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Nonprofit Leadership Podcast
How Fundraising Can Be a Bridge-Builder
00:32:12
Jill Vorndran In this episode, Dr. Rob Harter sits down with Jill Vorndran, Chief Development Officer at Covenant House International, to explore a transformative approach to fundraising. Jill shares her unique perspective of using fundraising not j...
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- [00:02]
A
This is Dr. Rob Harder with the Nonprofit Leadership podcast, Making youg World Better. What does it take to be an effective nonprofit leader today? What are the biggest challenges? What are the biggest obstacles? How should nonprofits fundraise in an economy that is constantly changing? All these reasons combined led me to start this show, and it's my hope that through this series, people can learn not only what it takes to be an effective nonprofit organization, but to hear from effective leaders who are. Who are successfully making a positive impact in their communities. We hope you enjoy the show as together we hear how they are making their world better. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. I'm Rob Harder, your host. Thanks so much for tuning in. So today we're going to talk about a different perspective when it comes to fundraising. My guest today is going to talk about fundraising in this way. She sees fundraising as a opportunity to be a bridge builder. And here's what she means by that. She, in her work as a chief development officer, realized that in the group of donors that she works with, she's got a lot of young folks that really are excited and ready to volunteer and really like to promote their particular organization on social media. They've got all this energy, yet they don't have a lot of resources to actually give to donate to the organization. Then she's got another group that has lots of resources, lots of experience, lots of years investing in this organization, but they don't necessarily know each other. So she's actually sought in her role to be a bridge builder between generations, essentially, of donors, to connect them together because really, they can learn from each other, number one. And a lot of nonprofits, they kind of demarcate their donors and they don't often bring them together. And so she found that was one of her secrets of how she's grown a great base of support is by trying to bring these donor groups together, knowing that they're both committed to the mission of the organization she works at. So I thought that was a really fascinating take on how to approach fundraising. My guest today is Jill Vorndrand, and she's the Chief Development Officer for the Covenant House International. So not only will we talk about the power of fundraising to be a bridge builder, but I talk about a lot of questions about fundraising in general. Now, here we are in the fourth quarter of the year. This is go time, right, for raising lots of money for your organization. This is what people tend to give. The majority of your budget probably is in this fourth quarter. And so we're going to talk about how to deal with when donating is complicated. What happens when donors don't give or they don't return to give give the next year? How do you deal with donor retention? How do you build trust in donors so they'll keep giving to your organization? All these things and more will be discussed with my guest again, Jill Vondran from the Covenant House. It's a fascinating conversation. Hey, it's always good to have you here. Thanks for tuning in. Now on to the show. This podcast is sponsored by DonorBox, helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business. Well, welcome, everybody, to the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. Jill, thank you so much for joining us on the show. Really glad to have you here.
- [03:08]
B
Oh, I'm so glad to be here, Rob. Thank you for having me.
- [03:11]
A
You bet. Well, we've talked a lot on my show recently, particularly in the months of August and September, about fundraising. And now it's time. It really is. We're actually in the fourth quarter, and we need to talk through, you know, just giving in general, fundraising development, because this is your area of expertise. You've done this for a long time at the Covenant House. You've got lots of experience, and so maybe that's what we could start with. In your role as the Chief Development officer, one of the things you do, actually, is you really seek to support the CEO. So I thought we'll get into money plenty in your role. But also I think that's a critical role to support your CEO in that CDO role. Tell us, for my listeners who are in roles of leadership as well, what advice would you give them as to how best they can support their CEOs, not just with fundraising and leading fundraising teams, but just in general as well.
