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- [00:00]
Jeff Schreifels
If you could do anything right now and you didn't have to worry about money or anything, what would you want to do? What gives you life? Not necessarily what you think will make you happy, but what gives you life, even if it's hard?
- [00:16]
Jay Frost
Welcome to the PM Podcast, brought to you by Donor Search, the show that takes you inside the lives of thought leaders, innovators and change makers in fundraising, philanthropy, and civil society. I'm your host, Jay Frost. Jeff Schreifels is principal at Veritas Group and co author of It's Not Just about the donor. With over 35 years in nonprofit fundraising, he's helped thousands of professionals create meaningful donor relationships and raise more money with integrity and heart. In this episode, we begin not in the office, but on the road with Jeff's 1000 mile bike journey. At the age of 14.
- [00:55]
Unknown
You took a thousand mile bike trip.
- [00:57]
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.
- [00:58]
Unknown
Where were you going and why did you do that?
- [01:00]
Jeff Schreifels
I've actually taken four 1000 mile bike trips, but this was when I was, you know, from all the way from 16 to 21 years old, I did this and so I, I grew up in Minnesota and when I was, my first bike trip, my actually my first thousand mile bike trip was when I was 14 years old.
- [01:30]
Jay Frost
Wow.
- [01:30]
Jeff Schreifels
And I went with some like a youth group kind of thing from my church and four of us guys and a youth leader who was a big biker helped us. We started off in near Lake Superior in northern Minnesota and did a thousand mile loop up through Thunder Bay or up through Lake of the woods over into Canada, coming down from to Thunder Bay, all the way down, back down Lake Superior. And it was like a 10 day trip. And it was an incredible experience because you learn so much about yourself. Your physical, just the physical. Can you do this physically? You bond with people, you know, you, you eat things that you normally would not eat, you know, because you're so hungry. You know, I'm thinking of like spam, cold spam, what I would never think about, but then started craving when you're there. And so I did a number of those as I, you know, in my teens. And then I actually led a few of those bike trips for younger kids as I got older to do that for other kids, but those bike trips were just an amazing experience all the way around because not only did you bond with the people that you were biking with and usually there were like four to five people that I went with, but you meet incredible people along the way. When you bike, you see the world in a different way versus driving by Car, of course. Because you can actually have conversations with these little towns you go into. And then when you're biking, people are curious. Right. Because who is this biker from, you know, like when I was doing a trip in Maine, you know, like you're from Minnesota. Why are you out here? What's happening? You know, and you meet all these incredible people and then they invite you into their home and they say, hey, if you want to camp out in our backyard, go ahead, do that. So you meet amazing people along the way.
- [03:42]
Unknown
So this is the original trip when you were 14, was a church group.
- [03:46]
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.
- [03:47]
Unknown
And did you have any sense at that age of what a trip like that would be for you? I mean had you, had you gone 100 miles in a day before. That's the average, I guess.
- [03:58]
Jeff Schreifels
Well prior to the first trip that I did because yeah, the first trip, you have no idea what a hundred miles is going to be. Feel like we would do, we would move up to like 30 mile a day kind of around where I lived, just do 30 miles and see and kind of build it up. But 100 miles a day, especially when it's hot for young, you know, 14 year old, that's a, that's a trek. But it's one of those things you wake up at, you know, dawn and you're biking all the way till dusk through that whole time. So there's a lot. And then, you know, like the first three days of that trip is very painful. And then the last seven days you get used to it, you know, and it then you start to really kind of go move into it physically. But yeah, those are some incredible memories.
- [04:59]
Unknown
If you put it all together. That's. That's actually biking across the country.
- [05:02]
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, if you put it together, yeah. But I don't know. I grew up in a culture around St. Cloud, Minnesota, that biking we. I biked everywhere. I biked to my job, you know, even when I had a car when I was 16, I still biked everywhere. It's just like that's what we did. I bought my first bike when I, right before that trip and I used that same bike in all of those trips.
- [05:32]
Unknown
You still have a bike now?
- [05:34]
Jeff Schreifels
No, I don't have it anymore. I gave it to another. I gave it to it. When I moved from St. Cloud to Philadelphia after college. I gave my bike away to some. A kid that needed it was going.
- [05:46]
Unknown
To go on the same journey. So St. Cloud, Minnesota, what was it like growing up there besides these bike trips?
- [05:55]
Jeff Schreifels
I mean, as a kid it was incredible. I Grew up three blocks from the Mississippi River. And I think about how today kids have summer camps that they go away to, you know, and parents pay for their kids to go away for, you know, anywhere from four to six, eight weeks, all summer, whatever. But St. Cloud was summer camp. Like, that's what it was. It was every day we would be outside down by the river doing stuff, playing Frisbee golf. I mean, it was just like an endless playground, and there were so many lakes around. You know, we'd bike to the lake and go swimming and then come back and, you know, my. It was one of those times, you know, if you like the 70s and early 80s, was parents just let their kids go out and then come back home for dinner. They had no idea where they were. You just trusted that, you know, everything was going to be okay. It's really hard to fathom in today's world, like, how you could, like, let your kid go out all day and not come back and not see them until dinner. But it was really commonplace back then.
