It All Begins With A Phone Call - A Petrus Development Show Episode on Donor Visit Logistics

Petrus consultant Matt Bond joins Rhen on this episode of the Petrus Development Show to discuss all things donor visits.  This is another nuts and bolts interview geared especially for new fundraisers.  Listen now as Matt and Rhen walk you step-by-step through scheduling and hosting successful donor visits. 

Show Notes:

When Matt and Rhen began their fundraising careers, they had lots of questions and uncertainty about donor visits.  Donor visits are a source of anxiety for new fundraisers, and it's really hard to know exactly what to do when you're just starting out.  Good news!  Petrus is here to help.  Are you unsure about what to wear on a donor visit?  Check out this episode.  Are you curious about where to meet prospective donors?  Hear what Matt has to say.  Together, Matt and Rhen touch on all of these logistical details, and in doing so, they hope to boost the confidence of new fundraising professionals!

In this episode, Matt and Rhen answer the following questions:

• I've been told I need to go meet donors.  How do I figure out who to meet?
  
  
• Now, I have a list of people to meet.  How do I get that meeting?  What should I say to successfully request a meeting?  
  
  
• We've scheduled a meeting.  Where should we meet?  How do I dress?  Who pays for the coffee/the food?  What should I order?  How do I find my prospective donor in public?
   
• We're sitting down to meet.  What should the meeting structure look like?  What questions should I ask?  How do I end our meeting?  
  
  
• The meeting's over.  What do I do next?   
  
  

If you enjoyed the tips in this episode, consider some of the other services Petrus offers.  As Rhen mentions at the end of the episode, Petrus offers its BOAT (Basic Online Advancement Training) course as a way to learn fundraising skills while building a network of peers to support you in your work.  For more information on our fall BOAT cohort, click here.  (And, if you haven't already, be sure to listen to this podcast episode for that $200 discount code!)   

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

00:00:47.25 aggierobison Well, howdy everybody. Welcome back to the Petrus Development Show. I am Rhen Hoehn from Petrus Development. Joining me today is not Andrew. We're bringing in the big guns. It is Matt Bond. How's it going, Matt?

00:00:59.03 Matt Good, I don't know about big guns, but I'm here, I'm excited and glad to take Andrew's place for today.

00:01:06.52 aggierobison Excellent. Andrew's on the road this week. But we're going to talk a little bit about going out and doing some donor meetings. And I know that's something you've done a whole lot of. So we'll dig into that in a few minutes here. But you want to introduce yourself and kind of get your fundraising experience and who you are within Petrus.

00:01:22.80 Matt Sure. I'm Matt Bond. As everybody in Petrus, we're kind of off into our own locations working remotely. So I actually am in Edmond, Oklahoma, which is just north of Oklahoma City. I've been with Petrus for about four years, full-time for a few months now. So I'm the newbie slash not newbie on the team. But I've got a history with a couple of different fundraising organizations. One of my favorites being Oklahoma State University, where I was the development director that led the campaign for the new student center and church. We started in 2019 and finished in 2021, raising $27.5 million. I went on a lot of donor visits for that one. And then recently, before Petrus, I was at a small nonprofit organization in Oklahoma City, where I too went on quite a few different donor visits.

00:02:32.66 Matt Currently, I'm working with some really great ministries. I'm working with George Mason University Catholic Campus Ministry in Virginia, St. Paul's student center at Indiana University, Mississippi State's Father Jason at St. Joseph's, and Chastity Project out of Phoenix, Arizona. I'm flying all over the place, racking up the frequent flyer miles for sure.

00:03:31.69 aggierobison Excellent. And I know you were telling me, just recently, you were on a big canoe trip with your son's Boy Scout troop. Is that right?

00:03:39.83 Matt That's right. I'm an Eagle Scout myself, and my oldest son is in Boy Scouts. My middle son is in what's called Arrow of Light, AOL. Next spring, he'll cross over to Boy Scouts too. We took a group of young men, some adults, and it was the family campout. We floated a part of the Illinois River, which is a beautiful, peaceful part where you don't see another soul until you end. We got to see bald eagles flying above our heads. It was really great, but also you got to see the 12, 13, and 14-year-old boys trying to figure out how to maneuver and work together to navigate a canoe down a river with trees, rocks, and rapids. Many tips, many falls happened throughout it, but they ended up making it.

00:05:00.69 Matt They'd end up going down the river backwards, but they'd make it.

00:05:03.54 aggierobison Oh, any snakes on this trip?

00:05:07.74 Matt Not this one, but in the past, there have been some crazy snake encounters. About three years ago, the water was down, so the rapids were a lot crazier. Every rapid, I would have to stop and tell my son, who was in the front of the canoe, where to hit it. I was running on the gravel bar, and I came within six inches of stepping on top of a water moccasin. It just took off slithering into the river. It was within inches, which would have been a very bad situation for me, since I was deep on the trip, and it would have taken a while for emergency personnel to reach us.

00:06:55.29 aggierobison Wow.

00:06:55.32 Matt So my guardian angel was looking out for me that day, for sure.

00:07:00.97 aggierobison That's a crazy story. Well, once our fearless leader, Andrew, was up here in the UP in Michigan with me, and we were hiking in the evening. We came to this big grassy field, and he's like, "I don't know. Does this look safe to cross? It looks like snake territory." I said, "Oh, there's no venomous snakes in the UP. We're fine." So we start hiking across it, and we walked right into a ground nest of bees, and they came after us. The two of us were running and yelping as the bees stung us. So that was our big adventure one fall a few years ago too. Not quite as scary as the snakes, though.

00:07:36.91 Matt Well, I didn't get bit. You got stung. So that's great.

00:07:43.61 aggierobison Oh, but anyway, this fall weather makes me think of when I started my first fundraising job. I was sitting there terrified, knowing that I had to start calling donors and go meet with them face to face, and I had no idea how it was going to go, how people were going to perceive me, if it was going to be successful. There's a lot of anxiety around that. And that's what we want to talk about a little bit today - unpacking what it's like to go start meeting with donors face to face. What should you expect? What's expected of you? And just break down some of the most common questions we get around that process when we start working with different nonprofits.

00:08:27.57 aggierobison What was that like, I guess, when you started fundraising? I think your first fundraising job was at Oklahoma State, right? What was that like as you got started and learned the process?

00:08:37.29 Matt Yeah, it was crazy. I started in December, I think it was December 5th of 2016.

00:08:40.58 aggierobison Okay.

00:08:43.89 Matt That's when I started. I'm weird, I can remember dates. It just, I don't know how it happens. And you're right, I started, but it was the same thing. I didn't know what I was doing.

00:08:54.58 Matt I came from ministry work, but it wasn't development. It was in a way development ministry, but not really, not to what I was really about to find out in doing it. Same thing. I was nervous. I was scared. I mean, what if I do something wrong and say something wrong? And, you know, I hurt the ministry just because of my presence, you know, all those irrational fears that you have.