- [04:01]
B
Thanks so much for that. The way I'm so glad we're starting there because it's such a huge part of the role. I think boards charge chief executive officers with spending at least half of their time fundraising, but so many of them have grown up through different parts of our work and may not know exactly how to effectuate that. And that's our job. That's not. Their job is to figure that out. And so when I am working with the site CDOs for Covenant House, or when I'm looking at my own chief executive officer, who happens to be an excellent fundraiser, I really look at it in two different ways. One is their own role as a frontline fundraiser. And then the second is how can I make it the most effective and efficient for them to be leading a development team for Them to be getting the best out of me and getting the best out of my team. So looking at the first part, I think it really comes down to three things. One is working really hard to position them in the rooms and the spaces where they can effectuate the new donor acquisition that other people in the organization can't. So when anybody else can do it, I'm not putting the CEO in that room because they have bigger and better things to do. But when they are the one who is going to bring the most new people into our mission, I'm always encouraging them to be the one to do so. And so I think that is one of the highest and best uses of their time, is into those rooms where they're going to be the ones who inspire new people to figure out their way to support our mission. And then of course, all of this is going to come with preparing them to do so, helping them know who the audience is, giving them the talking points of what this audience maybe is going to engage with the most, and then figuring out the call to action that's gonna be the mechanism for them to actually not just be inspired and leave, but be inspired and join. So I think that's one is the new supporter acquisition and pushing them into those rooms and finding the best ones for them. The second is of course gonna be preparing them for the cultivation and solicitation. So whether they are gonna be the ones who are getting us close to the finish line or whether they're participating with the relationship manager, the major G to be the closer, it is giving them the least amount of information that they need to do the most amount of impact. So I'm not a believer in eight page memos and hour and a half meetings in preparation for these conversations, but really the information that's most important to be able to position them to represent themselves and our mission the best. And if it comes down to it, and they only have 20 minutes to give me to prepare for a solicitation, it's what are those three sentences that bridge from conversation to the actual ask? And then lastly, of course, in the frontline fundraising realm, it's the stewardship. It is making sure that every week they have a list of who they're calling and emailing, what the person did for odds and, and why they're impactful to our mission. And that honestly, if I'm going to pick one, is going to be the one where I would focus their time and attention most often, because it's where I think we get the most feedback as fundraisers that we don't do a good job is, yep, you can get people in the room, you can cultivate them, you can ask them for money. But where we get the most donor complaints and the most donor fall off is when that follow up doesn't happen, but when they can get a call from the chief executive officer, the executive director, that there is something that specifically happened because of that gift that I think is what has the most impact to the continuity of fundraising. The second piece of where I think a Chief Development officer can position the CEO for success is helping them to know how to best hold you accountable and support you. And for me, what that has really looked like over these years is one, the CEO always going to bat to the development team, but having the ammunition to be able to do so. When the board is looking to say, we need to meet budget, so maybe we divest from new donor acquisition, it's empowering the CEO with the data to show, maybe that'll be good this year, but what's going to happen in two years from now or in 10 years from now to our mission if we make this decision today? And so empowering them to go to bat for us and ensure that we have the resources that we need to do our work. But then second, helping to build in that mutual accountability where they're managing us not on anecdote, but managing us on actual data and identifying in collaboration with them what are the key performance indicators that we mutually agree along with our board, along with my peers, are indicative of whether we're being successful or not. And then routinely giving them that information so that they don't have to conjure up the information that they need, or they think they need to know if we're being successful, but instead have the actual data that we've agreed upon. So instead of it being, hey, I bumped into a major gift officer in the hall and he said he had an excellent meeting. Good job. Really looking at the holistic picture of what we've agreed upon together so that there is that mutual accountability of how we're progressing, you know, as a team and whether we're meeting the goals that we decided upon together.
- [09:49]
A
Well, one of the ways you talk about fundraising, I think is really interesting. You have this phrase, you say that the power of fundraising is to be a bridge builder. And I thought that was a really intriguing way to look at fundraising. I think for a lot of fundraisers and people in nonprofit circles, they're a little bit afraid of fundraising sometimes, even if that's your job, you know, you feel like oh, someone may not want to give, or you're putting pressure on people to give whatever the feelings are. Maybe it's an imposter syndrome of filling into a development role, but you really see it as a bridge builder. You almost turn that around into very much a positive outlook. And particularly then I put that in the context, I think, sadly, we are in a very divisive time. Tell me about how that works for you. Like, how do you view fundraising? How do you go about doing that in everyday life of using fundraising as a bridge builder?