- [07:07]
Unknown
You're a parent now?
- [07:09]
Jeff Schreifels
I'm a parent, yeah. I grew. I have two adult children and I have a stepdaughter who's 15. So, you know, I always try to say, let. Let them go out, let them do stuff on their own. You know, we're so worried that something's going to happen. But, like, for example, Charlotte, who's my 15 year old, we have a. We have a place, an apartment in Center City in, In Philadelphia. And we've let her just go out, you know, and just do her own thing. And she has this. A great amount of freedom to feel like, hey, I'm on my own. I'm. I can go into different places and, and explore and go into bookshops and all of those things. And she comes back and she's just. She loves it. She just loves the energy of the city. And I love to be able to just let her go, you know, and just. You can come back in four hours, you know, and. And then tell us what you experienced. But so I think I. I can do that. And I did that with my older kids, too, when they were young, because I had the experience and I knew it was going to be okay.
- [08:23]
Unknown
That's not everybody's attitude, not only about parenting, but especially in a place like Philadelphia.
- [08:29]
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, I. I think it's because. So this goes back to my story, too, is a couple of things. My growing up in St. Cloud, I was able to do this myself. But when I moved to Philadelphia, I came to work with Kids in public housing, some of the hardest neighborhoods, and to somebody, a white guy from Minnesota coming in or, or any. Anyone from a small town. Thinking of Philadelphia at that time, this was in the, you know, the late 80s, thought Philadelphia was this really scary city at that time. And there was all kinds of things about. There's all this crime and everything, and people still think about that. I mean, I'm here in the. In the South Jersey suburbs, and people out here think they don't go into the city because it's too scary. But my experience of working in the city and working in what is considered the highest crime areas of the city and working with families and kids in public housing taught me what a beautiful community there is. There. Yes, there are some bad things, but there's more beautiful things than the bad things. And I saw it firsthand because I lived there. I lived in those neighborhoods. I walked at night to my home. I was in the homes of these folks and got to know them and what they cared about and how they navigated living in the city in a. In an area that was, you know, a high crime area in a sense, but how everyone had their backs around each with each other. There's a real community that I didn't know about until I actually lived there. And that changed my perception of the city. And so when. When people, especially white people from the suburbs say, oh, we don't go into the city after this certain time, or I would never go to this part of the city, I'm like, you're missing out. There's a whole community of people. I mean, crime in the cities today has gone way down after Covid, all of that, but I know it because I walk the streets of Philadelphia.
- [10:48]
Unknown
Well, what brought you there in the first place?
- [10:52]
Jeff Schreifels
I was at a time, I was a junior in college. I went to Saint Cloud State University. I was a junior. And I was at a time in my life where I just felt like I was in a rut. Like, I was just. I didn't. There was something wrong. Like, I. I knew that there was something I needed to do and I didn't find fulfillment at the time. I was. I was getting my degree in education and history, so I was on a track to become a history teacher. And a friend of mine had done like a one month stay in Philadelphia to work with kids in the public housing. And I. There was a huge difference in him when he came back. Like, it was just like that experience changed his perception of the world and. And I was like, I need something like that. I need to like, put myself in a place where I'm uncomfortable. And so I took a semester off of college and I went for two months to Philadelphia and lived in a community of other college students in a really difficult area of Philadelphia. And we did after school programs and we tutored kids and we did youth group kind of things. And I got to know these kids in these different communities. And that changed the trajectory of my life. It really did. Because at that time I thought, well, I'll become a history teacher. I'll live in St. Cloud. I'll have this nice little life that I was building, you know, and that changed everything. So that changed what I was going to be doing with my life. I knew I then I was like, I'm going to come back to the city after I graduate. I want to teach kids in, in the inner city. And this is, I'm going to live here and this is what I'm going to do.
- [12:53]
Unknown
Now. When you went off on that bike trip when you were 14, that was an activity where you knew you could go there and it was an adventure, but it was also a safe space. You were with, with friends or at least people that you knew. And there was probably a youth pastor or something. When you went to Philly, was that you on your own? Were you soloing or was that also.
- [13:10]
Jeff Schreifels
Part of a. I was soloing, but I was meeting people who were also soloing from all over the country to come there for two months. It was like a break time for a lot of people in college. So There were probably 15 college students from all over the country that came. And it was, it was a youth ministry founded by Tony Campolo. Tony Campolo was a famous American Baptist preacher, but he was also a sociologist. He was a progressive Christian. He was Bill Clinton's pastor, you know, so he, he, he had this heart for the poor and he had, he was a professor at Eastern College and he created this inner city ministry that I found out about through a friend. And that's what one of the things he did every summer was recruited college kids all around the country to come for a summer. And that's when like 200 or 250 college kids would come into Philadelphia and spread out in different neighborhoods and hang out with kids, essentially.
- [14:29]
Unknown
So you went on this adventure, you had your months there, and then you made this big pivotal decision. I'm curious how your family reacted. We were just talking about how you had this sense of freedom because of how you developed and what you did, and that then lend itself to how you parented, how are your parents and family who are all there probably in St. Cloud for a while, feeling about their son moving off to Philly, they actually embraced it.
