When Donors Get Angry - A Petrus Development Show Episode on Difficult Conversations

Ever faced a frustrated donor? If you've been fundraising for any length of time, chances are you've been on the receiving end of donor displeasure. In this episode, Andrew and Rhen share strategies for responding to angry donors while maintaining your composure and ensuring they feel heard.

Show Notes:

Donor frustration comes in many forms - from upset letters and negative social media comments to exasperated responses when you reach out. Andrew and Rhen tackle these awkward situations with practical advice for becoming a supportive listener.

Their key insight: when donors express frustration, it often stems from genuine care about your organization and a desire to see improvement. As a fundraiser, learning to separate a donor's anger from their feelings about you personally is essential for navigating these challenging interactions successfully.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

00:27.37 Host Well, howdy everybody, welcome back to the Petrus Development Show. I am Rhen Hoehn from Petrus Development. Joining me today, president and owner of Petrus, Andrew Robison. How's it going, Andrew?

00:37.63 AROB It's going good. And every time we start this call and you say, howdy, everybody, it makes me happy because I don't think that "howdy" is something that you probably said very much before you and I started working together.

00:53.96 AROB Yeah.

00:55.01 Host Uh, correct. Growing up in Minnesota, living in Upper Michigan, it's, uh, it's I think from cowboy movies and that's about it. But now that I've been to Texas, I've had dinner at the Dixie Chicken, um, I've had the full College Station experience, I feel like I can say howdy from the heart, I guess.

01:02.63 AROB Yeah.

01:07.95 AROB Hey.

01:15.90 AROB Yeah, no, definitely. You've earned it. What's the typical Minnesotan greeting?

01:21.29 Host "Hey there." It's kind of a "How's it going?"

01:22.56 AROB Hey there.

01:24.63 Host There's a lot of "oof," yeah.

01:26.27 AROB Okay. "Oof." "Hey there." "How you guys?" "Hey, don't you know?"

01:33.74 Host "You betcha." "Yep."

01:35.02 AROB "You betcha." Yeah.

01:35.80 Host When I moved to Michigan to go to college, I had friends from Texas, I had friends from all over the place, and I was the one that got made fun of for having an accent of everybody, the Minnesotan. So I guess there is one, and I can't deny it.

01:49.91 AROB Yeah, that's funny. Well, one thing that I really like about Minnesotans is that in my experience, which I did grad school in Minnesota, there is a truth to this Minnesota nice, right?

02:03.30 AROB Do you, is it, is it true or is it just like surface level Minnesota nice?

02:08.26 Host It's a facade. I would say it's Minnesota passive aggressive.

02:09.41 AROB Yeah. Yeah.

02:12.43 Host You have to, but when my wife, when we moved to Minnesota, lived there for a few years, she had a hard time with it because there's kind of a series of unwritten rules when it comes to different types of conversations.

02:17.47 AROB Yeah.

02:27.05 AROB Okay.

02:27.70 Host When somebody offers you something, "Oh, no, I can't take that." "No, you should, you should take the leftovers. Take whatever." "No, no, I couldn't." The third time they offer is when you say yes. There's lots of little unwritten rules like that that you have to learn how to navigate.

02:40.40 AROB Yeah.

02:40.67 Host So from the outside, it might be hard to see all that, but...

02:44.14 AROB So is there like this sort of, "I'm so cold all the time that I'm angry at the weather and life" and that just sort of seeps underneath the surface? Is that where this comes from?

02:55.70 AROB This passive aggressiveness?

02:57.29 Host That might be true. It is, I would say having grown up there, it's very cold and there's not a lot of snow compared to where I live now. It's never below zero and we get 250 inches of snow.

03:09.41 AROB That's crazy.

03:09.52 Host And so we can always go snowshoeing and skiing. In Minnesota, you can go ice fishing and ice skating, I guess, but you don't really get, yeah, it's a different winter experience in most places. It's cold and windy.

03:19.67 AROB And you can play hockey, which is a very aggressive sport as well, right?

03:22.76 Host That is true. Let it all out, yep.

03:26.68 AROB And I don't know why, but it seems like we've got this theme about anger in this episode. Why? Where is this coming from, Ren?