- [10:36]
B
The first three things you mentioned, like, those were my life in the beginning of my fundraising journey. Well, I should have had imposter syndrome. I don't think I did. I didn't know enough to. But I should have it, okay? If I were going into it now with that knowledge, I certainly would. I certainly believed it was the necessary evil of the work and not part of the intrinsic value of the work itself itself, but. And I think it was a fake it till you make it situation. For me, like, I, I thought like intellectually, like this could be a big bridge building moment for me. Like in my particular mission, it was looking at the like, wealthy people who were populating my portfolio and then looking at the young people who I was serving who were so full of every other kind of wealth except for financial wealth, right? They had survival skills, they had an excell and sense of humor, like all the good things. And they were just lacking resources. And so it's like, okay, we have this group over here and they're on this then Excel spreadsheet now CRM, and then these amazing young people over here. And so intellectually I thought, okay, it's my job to bring them together. And I just tried to make that be my mantra until I actually believed it. And now in the, for years now, decades now, it's been a true belief of mine that, that neither one of those groups needs each other more or less, that they are both receiving at least equal value from each other and that I just get to be this little bridge in between them and helping them, even if they never meet each other, to be partner in something that they both care about. They both care about young people not being and not experiencing homelessness any longer. One of them cares because they are experiencing homelessness, they don't want to anymore. And the other set care because it's either their faith or their belief in human rights or just their own personal humanity that wants or an economic rationale that they don't want to live in a city where people are living on the street because that is bad business for them. So. Or a combination of all of that. But both of those sets of people believe that in the same way, and I would say venture to say that that argument can be made for any mission and any group of supporters that they both are after the same thing. And what we get to do as fundraisers is just bring them together in some way that they never would have bumped into each other to be co creators of that solution. And I've been saying to my staff for the past, gosh, I don't know how many years now, you know that when we're living in this space where, you know, I know the donor bases in which I work are, are quite divided, right? Like they're. I don't know who people voted for, I don't know what their beliefs are, I don't know why they voted for whom they voted. But I know that they care about the mission that I care about. And so that's all we talk about. Like we, we don't talk about anything other than that. And I feel like I'm saved by the fact that I'm not working at like a bank or an insurance company right now because like, I wouldn't know what to do with the energy that I have to make sure that our world isn't as divided as it is. But I get to work in a place where my little piece of that puzzle is, is talking to people who may not otherwise have anything in common. Like if they were on social media, they might be arguing with each other behind their names and their screens and their keyboards. But when they're in an event together or they're in a board meeting together, all they're talking about is solving the same problem, which I think is just like this super powerful thing that we get to do that I have tried to adopt the practice of not taking advantage and not taking for granted every day.
- [14:31]
A
So let's talk about retention and recruitment for that matter. I found that retention, recruitment are really two sides of the same coin. I understand you've been really good at both recruiting and retaining good talent and good people at your organization. There, there, let's talk about that because this is a huge issue. I've had lots of people on the show talk about the difficulties now of retention, let alone recruiting in the social impact sphere specifically. You've done a good job. How have you done that? How have you successfully retained excellent fundraisers? Because ironically, I think fundraising specifically amongst all the different roles within a social impact organization is probably one of the more difficult ones to keep. So what's your secret? What have you done to really retain good people?
- [15:13]
B
Well, first of all, it's just been a ton of trial and error over time. I'm going to talk about retention first because I really do feel that our retention has led to successful recruitment. So for retention, there's a few things that we have employed as non negotiables in our team practice that I think have coupled together to contribute to this. So one is that we systematically and informally celebrate everybody and everything all the time. So I know we want to talk about some, like, practical things that anybody can take away. So one is I have a team of 75 people and do a monthly staff meeting. We're spread out all over the country. And so it's all virtual and for a little like, you know, the funky vibe sometimes. And so a lot of times it's just one of us talking to 74 of us and then we switch and then one other one of us is talking to the other 74 of us about a topic. Every December, in celebration of the end of our year, in celebration of the time when, you know, people are expressing thanks and doing reflection and feeling connected to each other, we take that meeting and every single person is celebrated specifically and authentically by one other person, usually their supervisor, sometimes their team lead in front of everybody else. And so we even prescriptive that we give all of the presenters a word count so that some people don't feel better than other people do because one person got two minutes worth of celebration and the other one got 30 seconds. And so we do very, very specific and authentic celebrations in that formal way. We have use asana as our project management and we a form that anybody can fill out to celebrate, appreciate or lift up somebody else on the team or a group of people on the team. And so I receive those forms and then I like those submissions and I assign them out, whether it's I do it, our board chair, our CEO, a young person who we serve. And it's things as big as we raised more from our peer to peer event this year than we ever did before. And here's all the people who contributed that to things that are more behind the scenes. Like we accentuated a successful CRM conversion for one of our Covenant House sites. Right? So all the things, all the things that seem a little bit more behind the scenes and we specifically and authentically and deliberately celebrate them. And then we take a lot of time to celebrate our collective big wins together. The second and it's probably the one that took me the longest to learn is ensuring that everybody on our team is acutely aware of what success looks like for them. And then so there's no mystery. And then we are relentless in supporting people to achieve whatever success looks like for them so that they aren't living in this mysterious space of like was that good, was that bad? Did I hit my goal? Did I not hit my goal? I used to shy away from that because I was so busy building a team that was collaborative that I was afraid that strict KPIs and goals would be divisive. It would inadvertently put people in competition with each other or have people focus on their own silos and not on the bigger picture. So it took a lot of time and refinement to learn what we should be asking people to strive for and what we should be measuring and making it a combination of team goals and individual goals. But I think know that I take a lot of comfort in knowing what's expected of me and whether people think I'm achieving it.