- [14:57]
Jeff Schreifels
They. So one of the things about my family is that my dad was in the Navy. And so when we were kids, we moved. I went to 12 different schools before sixth grade.
- [15:10]
Unknown
Oh.
- [15:11]
Jeff Schreifels
So we had, we were always moving somewhere. And so that for me, and that was an adventure. I loved it. And so it became, it wasn't a big deal that we were moving to different places, you know, and, you know, I guess as a parent, if I thought about it, my 21 year old said, hey, I'm moving, I'm moving across the country. I want to work in the inner city. I want to do this thing. I'd be like, this is awesome, you know, because that means that I raised them well. And, and so my parents were people who trusted us, who they never like, said, oh, you're just going to stay here, you know this. They were really supportive of all of us. I have two younger sisters and they all did things similar to I, what I did. They did other things across the world, but we all were kind of a family that weren't afraid to migrate, move around.
- [16:20]
Unknown
Well, it sounds like there's one thing about being open to those experiences and it's another about seeking them, which it sounds like all of you did and maybe now your kids are doing.
- [16:30]
Jeff Schreifels
We always had a sense that we needed to do something beyond ourselves, and that really came from our family. And I, and I thought about, like, how did I get in this whole philanthropy fundraising thing? And if you look at how I was raised, it is like, how could you not? So my early experience with fundraising and philanthropy really comes from my father. And he was a working class guy. He was in the Navy for 20 years. He retired at 38 from the Navy. And then he went back to school to learn to be an electrician. So he's an electrician. And you know, at the time it was, it was a struggle. It wasn't like always full time employment. But one of the things that my father instilled in all of us is that no matter what, you can always give back and you can give away your money. And I remembered he would bring us around the table, me and my sisters, once a week and he would show us his paycheck. And then the first thing that he would do is write checks to charities. That was the. In your presence, in our presence. He would write checks to charities and talk about the importance of Giving back. And even when he was out of job, I remember he was out of a job for like five months, and he was on unemployment, and he was doing taxi driving and different things to kind of keep it going. He would still do the same thing with his unemployment check because there were always other people that needed it. And so that's how he grew up. And so this. And. And it's something I practiced, you know, once I got at my first job, even though I was making $11,000 a year, my parents were into the tithing 10, giving 10%. That's a. You know, it's an even more of a Christian or evangelical type of ethos around giving. But that's what they develop. And then. And it's a. And for me, you know, if you give it away before you take it, give it habit, you know, you don't see it anyway. And so I would, you know, I would give away over a thousand dollars a year on an $11,000 salary, and I still was able to survive. And so I.
- [19:04]
Unknown
Describing that, though, sitting there with your dad doing it, how did that feel when you were. You were a young person, you saw your dad giving away something that could have gone to you or to the rest of the family? We didn't.
- [19:16]
Jeff Schreifels
I didn't. We didn't think about it that way. We just thought it was really cool that first. That we were all getting to be in on this. Right? It wasn't. We always knew what my parents made money. We didn't, like, have any weird things around money. Like most people, it's really hard to talk about money, but they were very open about it, and so we knew they didn't make a lot of money. And, you know, when we all had jobs in high school, we contributed to the family sometimes. You know, I remember one time we did our lawnmower broke, and my dad didn't have the money to do it, but I had enough in the bank to do that, so I went and bought a lawnmower for my dad when I was in high school, you know, so that we could, you know, and so that wasn't. But that wasn't a weird thing. It was just, this is who we are. This is what we have to do. Um, so, you know, having grown up that way and seen the power of philanthropy and that you can give away your money and, you know, I remember early on in my 20s, feeling a little judgmental towards people are like, I can't give away this much money. I have. I. You know, I'm like, yeah, you can. Because I can do it. And I make a whole lot less than you. You know what I mean? But, you know, as I matured, I became less judgmental about all of that, but I knew that it was very powerful. And I learned early on that the more you give away, the more that comes back to you.
- [20:45]
Unknown
Yeah. This is something that people have talked about for a long time, but describe that in your own life. How has that been true?
- [20:55]
Jeff Schreifels
Oh, gosh. I mean, I guess I live in this constant state of gratitude for everything that I have. And I don't know if it's because I. Of all the things I have that I feel like I want to give away. Give a lot of it away, or I give a lot of it away and things come back. It doesn't really matter. All I know is in my life, throughout the course of my life that I have. Have been given so much. And so because you've been given so much, I feel like you have to give away. This is just part of how I grew up. It's. It's been instilled in us. And it's. You know, I look at my parents now. They're 85 and 83. They're still like this. You know, they want to help, they want to give away. And so I did. Yeah, I just. I look at all parts of my life and I've. You know, it's just been an incredible journey of. Of all the things. All the blessings that I've had in my life, and I don't even. And it's. I grew up under the, you know, Catholic evangelical kind of upbringing, in a sense, and even though I don't espouse to that today, it's still. It doesn't matter if you're religious or not. It's just something that is a part of me, and I see it in other people, too. You can see the people that live in a state of gratefulness, and you look at their lives, and they're the first person to be there to help, volunteer. They. They're the first person to, like, cut a check if you need something. You know what I mean? So I. I feel like it just plays out in other people that I've met in my life as well.
