Friends, I am OBSESSED with this episode with Yulin Ling. As a long-time nonprofit executive and social change warrior, we talk about the importance of money mindset in raising money for the cause. Yulin discusses her own background as a daughter of immigrants and how we tune into what is possible and how to flood ourselves with the messages that we want. In a world that feels like it’s full of despair, Yulin teaches us how to harness the power of our minds and mindsets to be the light and the bridges that the world needs. Do yourself a favor and listen to this one a few times!
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“Our one and only job in the world is providing hope to everyone else” – Yulin
Episode Transcript
00:05 RHEA WONG
Welcome to Nonprofit Lowdown. I’m your host, Rhea Wong. Hey, Nonprofit Lowdown listeners! Rhea Wong with you, once again with Nonprofit Lowdown. Today is my first AMA, Ask Me Anything solo show. I think this is a fun idea. I get lots of questions from listeners. And so I thought it could be a fun time for me to just get on the air and answer some of your questions.
00:26
So hopefully this will be an ongoing feature. If you have any questions. I can answer any of your fundraising queries or quandaries, email me at rhea@rheawong.com, and I will try to get to them as I can. If you prefer to be anonymous, let me know. Otherwise, talk to me. Okay, I did get a couple of questions. So let’s get going. Okay, question number one. For organizations that don’t have full-time development staff, when do they know if they are ready to hire?
00:57
What role should they hire for first? This is a question I always get, and beneath the question is an assumption that hiring a development director will solve all their problems. This is a good one. Okay. I have a couple of caveats. So number one, we default to thinking that throwing people at a problem is going to solve the problem. It can, but it’s not always the case. And so I think we just need to not default to that. Now, often, I see EDs or boards, saying that they should hire development directors because they’re not getting enough funding in the door.
01:34
I think this is the wrong way to think about it because your development director will not bring in names for you. I think this is a misconception that needs to die right now. The development director is not a magical development fairy who is going to fart gold out of their butts. Your development director is there to help you to capitalize on what is already there and to grow the pipeline.
02:01
So a couple of things that I would say before thinking about hiring a development director. Number one, I think fundamental pieces have to be in place. So you have to have a strategic plan. You have to have some semblance of funders, you have to have metrics and ways that you’re actually measuring the impact that you’re making in the world. And you have to have an ED who’s willing to fundraise. I say this all the time. If you’re an ED, 65% to 80% of your time should be spent fundraising.
02:31
And I know you’re thinking, that’s why I hired a development director. Wrong answer! You as an executive director are uniquely positioned to be the face of the organization, if anything, you hire a development director to help free you up from the behind-the-scenes work so that you can be in front. I’ve talked about this a lot. There’s this distinction between being a hunter and a farmer. Hunters hunt. They like big games, they’re solitary, and they like going out and closing the deal. Farmers are the people who make sure that the crops are watered and make sure that we harvest on time and all the other farm really thinks.
03:08
I don’t know anything about farming. The point is, though, you have to have hunters and you have to have farmers because if the hunters go out to hunt, and they don’t catch anything, they need to be able to fall back on the farmers because otherwise, they’ll starve. And the farmers need to depend on the hunters because without the hunters they are never going to get fresh meat. And I don’t know, whatever. They’re all they’re going to have our crops.
03:27
Again, I don’t know anything about farming or hunting. But the point is, what you want to do ideally is understand the orientation. And I know in the nonprofit sector, we all do all of the things and people are gonna say, oh, I can do both things. Yes, I get that. Generally speaking, most of us have a stronger orientation to one or the other. Whatever your orientation is, and I’m going to stress here that your ED should probably be a hunter. You need to find someone to shore up where you are not strong.
03:56
So if you’re not a super process-oriented person, like I am not a process-oriented person, I need to find someone who can compliment me and vice versa. If someone is really happy in their spreadsheets and in the CRM system and doing the research on Google, you’re going to need someone to actually go out and hit the pavement and meet with people. Okay, so that’s a caveat.
04:17
The other caveat is here that board members have to realize that when they hire a development director, they’re actually committing to working harder because all of a sudden, you’re going to have the capacity to have someone follow up with them and follow up with their network and make them work. So if they do not want to work harder in fundraising, they should not hire development. Again, this is not a magical fairy who will come down from the sky and spread money with a magic wand.
04:44
That’s not a thing that happens. Now, what I’ve heard, and though I’ve never actually seen this happen, but what I’ve heard is that you should think about hiring one full-time person for every half million dollars that you are raising. I have never seen that ratio. I will be honest. So I think it’s probably especially for smaller nonprofits more realistic, think about one full-time person for every 750k or a million that you’re raising. When I talk about a full-time person, let me back up here.