03:33.97 Host Let's talk a little bit today about what to do when a donor or a prospect is angry with you.

03:41.72 AROB Oh my gosh. Okay. It's making sense now. Now I'm getting it. You're not just being passive aggressively angry with me. You're leading up to the content for this episode.

03:52.87 AROB And love it. It's great.

03:53.87 Host That's right. With a donor, you don't get the experience.

03:54.41 AROB Good.

03:56.59 Host I remember, I very clearly remember when I was in high school, we cleared off a spot in the river to play hockey, you know, push the snow. There were snow banks all around our little rink. And I lined up one of the dads and just checked him right over the snow bank.

04:12.60 Host He had been talking trash the whole afternoon and sometimes you can take your anger out that way, but with a donor, you probably shouldn't.

04:19.45 AROB I would not recommend it.

04:19.62 Host So let's talk about other ways to handle tense situations with our donors.

04:25.94 AROB Okay.

04:26.14 Host So that's an interesting segue into today's conversation.

04:30.00 AROB I love it. Yeah.

04:31.24 Host But yeah, have you ever experienced a donor being angry with you or your organization, I guess?

04:35.74 AROB Oh, yeah. Yeah. So there's a couple of times when I was in Ohio, shortly after I moved there. I was, you know, young and kind of impetuous and I wanted to make my mark. And so I identified a donor, longtime supporter, and we went and I sat down with him and I asked him for $10,000 for the annual fund.

05:00.98 AROB And he just chewed me up and spit me out because they were giving at a very significant level. And the way that I asked, I did not account for what they were giving. And I just sort of blew right through that and asked him for more.

05:16.45 Host Mm-hmm.

05:16.67 AROB So it was definitely my fault. I brought this on myself, but, um, you know, I was what, 26, 27, in a new position and I, you know, was trying to be hot stuff.

05:29.48 AROB So he very, very clearly indicated to me that he was not pleased with my ask, that he was not pleased with my lack of gratitude and awareness of,

05:43.81 AROB how he supports us and how he supports so many other organizations and said that he would not be increasing their giving. And I can tell you there is, there were a million places in the world that I wanted to be at that moment that were not sitting in his office with this conversation going. I could not get out of there fast enough.

06:05.12 AROB So that was my experience. I don't know that I handled it all that well. I just sort of apologized as many times as I could, left and then I avoided him for about six months.

06:16.54 Host Yeah, I think that that might be everybody, every fundraiser's worst nightmare.

06:21.26 AROB Yeah. Yeah.

06:22.60 Host I think a lot of us imagine that when we make an ask that's too high, that that's gonna happen every time.

06:27.36 AROB Yeah.

06:27.98 Host I would say I never had quite something that extreme happen with a donor being angry at me. But I had a situation right after I started the organization that a donor sent us an angry letter, a long handwritten letter.

06:41.20 Host about how we had let some opportunities for good fundraising go by without taking the opportunities. The 50th anniversary of the organization had just passed and we hadn't done anything for it.

06:52.64 Host And he was angry that we were kind of dropping the ball. And so as we, at first we're like, oh, go ahead.

06:57.17 AROB Hey, Wren. Bishop's calling me. Can I answer it?

06:59.92 Host Okay, yeah, I'll just hang up then.

07:00.17 AROB All right, cool. All right.

07:03.11 Host I'll hit pause. Ooh, let's see. Okay, we're going again. I had just said I had gotten a letter. Should I probably just restart that section?

07:12.99 AROB I think you should just start it. Yeah, because I don't know what my face was doing during that time. I was looking at the phone.

07:16.68 Host That's true.

07:20.82 Host How did I start that, man?

07:23.14 AROB So I was talking about my experience and then you said you didn't ever had an experience like that. Um, and then it was kind of, I think you just went right into the, um, early on I had a, oh my God, he's calling me back. Hold on.

07:38.91 Host Okay. Pause again.

07:43.71 Host We back.

07:47.19 Host Okay.

07:49.66 Host Dive back in. Yeah, I've never had anything quite that extreme, I guess, quite that angry.

07:50.80 AROB Hmm.

07:56.00 Host But we had one.