- [23:00]
Unknown
I. I know we talk about this in contemporary philanthropy with people having amassed vast sums and. And some don't give anything away, and we can think about that. But then there's also a practical matter, and you touched on it. If people try to give it away, sometimes they can't give it away fast enough. No matter how hard they try. Kind of the Mackenzie Scott challenge, if you will. And I wonder, as you think about this in terms of philanthropy, what kind of conclusions you draw that can we provide a culture not just within our individual families, but a culture generally where we are encouraging people not just to give up things, but maybe not to accumulate them in the first place or to make the giving that they do have the kind of impact that they really desire. Something that will ensure that it doesn't just keep coming back, but they can feel that gratitude that you described.
- [23:59]
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, I mean it would be great if we were able to have a culture like that. I think that we have such disparity of wealth in our country and across the world and actually I know worldwide that disparity is getting better and better. There's less poor people today around the world than there were 20 or 40 years ago. But if you look at the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest in our country here in the United States, and you just look at that, how is it possible that we have all these multi billionaires and now thousands of millionaire, you know, and what does that do? What does that, how do you know like you were talking about Mackenzie Scott. That's got to be really difficult. I mean it would be really cool to think like I would love to give away all these millions of dollars, but you're right, it's very difficult. It's not an easy thing to do to give away that much money because you know, it could actually hurt some non profits. You know, you're giving away 10, $10 million on it and they don't know what to do with it and they don't know how to use it correctly. I mean there's a lot of issues around that, I think. So I, I do believe that there is a burden, especially on some of these multi who want to give away, how to do that in a way that is, I mean, I don't know, you, we could talk about capitalism, all those kind of things like where do we want to go? Is it, is it a just system, you know, to create all these multi billionaires and then they're giving back money. One of the things that I love about Mackenzie Scott is that she is giving away this money and it feels like a real gift. She's not doing it in a way to control what happens. So she's giving it in a way she's not saying. And then you gotta, you gotta send me a 10 point, you know, response like how are you using this money and this money and this money, she's trusting these non profits to spend it wisely. Whereas I think overall in big philanthropy, there's a lot of questions about big foundations, das, the way people are using that money and doling it out in ways. Is it another form of us controlling how societies run and how we do things, or are we just giving that.
- [26:53]
Unknown
Gift free, which it sounds like your father was doing and that you're trying to do? You just make those gifts, making them sign an agreement.
- [27:02]
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, he, he didn't ask, he didn't ask the, the nonprofits that he was sending his checks to, you know, for a quarterly report. Yeah, or he didn't. He gave it away freely. He gave that away freely. And that's really what I've tried to do with my own philanthropy. Obviously, I, I give to things that I'm passionate about or I think, but once I give it away, I give it away, you know, and let it go.
- [27:36]
Unknown
Part of this is also about trust, isn't it? I mean, it is because if we just trust that good things will happen when we are doing things out of, you know, our own sense of what's right, that all things will be fine.
- [27:51]
Jeff Schreifels
Right.
- [27:53]
Unknown
But I realized I took you out of your journey and you were talking about going to Philadelphia and teaching. So what, how did that and how did it end? Because you ultimately didn't decide to make a career in teaching.
- [28:07]
Jeff Schreifels
So when I finally moved after I graduated, I started looking for teaching jobs in Philadelphia. And at the time that I was searching for those jobs, there was, there weren't many openings at all. And so I had to think of an alternative because I, I needed to, I was doing an internship, working with kids, but I also needed to make some part, have, get a part time job. So I called, I, I called a magazine that I used resource for in some of my papers in college and I knew it was based in Philadelphia. It was called the Other side magazine. It was a Christian peace and justice magazine. It was started by a Southern Baptist preacher, 1965, around civil rights, a Southern Baptist white preacher around civil rights. And he started this magazine, it was called Freedom Now. And it turned, turned, turned into the Other side magazine. It was also one of the first Christian magazines in 1972 to come out in support of gay and lesbian Christians in 1972. So I was drawn to this magazine because I was progressive in my political and also religious life. And so I called him and I said, I need a job. Would you have any job openings? I got in the white, white pages, looked them up and they said, well, actually we had this part time fundraising job. And I said, well, I don't know a lot about fundraising, but I'm willing to learn. And they said, why don't you come in and we'll talk? So I did. And they were more interested in my journey than coming from St. Cloud to Philadelphia. They didn't even really care that I didn't have any fundraising background. They just knew that I was willing to learn. And so because this was a nonprofit magazine, they got subscriptions and all of that, but they had to, they also had to get donations. And so I got hired. And then that eventually turned into full time, but I had to learn how to do fundraising. And so I just, I read everything I could. I go to different seminars. You know how you. There'd be these seminars back in the day next to the airport hotel, you know, somebody you know. And I met this guy named Tim Burgess, and he was from Seattle and he owned an agency called Domain Group, and he did one of these seminars. And I learned so much in that two days that I had learned, you know, for the last year or so. And I started putting into practice all of these great direct response strategies. And they were working. I mean, it was amazing, you know, from writing the letter to different techniques and doing all the different things. And I, I just, like, this was fascinating to me. And so I. Being that I wanted, you know, I didn't. We didn't have a lot of money at the magazine. I just reached out to him and said, hey, would you be okay if I sent you copies of letters and different things and get your feedback on them? And he goes, yeah, I'd do that. So he kind of mentored me for a while. For the next couple of years, he mentored me on fundraising. And he was really gracious to, to give me his time because, you know, he knew we didn't have a lot of money. He kind of liked the Other side magazine. He knew about it. And so I learned a lot from him and just a lot of trial and error. And so for six years of my career, I was the development director for this small little nonprofit. And I had to learn how to do everything from writing appeal letters to talking