05:18
Oftentimes, we think about a development director as the go-to. And I just want to be very careful here because a development director is very expensive. The average going rate for a development director here in New York City is six figures. With that six figures, you want to actually have somebody who can do the activities that are the highest ROI. So that means that you really don’t want your six-figure development director messing around with acknowledgment letters, or messing around with the minutiae of data entry.
05:52
You cannot afford to have this person be the highest-paid admin. And what I think is probably the most reasonable course of action is to shorten the capacity that you need by identifying what are the main buckets of work that exist. What I might suggest doing is making a little chart for yourself. And on one axis, so your Y axis, you’re going to put at the top things that you’re good at, and the bottom things that you’re not good at.
06:24
On the X-axis on one side, you will put things I like to do. And on the other end, things I do not like to do. What that looks like is you should then chart out all of the things in your day that are related to fundraising, and charted out against things that you’re both good at and things that you’d like to do. Now, it’s true that sometimes things fall into the category of things I don’t like to do, but things I have to do, like, for me, it would be accounting. Some people love accounting.
06:53
The idea then would be to delegate all of the things that fall outside of the quadrant of things that you’re both good at and things that you’d like to do. If a lot of the tasks that are there look like low-ish level tasks that don’t require high levels of relationship building or high levels of strategy, I would then consider bringing on someone who is maybe a little bit more junior or a little bit early in their career, not quite as expensive. If it looks like the bulk of your work, you’ve actually managed to either eliminate, delegate, or automate away, and you’re looking at work that is a very high level that requires a lot of strategies, a lot of one on one relationship, building, and a lot of high levels one-on-one work, then it might be time to consider hiring a development director.
07:45
The other thing I’m going to say, and this is a little bit controversial, it’s Nonprofit Lowdown. So it is what it is. A lot of times, folks will hire someone who’s a bit more junior because they’re cheaper with the idea that they can train them up into the role. Now, that’s not a terrible strategy. The caveat here is that if you as an ED actually have time to train them, which I don’t know about you when I was an ED, I did not have extra time to train someone and carefully monitor them.
08:16
The other piece too, I want you to think about is do you really want to pay for someone to learn on your dime. I don’t have that kind of luxury, right? So until you have a big enough fundraising arm that maybe you can have some more junior people who are learning and growing into the role, I would actually think that it’s a better use of your money to hire somebody who already has the skills that you need, so that you can start to see some ROI quicker.
08:45
Let’s also talk about ROI. It takes on average, about 18 to 21 months to start to see if someone is worth their salt. So it’s a little annoying because you want to start to see some early wins here. But realistically speaking, in terms of relationship building and relationship management, you’re probably not going to see whether or not they are bringing in new prospects and new gifts until around 18 and 21 months. And unfortunately, that’s often the time in which people start to leave. In general, I would say the talent pool for development is tough.
09:23
There are obviously way more jobs and there are really talented people to fill those roles. And so if you have a good DOD, hang on to them, and give them whatever they want. Keep those people happy and in their seats. I hope that answers the question. In terms of who I would hire first, I would start to think about hiring lower-level folks, development assistants, development managers, grant writers, database managers, etc. before thinking about making the big leap of investing in a six-figure development director. All right, let’s jump to the next question.
10:02
This is an anonymous question. So the question is we offer leadership development to the corporate nonprofit in higher ED sectors, almost all of our programs have some fee-for-service component. And most of the time, participants aren’t using their own funds to pay for the training. This has created a significant attachment gap. I like that attachment gap, resulting in almost no individual giving behavior from our core audience.
10:24
We’ve tried so many things, recurring donation incentives, social pressures, Alumni Outreach, and now forming an alumni program, but nothing gives any thought to how we can overcome this challenge. This is a significant one. So this is the question of building an individual giving base. Obviously, I don’t know all of the details. So a couple of things that I’m going to start here.
10:44
Number one is, if you are a few first service organization, it could be that folks are not aware that you actually need donations because, in their mind, they’ve purchased a product like you wouldn’t think of Amazon as needing donations for anything. And then the next thing would be like, if this is an entity that I’ve purchased something from, it isn’t the fee I’m paying also going towards maybe a foundation. So number one, I think it’s about making clear what the case for support is. Ultimately, as a donor, I want to know, where’s my money going?
11:17
So you have to give me something to wrap my arms around. is the money going towards scholarships for people who can’t afford it? Is the money going towards the expansion of programs? is the money going towards, I don’t know, reaching new audiences? Like I don’t know wherever the money is going to go. First, it’s really clarifying. Why do you need the money? And where is it going? That’s the first thing. The second thing is. So I want to make a distinction here between low-level gifts and major gifts. Low-Level gifts are transactional. Major gifts are relational. What do I mean by that?
11:51
So what I’m thinking low-level gifts, I’m thinking about like your small annual appeal gift, your $100 or your $20, month giver. That’s usually accomplished through things like sending out your annual email or sending out a physical letter, or maybe you do your peer-to-peer or Facebook outreach. It’s largely transactional. When we’re talking about major gifts, that is relational. And so I talk a lot about the three trusts.
