life and with a diverse range of missions and causes that they believe in and wanna support. And we think it's really important that we provide a service to donors. We are here not only to serve the people who benefit from our programs who need medicine and access to medical care, but donors are looking for organizations that can provide them with the service as well to help them achieve their humanitarian or philanthropic purpose.
Speaker 1:And whether someone is able to give $25 a year or $250,000 a year, they all deserve respect and we wanna welcome them all into our community of humanitarian support. So that really is our our approach. We we have wide open arms in a big tent. And so we we do everything that we can to make it easy and accessible for people at, whatever their giving level is.
Speaker 3:That's super interesting to me because I feel like across the industry, we also often ask, well, what is a major donor? What is a mid level donor? What is a general donor? And how do we define that always by revenue size usually? So I'm curious.
Speaker 3:Do you have definitions for donors at Direct Relief based on something else? Like, how do you determine, hey. We should focus differently for these donors like most nonprofits do, or do you have a totally different theory?
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's that's really interesting because, also, I think when you're looking at donor segments and, you know, this there's business operations here as well. Right? So, know, you have to think about how do you organize the work. And at a certain level, you can't really it's hard to get around looking at those levels.
Speaker 1:And if you're an organization that benchmarks, there are standards at, you know, where those cutoffs are and they can be useful for informing certain aspects of your strategy. But I think when you're when you get past the operational issues and you're really thinking about relationships with people, giving them an opportunity to connect with your mission, be a part of your community, those giving level tiers don't matter as much. And, you know, when I first started here, one of the things that really jumped out at me was that that traditional distinction of major gifts. And I thought, what what makes a major donor? How do we how do we do we need to define that and how do we define it?
Speaker 1:And as I was getting to know our our donor community, I realized that really what makes someone a major donor is how does their gift feel to them? And of course, you know, large dollar amount, yeah, it's a major gift. If it feels like a major gift to you, then you're a major donor. I remember early in my time here talking to one donor in particular, but she represents, you know, many others who was sharing with me how she was figuring out whether she could make a donation. And, like, she was counting her pennies and had an electric bill to play to pay, had to buy medicine, had to get groceries.
Speaker 1:And her her donation ended up being about $25, but really, that was all the money she had available to give. And I my feeling is if someone is giving the charity all they have to give, they're a major donor no matter what the dollar amount is.
Speaker 2:Dean, that is so so good and I feel like we need to camp out there for a minute because that's like such a powerful reframing of a commonly held perspective and it is really really true. Like one of the things we really believe in is how do you treat every donor like a major donor which really falls in line with that. I guess one of the things I'm curious about though is how did you navigate that, and was there any navigating around, like, changing that mindset and perspective for people on your team or at the organization that you had to kind of work through? Because I I would imagine, you know, not everyone necessarily was all all there, you know, from from day one with you.
Speaker 1:Well, it is a different way of looking at things. And, you know, if you've been sort of a traditional fundraiser, you know, for many years, you get trained a certain way and certain ideas get ingrained. But two things were working in my favor. One was our fundraising team was pretty small. We're still pretty small, but it was smaller.
Speaker 1:So there weren't a lot of people to have to bring on board. But secondly, our organization has always been built on some very core principles and at the center of it is respect, mutual respect. We wanna earn the respect of the people we serve through our programs and the respect of the people whose money makes it possible and to earn a level of mutual trust as well. And so when you start with an organization where respect is at the core, reframing this concept of major donors and the idea of treating everyone as a major donor isn't a stretch. I think it resonates.
Speaker 1:And it also, you know, we've I think we've always had people on our team who are open minded, willing to try new things. You know, at the time I started here a little over, I guess, nine years ago, nine and a half years ago, it was interesting and surprising to me coming out of the business world that we had direct relief for doing something that seemed perfectly normal and ordinary, and that was relying a lot on email for communication with our donors. On the business world, that wouldn't have gotten a second look. But as I started to get to know peers at other organizations, I realized that many of them still weren't. We're still relying on a lot of direct mail, very expensive, and not very comfortable using email yet.