- [19:04]
A
Yeah, no, thanks for sharing those insights. Again, it's such a difficult thing to do. It's not that it's hard to understand what works, but it's. I think it's the intentionality and I could tell you've been really intentional to build, you know, these things into your organization so you can retain great talent and top talent. Okay, let's go back to giving and specifically a giving calendar. A lot of social impact organizations have a giving calendar. Some use it better than others. How can teams really use this kind of calendar to set realistic goals? Number one, but also year end giving. Can people do that are listing really maximize their calendar's goals when it comes to their giving calendar?
- [19:41]
B
Oh, love it, love it. Okay, so the mass market level. So my organization just happened to be a version be built on mass market, specifically direct mail. And so for 50 something years there I inherited the beautiful science of a calendar that had long been tested and a culture that had long been driven by pilots to see what the best cadence and what the best messaging and what the best timing is of the cultivation and solicitation information was that we're sending out. And so I think it's, it's having that adhering to it and then consistently constantly building into your practice a relook at it to ensure that one it's actually working that you're not that your activity isn't confused for productivity because those are obviously two very different things that can often run counter to each other. But also that your audience isn't changing. Like people used to enjoy receiving things more than they do now or when they used to open every email. Now they're maybe opening two emails a year. But they're looking at everything that we're doing on social. So consistently refining in the mass market what you are offering to your audience because you know from their behavior what's working and what's not working. Right. And then, but then when it comes to the more high level individualized relationships, we take what feels like an ordinate and tedious amount of time planning our year long interactions with our supporters. When I look back at like my practice practices, I have so many things like oh my God, how did I do that? The biggest one of those, and I know anybody who's fundraised will identify with this is the last time I talked to this person is when I thanked them for last year's gift. Right? Like, doesn't that like it's like, like it's like, yep, that's the, the pit in your stomach is when that cycle goes by and you realize that that was the last encounter that you had with the person was the last time you asked them for money. And so we have really disciplined ourselves and to prepare a year long calendar for each individual person. Obviously there's some templated stuff like every November we're reaching out about Youth Homelessness Awareness Month. You know, every, every Thanksgiving we're reaching out to thank them for being a supporter, you know, those sorts of things. But when it comes to the individual relationships, we, we prepare in great detail what our touch points are going to be based on what we know about that supporter. How often do they like to hear from us? What do they like to hear about? Are they more mission focused? Are they more focused? Are we reaching out because a young person graduated from high school or are we reaching out because they're, it's the anniversary of their husband's passing. So what's important to them to hear from us about and in that is when does the solicitation happen? Is it, is it more incremental where we ask them at this time of year and this time of year because those are the things they're interested in? Or do we plan it out from the beginning of the year so that we get a sense of what they are going to be most motivated by or are they a person who we want to get a five year commitment from so that the rest of those other, you know, four years and 11 months are just spent on building the relationship and Keeping them engaged and helping them to feel like we're not just in a transactional relationship, that we really do care about your engagement. So on the high level relationship, I think the communications calendar has to be so tailored to the individual and that the time that it takes is kind of boring. It feels like unproductive when you first start doing it. It feels like you just want to be on the phone or in their living room talking to them. But I just found that without it, people either slip through the cracks or we're just dealing with them in a templated way and not in a customized, tailored way.