to major donors to how to. How to craft letters that were really personalized and all of those kind of things. Loved it. Then I got another job at another nonprofit in Philly that was a little bigger. It was a. It was a training program for people with disabilities that taught them computer technology. And then they get these incredible jobs. It was Amazing to work for that organization. So I did that for a couple of years and really learned more about major gifts, made a lot of mistakes, events, putting on events and all of those kind of things. And then one day I get a call from Tim Burgess saying, you know, we have a position open as an account director to work with our clients, and I think that you might be really good at it. And so, you know, we were really. At this time, I'd married, we had small children, and we were really meshed in Philadelphia. We had a community of people that were really close to us. So the idea of moving to Seattle, which is where the domain was, was like a huge idea. It just was like, couldn't fathom that. But I went out to interview, and, gosh, I fell. When the interview process, I just fell in love with this idea of working with multiple organizations, working with data and. And. And what that meant and how it translated into strategy. So I got an offer, and my wife and I thought about it and. And she just couldn't move. She just couldn't do it. And I was like, okay. So we turned it down, turned down the offer. And I was really bummed out personally. But I also knew that this was. This is also a great opportunity. You know, I still loved what I did. Well, two months later, they called me again and they said, we just wanted to try one more time to see if you might be interested. And so I brought it up again and to my wife, Julie, at the time, and she said, you know what? Let's go talk to somebody let we trust and let's. Because I don't want to move. You want to move. I can see that you want to do this job, and I understand it, but I don't really want to move. Let's talk to someone about this. So we. We found someone that we knew that was a therapist. And she said, okay, let's just talk about this. Why do you want to do this? And then she asked one question. She said, on the last major decision in your marriage, who won? Who was the one that wanted to do something? And the other said, okay. And it had been her, Julie. Because we had moved from South Philly to another part of Philadelphia, and I didn't really want to move. And she did. And I was like, I don't see us why, But I said, okay, I'll do this. And so that was the last big major decision in our marriage. Julie had won that decision. She goes, it's Jeff's turn. And so that changed everything. And so Julie was like, you know what? You're right. And so we decided to move to Seattle. And when we, when I was, the first week of that job, Jay, I was like, this is where I'm supposed to be. This is, this, this is incredible. Because it got, it allowed me to do everything that I felt like I was good at, like my strengths. So I got to work with all these incredible nonprofits and develop strategies for them to acquire new donors, cultivate donors. I got to be an executive producer on a radio show. All the stuff, all this direct response radio, television, direct mail, email, all this stuff for multiple organizations. It fit my personality perfectly and I just loved it. And I. And it, I flourished in it, you know, from being an account director to leading other account directors. So for 12 years I did that.
- [36:47]
Unknown
And how was this transition for your family? Because, you know, he got one, you got one. But this was a 12 year win, according to the therapist.
- [36:56]
Jeff Schreifels
Well, we, yeah, well, we lived there for seven years. Okay, so we did seven years in Seattle. And so my kids were three and one and a half at the time. But we loved it. We loved our experience in Seattle so much. And the kids, I mean, the kids love it. They. Anytime it's kind of raining out, I mean, they're 30, 33 and 31 today, but even like today, if it's rainy today here in Philadelphia, they'll. They'll send me a note saying, oh, it's a Seattle kind of day today. You know, they loved it. So we had a great experience in Seattle, but then we moved after 911 really kind of changed, you know, like, what's more, what's important around family? And we, you know, we missed being a part of Julie's, my wife's extended family. Her, her mom and dad and her sisters and her. I wanted the kids to have grandparents that they really just resonate and love. So we decided we're going to move back to Philly. And we finally did in 2003. And Domain was gracious enough to say, hey, we want to keep you on. Why don't you work out of your home? Which. So I've been working from my home since 2003 in some fashion. And we did, did that. I worked for domain until 2005 until they were bought out by Merkle. And then I worked for Merkle a couple of years, but it really wasn't a good cultural fit. And then that was the time I was starting to look at what is the next thing that I want to do. And fortunately, Richard Perry and I had become good friends at Domain. Richard was Tim's. Tim Burgess's partner with Domain. And over the years, Richard and I had really become close friends along with. As colleagues. And when they finally sold Domain, Richard wanted to really start working on the major gift side. He started to develop some of what we call the Veris way today, back then and helping nonprofits. Even though we were a direct response agency, he wanted to help a. Or organizations on the major gift side. And so he was doing that. He had a small consultancy after he sold Domain, and he was like, let's work together. You both. Both of us had major gift stuff when we were development directors, because he had been a development director long time ago. Let's do this. Let's build this out. This is an area in the. In the nonprofit space that's really underserved. And I was like, let's do it. And so in 2009, in my living room, we rebranded his little personal consultancy into Veritas Group. And we decided this is what we believe about us. This is where we. What our mission is, and here's our vision. And that's how we came to start to work with organizations on the major gift side. And, you know, for a couple of years, it was tough. It was just the two of us. We're just trying to build, you know, a base of clients. And basically they were clients of people that we knew in the industry. You know, we'd worked in it for a while. We knew people. But then we started writing a blog in 2011, and that blog around Major Gifts started growing. You know, we had 12 subscribers, and then it was 200. And then, you know, it got a little more. And all of a sudden we. People started calling us, hey, we need help and Major Gifts. And so then we started writing white papers. And we started. And the idea was this, that the more we give away free, the more come back. And at first, Richard was a little skeptical. He's like, if we give away what we know, then why. Why would people want to hire us? And I was like, you have to trust that. And this is what it was like, the beginning stage of content marketing. You know, the more you give out, people like, oh, I want to know more about this. And so that grew until today we have like 45,000 subscribers to the blog podcast White Papers. We've written a couple of books, so we've created a lot of content and we've given it away. You know, anyone if you really took all the content, could do what we do and not need us to help them do it.