00:09:21.01 Matt Whatever you're going through it. And, you know, before we start, Ryan, can I say this before we get started? Those feelings, that nervousness, that fear, everybody has them.

00:09:34.21 aggierobison Yeah.

00:09:34.29 Matt Every single person has them. And it's normal. It's okay. I mean, I think a lot of times you've got that imposter syndrome going in the back of my mind of how do I get this job?

00:09:42.20 aggierobison Big time.

00:09:46.59 Matt I don't know what I'm doing. I'm going to fail. And you know, all this stuff. And I think we're really tough on ourselves. We just need to take a step back and say, okay, I recognize this as a fear.

00:09:57.91 Matt I recognize this as something that's happening to me right now. Legitimate or not, I recognize it. But I also recognize it's normal. I'll get past this. I just have to take one step at a time, and I'll get past it. And so I think a lot of times we're too tough on ourselves instead of just letting it go.

00:10:18.71 aggierobison Exactly. There's that feeling of I'm not the right, the best person for this or somebody else would be so much better. And maybe, but probably not. You're there. Got to put yourself out there and go try it and see what happens.

00:10:29.95 aggierobison I'm the most introverted person you're going to find. I'm not eloquent socially or anything by any means, not witty. I'm not going to charm these donors into giving money. Just go to them, sit down with them, build relationships.

00:10:42.75 aggierobison And that's where the money comes from. Eventually. It's just a matter of trust in the process.

00:10:45.11 Matt Yeah, absolutely.

00:10:46.33 aggierobison Right. So let's talk about the process.

00:10:46.86 Matt Yeah, sure.

00:10:48.49 aggierobison The first question that comes up is, okay, I've been told I need to go meet donors. Who do I go meet? How do I figure out who I should meet?

00:11:00.48 Matt You know, starting out, it's actually simple. Meet anybody you can. Anybody that loves your ministry, loves what you're doing, sit down with them.

00:11:11.26 Matt At this stage, it's getting over nerves. It's getting used to what you're doing, working on how you phrase things and how you say things, getting the cobwebs knocked out and saying, oh, hey, this worked, this didn't work. So I always say meet with anybody you can. Caveat, though, it's always great when you're beginning to talk to the key stakeholders within your ministry. Those individuals that have an investment within what you guys are doing. So I'd go meet with every single one of those that could be your finance council, your governing board, that kind of thing.

00:11:45.66 aggierobison Kind of some of the key stakeholders are.

00:12:05.58 Matt It could be staff. It could be volunteers. It most certainly can be donors. I mean, that's a great list to start with is download that list of those who have given in the past 12 to 24 months and then go see every single one of those.

00:12:24.32 Matt But the key is you've got to go out and you've got to start seeing people. The longer you have that fear that we just talked about a minute ago,

00:12:30.06 aggierobison Exactly.

00:12:34.30 Matt And the longer you wait before you make your first visit, the bigger that fear becomes, and the higher chance of failure in that profession for you is going to be. And so that's what I would do starting out.

00:12:48.40 aggierobison Yeah. And I would add to that, I think there's a tendency to think, Oh, I'll just go meet people that I know, whether that's people who've been recent graduates of our school or our campus ministry or people that I know personally. And it can be easier to get a meeting with them. I feel like, in my experience, the meetings are actually easier with somebody you don't know. I mean, you're both kind of getting to know each other. There's not this new dynamic of you're a fundraiser. So don't be afraid to just call up anybody, even if you don't know them, they don't know you,

00:13:17.38 Matt Yep.

00:13:17.50 aggierobison and try to get a meeting. And maybe that brings us to the next piece - how do we get that meeting? Does it have to be a phone call? Should it be a text or an email? What's the process there?

00:13:33.34 Matt How do you get the meeting?

00:13:36.25 Matt It's an art, right? And you're laughing as I'm laughing too.

00:13:37.73 aggierobison Yeah.

00:13:40.14 Matt It really is an art, and it's going to depend a little bit on your demographics. But going back to the simplest terms that we can put it in. In order to set a meeting, you've got to reach out to them.

00:13:51.18 Matt You've got to call them, you've got to email them, you've got to text them. I would really recommend, especially for beginning fundraisers, pick up the phone. Pick up the phone and call the donors. The question I get that kind of piggybacks on that is, what do I say? How do I say it in order to get them to have that meeting with me? And as a newbie development director, the best thing you can say is, I'm brand new here. I want to learn about everybody that has a vested interest in what we're doing. I want to find out, that's one way you could say, I want to find out about you and why you give. You know, what is it about this ministry that makes it worth your time and talent and treasure to invest in?

00:14:36.58 Matt Another way could be is I'm trying to get to know every donor that's on our database so that I can share with you in the future, you know, and just use that I'm a beginner piece in order to schedule that, and that works really well to get your name out, and it's the truth.

00:14:56.81 aggierobison Definitely. Definitely. And if you have an executive director, especially if they're clergy, lean into that, you know, Father John has asked me, Father Carrie has asked me, Father Ben has asked me, whoever your leader might be, or even if the executive director isn't clergy, they're probably gonna have a well-known name in the circle that's donating to you, right? So, you know, our director has asked me to meet our supporters. And so I'm trying to connect with them. I'm giving you an area next Tuesday, could we have coffee?

00:15:27.56 aggierobison And using that as your starting point.

00:15:31.81 Matt Yep, yep. And just to take it a step further, Ryan, that beginning stage of where you can use that, both what you said and what I said, as a way to set the meeting kind of wears off quick. Your next stage is when something exciting is going on with the ministry and you have a donor you want to go see, just say, hey, I want to share the exciting news that's going on. You have a moment for a cup of coffee on Saturday the 12th or whatever it is. And so that's a simple way to do, just share exciting news and then come and tell them the great work that's happened. Maybe you had a kickoff for your student ministry that was the largest you've ever had. Maybe you've built an ice church and you want them to come by and see it, right? That's a Michigan Tech one right there.

00:16:16.52 aggierobison Yep, that's right.

00:16:16.78 Matt Or maybe you've had the largest RCIA group and you've got a wonderful program that you're putting the students through. So all these different things you can share and give updates to sit down with a donor.

00:16:32.43 aggierobison Yeah, exactly. And I love how you said, go meet anybody, right? I remember when I first started, I made a spreadsheet. I was like, okay, I'm going to be in this city in these days. Here's all the donors within 60 miles. And then I started ranking them based on different criteria, this is who I should meet the most and who's going to be most likely to agree. And at the end of the day, when I just started calling down that list and asking anybody for a meeting, I ended up with some big surprises of people who, you know, have been small donors in the past, had a great meeting with them, they got more invested in the ministry and became big donors. And people that I didn't think would take my call did, right? It's unexpected, usually how it shakes out.

00:17:06.45 Matt Yeah.