Speaker 1:And the traditional approach to donor tiers is a kind of easy, comfortable, and convenient way to figure out where you're going to invest your communication and engagement dollars. And so if your method of communication is expensive and time consuming and cumbersome, you have to figure out how to get the most effective return on investment. And one of the other core principles here at Direct Relief has always been to remember that the money we spend no matter on what it is, whether it's executing our programs or whether it's connecting with donors and raising money, that's that's not really our money. We're spending other people's money. And so we wanna spend it very thoughtfully and carefully and make sure that it's efficient and effective.
Speaker 1:And so I so it wasn't so hard for us because we were already embracing this technology. I mean, today, it's almost I mean, it almost feels kinda silly to think back. It's like email is a major technological shift. But, again, you know, at the time and in the nonprofit sector broadly, a lot of organizations were not embracing it so much. But what it meant was we could expand our definition of who gets a more personalized touch.
Speaker 1:And that's really what the major donor category is about. Right? It's about that level of personalization and attention, personal attention. So when your primary mode of communication shifts from direct mail to email, you can go to scale a lot faster. You can personalize at a more focused level without significantly increasing your cost in terms of monetary expenses or time.
Speaker 1:So it so the the cultural, the philosophical shift was really fairly easy. There wasn't really any friction. It seemed very natural, and I think it was embraced as obviously the right thing to do. Why not treat as many people as possible with that level of dignity, that level of respect that you would normally, you know, in other organizations maybe reserve only for the people who give the largest dollar amounts.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Can you speak to then maybe a little bit of how your donor stewardship either changed or what that looks like. Like considering, hey, we want everyone to kind of feel this level of personalization, but also knowing, you know, you you can't necessarily make a phone call and you know, send a handwritten letter to every single person necessarily. Like, there there are some ways in which you have to make those decisions.
Speaker 2:So can you speak into a little of that? Maybe share how that has unfolded?
Speaker 1:Right. There is a there is a point where, you know, reality steps in and, like, they're just practical issues, especially if you have a small team like like we do. And, you know, you're right. You can't necessarily send a personal handwritten note to everyone. But I will say, Scott, you can probably send more of them than you think you can.
Speaker 1:So that's something that we've learned along the way. And part of it is just making the commitment. Part of it is setting the bar high. So there is a a balance and there is a I think technology comes into play. We're very fortunate to be at a time in our history where technological advances are really helping to make some of this possible.
Speaker 1:Technology is a fraught subject. You know, people love it. They hate it. Some fall in the middle. New technology is always a source of, you know, some people getting very anxious and other people can't wait to embrace it and try it and see what it can do.
Speaker 1:And I think, you know, embracing it for this purpose, what better purpose is there? And so the way our stewardship works, it has evolved, and our organization's approach to fundraising has evolved in the years that I've been here. We began there were an organization that provides medicine and access to medical resources at no charge to care for people who are affected by poverty and natural disasters and other emergencies. And we have been very fortunate to have leadership that has always focused on quality of execution, do good work, make sure people can find you. Over the years that's happened.
Speaker 1:We've done work that's worthy of note. Journalists have talked about us. Our charity navigator ratings have always been very high. And because a lot of our work is around major natural disasters, that draws a lot of attention. And, you know, technology that was really taking root around the same time that email was becoming an important tool for communication was the the ability of individuals to do their own homework on charities.
Speaker 1:And so we were very fortunate to be at a position where we were easily found. We were very visible around natural disasters. And with you know, over the decades, you know, disasters are growing in scale, growing in frequency, often striking places where there are large populations and large populations of people who, you know, may may struggle to day to day making ends meet and getting access to good medical care and and prescription medicines and are really hit hard when there's a natural disaster or an emergency. And so that dynamic brought in a would bring in a lot of donors, and many of them would stay with us over the years. Not all, but enough that we were able to our fundraising team was able to really just focus on stewardship more than a solicitation.
Speaker 1:So it was kind of stewardship based fundraising. It was very low touch. It was very much about conveying impact, making sure that we like, the two most important things, I think, in fundraising. If there were only two things you could ever do or talk about, it's gratitude and impact. People wanna know that they're seen when they give money and that they're appreciated for giving money, but they're not taken for granted.