- [41:41]
Unknown
So that brings up the question is, why do people then come to you? I mean, what's at the heart of the message of all that content? That's probably what's important.
- [41:49]
Jeff Schreifels
The heart of the message is that major gift fundraising, or fundraising in general, is really not about the money. It's about the relationships. Your job as a. As a fundraiser is to develop those relationships, and our job is to tell you how to create the environment to actually do that and have the time to do that. And so that's. Well, when you say, well, we do the Veritas way of major gift fundraising, that's really simply the structure that we create for organizations that to work within so that they have the time and ability to build relationships with their fundraisers. Because we know now for almost two decades of doing this work, that it works. The more you build a relationship, the money follows. So that's essentially the heart of it. What we. What we developed.
- [42:49]
Unknown
There's a. There's an issue of all the things we've been talking about right now in philanthropy generally, and one is trust. There's an old line that, you know, philanthropy moves at the speed of trust. And so that's essential to, I guess, what you're describing in the Veritas approach.
- [43:10]
Jeff Schreifels
Exactly.
- [43:12]
Unknown
I wonder, though, the other thing that we're seeing, that we've been seeing for decades now, throughout our careers, is this decline in the percentage of people who give to charity at all, who don't do what your dad did and what you do and who don't volunteer, you know, but meanwhile, very successfully, we are building these relationships with a very small group of people who are making all these wonderful things possible. But what's happening to the rest, and what can we do about that? Do you have thoughts on that?
- [43:45]
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, I think we need to figure out ways to engage people where they are. And because I do believe essentially people are all the same. They do want to help. I. I have a. A positive view of humanity, and I do believe people want to help. They want to be engaged, they want to be part of just more than themselves. And I think our job on the nonprofit side is to figure out how to meet them. There's. And give them those opportunities, and then once they're engaged, figure out ways to continue increasing that engagement and deepen the relationships with them. And I think we can do that in a number of different ways. I think of younger generations, you know, that want to be asked their thoughts and opinions about things, you know, bring them into those discussions, have areas of. Of helping them volunteer get them involved in things that they, they're interested in. And when you do that, I think over time you'll see greater and greater engagement. But I think people have, you know, it's not just about money that we're wanting. We're wanting them their engagement in this, you know, and as a nonprofit, that is, I believe, part of our mission with volunteers and staff to look at that as part of our mission. If we bring in volunteers, we have an obligation to them to make that experience an amazing experience that helps change their life, that helps move them to another place. I think about my experience going and working and volunteering in the inner city. That nonprofit gave me the opportunity to have this experience when I was really young, when I was 20 years old, and it changed the trajectory of my life. They gave me that opportunity. So there's something there, I think, for other nonprofits to think about as they invite volunteers and community members into what they're trying to do.
- [46:06]
Unknown
Is that a matter of reassessing their mission? This is something we've talked about before this recording and again, it has to do with many things, but that includes trust. You said they invited you in there to do that work. You also sought it. That's a two way connection.
- [46:24]
Jeff Schreifels
That's right.
- [46:25]
Unknown
Decided to go. They, they opened you, it sounds like, with open arms. That changed the trajectory of your life. What is that organizations can do to manifest that same degree of trust? Keep it aligned with their mission, but make sure their mission is really an open gate to people who might share the same interests and passions.
- [46:49]
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, I do think it comes from, from the very beginning of what your mission is. And you know, the idea is most nonprofits, every non profit, started because there was one person or a group of people who saw there was a problem and they wanted to make a difference and change it and help some way. Every origin, I don't care how big the nonprofit is. Look at the very beginning of that nonprofit. Most of them started with one or a group of people that care, that saw a problem and wanted to do something. And the problem though is that that problem they wanted to solve, they think that's all their mission was. It's like that's the problem, but it's more than that. The mission, I believe, has more components to that. And part of that mission is the minute that you ask someone else to help you alleviate that problem, they become part of your mission as well. In other words, whether they're paid staff or a volunteer, those people who are now helping you, you also have an obligation to them, they're part of the mission. Now, it's not just about the thing you're all doing to help the problem, but it's about the people who are helping do this. I mean, think about if we had that ethos. We wouldn't have the burnout, we wouldn't have the turnover. People would be paid well. We would have opportunities for people to volunteer that were meaningful and were helpful, and they weren't as well. We got to do this volunteer thing, you know. No, they're part of this. They're part of this mission.