00:17:06.61 aggierobison But I wanted to mention, if you'd like a script to follow or get you started on making these calls, you can go to PetrusDevelopment.com/138. It's from back in episode 138 of the Petrus Development Show. We had a free resource that you could download and use as a starting point for your call script. So petrusdevelopment.com/138. And I would say all the years I was fundraising, on the ground, I've always had a script in front of me, even when I made hundreds and hundreds of these calls, because sometimes the person answers and your mind just goes blank.

00:17:40.37 Matt Yeah.

00:17:40.49 aggierobison And it's like, Oh, boy, I'm just gonna dive into the script. And then I'll get some momentum and get going again, right? It's always good to have something to follow, I think.

00:17:48.25 Matt You know, I never had a problem with the script. I did the same thing. I did write out a script. I didn't always follow the script, but I wrote it out. But what gave me the biggest blank was when I got a voicemail. So even to this day, if I'm going to make an important phone call, I script my voicemail because as soon as you hear, hey, this is so-and-so, leave a message after the beep, my brain just shuts off.

00:18:11.78 Matt And so even with voicemails, I'll script it so I can say what I want to say, what I want to say, and I just read it and go on to the next. That's the one that always got me.

00:18:23.64 aggierobison Exactly the same with me. I had both, I had the regular script and the voicemail script on the same sheet.

00:18:26.37 Matt Yeah.

00:18:27.64 aggierobison And then I could just go with whatever happened. So perfect. So you get the person on the phone, they agree to meet. The next question is, where should you meet? Should you try to go to their house? Should you meet them at their workplace? Should you go to a coffee shop or restaurant? What's the best option or is there a best option?

00:18:38.50 aggierobison Should you try to go to their house? Should you meet them at their workplace? Should you go to a coffee shop or restaurant? What is the best option or is there a best option?

00:18:48.29 Matt There's the best option for you. And I would say as the development director, if you can meet at their home, that's the best option. Because from there, you can gain insights and cultivation style data that you wouldn't have if you met somewhere else.

00:19:05.30 Matt However, don't ask to meet at their home. I think that's a little too forward. So if in the conversation it's not offered to meet in their home, coffee shops are great. Lunch, dinners, breakfasts, all those are great. I like to have something with the meeting so that we're not just meeting at a park bench somewhere.

00:19:28.13 Matt You know what I mean? That we're going to have something to do. And as far as where we meet, it depends on the time too.

00:19:38.62 aggierobison Yeah. Yeah.

00:19:39.83 Matt I would schedule my days as coffee, breakfast, mid-morning, lunch, midday, dinner, and drinks. And I didn't fill up all those slots, but I knew I could do one in each of those, and I would have something or somewhere to go to do it. And so if someone called, I would just look at my schedule and say, hey, it'd be great to have a coffee mid-morning on Tuesday when I schedule something for 10 a.m.

00:20:13.98 aggierobison Perfect.

00:20:17.45 aggierobison Great. I want to come back to the food piece here in a minute, but before we get there, let's talk about how we should dress for these meetings. I think that's something that comes up. How formal or informal should you be dressed for these donor meetings?

00:20:34.74 Matt Wow, I'm gonna give you another answer that's a little uncommittal.

00:20:41.66 Matt So how formal you should dress, go look at your clientele, the individuals that you're working with. If you're going to meet with doctors and lawyers and you're in an area or a demographic that is very professional, I would say likely wear a tie, a suit and tie to it.

00:21:04.38 aggierobison Yep.

00:21:05.37 Matt And I'm talking for men here. I can't speak on behalf of ladies, but if there's an equivalent to a tie on that end, that's probably what I would take from theirs. If your area or you're meeting somebody that's a little less formal. So for instance, Ryan, if you're coming to visit me, I would wear, or I would expect you to wear a jacket. I would not expect a tie. I would feel uncomfortable if you wore a tie.

00:21:34.52 Matt And in my area in particular, ties are kind of frowned upon as just a little too much.

00:21:42.20 aggierobison Yeah.

00:21:42.25 Matt And so most people, if you show up in a tie, they're gonna look sideways at you, like, what is that guy up to? And so 99.9% of all my visits, I did not wear a tie.

00:21:56.47 Matt When we met with the bishop, I wore a tie. But outside of that, I can't think of another time that I've worn a tie. But in your area, it might warrant it. Brian Wilburn, he is a tie guy up in North Dakota. And that's what he does. And so very successful for him. But I'm going to assume his area kind of warrants that a little bit.

00:22:22.86 aggierobison Yeah, it does totally depend, right? It's better to be overdressed than underdressed, but you do have to read the situation. I remember going to a meeting with a donor in the very rural Upper Peninsula, Michigan, a small town in the middle of the forest, a couple hundred miles from the nearest city, and thinking, oh, I got to be dressed up for this. It's a donor meeting, no matter where I'm going, so I wore a tie. I was like, I don't know, is this a little bit too much? And the first thing the donor said when I walked into this little breakfast cafe and sat down with them was, "Why are you dressed like that?" Right, it just wasn't appropriate. This is an area where dressing up, when you're invited to a party, dressing up is wearing your best flannel, literally, that's as fancy as it gets here. And so yeah, you do have to kind of know who you're meeting with.

00:23:06.93 Matt Yeah.

00:23:06.96 aggierobison But it probably is better to be a little bit more dressed up than to be underdressed for that type of situation, but it doesn't always apply.

00:23:12.13 Matt Yeah. Ryan, I want to tell you a funny story.

00:23:15.13 aggierobison Okay.

00:23:15.74 Matt Similar vein, but a little different. So again, in Oklahoma, many of our donors are in the ranching profession. Early on, we were going to do some rounds with some ranchers.

00:23:29.34 Matt And what I mean by rounds is we had a bunch of visits set up with ranchers. And one of our early on donors said, "Father, you know, you're going to go see some ranchers, right? Yeah. You can't show up in that Nissan truck you drive. You need to be in a Ford, Chevy, or a Dodge."

00:23:58.31 Matt And so he ended up giving us the keys to his truck, which was a Ford. And we took that on our visits to the ranchers.

00:24:11.95 aggierobison That is incredible.

00:24:13.51 Matt And

00:24:16.02 aggierobison Oh, fantastic. Oh, let's go back to the restaurant or coffee shop piece here. You're meeting a donor at a restaurant. How do you approach the who pays for the food or the coffee?

00:24:27.82 aggierobison I know there are different ways to approach it. How do you handle that?

00:24:33.00 Matt You know, for me, I never go first. Never go first. I want to let the donor order first.

00:24:37.82 aggierobison Yeah.

00:24:40.83 Matt Now, sometimes they insist. So if they don't, and the donor goes first, they'll give the insight of whether or not they're going to pay for my drink or not pay for mine, you know, if we're going to go Dutch from that.

00:24:54.35 Matt So pretty simple from that. You'll find that a lot of times with coffee, though, you'll be there earlier or they'll be there earlier. And so that's already been settled. And really,

00:25:05.97 Matt Can I start this whole thing over?

00:25:07.78 aggierobison Sure.

