Know Your Donor. Know Your Donor. Know Your Donor.

'I'm gonna just write up a proposal and get it out there to my donors," the determined major-gifts officer said. And that's how he defined an important step in his success in raising major-gift money.

As I've looked at this whole area of proposal writing for major donors I find that a great deal of emphasis, by many authors, is placed on the actual writing of the case, proposal or whatever you want to call it. Most of the material starts with "create a need statement" or "create a theme," or with some instruction on how to begin to draft some element of the actual proposal.

This is all good, but it starts in the wrong place. Why? Because it doesn't start with the most important part of the whole equation — the donor.

Step 1: Know your donor

The first step in creating an effective proposal for a donor is to know your donor. Seems obvious, doesn't it? Still, I find many major-gifts officers who actually start "writing it up" before they interact with the target audience — their donors.

This is symptomatic of a deeply held belief about donors that keeps them in a secondary position in the value hierarchy of all the people in the nonprofit. The donor is simply a source of cash. It is a program, and what WE do that is actually more important! Big mistake and the wrong path to take.

Knowing the donor is the first place a major-gifts officer should start in creating a proposal. There are two key questions to answer before you start writing:

• Who is this person?
• What does he or she want and need in this relationship?

Here, then, are some tips on how you can know your donor better.

● Do the Google thing. Find out as much as you can about jobs, awards, assets, interests, connections, etc. If you're not a research-type person, have someone who is do this work. Another good 
source of information is reference.com. If the donor is an attorney, go to martindale.com; a doctor, try ama-assn.org.

● Do wealth and asset research. WealthEngine, Blackbaud, etc., are good tools for wealth overlays and asset information. Also zillow.com, zoominfo.com, secinfo.com and hoovers.com are all good sources.

● Research past giving — to you and to others. The "to you" bit is easier. You want to know past designations or interests, amounts, etc. Also, you want to know what motivated the gifts. Was it a direct-mail piece, a personal visit, an event? There are plenty of clues in your donor data.

For giving outside your organization, start with tray.com for political giving. If the person has a family foundation, get the 990 for the organization and see what she gave to and how much. A great source for giving of all kinds is 
taxexemptworld.com.

● Get information from the donor. Probably the best source of information you can have is driven by your curiosity. When you have contact with the donor, asking a lot of questions about interests, inclinations, involvements and passions is a key to finding out what motivates her. Avoid zooming in on the information that relates to your nonprofit. Instead, find out what makes the donor tick. Asking what she is interested in giving to your organization may not, at first, yield as much information as asking what interests the donor pursues in all of her giving. The most successful fundraisers are those that can, over time, secure relevant information that informs their approach to the donor. General and genuine curiosity and interest in the donor yields far more information, and trust, than pecking away at what you want to know about what she thinks about you. Keep this important principle in mind.

You can't do enough to know your donors. If you value donors as partners vs. a source of cash, you naturally want to know as much about them as you can.

Step 2: Know your program

I am amazed at how well some newly hired major-gifts officers get to know the programs of the organization they work for and, by the same token, how many major-gifts officers, who have been with organizations for five and even 10 years or more, do not. I've tried to discern what is different about either the people or the organizations that results in such a wide gap of knowledge about the very thing they were hired to represent — the program.

Could it be that the major-gifts officer who knows the program is the one who (a) understands his job, i.e., matching donor interests and passions to organization needs and/or (b) has been proactively trained by the organization to know what it does? Maybe.

But what about the major-gifts officer who doesn't know the program? Putting the best light on it, maybe he expects others to know. Maybe his understanding is that someone outside himself gathers the info and all he does is act as the broker or presenter to the donor? Or maybe he just doesn't know how to conceptualize the whole program thing and organize it for donor consumption? Or, maybe, it's a manager who says, "Look, I want you out there with donors! Do not spend time visiting program."

Whatever it is, it's an amazing thing to watch — exhilarating when it works right and downright depressing when it doesn't.