Speaker 1:Direct relief is always remembered that every donation is a choice, nobody is obligated to give, let alone obligated to give to direct relief. So we take that very seriously, earning the gift. So we were very focused on gratitude and communicating impact. And and that can take you a long way, but there are also limits you reach. And the need in the world is is so great and continues to grow.
Speaker 1:And we feel that we have an obligation to reach as many people as we can. And I also know that there are probably many more people than we're currently reaching who, if they knew about our mission, would find that it aligns with their values and their purpose and would wanna join the effort. So we began to evolve into a more proactive approach to fundraising and that has fed into our stewardship as well. So it's, you know, ongoing communication in a respectful way, making sure that all of our communications have value to the recipient, not just value to direct release. And I think that's really, at the heart of what this is about.
Speaker 1:Make sure that every phone call, email, letter, social media post carries with it some value even if it's a request for support. Make sure that it contains information that allows the donor to evaluate whether the last time they gave, they made a good choice so they can choose whether to give again. And that's gonna have to do with how we're using the money, aligning with their values, and making sure that the people we reach feel respected in the process.
Speaker 3:I'm curious. How do you coach your major gift officers or fundraisers to still confidently ask while also focusing on gratitude and impact and dignity and respect for every donor?
Speaker 1:That's an interesting question, Carly. The reason it's making me pause is because I'm I'm thinking about the way the the question is framed. How do we coach our fundraisers so that they can make a confident ask while still honoring the dignity and and respecting the donor. And when I was first listening to you ask the question, it almost seemed like an obvious one, but I wanna just if if you don't mind taking a little tangent here Yeah. Because I think it's important.
Speaker 1:Like, the whole concept of asking of the fundraising ask, like, I don't know, dozens and dozens, maybe hundreds of books have been written on the subject. And, you know, every day there are probably workshops being offered and webinars on how to ask for donations. It's a and and that by itself is a huge question just on its own. And I'm thinking about your question and it's framed as a dichotomy. And when I think about best practices in fundraising and and I've read some of the books and I've attended some of the workshops.
Speaker 1:And I think that there isn't as much of a dichotomy as it feels like there's a maybe the reason we we feel like there's a dichotomy is because there are too many charities that act like there's a dichotomy. If you've ever made a charitable gift, you've ended up on some lists, and you've probably gotten phone calls or letters in the mail or emails that don't feel like you're being treated with respect. And so I think it does start to feel like, wait, how do you ask for money and still treat people respectfully? You just do. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't think there is a conflict between the two things. And I guess that's where to get to the heart of your question, how do I coach my team? First of all, it starts with who you recruit. It's who you hire. We hire very carefully.
Speaker 1:I would rather wait three or four more months to make a hire than hire someone who I don't think is the right fit for our culture and our fundraising philosophy. If they're not people who I think just by their nature will always treat people respectfully no matter what, then I don't think they fit a direct relief. So that's the first step. It's, you know, making sure we're hiring the right people. And then it is the coaching.
Speaker 1:And so, like, what are some of the elements of that? One is be real. You know, you need to engage donors and talk to them like they're real people and like you're real person. And so that's that's number one. Get comfortable.
Speaker 1:Now, like, if you feel like you're you're a real person might be too informal or you like the language you use when you're talking to your friends isn't really appropriate in a professional setting. That's that's not what I'm talking about. But I am talking about being genuine rather than being sort of performative, like acting like a fundraiser or acting like what you think a fundraiser is supposed to be. So so that's really important. The second is to, to place the donor at the center of your world.
Speaker 1:And when you and I've seen this I've seen this where charities will act like they won't they don't might not see it this way themselves. But if you look at their fundraising messaging, there's often the sense of maybe entitlement, or they treat the donor like, of course, you should know you should give to our charity and not recognizing that it's a choice. So remembering that the, like, the donor deserves all of our love and attention. And and and as a fundraiser, like, put the mission aside. Take it just take it as a given.