- [48:41]
Unknown
I realized I just invited you to give the prescription without providing the diagnosis first. So that's the failure on my part. So for those who listen to this conversation now, who haven't yet faced that condition, whatever that condition is to the sector, what do you see as the primary problems that this approach will solve? This kind of flexibility and inclusiveness, at least those are my words, not yours, but ways for organizations to make the people their mission, not just the thing they discussed in a room with three friends 20 years ago, but what's going on today. So what is the problem that that solves? What is the stasis of nonprofits today?
- [49:28]
Jeff Schreifels
I think that it solves a lot of things. I think creates community beyond just this problem you're trying to solve. It creates a greater community in. Within the. The community that you're serving, both with the people that you're serving. What, and that's a part of this, too? The people that you're serving are part of this mission. The people that are in those neighborhoods, let's, you know, they're part of your mission. Are they stakeholders in your mission? And we forget about that. It's not me coming in and trying to save the day. It's me working within the communities to solve those problems together along with your staff, along with your volunteers, along with your donors, we're all in this together and building out that community, that we're all here to solve this. Because the donors are just as much a part of that mission as well. The donors, while they physically aren't doing the work, they're passing on their labor, the good part of their labor. They're giving some of that money to you to actually do that. They're part of that community. They're part of this mission. We have an obligation to those donors as well. So the donors, the staff, the volunteers, the community, we're all in this mission. This is mission of the organization, and that's building community. It's. It's giving the Opportunity for people to engage for those that. That are passionate about that specific thing that you're doing that's changing the world.
- [51:08]
Unknown
Are we at one of those big seminal moments again? Because you. You talked even in your own life, it's almost like chapters that.
- [51:15]
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.
- [51:16]
Unknown
Made that decision about, you know, you wanted to go and. And be kind of a. A more expanded person. You did that early in your life.
- [51:24]
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.
- [51:24]
Unknown
Decided to. To make that change with Seattle. But then you also talked about how 9, 11. We didn't really dig into that, but how that kind of changed everything and everyone.
- [51:32]
Jeff Schreifels
That was another chapter. Yes.
- [51:34]
Unknown
Covid has. Has had an impact that we haven't really, as a community completely interrogated to determine how it's impacted us. And now we're going through major political upheaval that's affecting the sector right at this moment as we speak.
- [51:50]
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.
- [51:50]
Unknown
Are we at one of those moments when we have an opportunity to make a shift?
- [51:55]
Jeff Schreifels
Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. I think more than ever, nonprofits have an opportunity to really invite others in that maybe have been left out or we haven't thought about. Yeah, I do think it's a seminal moment. I haven't. You. You bring this up. I haven't thought about it so much. I mean, yes, Covid, yes, we're in this time, but when you're in it, sometimes you don't really realize until you're over it. But I think now we know because we had Covid and it's. And it wasn't that long ago. What are we learning from that? Like what. What were the lessons that we learned? And I feel like we haven't. We have an opportunity to. To learn from it and do something greater or we're going backwards. Like sometimes you think you know people. Yeah, you got to come back to the office. You got to do it this way again. Or maybe we need to do it differently. And it seems like the organizations that are rethinking things and doing it differently have a better opportunity in the future. You know, I think about during COVID how it changed how we communicated with donors. You know, we used to think in major guests, you. The. The end all be all was the face to face meeting across the table or on in the living room with the donor. And that's not true anymore. And that's because of COVID because we were able to communicate and realize zoom can be good. Even text can be good. What we found out is we were trying to figure out how do people like to be communicated with? And we were asking people. We started at One of the things that I saw that major gift officers were doing were having conversations that they didn't have before because they were in a different spot. It felt like you could have these conversations. And. And donors, too, were opening up in ways that we had never seen before. Donors were telling major gift officers things about their lives that, prior to Covid, they weren't doing. But something happened that made people vulnerable. Maybe it was seeing death all around them. Maybe it was seeing tragedy and realizing, I need to connect with another person. And I'm hoping that we can use that again in this time where it feels like we're, you know, we're in this place of hatred, of. Of one against one against the other person dividing people, and that we can use this to say, no, we're not going to do this. We're going to bring people together in community. We're. We're going to talk across the aisle together. We're going to have a civil conversation. We can have that. We can have differences, but we can talk about okay with one another. We can treat people well. We can be kind to people. So I think the nonprofit world can learn from that, and our nonprofits can be that for. For the people here in the US and across the world, building community and expanding their idea of what their mission is beyond just the thing they're doing every day, but really seeing how their own people that are working for them, that are committing their lives to this work, the donors that are committing their finance, financial gifts, and the community in which they're serving, coming together and being one community. You know, we talk about you. We need to be donors, need to be partners. I say it needs to be more than that. They need to be part of the mission and feel part of the mission. So I think there is a. I think this is a moment. Yes.