You cannot expect to be successful as a major-gifts officer if you don't know your program, which is why you need to, at a minimum, take the following steps to make sure you are informed in this critical area:

● Understand the organization's budget. Spend time with your top finance person to gain a clear understanding of the organization's budget. Do you have any idea what the total expense number is? What the total revenue number is? What the major categories of expense and revenue are?

● Understand the details of the program part of the budget. It should be a number that equals anywhere from 60 percent to 80 percent of the total expense budget. Find that number, and understand how it breaks down into (a) each location, (b) each program category within each location and (c) any subcategories below that. This work may make your head spin, but I guarantee you will be glad you did it.

● Start digging into how each program category works. This is about understanding the need that is being addressed, how the need is met and who (gender, age, etc.) is helped. If you don't understand this, how are you going to explain it to a donor? Yes, this does mean you have to read program plans and actually visit program sites. And it does mean that this takes time — quite a bit of time. When a new major-gifts officer starts, I'd like to see her spend 30 percent to 40 percent of her time engaged in this activity alone.

But this part is the intellectual side of program knowledge. You also need to …

● Get into the emotional side of the program content. No matter what the program is — helping people, the environment, animals, whatever the cause — you need to be emotionally connected to it. If your organization is helping the homeless, go sit with a homeless person and let that experience get into your heart. If you're helping animals, get into their world and feel it. If your program is about conservation, wander into the beauty and wonder of nature and marvel at it. If it's about cancer research, cry about the pain this dreaded disease has caused and fill your heart with hope for a solution. If it's about justice, be angry about how cruel and selfish people can be.

Your heart must get engaged. You cannot stand outside of the emotional impact of your cause and hope to be an effective major-gifts fundraiser.

● Gather stories and pictures that illustrate need and impact. The primary role of a major-gifts officer is to experientially transport the donor right into the need that the organization is addressing. There's no special "transporter" that can magically put the 
donor right in the middle of 
the action, so donors must rely on the representations of the major-gifts officer.

These representations are delivered via words and pictures. They involve intellectual information as well as emotional information. If all you do as a major-gifts officer is fill the donor's head and not move her heart, you have failed.

So, gather stories and pictures about the heartbreak of the need. These stories and pictures should cause donors to feel the hurt, pain and hopelessness of the situation. Then gather stories about the unbelievable joy of the need met. These should make the donor jump out of his chair and yell, "YES! That is so good. I just can't believe it! Yes! Wow!"

You may be reading this and find it a tad uncomfortable. That's OK. Sit with it awhile and ponder why you feel that way. It is a good journey for you to take.

Step No. 3: Match 
the donor to a program

"I have 150 donors on my caseload, Richard," the frustrated and impatient major-gifts officer said to me. "Do you really expect me to go through every single one and find a match of their interest and our program?"

Yep. That's right. Every single one.

"But they really don't have a single interest! They've just told me to use their gift where most needed," he stated defensively.

I thought, "The truth is that you don't know the interest. It's not that they don't have it."

That, in a few phrases, is one of the greatest problems in major-gifts fundraising — the major-gifts officer doesn't know the interests and passions of the donors on his caseload. There are three reasons for this:

● He has been unable to connect with the donor. Well, that means there's a donor on a caseload who is not qualified, i.e., she hasn't told the major-gifts officer she actually wants to relate in a more personal way. So, why is she on the caseload? She gave a sum of money equal to or greater than the criteria? Not a good reason. You must have qualified donors on your caseload. If a donor does not talk to you, in any form, what is the point of maintaining her on the caseload?

● He hasn't asked the donor for her interest and passion. The fact is that every donor has an interest, and it is the job of the major-gifts officer to uncover it. If the major-gifts officer is being too specific in the questioning process, it's much harder for the donor to answer. For instance, if you ask: "Which of these five things that we do interests you," you might not get an answer that works. If, instead, you ask: "When you look at all of your 
giving, Ann — all of it, the giving of your time and your money — what is it that captures your heart and your attention?"