07:56.52 AROB And I should say, I should say I've had for that one negative appointment, I've had probably a thousand positive appointments. So if you're listening to this, do not get the impression that every donor call that you're ever going to have in every donor meeting ends with a tirade or an angry donor. So one to a thousand is probably my ratio. So go ahead.

08:19.47 AROB Back to your story.

08:19.52 Host Exactly. Every time that I've gotten a no, it's been kind of more apologetic than angry.

08:23.61 AROB Yeah.

08:24.12 Host You always fear that they're going to start yelling at you, but it's not too often that that happens.

08:24.39 AROB Right. Yeah.

08:28.22 AROB Yeah, no.

08:29.68 Host When I was just starting out at an organization, we had a longtime donor who sent us an angry letter, long handwritten letter about how we had kind of dropped the ball and missed some opportunities for fundraising to take the organization to kind of the next level. It just passed the 50th anniversary.

08:47.58 Host He talked about how we should have done something for that, some fundraising, especially, et cetera. And at first we said, oh, geez, this guy's never going to give to us again. And then we thought about it. We realized like he really cares about this organization.

08:59.27 Host Probably we should try to fix this relationship and show him that, you know, we just hired me, the first development director, and we're planning to move forward with fundraising and take things to the next level. We were able to get ahold of him, sit down with him and mend that relationship.

09:13.82 Host And he became one of our biggest supporters over time, one of our kind of largest donors and one of our most involved donors.

09:16.98 AROB That's awesome.

09:19.71 Host Somebody that I went fishing with. And we'd text each other back and forth. He'd send me pictures of his grandkids, right? So the relationship got fixed, but it was little bit of a process to get there.

09:25.47 AROB Yeah.

09:29.52 AROB Yeah.

09:29.60 Host So I guess let's talk a little bit about how you mend relationships or figure out what the problem is, maybe even in the first place, when there is something that comes up like that.

09:30.15 AROB Right.

09:38.66 Host Because I think it's not always the surface level thing that they're angry about. Sometimes there's a, most of them, there's kind of a deeper thing going on. So maybe I think there's probably three situations we should probably talk about.

09:46.56 AROB Yeah.

09:50.88 Host If you're in a donor meeting and the donor is angry with you or the organization, what do you do?

09:55.47 AROB Right.

09:55.55 Host If they send you a letter or an email, that's angry. How do you, what do you do? And maybe if you're on the phone with them and they're angry with you, what do you do? Where would you like to start there?

10:03.65 AROB Yeah. Let's start with the meeting because, so that was my experience with this donor. I had another experience that was different, but probably kind of more, more likely to happen for somebody.

10:17.39 AROB So I was meeting with somebody who actually was a faculty member, a professor of mine when I was at school. And then I knew that he was supporter of the university or of the Catholic Center.

10:28.14 AROB And so I called him up and we got to talking. We had lunch. It was a great lunch. And then at some point in there, he indicated to me that he was pretty frustrated with some things that the church was doing.

10:42.79 AROB And it was specifically about a homily that he had been in with his granddaughter at a local parish, not even the parish that I was at, where the priest had used some language that was kind of scary to the granddaughter.

10:58.08 AROB Right. So he was talking about

10:58.60 Host Yeah.

11:00.41 AROB I don't even remember specifically, but he was talking about, you know, kind of the pro-life message, but the language that he was using was kind of scary to the granddaughter.

11:11.98 AROB And so the grandfather was upset about this.

11:18.25 Host Yeah.

11:18.31 AROB And so you know he was then sort of venting to me that, you know, what's up with priests doing this and scaring my granddaughter? And you know I want to support, but it's hard for me when things like this are happening. And I was kind of in this really awkward place of, I don't really know what to say. I didn't have anything to do with that. It wasn't at my parish, but at the same time, I couldn't just like blow off his concern because I wasn't involved. It was a real concern to him and he was connecting the dots.

11:52.95 AROB I think that's more likely to happen, especially working in the church, right? There's a million reasons why somebody can have a grievance with your church or the big church, you know, big C church.

11:57.03 Host Yeah.

12:04.39 AROB And that oftentimes comes out in donor meetings. And so I think that, you know, from my standpoint, the best thing that you could do is just listen. Right.

12:13.19 Host Yeah.