00:25:09.00 Matt Okay. This is kind of an odd one. And probably one of the more uncomfortable things you'll have to do during the visit is figure out the little dance of who's going to pay and who's not going to pay.

00:25:20.67 Matt But what I try to do is, as a rule of thumb, I try not to go first. So I insist that the donor goes and orders first. And then I'm going to read their language of whether or not they're going to pay for mine or not.

00:25:34.02 Matt Nine times out of 10 for coffee, the donor ended up paying for my coffee as well, which I, of course, profusely thanked them for.

00:25:40.41 aggierobison Yeah.

00:25:44.62 Matt Same went with lunch. Most of the time, they would pay for the lunch if we went to lunch too. If, for instance, they insist that I go first, then I'm going to automatically assume that I'm paying for my own and they're paying for their own.

00:25:59.51
Matt
Um, in the church world, it's just kind of the way it works, where they assume they're going to pay for the person who works for the church's food or coffee.

00:26:13.09
Matt
But if not, it's a go Dutch.

00:26:48.20
Matt
You know, and sometimes you get the feeling that they want you to buy their drink or whatnot. And that's fine too. You know, use your own judgment on that. Most of the time, that's not what happens.

00:27:03.30
Matt
But in that instance, offer, see what they say.

00:27:04.12
aggierobison
Yeah.

00:27:07.22
Matt
Many times they'll say, "No, no, no, no, you're not going to pay. I'm going to pay for our drink, or coffee, or lunch kind of thing."

00:27:15.88
aggierobison
Exactly. And that's been my experience too. I always offered when I set up the meeting, like, "Hey, could I buy you a coffee and we can meet for half an hour." And still, almost every time, they insisted, "No, no, no, you're not going to buy it. You work for the church. I got coffee."

00:27:31.48
aggierobison
I would say that was probably 80% of the time. Probably 10% of the time, they would just say, "I'll get my own. I'll get my own." Okay, that's fine. And then once in a while, I get some people who let me buy them coffee or buy them dinner. But it definitely was the vast majority of the time that the donor would offer to pay.

00:27:46.72
aggierobison
So you just got to kind of feel that out. One thing that I ran into twice in my years of fundraising was that the restaurant or the coffee shop we went to didn't take a card, and I didn't have cash. That was an awkward situation. I should have learned after the first time, right? The second time was in a big city, and I was like, I was not expecting to have to pay cash in a big city at a restaurant.

00:28:11.72
aggierobison
But it happened. Luckily for me, both times the donor had offered to cover already. But I was like, "Man, if I hadn't, you know, if that hadn't happened, that would have been an awkward situation." So always have a couple of twenties in your wallet, just in case you run into that awkward situation.

00:28:27.19
Matt
That's right, that's right, yep.

00:28:33.66
Matt
So I don't know if this will make it into the podcast or not, but I'm going to tell this story because it's really funny.

00:28:39.19
aggierobison
Okay.

00:28:40.91
Matt
My pastor and I, I don't know, should I say Father Carey?

00:28:48.15
aggierobison
You could say your director. I don't know. I don't know if he would care.

00:28:53.13
Matt
I'll just say, so my boss, the pastor at the student center, and we were on a donor visit in Dallas with a younger guy, he was in his early to mid-30s. And so we had visited with him and, excuse me.

00:29:03.52
Matt
So he was in his mid-30s, mid to early 30s. And we ordered food. And it came out, and then here came the bill, and Father grabbed it and went to go, and the gentleman put his hand on Father's hand and said, "No, I'm going to pay for it." And he didn't order anything; he had water, he had nothing on the bill. It was just Father's stuff.

00:29:42.69
Matt
And Father was like, "You didn't order anything. Um, um, let me pay." And the other guy said, "If my wife finds out that I had lunch with a priest and I didn't pay for his food, there will be no more babies in my future."

00:30:04.48
aggierobison
Oh, goodness.

00:30:05.77
Matt
So we had a good chuckle at that.

00:30:06.16
aggierobison
Oh, that is excellent.

00:30:11.41
aggierobison
Oh, one question that comes up once in a while with people I've worked with is, okay, we're at a restaurant. What should I eat? Or what should I order? What should I not order? Any insights on that?

00:30:24.91
Matt
Just don't be an imbecile. That's my biggest tip with that. And what I mean by that is think through what you're going to eat. Remember the old Carl's Jr. commercial? "If it doesn't get all over the place, it doesn't belong in your face." I don't know if you remember that commercial or not.

00:30:39.27
Matt
We're staying away from all that kind of stuff whenever we go to a restaurant. You know, you're going to be nervous, so your stomach's not going to be great because you've got these nerves coming in. So you know, you want to watch what you're eating from that. Eat something simple.

00:30:48.92
aggierobison
Yeah.

00:30:51.90
Matt
But also, you don't want something that you're going to get dressed or it's going to get all over your face. You don't want to eat something that's going to take you forever to eat. That's simple stuff. Another thing to look at is when you're looking at the menu and it's a nice restaurant, you're not going to order prime rib, knowing that you're probably not going to pay for this for the meal. You don't want to order that.

00:31:28.05
Matt
You've got to be conscientious of the donor that's there, knowing that whatever you order, they'll pay for it. But that's just, in my opinion, that's just not right to do.

00:31:37.22
aggierobison
Yeah. Even when you sit down and they say, "Hey, I've got dinner. It's my treat. Get whatever you want." I love the steak here. I always, it always just felt a little bit presumptuous to order something really expensive, right?

00:31:48.79
Matt
Yep.

00:31:49.21
aggierobison
Keep it simple. A glass of water with dinner. You can't go wrong with that, right?

00:31:55.21
Matt
Yep, yep.

00:31:55.65
aggierobison
Rather than something expensive. And just keep it simple, and you're going to be fine if you do that.

00:32:03.44
Matt
Yep, yep. And the other thing to that is, what should I drink? Water is what you should go to, default to water, time in, time out. And let's say the sweet tea here is fantastic.

00:32:21.56
Matt
Something like that, then that's fine. You'll have a few who love wine. They want everybody at the table to have wine. That's their meal. So you got to read the room on that one. Most of the time, those individuals are going to buy a bottle of wine for the table to share. And so in instances like that, where you have to drink,

00:32:45.43
Matt
So as not to offend the donor, watch what you're drinking. Drink it really slow.

00:32:53.93
aggierobison
Yeah.

00:32:54.15
Matt
There's nothing worse than you get to the end of the meal, you're going to make a presentation, and you're starting to feel the initial effects of the alcohol you just drank, whether it's wine or beer or whatever it is.