Speaker 1:Let the program staff get really worked up about the mission, you know, every day, all day. We can kind of internalize it and we can kinda take it for granted when we're thinking about how we're going to connect with the donor. And when you're focused on the donor and you're focused on listening and you're focused on aligning the values, then again, that just sort of feeds into that very natural process. You're being genuine. You're remembering that asking for a gift from someone whose values connect with your values is easy.
Speaker 1:You're giving them an opportunity and you're doing it on their terms because you've taken the time to listen. And like any relationship, the friends you are probably closest with are the ones who believe you understand them and listen to them and your values align and support theirs. So, you know, so that's an important part of our coaching. And then and then you can bring your cause back in. Right now you can start to think, wait, am I demonstrating as much care for this human being who may want to give to support the work we're doing?
Speaker 1:Now I can look at whether I'm caring for them as much as I care for our mission. And then finally, the question of confidence is, I think, a a really important part of your question, Carly. How do you confidently ask? And I think confidence comes from having internalized your mission so that you deeply understand what it is and why it's important. And and I believe very strongly that when we're communicating with donors, there is a structure to building the relationship.
Speaker 1:And if you're asking before you've laid the groundwork, before you've built a relationship, it's very difficult to feel confident. And so the so so for me, the structure is really important. Make sure that and you should ask yourself these questions before asking for a gift. Does the person I'm speaking to understand why Direct Relief exists? Do they understand what our core values are?
Speaker 1:Then do they understand how we do what we do? And can they see that the way we perform our mission is consistent with what those core values are? Are we doing it in a way that matches our why? And then when people understand why we do it and how we do it, then we can start talking about what we do. Get to the specifics of the programs.
Speaker 1:Where are we reaching people? How much medicine have we delivered? What's the dollar value? What are the doses we've delivered? What are the places that we've been able to to deliver medicine that are really hard to navigate, but we can get it there and get it done to people who really need it and wouldn't have medicine otherwise.
Speaker 1:And then you've laid the groundwork. So now that I know that you know why we do what we do, how we do it, what we do, now we're in a position for me to very comfortably say, how would you feel about joining us in this effort? How would you feel about a gift of something? You can see the impact it will make. And would you consider making a gift of this amount?
Speaker 1:I think it becomes very easy to feel confident because your process, has dignity and respect baked into it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You know, the reason I was asking that is because I have worked at an organization where and maybe you won't agree with this. We lean too much towards thanking and gratitude, and we never asked. And oftentimes, if you don't ask, that they're not gonna give. I mean, even, like, in your family with your friends, if they don't ask for help, you're not leaning over to try to help them.
Speaker 3:You know? So we had to shift to we need to be thankful, but we also need to ask because they want the opportunity to give. And so I was just trying to tap into that balance of, like, how can you still focus on the gratitude piece, but don't lose the part that you it's not just a friendship where you're just telling them how great they are without asking because that is a part of the job. You know?
Speaker 1:Right. Oh, I without question. Without asking, you run the risk of people assuming you don't need their help. And sometimes, like I I loved your example of friends and family. Like, even if you're even if you do have a problem you're trying to solve, you might not need or want someone's help.
Speaker 1:And so, like, the respectful thing to do on that side of the equation is you wait until you're asked. You don't wanna impose yourself. I know, you know, the the world of nonprofits is a bit different, but I think the mindset that we're exploring here is really relevant. So the I think it's a it's a matter of balance. One of the things we don't wanna do like, so there are two ends of the spectrum.
Speaker 1:You've described one, which is expressing gratitude all the time and never asking for help. That's one end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum is always asking for help and nothing else. And so one of our core like, every now and then, you have to stop, step back, and say, how are we doing? And one of the questions that we ask when we're asking ourselves how we're doing is if we think we're getting ready to make a solicitation, whether it's for a particular individual or at scale with a mass, like a direct response outreach, I wanna make sure that this isn't the first time they've heard from us in a year.
Speaker 1:If the first time they've heard from you in a year or the only time a donor ever hears from you is when you want money, love your example of family. I think about my kids. You know? If the only time they ever come out of their room is when they want something, you know, I love them, but it's gonna be like, I don't know. What have you done for me lately?