12:13.46 AROB A lot of times I don't have a solution. Right. I wasn't going to solve the issue. It wasn't even an issue to be solved. Right. It had happened, you know, months before. And anyways, but listening to him, giving him sort of a place to vent was probably therapeutic just in and of itself with no action being taken outside of that.

12:35.48 Host Yeah, I mean, you are, in a lot of ways, we as fundraisers are a face of the church, and we might be the only kind of representative of the church that a lot of donors get to sit down with one-on-one with any regularity, and so it can become an opportunity for them to vent about the broader church.

12:46.18 AROB Yeah.

12:51.19 Host I've had a very similar situation that I can think of where a donor was, he wasn't necessarily angry, but disappointed, and kind of took that out on me. And it was a similar thing where it was his home pastor that he was upset with, and I, coming from a ministry a couple states away, he kind of let it all out on me.

13:09.46 AROB Yeah.

13:10.15 Host So.

13:10.32 AROB Yeah.

13:11.21 Host So.

13:11.24 AROB Yeah. So it's, so it's, you know, listening is one thing. I'm sure that's probably what you did there is, you know, and a lot of times the first time this happens, you're going to be like a deer in the headlights.

13:15.82 Host Yep.

13:20.21 AROB You know what I mean?

13:20.64 Host Definitely.

13:20.81 AROB There's just no way around it.

13:22.25 Host Yeah.

13:22.32 AROB You know, there's just, it's going to shock you if you've experienced this or you haven't and it ever happens. It's just going to be like, I don't know what to do. And I feel very vulnerable because I feel like this person, maybe they're upset. Maybe they're not. Maybe they're disappointed. Maybe they're not.

13:37.65 AROB But it's going to feel like an attack on you. So the first thing is recognize it's not an attack on you.

13:40.21 Host Yeah. Yeah.

13:44.14 AROB Right. So just like be there, be prepared to just sort of absorb this without having to have a solution.

13:54.99 AROB OK, then you listen.

13:55.51 Host Yeah.

13:57.84 AROB Right. I don't, you know, there's a lot of kind of language that we can use. I'm really sorry that happened or gosh, you know, that must have been frustrating. You know, empathy is, empathetic listening is a huge thing that we can do in that situation, right? So just listening, being empathetic. And then, you know, if there is a solution that you can think of that's easy, then you might suggest that. But probably, you know, more times than not, there is no solution. And it's like,

14:33.88 AROB you know, your response is just to be human and try to be empathetic and say, gosh, you know, I'm really sorry about that. I'd love to pray for you. I'd love to pray for your family. I'd love to pray for your, you know, your daughter who's upset or, you know, whatever that looks like is just kind of showing empathy, I think is a big thing.

14:53.95 AROB And then if, you know, the next step is

14:54.78 Host That's

14:57.10 AROB Offer to connect them with a priest, you know, that in most cases, most situations that was, you know, that was what I did with this professor was I said, gosh, you know, I'm so sorry.

15:08.05 AROB You know, I'm happy to connect you with my priest at the time. And, you know, you guys can talk about it. "No, I don't want to do that. I don't want to bother him. I know he's busy and this and that. I just kind of wanted to get my feelings out." And I was like, "Great."

15:24.08 AROB Okay. You know, I'm sorry to hear that. I, you know, definitely I'll pray for you. And if there's anything that I can do to connect you with, you know, my priest or somebody else, I'd love to do that.

15:34.51 Host Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What about in a situation where the person is angry at you or the organization? I think that maybe the one that I hear the most is, "You know, I don't agree with the way you're doing things."

15:44.53 AROB Yeah.

15:44.93 Host What are you gonna do in that type of situation?

15:47.78 AROB So after, after you sort of identify, you know, that they're not attacking you, you're empathetic, you listen with empathy, then, you know, the question that, or the next step is to start kind of asking questions and try to understand, is there a root cause that is driving this frustration, right?

16:03.65 AROB Like, are they frustrated with the way you're doing things because their kids are not involved or their kids have left the faith, right?

16:04.00 Host Yes.

16:10.10 AROB Which is pretty common, you know, when you're working with donors. Or is there, you know, is there something that's totally unconnected with what you're doing that is driving this? The only way you're going to find that out is just by asking questions.