00:33:07.28
Matt
There's nothing worse than that. And there's also not, there's never a quicker way to lose a donor than to drink too much, even if they're supplying it. So stay away from that. Be cautious of that. One tip that I do as well, speaking of alcohol and drinking, galas and events that we go to, whether it's our own or somebody else's,

00:33:32.46
Matt
There is kind of an expectation, especially in the Catholic world, that you have a beer in your hand or a glass of wine. I mean, it's just kind of how it is. And I would always go to the bartender early on and say, "This is my name, I'll tip you just like you're giving me a drink. But what I want you to do is I want you to take that beer, whether it's whatever it is, and when I come up and order it, I want you to dump it out, fill it with water, and then hand it to me."

00:34:01.77
Matt
That way, it's just water, and so it just looks like all night long, I might have a beer in my hands, but it's really just water.

00:34:09.17
aggierobison
Bottle of water, nice.

00:34:10.29
Matt
It's just water. And why is that important? I mean, why is it even worth me saying that at this point in time? There's something social, there's something about connection within individuals that happens over a glass of wine or over a beer or in a conversation where people lower their guard and they'll share more openly, more freely. And so if you're standing there with a glass of water and they're standing there with a beer, that wall never comes down, and you never have that conversation. And so different things you got to look at whenever you're in those situations.

00:34:50.28
aggierobison
Great. So we've gone deep into the setting here. Who we're meeting, where we're meeting them, all the logistics of how we dress and what we're eating and what we're ordering. Let's talk about the meeting itself. How should you start these meetings? You're meeting a stranger, right? You might have to find them in a restaurant lobby, coffee shop lobby, go up to their house and kind of be vulnerable, ring the doorbell and see what happens when they open the door. How should you start out the meeting? What's the best way to get going there?

00:35:18.51
Matt
Oh, that's a fantastic question. I love this one. I'm going to put a little tickler out there for an upcoming course on major gift fundraising. And we talk about something that's called a call sheet. It's also called a donor profile. If you've done that well, then it should make this perfect, which means you've got a picture on the donor sheet so you know what the donor looks like the person you're going to meet.

00:35:46.69
Matt
And then you know a few starting conversations, a few of their hobbies that you can talk about. So for me, how I always start a meeting is I'll walk up to them. I know who they are. I'll walk up to them and I'll say, "Hey, are you Mr. or Mrs. so-and-so?" And put up my hand to shake theirs automatically from the get-go. I jump out and do that from the very first. And then the first conversation you have, it's all small talk. Talk about the restaurant, talk about the coffee shop, talk about the weather, talk about the tie that they're wearing, or the time of day, talk about just something that is urgent to that moment right there to break the ice. They're nervous, you're nervous. They don't know what to expect. You're nervous about how the conversation is going to go.

00:36:42.63
Matt
Just jump out. The quicker you jump out, the better it'll be, and just purely small talk. It can be as simple as if they suggest the coffee shop, say, "I've never been here. What's good?" and then listen to what they have to say. If it's about the weather, maybe you came in and it was a beautiful morning, say, "Man, it was beautiful this morning, wasn't it?" Those little things start conversations going and start breaking the ice real quick. And that's how you start that first interaction when you walk up to them or your coffee or your food, sit down. And then that first little bit, it's all small talk from that. So for me, I could talk about Oklahoma State football or sports of any type till I'm blue in the face. I was meeting with Oklahoma State donors, and so it was an easy thing to go with nine times out of 10 right there.

00:37:36.95
aggierobison
Yeah.

00:37:38.17
Matt
Otherwise, you know kids, maybe they have kids in your program, things like that are easy to start the conversation with.

00:37:44.78
aggierobison
Perfect. So assuming this is a first meeting with somebody, you're getting started, you know you never met this donor or potential supporter before. Could you just outline like, what does the structure of that meeting look like at a high level? Say it's a half-hour meeting. What are you going to, how are you going to use that 30 minutes?

00:38:03.10
Matt
I use the same format all the time. It's kind of my secret sauce.

00:38:09.65
aggierobison
Ooh.

00:38:11.45
Matt
And I actually stole it from Dan Morcheski.

00:38:13.27
aggierobison
Okay.

00:38:14.77
Matt
I'm sure he's been on the podcast many times too. And that is, I go from small talk to talking about the ministry. We're talking about the ministry to talking about the specific reason why I've invited them there.

00:38:29.59
Matt
I make the invitation and ask for solicitation. I shut up and I thank for the visit. And then make plans for follow up. Very high level. And the ask, solicitation, or invitation, that could be, "Hey, Ren, would you prayerfully consider a gift of $1,000 a month?"

00:38:48.25
Matt
Or it could be, "Let me say that again, that could be any form. It could be an actual solicitation where it's, 'Hey, Ren, would you pray if we consider a $10,000 gift over the next three years,' to, 'Hey, Ren, I'm loving where the conversation is going. I know you have a huge affinity towards this ministry that we've been talking about all day. I'd love the opportunity to sit down with you again where I could bring a proposal of how you can make a lasting impact on that ministry. Would you be up for a call? Would you be up for a follow-up visit in two weeks?' And then listen, so we're asking for another visit. We're asking for a gift. We're asking for something. It doesn't necessarily always mean financially, but we're asking for something additional. And that's where the ask comes in. Then we shut up and listen to what they had to say. We thank them for their time and we schedule a follow-up."

00:39:46.55
aggierobison
What kind of questions might you ask the donor on this first meeting, especially a discovery call, as it would be called?

00:39:52.67
Matt
Oh my gosh. I'd ask them about their ties to the ministry. And what do they love? What are they passionate about? Why'd they pick us? You know, everybody has, I've said this on the podcast before, everybody has this ministry of giving, giving within themselves of their time, talent, and treasure. Why did they choose us? So asking those kind of questions, that's the heart of where we're going kind of before that.

00:40:14.89
aggierobison
Yeah.

00:40:22.92
Matt
I might ask them what they do professionally. What do they do for fun? I'm looking for, the reason I asked those questions, we're looking at their ability to make a gift. We're looking at other conversations we can have in the future, maybe a great opportunity to follow up with them with a cultivation visit of some type with something that they're passionate about. And so you're asking professional, you're asking for personal, and then you're asking about the ministry itself.

Here's the edited transcript:

00:40:53.35
Matt
And really trying to get to the root of why them? Is it an individual? Is it a programmatic piece? Is it this or is it that? And then once you find those pieces, then you can bring a proposal that makes sense to them of an opportunity that they may want to invest in.

00:41:12.24
aggierobison
Yeah, you get a sense of, okay, they're very interested in this particular, you know, at a campus ministry, maybe it's the music ministry, for example, or at a school, maybe it's the science, the STEM projects that they've got going on, right?

00:41:24.72
aggierobison
And that lights them up when they talk about that.

00:41:25.08
Matt
Yep.

00:41:26.70
aggierobison
Like, okay, let's look for a project related to that that we're hoping to do that we could then present to them and make an ask, right?

00:41:32.32
Matt
Yep. Absolutely.

00:41:33.36
aggierobison
And that ask, I think one thing that's maybe a misconception as you know as an organization that you're just starting out to go meet donors is that you have to make an ask on every meeting.