If you do it this way, you 
likely will get a clue that you 
can then follow into your 
organization.

● The donor is not comfortable sharing this information. The truth is that he isn't comfortable yet. The relationship between the major-gifts officer and the donor needs to season and age a bit. He needs to learn that you can be trusted with his thoughts and feelings. So give it time, but keep this line of questions on your list of to-do's.

Now that you know what the donor is interested in, you must match that interest to a program in your organization. I have several suggestions in this area:

• During the matching process, keep your eye on the need for the organization to have undesignated funds. This sounds counterintuitive, I know. And it feels like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth. I'm not. If a donor is interested in helping younger children, there's a big difference between asking him to give to your multifaceted program to help younger children and asking him to help the 15 younger kids in the literacy program on Thursdays in the Westside section of Detroit during the January to March sessions. Obviously you want to talk about all that detail, not only of that program but all the programs. But your ask, while still staying in the interest section, should be as general as possible. I always suggest being open with donors about the need for the organization to have flexibility in program spending. Donors almost always understand. They just want to know that their gifts will help those younger kids.
• Look for gender and age matches. Who does the donor want to help in terms of gender and age? Get to that first. Is it older people? If so, older men or women? Is there a preference? If younger, what age? What gender? Is there a preference? If the donor is interested in causes that are not related to people directly, like the environment, then move down to the next point. But if it is people, start here. Then …
• Look for sector matches. By sector, I mean the type of program. Is it education, shelter, work development, counseling, protecting the environment, etc.? This is the "what" part of the matching. What does the donor want to do? What is the technical thing that is of interest? For instance, after providing emergency help in crisis situations, I want to help a person create independence — so, training, finding work, getting counseling, etc., 
are all good for me. What is it for your donor?
• Try to determine the desired outcome of the match. After you have "done a match" for an individual donor, try to visualize if the match is satisfying to the donor. In this step I suggest spending a moment thinking about how the donor will react to your suggested match. Visualize sitting with the donor and proposing what you have come up with as a place he/she or they can help. Does it work? Is it satisfying? Does it bring fulfillment and joy? Can you feel it? If not, start over.

Step No. 4: Prepare the ask

It takes more work to get ready for the ask than it does to actually create the ask itself. When I hear, "I just don't have time to do that getting ready stuff," I know we're headed for trouble. This "pre-ask" work is not just the casual thing a major-gifts officer does on the side. It is very serious, time-consuming, in-depth work that must be done well. But once the prep work is done, it's time to prepare the ask. And the ask, in my opinion, has 
six parts:

● An acknowledgment of past giving and interest match. There is nothing more satisfying to a donor than to be thanked for his giving and to be affirmed that what he is interested in is also what the organization is interested in — that there is a solid partnership between the two parties. This affirmation of the match creates a bond between the donor and the organization — a special link that confirms to 
the donor that he made the right decision in giving.

● State the need and the consequences of needs not met. It is often difficult for many nonprofit "insiders" to state the need the charity is organized to meet in a compelling and emotional way. I think the reason is either familiarity or fear of saying out loud just what the horrible consequence would be if the need is not met. Let's face it, most need is not pretty. It just 
isn't. And there is no use in dressing it up. That's why it's a need — 
it requires a solution. It requires attention.

I recommend stating the need in a manner that replicates what the donor himself would experience if he was face to face with it. And believe me, that encounter would be emotional, striking and life-changing. In other words: "If we don't take care of this, then X will happen." And say it without editing. Do it honestly and objectively, without editing out the feelings you have about it. And while you are writing about need, include real-life stories and pictures of people (with their permission) to illustrate what you are talking about. Put flesh into the story.

● State what you're going to do. This is the program part. This needs to be specific, logical and caring. Most program write-ups are filled with so much technical jargon that (a) donors can't understand them and (b) they don't grab donors' hearts. Sometimes I think program people write for other program people or for their managers or the technical experts in the field versus just explaining the program and stating what they propose to do and how that will make a difference. Just say it plainly. Keep it simple and to the point.