12:19
There is competency trust, literally, are you good at the thing that you say that you’re good at? There’s community trust, is to somebody I trust say that they trust you? And the third is caring trust, do you care about me as a person? So my first question here would really be which audience are you trying to grow? Are you trying to think about a smaller number of larger givers? Or, are you thinking about a bigger pool of smaller givers? There’s no wrong answer here.
12:53
And many people find it easier to start with a bigger pool of smaller givers. The caveat I will say, though, is depending on who is attached to their organization. When I think about that, I think about board members. I think about other significant givers. If they have a broad enough reach, if they have a broad enough network, it could be that I’m thinking about maybe starting the giving with a smaller number of very significant givers.
13:22
What I’m imagining here, that one of the problems might be is that the marketing that they have is probably geared initially towards business development and selling these for service or products, versus a philanthropic bent, which is much more about helping people to feel good. Philanthropies is the love of humans. And what we trade in is not products, but we trade in good feelings. And the first place I would look as to maybe why they’re not getting the kind of traction that they want with individuals is that maybe their marketing is not geared towards the philanthropist.
14:04
It’s geared towards the fee for service, or the product if you will. The other thing that I might suggest here is that you start small. So that could look like you identify a small group of people that you think can maybe start to be your ambassadors that you can gain some traction with, and you just meet with them and you have conversations one on one. When you’re scaling initially, you have to do things that don’t-scale. And there will come a tipping point at which people will start to bring in their friends if you’ve done it correctly.
14:37
But until such time, you have to do these one-on-one conversations with board members about why their gift matters, what their gift is going to, and why it matters to them. Who are they and what do they want to achieve with their philanthropy and how can you as an entity help them to achieve their philanthropic goals? Then you ask them to open up their network, right? I think about Kevin Kelly’s thousand true fans. It’s about one-to-one. A thousand true fans are a thousand people who will buy whatever you put out there, who will come to your events, who will wear your t-shirt like they are your true fans.
15:14
And I think the other thing that I’m imagining here might be possible, again, I don’t know the details, but it seems like there’s an opportunity here to do a little bit of thinking about who is your ideal donor avatar, because so often, I say this all the time, you buddy, if everybody is our donor, then nobody is our donor.
15:35
Because what happens is, when we have a message that is too generic, too broad to everybody, too vanilla, it doesn’t excite anybody. And so what I might suggest with this question is to really drill down on a subset of the people that you want to focus on as your first givers, and really do a psychographic deep dive into not just demographically, who are they? But why would this be the thing that they care about? And then you tailor all of your marketing to that person.
16:08
You’re speaking to one person and other people who are like them in order to attract the kind of donor that you want. And so one thing that might occur to me here, too, is that their messaging or their strategy is not specific enough. It’s not targeting some very particular person. Not everybody is going to be a giver of all things. Just because I care about the environment, it does not necessarily mean that I’m going to care equally about education.
16:39
The more specific I can be about who my person is, who my ideal donor avatar is, and what they care about, and then dial in all of the marketing in order to speak to that person, the more successful I’m going to be. Think about this. Good marketing attracts. Great marketing repels. What that means is if you have marketing that is strong enough that you’ve dialed in, your ideal donor, right away, should be able to read your website and read marketing materials and say that’s meet the eye and the people.
17:13
And on the other side, anybody who’s not your people will very strongly say, oh, this is not for me. And so I think when we think about marketing, when we think about campaigns, when we think about going out in the world, we have to be so super clear about who’s it for? And what’s it for? Who’s it for? And what’s it for?
17:32
The more clear you can be about who it’s for and what it’s for, the more likely your people will be able to find you. So I don’t know if that answers your question totally. But to recap, number one, do some analysis of who your donor avatar is and do some initial interviews with them. Find out who they are, find out what they care about, and find out why they might care about this thing. Do an analysis of your marketing. Is it geared towards philanthropy? Or, is it geared specifically for this fee for service? Interview your board members.
18:05
They should be the first stop on this train. Ask them why they give up their time. Time is more valuable than money. And obviously, they can be doing a million other things with their time. Why this thing? Why now? Why us? And then fourth, go out there and hit the pavement. Have one on one conversations with people. And this is not about asking them for money straight away. This is about understanding who they are, why they give, and what is it that they want to achieve.
18:31
And once you can get into the mindset of serving them being the vehicle through which all of their philanthropic hopes and dreams are fulfilled, the more likely they are to want to be in your corner because they’re getting something out of it, which is that they get to see their philanthropic dreams fulfilled. That’s the answer to that one. I may need a little bit more context, but I think it’s a good start. Okay!