16:22.63 AROB So, you know, kind of asking questions, trying to probe to what the root cause is will oftentimes help them realize they're not actually upset with the way you're doing things. They're generally upset with something.

16:36.18 AROB And, and that's kind of the, if, if you could solve this, that would solve their problem. When in reality, that's not, that's not what's going to happen.

16:44.65 Host Right, and I think there's a lot of times there's a communications issue. I'm sure you watch a lot of Hallmark Christmas movies, right?

16:50.71 AROB I love them. Yeah.

16:52.34 Host My wife and I do, and at least half of them, the kind of conflict moment, 15 minutes before the movie ends, is usually each person, you know, the guy and the girl,

16:58.43 AROB Yeah.

17:05.11 Host misunderstand something or isn't telling or showing each other this thing and you're like, just say this thing, right?

17:09.00 AROB Yeah.

17:09.55 Host Just say the truth or whatever it is.

17:10.45 AROB Yeah.

17:12.08 Host How could you not? And then you realize, okay, that actually happens probably a lot. There's some kind of miscommunication where something isn't out there.

17:16.82 AROB Yeah. Right.

17:19.69 Host And so it's asking questions, figuring out what's missing and connecting the dots and just letting them know why decisions are made the way they are, et cetera, can solve a lot of issues that could fester and become bigger if you don't get to the bottom of them.

17:32.18 AROB Yeah, I remember I was doing a feasibility study interview actually with up in the UP with St. Al's. And you know I was a consultant. I was there to talk with them. And this couple walks in and you know the wife is bubbly. She's like, "Nice to meet you, Andrew."

17:47.50 AROB And the husband, you know, arms crossed. "I don't want to be here. I'm only here because she's dragging me. I don't like this project. I don't think it's necessary. But I'm here because she told me I had to come. So let's talk."

17:59.37 AROB So I was like, "Great. Nice to meet you. I'm Andrew. Let's talk." By the end of the 45-minute interview.

18:06.01 Host Thank you.

18:06.02 AROB You know, he's slapping me on the back, shaking my hand saying, "I'm so excited for this project. I didn't understand why, what was all involved and what the purpose was behind it. By you explaining it to me."

18:17.74 AROB "Now it makes sense. And I'm actually really excited for this project to move forward." So again, to your point, miscommunication, misunderstanding, lack of information, all of that feeds into, you know, these sort of emotions and feelings that get presented as confusion or frustration.

18:36.72 Host Yeah, and I can think of a similar thing with a smaller parish close to me that's trying to build a faith formation wing onto the building. And a lot of the, you know, the older generation, the bigger donors go to the Saturday evening mass and there's a lot of pushback from them.

18:49.59 Host "Why are we spending all this money on this classroom space, et cetera?"

18:53.17 AROB Yeah.

18:53.49 Host "What the heck?" And you bring them to the Sunday morning mass like, "Oh, it's a zoo. It's nonstop kids screaming and crying and there's..."

19:00.00 AROB Yeah. Yeah.

19:02.98 Host There's kids. Half the congregation is kids under five.

19:04.22 AROB Yeah.

19:05.66 Host It's like, okay, now when you show them, give them more information, it becomes a much clearer proposition there.

19:05.96 AROB Yeah.

19:14.82 AROB Yeah, and we're talking about, you know, primarily our context from campus ministries or parishes, but I'm sure that in schools and universities, it's even more. I mean, I know when I was at the university, parents wouldn't be angry with me, but they would be concerned, and it was almost always something had to do with their kids' experience at your school currently or in the past.

19:22.81 Host Oh, yeah.

19:36.44 AROB And so, right, it's nothing I can solve necessarily.

19:36.90 Host Definitely.

19:41.23 AROB Although if there's ways that I can, right, make an introduction to the dean or to the principal or, you know, sort of offer to bring their frustrations to the board at the next meeting, whatever that is, that's maybe not a solution, but it's a way for the conversation to potentially get them more information or get their concerns sort of heard. But, you know, those are situations, yeah there's a million reasons why a parent can be upset with you that have nothing to do with you, but that are some way tied to the experience of their child.

20:18.39 Host Definitely. I think there's a lot we could go into there, but let's kind of move on a little bit. What about you're on the phone with a donor or prospect for whatever reason, and they're upset with you or the organization?