Speaker 1:My kids are grown up, and they're out of the house, and they're both terrific. But, you know, when they're teenagers, you know, there's there's kind of a universal dynamic there. But I think our relationship, you know, fundraisers relationship with our donor community can be like that. Mhmm. Because the only time the donors hear from you is when you want money.
Speaker 1:Yeah. They may still give, but they may give less. They may give less often. They may give less consistently. It's easier for them to forget about you and make commitments to other organizations that are treated with more respect.
Speaker 1:So I'm with you. It's it's, you know, it's like so many things in life. It's about balance. And and I don't think there's a single like, you could probably find rules of thumb out there, but I don't think there's a single, like, mechanical formula for how many touches, like, stewardship touches for every solicitation. I think you need to know what feels right for your organization.
Speaker 1:And I would also say that I think it's important to make sure that even your solicitations are more than just give because it's really important. Give because, you know, these dogs need a home or, you know, whatever it is. Make sure that even your asks contain something that's meaningful. I know that when I get a fundraising solicitation, if it contains some some substance, I'm much more open to it. And even if I'm not ready to give, even if I've gotten something from that organization, like, twice a month for the last six months, I may not read them all.
Speaker 1:I may, like, see it show up and delete it, but I'm not upset that I got it. And, like, that's where you wanna be. You wanna make sure that the people who are getting your messages are still happy to get them. And I think that's where that finding that balance that's right for you and right for your community. And this kinda gets back to how do you do it at scale, how do you use technology to segment.
Speaker 1:Like, that's one of the ways you can segment is listen to your donors, give them opportunities to tell you what's important to them, give them a chance to tell you how they wanna be communicated with and at what frequency, and then honor that. And then I think that builds into the confidence, and it allows you to, you know, stay true to your values and also make sure that you're being honest and real with your donor community.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Dean, as we're wrapping up here, would love to to ask our kind of final question, but what is one piece of fundraising advice that you would give someone today?
Speaker 1:Who? Just one. And I I laugh because, like, today, we are at a really challenging time in history for nonprofits in in in The US, but I think it's affecting people globally. We're facing unprecedented rates of change and uncertainty and, like, more competition for donor retention. Donors have more options for how they make a difference in the world.
Speaker 1:What counts as philanthropy is shifting. How people raise money is shifting. You can't take trust for granted. So with all of that, I think I think if I had to boil my advice down to one one thing, it would be oh, I'm gonna cheat a little bit. It's one thing, but it has several parts.
Speaker 1:And that is structurally, like within your organization, your operations, and culturally be flexible, get comfortable with adaptability and evolving so that you can respond to change quickly. And so I think a really important strategy is to embrace and get comfortable with strategic risk, innovation, and just an obsessive focus on the donor. And, you know, we could maybe another time go more deeply into those concepts and what they mean. But I think if you can get comfortable with a level of strategic risk that's right for you and your organization, you will try new things. You will be comfortable with innovation.
Speaker 1:And innovation only has to be innovative to you. Right? It doesn't have to be earth shattering and change the world and be something nobody has done before. Yeah. And that willingness, that goes directly with getting comfortable with strategic risk.
Speaker 1:So when the world is changing around you, you need to not you know, you can't put your head in the ground and pretend it's not happening. So to respond to it, you have to go into trying new things that includes technology, look for technology that again fits your organization's culture and budget and size, and all of that centering around as fundraisers, centering around, you know, an obsessive focus on your donors. I think that's the best advice I can offer my
Speaker 2:Yeah. Colleagues out there. Well, we certainly appreciate it and appreciate the the wisdom and advice and experience that you shared on the episode today. I know there's a handful of takeaways that that really stick out to me. I'm sure the folks listening have those as well.
Speaker 2:So we really appreciate your time and for being here today, Dean. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, Carly, Scott, thank you so much. It's really been a pleasure talking to you today.
Speaker 3:The Responsive Lab is brought to you by Virtuous. We believe nonprofits deserve technology built to engage donors with the same personal connections and experiences they receive from today's leading brands.
Speaker 2:Virtuous is an enterprise fundraising platform that unifies CRM, marketing, giving, and insights with AI to help build deeper donor relationships, automate manual work, and grow giving. Learn more at virtuous.org.