18:54
The last question and is from Angely Herrera Davis. So Angely, thank you so much for your question. She is writing in from HD Grant Consulting. Oh, this is interesting. Angely’s question is, what is the best way to set up email outreach to contact a funder/donor for the very first time? Is there a phone call preferred instead? Are there certain do’s don’ts to that very first outreach? Okay, excellent question! I will caveat this by saying that if one foundation, one foundation. So what I mean by that is it every foundation is different.
19:32
Just like every donor is different. If we’re speaking specifically about foundations, I would look at the website. If they say no phone calls, please, that means don’t call them. If it says no email inquiries, don’t email them. So following directions would be my first recommendation. Now, this is an interesting question. Most foundation program officers are very accessible. When I reach out to a foundation? I need to give them a reason why I’m reaching out. And the reason can be I want to introduce myself.
20:10
No one has time for you to just introduce themselves. I actually just recently got an email from someone saying, I’d like to share ideas. I was like, I don’t have time to share ideas. So I’m going to harken back to my friend, who did a very successful podcast episode. I’ll link to it in the show notes. She has what she calls the two sentences, one-question format. It goes like this sentence one is a “me” sentence. Hi, I’m so and so. And I am the ED of this organization representing XYZ.
20:42
The second sentence is a “You” sentence. I know that you are deeply committed to childhood education, have been with the foundation for X number of years, and have been a longtime champion of causes like ours. The question is, I have no idea if this is of interest to you, comma, I have no idea of acts as a way for them to gracefully step out if this is in fact, not their thing. I have no idea if this would be interesting to you.
21:13
But would you be willing to have a 17-minute conversation so that I could ask a few questions about your application process? Question mark? Or, ask about whether or not our organization will be a fit for your philanthropic priorities. Question mark? Something legitimate that gives them a reason why you need to be on the phone with them. Let’s call our program officer. And I have no idea if you’d be willing to do this. But could we meet for 17 minutes on May 3rd?
21:46
Now a couple of different components that I have no idea that people graciously step away if they in fact, do not do this. The 17 minutes will pique people’s curiosity. 17 minutes, why 17 minutes? Why not half an hour? That seems like a normal thing. And then May 3rd, actually helps you to nail down a time. Now it could be that and might say I don’t have time, but shoot me your questions. That’s fine. It could be that and may ignore you completely. It could well be that and says great.
22:23
Let’s take the meeting. Now, when you’re reaching out to make contact, it should be a legitimate reason why you’re making contact. It shouldn’t just be an opportunity to talk about yourself. That’s like asking somebody on a date, in order to tell them how great you are. Nobody is there for that. If you have a genuine question, you can ask genuine questions. But the point here is about connection and sharing a moment. It’s about relationship building.
22:53
So within that, be prepared to speak for 25% of the time and then to speak for 75% of the time. Create an opportunity for connection and also go into it with the right kind of intention. Is your intention simply to make yourself known amongst all of the pile of other applicants? Is your intention to make a real connection? Is your intention to get information?
23:16
These are all really important to go in with the right intention. Now, I think, if I’m understanding your question, is there a certain do or don’t? I don’t think so. I think that there are preferences. Personally speaking, I prefer an email ahead of time to set up a meeting or to set up a phone call. Other people might prefer a phone call. I would try a couple of different things. Maybe before text message approval, I don’t know, whatever.
23:47
In general, I would maybe try three different methods because you never know what will happen. So sometimes emails get put in spam filters. I have a really intense spam filter on my phone. So I usually don’t get phone calls, which is why I prefer people let me know ahead of time if they’re gonna call. Some people like text message people, some people are social media type people, and some people are old school and prefer letters. I don’t really know. But try three different methods.
24:13
And again, in general, a program officer’s job is to interface with the public. So I don’t know. It seems to me that if you are talking to a program officer who’s actively avoiding phone calls, maybe this is not your person. But I would say if you are polite, politely persistent, and you give them a legitimate reason why you need to speak with them, then I don’t see that there’s any reason that anybody could get upset with that. Now, that being said, everyone is their own person. And there are some more people out there who get offended, but they also have to understand their job is to interface with the public.
24:51
Now, I would say though, that Angely, I think you’re asking is specifically for foundation officers and program officers. I would have less slightly different tack if this was an individual donor, but I will cover that in another episode. So if you enjoyed this, let me know. Shoot me an email at rhea@rheawong.com. Let me know if you have any questions I’m always happy to answer and hopefully, we’ll just do this on a monthly basis.
25:17
So everyone, take care. If you aren’t already subscribed to my newsletter, you can do so at rheawong.com. I send out a weekly newsletter with some free resources and lots of fun, and, of course, you are our listeners. Thank you for listening and if you get a chance, I would love if you’d like me a review. As long as it’s a good one. If it’s a terrible one, you can skip it. Thanks so much, everyone. Have a great day.
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