00:41:44.51
aggierobison
And that just like an ask for financial support, I guess, specifically. And that isn't necessarily true, right? It's something that on the first meeting, not super common necessarily to make that ask for financial support, but you might be working in that direction over time.

00:41:50.23
Matt
Right.

00:42:00.14
Matt
Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you asked for the playbook, you know, if you're for rules of what to do and what not to do, it would more than likely say, do not make a solicitation, a financial ask on your first visit. There are times that it makes sense. They may say, "Hey, I'm limited on time. I love what you're doing. How can I help?" So you always come prepared to make an ask or solicitation at every meeting you go on, but you don't necessarily do that. You want to find out what makes them tick, why would they want to give to you, and then make that. Now, to push back a little bit, that could lead into analysis paralysis, where you're going to go on a visit with a person five different times and never make an invitation to that individual.

00:42:58.02
Matt
And then we're in a situation where you're using it's not the right time as a form to not make the invitation to give. And so you've got to have those heart-to-heart talks and say, "Okay, I'm at once. Is the next meeting the time to make an invitation?"

00:43:07.49
aggierobison
Right.

00:43:12.17
Matt
And honestly, honestly, think back to that. And it's great to have a consultant in your corner helping you out because they can hear, you can download an entire meeting with them.

00:43:26.76
Matt
They can hear what you're saying and then pull from experience to say, "You know what, Ren, it's not time to make an invitation or an ask or a solicitation at the next visit. We need to do another cultivation visit. It's not quite at the right time." Or, "It's the perfect time. The next one is this."

00:43:37.21
Matt
It's not quite at the right time. Or it's the perfect time.

00:43:39.60
aggierobison
Yeah.

00:43:41.17
Matt
The next one is this.

00:43:43.41
aggierobison
Exactly. I mean, there's a lot of science to fundraising, but there's also an art, and this is really where the art is heavy, right?

00:43:49.14
Matt
Mm-hmm.

00:43:49.89
aggierobison
Is reading those personal relationships and figuring out how to best approach.

00:43:50.35
Matt
Yep.

00:43:55.60
aggierobison
That's a process that I did a lot as a fundraiser. I would go meet people for the first time by myself most of the time. And if this was somebody who's a major gift prospect, you're kind of looking for reasons to go back and meet them again and again, right? It's like, "Oh, hey, you haven't met our director, our pastor yet. Could I bring him back next time we're in the area and you could sit down with us and have a second meeting. You can meet him, hear more about what's going on."

00:44:22.78
aggierobison
And that was a good reason to get back in front of them. And we might make an ask in that second meeting or what we might at that meeting say, "Okay, this somebody is somebody who's interested. We've kind of confirmed it. Could we come back and present a project to you and make an ask in that third meeting?" That's kind of how we approached a lot of those if you're looking for kind of a formula. But there are others that you know I'd go up and meet people by myself for the first time. It's because this is somebody who had like nostalgic memories of our organization, but wasn't necessarily pumped up about helping it grow and seeing it thrive and being involved in it. But they were supportive, but they had other priorities.

00:44:56.48
aggierobison
That was somebody who I might make a monthly gift to ask at the first meeting. Like, "Hey, you know I'm not going to necessarily spend the time to come back to this person because they don't have a lot of enthusiasm or whatever wherever that whatever the case might be. But as long as we're here, hey, would you consider a $50 a month gift to help this ministry keep going and growing?"

00:45:13.99
Matt
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:45:16.13
aggierobison
Great, so we've gone kind of, oh, go ahead.

00:45:16.21
Matt
Absolutely. And you'll find you and you know you'll find as you go along that capacity an individual's capacity is going to play a little bit of a role.

00:45:28.27
Matt
A more sophisticated donor might take more than a couple of visits to get to a point where it's time for solicitation. Somebody towards the more common level of sophistication when it comes to donations, they may be a one, two punch, meaning you do a solicitation visit, you find out what they love, and then you're able to come back and do that. And then you've got everything in between, of course. But just so you know, sometimes, sometimes you're more affluent individuals. It takes a little longer, not only to schedule the visit to get in front of them,

00:46:05.16
Matt
but also the number of visits you go on until you're at the point to make that solicitation.

00:46:11.12
aggierobison
Yeah, maybe the best advice I ever heard personally on this was never go into a meeting 100% committed to one plan of action, right? Sometimes we had one donor that are supportive that we had a really hard time getting in front of. They were very high capacity individual. And we, for a few reasons, we decided we're not going to make an ask on this first visit, no matter what, we're not going to do it.

00:46:33.17
aggierobison
And we didn't, and he was pushing like, "Hey, how can I help? You know, what can I do? Is there anything I can help out with?" And we said, "Oh no, we're just trying to meet you, get to know you." And we said, "Oh, we'll go back for a second visit and make the ask." And we could never get that second visit. It just never materialized. And that was kind of a wasted opportunity where he was asking, "How do I get involved?" And we said, "No, no, don't, don't give us money. We just want to meet you."

00:46:55.20
aggierobison
So sometimes you gotta be ready to switch your plan of action and go for it, depending on what the person says.

00:46:58.62
Matt
Yep. Yeah. You know, a lot of capital campaigns that I consult on, I tell them that you can bring more than one folder in and what the folder has a proposal. Usually it's going to have an amount that you're specifically asking for. And so if there are unknowns in that meeting,

00:47:21.88
Matt
We're going to have a high ask, a low ask, and then one that just asks for a sacrificial gift. And when after the conversation has been had, after when you get to the point to make the ask right before that, that's when you pull out the folder. And it's the development director's job to know which folder is which. And so you pull it out, you pull out the one that makes the most sense at that point in time.

00:47:46.85
Matt
So that you're right.

00:47:47.16
aggierobison
Love that.

00:47:49.20
Matt
You don't know how it's going to go. You might have done all of your research wrong and came in with a $500,000 invitation. And realistically, they're probably closer to the $25,000 or $50,000 range.

00:48:04.35
Matt
And so you, you, you just want to, you never go into a meeting, like you said, "I love that." Never go into a meeting 100% committed to the action, and you leave opportunities. And then the sacrificial gift one is perfect, because it gets it across, it leaves it in their court. It's not the best practice to do it, it's always better to ask for a specific amount. But in a situation where the offer you brought is too high or too low, pull out that sacrificial gift letter proposal and put that across the table, and go from there. And then you can actually say a verbal amount. It doesn't have to always be written. You can say a verbal amount, too, if that's what it comes down to.

00:48:50.25
aggierobison
Exactly. And again, on our first visit, which is kind of what we're focusing on trying to focus on today, you're probably not going to make an ask of that level, right? Most of the time.

00:48:57.84
Matt
Yeah.