When you're done, ask yourself, "Does this really solve the problem outlined in point No. 2 above? Really?" If not, keep writing.

● Talk about the impact you will have. This is the proof-of-success part. Here is where you include ways the organization has been successful in the past in this very area, proving that it can be done again. Here is where you tell stories and show pictures of the impact you have already had. Remember, the "doing" part (point No. 3) only tells half of the story — it says what you will do, not the result you will have. It's the result that the donors are "buying" through their giving. They want to solve the problem. You need to give them a belief that if they give, they actually will.

● The budget details. So here is where you get into what it will cost to do all of this. Be sure to include all the costs, including overhead — both overhead of the project itself and an allocated portion of your organization's overhead.

● The gift plan. Now you come to the part of the ask where you lay out the plan for the donor and how you are proposing she will respond financially to this need and the proposed solution. I call it a gift plan because it may be a single gift you are asking for, it may be a series of gifts over time, it may be a combination of cash and non-cash inputs, or it could be a combination of any of these or other ways the donor proposes to be involved. That's why it's a plan. It's a forward-looking, longer-term thing.

Speaking of longer-term, let me add that this whole concept of the annual gift is really wrong thinking. The annual gift focuses the transaction on the organization and a specific point in time. The gift plan focuses the donor on the solution to a problem that needs solving. There is a huge difference. And believe me, the gift plan is far more satisfying 
to a donor than meeting a time-specific quota.

Now you are ready to actually make the ask. This is gonna be good! Actually, it's the best part, because this is where you look the donor in the eye and propose something that will bring him tremendous joy and fulfillment.

Step No 5: Make the ask

The call came in around 10:30 that morning. The major-gifts officer could barely contain herself. And I could hardly understand what she was saying. The call was electric — and for good reason.

"I can't believe it!" she said. And then she told the story about meeting with her donor that morning, how she had been very nervous and wondered if she had prepared properly. Things seemed to be going well. And then …

Well, let me tell you how the major-gifts officer said it. "And then the donor asked me a question that I wasn't quite ready for: 'How much do you want me to give?' Richard," she said, "my heart was pounding. And for a minute I just didn't know what to say. And then I remembered the work I had done preparing for this meeting. And although I hadn't been prepared for the donor to just come out and ask me this question, I did know the answer. So, I said, 'A 
million dollars!' I just said it!"

By then I was gnawing on the side of my desk in anticipation. And I could tell she was having fun with the pregnant pause.

"And she said YES!" she screamed into the phone. "One million dollars! Can you believe it?"

I said: "Yes, I can. And here's why. You were prepared. You were focused on the donor. You knew where you were going. And what mattered most to you was not the money but all the joy the donor would experience by helping in this generous way and all the help people in need would get. These are all the reasons this worked for you."

Then we hung up, and I sat for a bit and marveled at how, once again, a person with great wealth and ability had partnered with a caring major-gifts officer. I reflected on how that union had released much-needed resources into our world, and how those resources would be flowing out there to ease the pain, to heal the hurt and to meet the need.

What a wonderful thing. What a humbling event. What a miracle that we can actually be part of something so precious and special. I am truly amazed every time this happens. And whether the gift is a million dollars or just 10, it is still a very sacred and extraordinary moment. This is why:

• One human being opens his heart and hand to place his love and care into the hands of another person (the major-gifts officer) whom he has come to trust and believe in.
• That love and care is then channeled to people in need.
• The people in need are blessed and lifted up.
• And something magical and mystical has happened to everyone involved.

My goodness! Can this get any better? FS

[Editor's Note: This article was excerpted from a series of posts on writing proposals for major gifts that appeared on the Passionate Giving blog.]

Richard Perry is founding partner at Veritus Group and co-author of the Passionate Giving blog. Reach him at rperry@veritusgroup.com