- [56:18]
Unknown
As. As you're doing this work and you've been doing this for a while now.
- [56:21]
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.
- [56:22]
Unknown
You've also sought these opportunities to test yourself, to find the uncomfortable, to, you know, seek some form of change. What is that thing that you imagine seeking next?
- [56:37]
Jeff Schreifels
That's what I'm. That's what I'm pondering. I just turned 60 last month, and so I've been starting to write like a. You know, I have my notes that I keep, and my. One of my notes is, what am I going to do with the next 20 to 25 years? Because that's how much we really have. I. You know, 85 would be great if I could live to 85. Awesome. And I'm doing Things that physically I'll be okay at 85, barring any kind of disease or anything that I can't control. But I'm starting to think, what is it that I want to do in the next 20 to 25 years? I know that at some point I will have to let go of Veritas and somebody will take over and hopefully take that on. How do I do that? Well, how. How am I intentional about that? So I want that to happen and figure out that. But then what do I want to do personally? And there's a number of things that I've thought about. I would love to be, you know, some kind of a counselor or a therapist, maybe not having to go back to school for five more years to.
- [57:51]
Jay Frost
Do that.
- [57:53]
Jeff Schreifels
But that's something I really. I enjoy. I. I love listening to people and then giving them some advice or thoughts or things that I observe that could be helpful. I don't know, maybe. But I'm starting that process now of what am I going to do next? Because I don't want to be the kind of person that doesn't have a plan, or I'm just going to go golf twice a week and putter around the house. That's not who I am. But I want to be intentional about that. And so right now is what I'm planning. I'm in that planning stage.
- [58:28]
Unknown
Jay, you know, it's funny because I asked you about the plan, but I realized that as you've talked about these things, you've been just keeping yourself open in all these parts of your life. So far, they. They haven't been opportunistic. That sounds like the wrong word, because that's. That's.
- [58:48]
Jeff Schreifels
You know what. That's really good connotations, but that, you know, that one. That one time. So the time that I went from Philly to Seattle, there was something that I was doing that opened myself up to the. Even the idea of moving. And I went through this thing called the Artist Way. It's a book, and you can still get it. Today. I. And I started writing three pages. They called it the morning pages. And I started writing. And you're supposed to not even think about what you're going to write about. You just start writing. And that revealed that I wanted to do something greater in my career, and I wanted to do something, but I didn't know what it was. But I wasn't. Even though I liked what I was doing, I didn't love it. And I knew that there was something else out there. I didn't know what it was, but by writing every day, it. That was revealed to me, like, this is what I want to do, and I open myself up to new possibilities. And you're right, I think I've been open to different things. And I. And I haven't been this opportunistic person that said, this is the next thing, and this is the next thing. I'm just been open to the possibilities of things and knowing when one thing needs to close and another, something else needs to happen. So, like, the time where I felt like in college, like, something's not working, I need to be open. What's the next thing? And then that came, and that changed my life. And then it was Seattle, and then it was, you know, coming back to live back in Philadelphia, and then it was to start our own company, you know, and now I'm at that next point, like, I'm open to whatever that is, and I can start to feel like it's coming to an. This next. This chapter is coming to an end soon, you know, and soon could be five years, I don't know, but it's coming. And. But I want to prepare for what that next thing is and be open to it.
- [60:54]
Unknown
So kind of putting on that counselor hat without the five years back in school to do it, I'm wondering, is that. Is there a piece of advice in there somewhere for all the other people, not just in our field, but across the country, who are kind of, as you said earlier, burned out. And maybe they're burned out a bit because the organizations that could have embraced them haven't done so yet, although they still can. But maybe also they just need to figure out, do I stay or do I do something different? Do I remain open? What's a good counselor's advice to those people trying to figure out how to navigate where they are and where the opportunities might lie?
- [61:33]
Jeff Schreifels
Yeah. I first would say, why are you feeling the way you are right now? What is. What is it that's causing that you feel burned out? What. What's going on? Like, what are some of the causes of this? So you can identify, is it external? Are these internal things? And then, you know, what would you love to do? What if you could do anything right now and you didn't have to worry about money or anything, what would you want to do? What gives you life? Not necessarily what you think will make you happy, but what gives you life, Even if it's hard, what is it that you want to do and start, go from there? And that's what I'm asking myself next, like, what is it that's going to give me life? Not necessarily what's going to make me happy, Because I don't believe you should be pursuing happiness. I believe you should pursue the life you're meant to lead. And happiness will be a byproduct of that. And that's always happened to me.
- [62:43]
Jay Frost
Well, that's it for this episode of the PM Podcast. You can learn more about Jeff, read his blog, and listen to his podcast Nothing but major gifts@veritasgroup.com our thanks to our sponsor, Donor Search, the world leader in AI powered fundraising intelligence solutions for the nonprofit world. Our producer is Jack Frost and our theme music is Moving Out, Moving in by Jay Taylor and is provided courtesy of Epidemic Sound. If you like what you heard, make sure to subscribe wherever you like to listen. Check out our sister shows, Front Lines of Social Good and How to Raise, and come back next weekend for another conversation with a leader in the world of social good. Until then, this is Jay Frost. Thanks for joining me.