00:48:58.19
aggierobison
You just got to be prepared in case it comes up. One thing I wanted to mention that I didn't think about earlier is that when I first started out, somebody suggested that I go out and kind of survey our supporters, right? Kind of treat it that way. I created a list of questions that I wanted to ask supporters and present it that way, which kind of diffused that nervousness for both me and them. Like, "Hey, I'm going around to all of our supporters, kind of asking these questions to get the impressions of the ministry, to get your thoughts and how you were involved." Could I ask you these questions? And they'd be like, "Oh, sure. If you're asking everybody else, that's fine." How are you involved, but if you were involved in the ministry back in the day?

00:49:35.23
aggierobison
How do, why do you support us now? Do you read our communications? What do you think of them? Just getting some, giving conversations started with those questions, and I'll literally pull them out and write down the answers to them in my folder there. And that can be an easy way if you're nervous about what you're going to say in the meeting just to get things moving, right? And then you can kind of direct the conversation from there based on some of their answers.

00:49:54.96
Matt
Yeah, absolutely. I love that too. And again, the more you do, the easier it becomes, where you can probably today ask those same questions and not even have to look at the sheet of paper that you wrote it out on, because you've done it so many times.

00:50:02.27
aggierobison
Definitely.

00:50:10.62
Matt
And so you'll find that, you'll find that with everything that you do.

00:50:10.90
aggierobison
Absolutely.

00:50:14.45
aggierobison
Excellent. So we've gotten through the meeting itself, conversation, maybe making an ask, and maybe just asking for their prayers, or asking them to come back for a second visit. How do you close out the meeting and end it? What's, what's your approach there?

00:50:28.71
Matt
Okay, I'm going to give the most important piece. Let me start that over. Okay, I'm going to give you the most important tip that I can possibly give in this entire conversation that we've had, Ren.

00:50:41.04
aggierobison
Even more important than the secret sauce, huh?

00:50:43.61
Matt
Even more important than the secret sauce. And I see it happen right and left all the time. We go through a visit, we end it, we shake hands, "Thank you for your time, I'll get in touch with you and we'll get it done."

00:50:58.72
Matt
Don't do that. Don't, don't, don't, don't do that. What you've got to do, you have a captive audience with that donor, okay? Pull out your phone and say, "Hey, if it's a follow-up visit you're going to do, say, I'm free on this date. Can we go ahead and schedule that visit?"

00:51:20.34
Matt
Or if they have to if they have to ask somebody, it's always great to say, "Hey, if I call you in two weeks, is that enough time to talk to your spouse, your business partner, your accountant, whatever?" And they say, "Oh yeah, yeah that's plenty of time." That's usually the answer you get. Pull out your phone and say, "Okay, two weeks from today is October, blah, blah, blah. If I call you at two o'clock, is that usually a good time for you?"

00:51:47.11
Matt
They'll say, "You know what? I've got a meeting at the time. Why don't you call me at noon?" And the reason I'm pushing on this so hard and why this is so important, and what people forget, is that they're captive with you at that moment. To get them back on the phone again is very difficult, very difficult. And so if you can do it in that captive moment, then you don't, you can have follow-ups and confirmations of meetings, but you've already scheduled it.

00:52:14.98
Matt
I see time and time again, they don't schedule in that meeting, and we're going three months before we're setting that follow-up visit, because it's just so hard for the two of them to connect again.

00:52:25.61
aggierobison
Yeah, exactly.

00:52:27.70
Matt
So if you do anything, if you take anything from here, is schedule that next with that person, whatever it is, schedule it with them.

00:52:36.93
aggierobison
Perfect. Keep the ball in your court and take advantage when you have that opportunity to, to get them.

00:52:40.18
Matt
Yep, yep, yep.

00:52:42.43
aggierobison
And then one thing that I was always told after the meeting is always send a thank you card, every time. "Thank you for your time." It's, you know, it is a sacrificial people that carve time out of their day to come sit down with you.

00:52:53.68
aggierobison
Right. And your time is valuable too.

00:52:54.47
Matt
Yep.

00:52:55.77
aggierobison
You shouldn't necessarily kind of grovel for their time. And right. And you're working on an important ministry, but it is important to say thank you and show your gratitude right from the beginning, whether it's just

00:53:05.05
Matt
Yeah, yep.

00:53:05.92
aggierobison
You know, "Thank you for buying me coffee." "Thanks for your time." Make sure you thank them profusely. And handwritten, it is great, so and yeah, and a handwritten thank you card is a great way to do that.

00:53:12.22
Matt
And you know what that is? Sorry, I cut you off. You want to say it?

00:53:19.40
aggierobison
It's a nice personal touch.

00:53:21.85
Matt
100% handwritten all the time. Hand address the envelope, put a stamp on it, the whole thing. People just don't send handwritten notes anymore. And so, A, it's going to stand out at a higher chance of them opening it. One thing that I found when I'm very busy, when I'm going from a meeting to a meeting to a meeting to a meeting, you know, that kind of thing, or even back-to-back meetings, is throw those thank you cards in the car.

00:53:49.04
Matt
And as soon as you walk out from that meeting, write it out, because do not use a scripted thank you card. You've got to say something personal about that meeting that you guys were in that actually matters. Sign it, put a business card in there, and then when you get back to the office, you can always mail it out. Always a great thing to have those in your car. If you can go back to the office, then as soon as you go back to the office, sit down, write it out. The quicker you can do it, the better.

00:54:08.01
Matt
And one of my tips that I talk with when I'm consulting with individuals is to have them buy a stack of thank you cards. And if they're not thinking, if they're not sending five a week, five handwritten thank you cards a week, you are not doing enough work.

00:54:36.46
Matt
You're not making enough phone calls, you're not going on enough visits, you're not doing enough of what you need to be doing. If you're not writing five thank you cards every single week.

00:54:47.39
aggierobison
That's a great point.

00:54:48.39
Matt
In capital campaigns, I'll bump that up and say 10 on capital campaigns, because the gift comes in, you send a handwritten thank you card.

00:54:56.18
Matt
You go on a visit, you send them a handwritten thank you card. It's just a clear-cut time when you know that you're, and the individual that's working, whether or not they're doing enough is how many thank you cards they're sending out.

00:55:13.21
aggierobison
And that's a good point. You should do it as soon as possible. If you have multiple donor meetings in a day, you're going to mix up some of the facts from some of them if you don't get things sorted out right away. So then write a thank you card right away. Also, write down notes from the meeting right away. What I actually did is I would have a voice note app on my phone, and I would always sit down in my car after the meeting and just brain dump everything from the meeting into that voice notes app. So I could go back and enter the relevant notes into my database and, you know, add it as an interaction: "Coffee with Joe Smith at this place. And these are some of the relevant notes: They're very interested in the music ministry, they were involved as an usher in the parish," whatever the notes might be that indicate parts of their interest. The important thing to remember there is that if that donor were to walk into your office and ask you to show them your notes on them, you'd be comfortable showing it to them, right? So you don't add anything too personal, anything that's relevant to your fundraising and what you might go back and make an ask for, what they're interested in, how they're involved, how they're connected. Those things are all good to get down and in writing in your database as soon as possible after the meeting.

