Jon Simons

This month, the Donor By Design Group is challenging you to take action, moving from resolutions to results. Today’s topic? Unwrapping the gifts your volunteers bring. 

This October, the Donor By Design team is tackling spooky situations in development. Join us this month for hair-raising stories and cautionary tales of frightful fundraising!

In this series, the DBD Team is taking a deeper look at some of the axioms we use when working with clients. In today’s blog, Jon Simons explores our axiom “Always tell the kind truth.” To read other axiom blogs, click here. 

Today it is easier than ever to “give feedback.” Social media gives us an unfiltered voice and an ever-growing audience. Anyone with a smart phone and Wi-Fi can position themselves as an “expert” on just about any topic they choose. The comments section on websites ranges from mindless to mildly entertaining to cruel, abusive and irresponsible.

As a cyclist, I have never really looked forward to the winter months. I’m fine with riding in cold weather (it’s all about the layers), but the real challenge comes from the shorter hours of daylight. Night riding on the roads of New Jersey is unsafe and unnerving to say the least!

A few summers back while on vacation with friends I learned a great lesson. Well…two actually. The first was that cell phones and salt water don’t mix (and that phone insurance is a good thing). The second lesson came a few days later, about 48 hours after the phone-meets-ocean thing.

If you have been in fund development long enough, you may have found yourself in this situation:

Great communicators treat storytelling as an art. They know it’s among the most effective ways to make a point, set a tone and connect with an audience of any size. Stories bring organizational mission to life, give a face to a case and leave long-lasting impressions. As fundraisers, we are eager to tell stories, and if done well, we have the opportunity to entertain, educate and inspire. We often enter rooms prepared to network, armed with our best stuff, ready to impress! What could possibly go wrong?

Listening to author Chimanmanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk, “The Danger of a Single Story,” I was reminded of a trap that I often fall into while researching donor prospects.
Through web searches, wealth screenings and giving histories, I begin to develop a profile that guides my assumptions, strategies and engagement plans. From my research, I begin to understand who the donor is and how he or she might connect to a given cause.
Or do I?
As Ms. Adichie points out, when we base our perceptions of a person from limited data and knowledge, we are in real danger of building and perpetuating their “single story.”
Please don’t misunderstand me. There is great value in prospect research to understand giving trends and capacity. My point is that capacity is only one part of the donor engagement formula. Understanding a prospect’s interest is most often the key to unlocking the potential of a deeper connection.
In fact, the most effective way to better understand someone is to visit with them, ask questions and listen! Too often we think we know someone by his or her reputation or public image. Sometimes we simply define someone by their net worth, occupation or past achievements. We fall into the trap of the “single story.”
If you want to truly understand your potential donors, seek to know them beyond their single story. Bruce Berglund, President of Donor By Design, often asks people when he meets them to share their life story from birth to today in 5 minutes. While people are initially surprised by this question, they spend the next 5 minutes (often longer) sharing the many facets of their life journey, including their passions, dreams, victories, disappointments and lessons learned.
Those stories tell us so much more about what inspires, motivates and compels a donor than a simple glimpse at their giving history and net worth ever could.
If you want to go deep, push beyond the trap of the single story.
Watch this powerful TED Talk for yourself:

My story always seems to end the same way. I head out to the super market for a “few things” and can come home burdened with grocery bags filled with cravings, bargains, two for ones, must haves and more.

Upon learning about an amazing $40,000,000 estate gift made to the Westport Weston Family YMCA in Connecticut, another non-profit leader commented to me on how lucky they were to receive such a transformational donation. Having had the honor of working with the staff and volunteers of the Westport Weston Family Y for the past few years on their capital campaign, I quickly assured him that “luck” had nothing to do with it!