20:22.21 AROB Yep.

20:28.99 Host How do you handle that? It's a little bit different when you don't have, you know, people can be a lot meaner on the phone when you're not face to face and you don't get body language, things like that.

20:34.13 AROB Yeah. Right.

20:37.09 Host So how would you handle those situations?

20:37.29 AROB Yeah. I mean, again, you know, recognize they're not attacking you. Listen with empathy and offer to meet with them in person. Right.

20:48.80 AROB That is a... Like you said, people can be a little bit more vocal or their feelings or their emotions are misunderstood and it doesn't feel like they're being listened to on the phone. You get them in person, they instantly become much more reasonable people.

21:06.03 AROB So, you know, offer to meet with them in person. If they're really angry, then they might just say, "I don't want to meet with you. I want to be angry" and you know, say it like that, but you know, "No, I don't want to meet. You know, I'm frustrated."

21:19.90 AROB "Don't want to meet." And so then it becomes kind of like, "All right, well, I understand that and I respect that and that's fine. Could I follow up with you in a couple of weeks or in a month or in six months and see if maybe it's a better time for you to meet?"

21:35.06 AROB "That'd be fine." Most people are going to say that'd be fine. Or "Yeah, let's do that." So if they are so upset that they don't want to meet now, still try to find an opportunity and opening for that meeting down the road.

21:46.89 Host Yeah, that's great. And then what about email or letter? What's your approach there?

21:52.31 AROB Yeah, I mean, if you think people are, if the level of reasonableness is, right, like in person, they're most reasonable. On the phone, they're less reasonable. You give them a letter or a keyboard or a computer or a social media platform to kind of have one layer behind.

22:09.50 AROB And the reasonableness even goes, well, I should be going the opposite of it. It goes even even less, right? People are much less reasonable.

22:15.49 Host Definitely.

22:18.38 AROB So again, whatever you can do to keep from inflaming a situation, whether it's on social media, that can get really out of control, right? You want to immediately kind of go into damage control, tamp down that frustration, remove that from your Facebook comment section, whatever that is.

22:37.99 AROB You know, your Instagram comment section, whatever that is. Whether it's email, try to figure out how you can move from the digital space to the personal space.

22:54.12 AROB And maybe the phone call is the step in between, right? But just try to, again, it goes back to realize they're not attacking you personally. You listen with empathy. You try to understand their frustrations and relate.

23:07.41 AROB And then you offer to meet with them to try to find a solution.

23:11.71 Host Yeah, it seems like when you get something like that, the sooner you get on the phone with them and try to set up an in-person meeting, the more quickly it kind of makes them realize like, "Oh, maybe I was a little more harsh than I would be talking to this real live person."

23:17.61 AROB Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

23:24.55 AROB Yeah.

23:25.55 Host Right.

23:26.34 AROB Yeah.

23:26.45 Host And then if you get them face to face, that's when you can really kind of fix things and build relationships back.

23:31.41 AROB Yeah. I mean, the other thing is to keep in mind that if they're taking the time to like email or letter, right, if they're taking the time to write an email or to send a letter, then they do care, right?

23:41.51 Host Yeah.

23:41.54 AROB They've taken the time to do that. They clearly care about the issue, but probably even a layer on top of that, they care about your organization, right? So recognizing that is another key step in all of that process.

23:49.75 Host Yeah.

23:56.38 Host Great. That kind of covers the several layers we wanted to talk through there of angry donors. Hopefully nobody listening has to deal with this too often, but it will come up from time to time, I think, in everybody's experience.

24:02.53 AROB Yeah, yeah.

24:09.02 Host Anything else you want to add about dealing with angry donors?

24:12.28 AROB I mean there's probably something to be said about, you know, we started this talking about the Minnesota nice and, you know, I'm in Texas, people are friendly and nice generally speaking, but you go out to the East Coast or the West Coast or you talk about, you know, you introduce people from other cultures and culturally how people react and how people treat other people and treat their frustrations is different as well, right? So, you know, it could be that if you're in an organization on the East Coast, you know, somebody yelling at you doesn't really mean they're angry. It just means like that's how they communicate, right? And, you know, so sort of understanding and recognizing cultural differences and nuances is important as well.