00:56:21.09
Matt
Yeah. I always get the question, "Why?" That was one thing. "Why do I put all this information down?" And what I always like to reply is, "What happens if you get hit by a bus tomorrow?"

00:56:33.16
aggierobison
Right.

00:56:34.28
Matt
That your replacement, they're going to have to replace you as the development director. We'll then have to go back and do another cultivation visit with that donor. And they're taking massive steps back. And so in this day and age, we never know what tomorrow brings or when our Lord is calling our final day. And so the more information we can put within the database, the better your organization is going to be. Because our goal is not to create a relationship with the individual. Our goal is to create a relationship with the ministry in that individual. We're just that conduit.

00:57:09.75
Matt
And so the more information we have, the better we are in the long run.

00:57:10.00
aggierobison
Exactly.

00:57:11.58
Matt
And so the more information we have, the better we are in the long run.

00:57:17.46
aggierobison
Love it. Great. Well, I think that's a good spot to wrap up here. Any last thoughts on these discovery calls from your experience?

00:57:31.26
Matt
On a side note, what did, what did you guys do about last time? What was the last?

00:57:35.94
aggierobison
Getting started in fundraising, so kind of like setting up your fundraising office and what are your responsibilities as a new fundraiser?

00:57:37.93
Matt
Getting started, okay.

00:57:43.26
aggierobison
What are the director's responsibilities?

00:57:45.75
Matt
Yeah, okay.

00:57:45.83
aggierobison
Some issues like that, yeah.

00:57:49.09
Matt
I got you. If I were to even add one last thing, I want to reiterate phone calls. The more you are in this profession, the more you'll realize that the conduit to a gift is that initial contact, whether it's a phone call, an email, a text message, or you're seeing somebody out on the street. That first meeting with them, that is the conduit to eventually getting to making a financial invitation.

00:58:17.05
Matt
What I mean by that is, if I pick up the phone and I say, "Mr. Hain, this is Matt Bond, I'm at Petrus Development. I'd love to sit down and have a cup of coffee with you and discuss the great things that have been going on over the past three months. Are you available on such and such date at such and such time?" You would say something, we'd hang up after the meeting was scheduled. Well, that next meeting is already scheduled.

00:58:47.34
Matt
It doesn't take any more work to schedule that meeting. It's already done. And then so you go on that meeting and you go through the whole thing, and you haven't asked at the very end of it. That's usually going to lead to a follow-up visit of some type. Whether it's another cultivation visit, whether it's an invitation to come here or a solicitation visit, it will go. You don't have to do another, you don't have to add more energy into that to make that next one. And now we're at, whether it's two, three, four down the road, now we're at a solicitation where we're asking them to make a gift. And we ask, but the only new energy, the only energy you had to put in to really get that flywheel moving was at the beginning. It's the hardest point that we find as development directors, which is making that initial call. But that initial call leads to the next one, leads to the next one, which eventually leads to a gift.

00:59:40.79
Matt
So never underestimate that initial contact and initial call. And if you want to increase what you're doing, if you want to increase your productivity, increase the number of gifts, increase putting more effort into making those phone calls, and it's a guarantee to success.

00:59:58.60
aggierobison
Love it.

01:02:50.21
Matt
So okay, maybe we went a little too high there, Ren, but the truth is, we're going to go into everything that we went into today, but in much more detail. We're going to talk about cultivation visits, we're going to talk about solicitation visits, we're going to talk about follow-up, how to steward the gift, a lot of things that we just touched on, how to make the initial call, all of those in much, much, much more detail, as well as going another step further. How do we identify and qualify donors? How do we put together a strategy and set goals to meet when it comes to major gift fundraising? And then if we go even further back to starting that, how do we work on our mindset so that we're ready to do major gift fundraising, whether we're in the throes of it now, or we're working our way through it, or we're a seasoned professional, how do we work on that mindset so that we're prime and we're ready to start a major gift push?

01:03:52.65
aggierobison
Well, that's going to be a super useful resource for anybody in the development world. If you're going to be meeting donors face to face, which you should be, it's the number one way to connect to those big donors. I think we're anticipating that's going to be available maybe right after the new year in 2025. Is that roughly in that timeframe? Does that sound about right?

01:04:14.21
Matt
Yep, this sounds just right around the corner of when we're targeting to have it finished.

01:04:19.50
aggierobison
Great. So if you, the listener, would like to get on the wait list and be notified when that's available, you can go to PetrisDevelopment.com/academy. And we'll have a link there where you can sign up, and we'll let you know when that's coming down the pipeline here for you. So you can dive deep and perfect your major gifts process. Looking forward to that.

01:04:38.59
Matt
I can't wait.

01:04:41.58
aggierobison
And then one other quick announcement here. Another course that we offer is called Basic Online Advancement Training, or BOAT for short. And that is our course for if you're brand new to fundraising, whether you're a new fundraiser yourself who just got hired, or you are an organization who's just starting a fundraising office and trying to build it up from scratch, from the ground up. It's going to walk you through all the pieces of a fundraising office, how they fit together. Why do we mail out appeal letters? Why do we email this? Why do we go meet people face to face? Do we need a database? If so, what kind? All those pieces, it's going to help you figure it all out and put it together. And the next cohort of that, it's a 10-week-long, cohort-based course. It's all virtual. The next cohort starts in October. So you have until October 4th to get registered. And if you use the coupon code "podcast," you're going to save $200 on registration for that course. So go to PetrisDevelopment.com/boat to check that out.

01:05:38.10
aggierobison
Excellent. Well, yeah.

01:05:38.41
Matt
You know, Ren, we've been talking about all this stuff and specifics towards brand new development directors and people in the fundraising world. The truth is, when we started a lot of this, most of this didn't exist anywhere.

01:05:54.04
aggierobison
Yeah.

01:05:54.11
Matt
Man, I wish I had a course that I could have just paid a couple of bucks for and got the knowledge from it. It would have taken two years' worth of learning by experimentation and asking questions down to, you know, three months, six months at most. And then I would have been in the same spot. So if you want to ramp up your learning or if you want to shorten your learning curve, purchasing something like this and stealing the advice and the knowledge from seasoned professionals who have been around for years, I mean, it's the best way to do it.

01:06:33.70
aggierobison
Yeah, there is a science to fundraising, right? And there's an art too, but you can learn those things and you can put those best practices in place. There's no need to reinvent the entire wheel here. So I highly encourage you to go to PetrusDevelopment.com/academy if you're interested in the major gifts course, PetrusDevelopment.com/boat if you're interested in our, kind of our bootcamp for new fundraisers there by October 4th. Great. Well, thank you for joining us today, Matt. It was nice to have you on, and I'm sure we'll talk to you again soon.

01:07:04.09
Matt
Loved it, it was my pleasure. You know, I'm passionate about development and fundraising, and it's great just to share some of this experience that I've learned over the years.

01:07:14.77
aggierobison
Love it, all right, have a great day.

01:07:17.06
Matt
You too.