- [23:39]
A
We'll be right back. Are you looking for an easy and effective way to, to boost your nonprofit's donations? Well, look no further than DonorBox, the online fundraising platform that streamlines your fundraising efforts, maximizes donations and simplifies giving for your supporters. With Donorbox, you can create beautiful donation forms, accept digital wallet payments, track donations, and send auto receipts. And the best part, there are no setup or monthly fees and no long term contracts required. So what are you waiting for? Visit donorbox.org today to get started. That is www.donorbox.org. okay, well, there's no doubt that when it comes to donations and people giving, then you want to make it as simple as possible, right? You don't want any complication when it comes to donating. If it gets complicated, people actually stop giving. They've studied this. You want to make it super easy or they won't return. They maybe get through it once and they're like, well, that was so difficult. I'm not going to do that again. Talk about two or three quick changes you've made at in a house, like mobile friendly forms, digital wallet options, perhaps easy recurring gift toggles. What could you recommend to my listeners? How to make giving, for lack of better term, easier, faster and just really a good experience, like a positive experience, particularly when it comes to year end giving. What do you recommend for my listeners?
- [25:04]
B
The first one at the top of my list will always be prioritizing monthly giving over one time giving. And, and as the years go by, everybody just becomes so much more accustomed to that. You know, like where we're all playing for our Netflix subscriptions. We all understand what it means to have like things come out of our bank accounts every month and the automation of that is helpful to the organization, but it's also so helpful to the donor because they have to do it one time and that's it. And then they can just enjoy the benefit that they're putting out. Into the world. I think the second is to make it super easy for the supporter to understand what the impact is that they're making. So instead of them clicking a form that's just about a dollar amount that they're clicking, they're clicking on impact, they're not clicking on $. And I think that makes it so easy because it takes care of their two most important decisions in one transaction. It is, yes, I can give within a certain budget, but I also want to have this impact and it allows them to make one decision instead of just making so super clear to them. And especially as donors get younger, younger than me, as time goes on, they want to know what that impact is. They don't want to just give to a brand, they want to give to an impact. And so I think that's another one. And then I think lastly is just is doing as much as possible, especially in the major giving level. Those were two more of the like first level and sustainer level. But thinking about major giving, it, it's using and challenging ourselves to say, maybe this is the calendar year end where we're not just going to ask for one major gift or a replication of their prior gift, but it's where we're going to increase it to maybe a three year commitment so that the donor doesn't again have to think next year about how much am I going to give and who did I commit to, but. But really having it be already taken care of in the relationship so that we don't have to to spend each year on that transactional element and making health, forcing them to make that decision again, but instead helping them to commit to it and understanding what the impact of it is and why it's important to us and then continuing on with the relationship with them and our shared love of the mission.
- [27:23]
A
All right, well, you've had a lot of years of experience in the fundraising field, well over 20 years doing it. And there's no doubt there's been lots of changes over the years. You know, when in terms of the fundraising landscape and certainly it's changing again. What have you done to adapt and be nimble in the past and even currently in order to stay relevant and to stay effective, what advice would you pass on to my listeners who are also in the same field?
- [27:46]
B
Well, if you're in my role of leading a team or leading a segment of a team, I think it is without exception to hire people who are smarter at what you're hiring them to do than you are. And that has been, I could say, if there's one secret to the success that my team has experienced. It's that I learned that there are people who are smarter than me at everything and to find them and to hire them into the roles because they are the ones who bring the experience from other organizations and from their own education and study and they are keeping pulse on what's going on in the world. And perhaps they've developed a deeper understanding of their subject matter than I have. And Abby, gosh, hopefully they have. And so I think that is one that will always be true, is to just hire people who are smarter than, than you are all the time, without exception. And then I think the other is to, is to really invest in building a pipeline to younger fundraisers who are going to understand what appeals to the up and coming philanthropists. So I'm in my 50s, I have some sense of what like people in their 50s and above are interested in giving to. But when I look to say my own kids, how they give, what they give to, why they give is completely different than me, my peers, and honestly many of my donors and so, and really investing and listening very closely to people who are younger than us, I think is so key because the world changes so quickly, as you said, Rob. And I think that I am never going to be the one who's going to be able to, to keep up with what the 30 year old or 40 year old up and coming rapist is going to be invested in, but their peers are and so hire them.
- [29:39]
A
Well, I applaud the fact you've stayed in this industry for so long and stayed in the role basically of fundraising for so long, you've obviously been effective at what you do. For my listeners who want to connect with you or learn a little bit more about the Covenant House, where would you send them?
- [29:51]
B
I would go to my LinkedIn. It's really the place where I spend time outside of like my inbox and so on LinkedIn you can find me at Jill Vorndran and that is really the best place. But if you wanna learn more about the COV, you could always go to covenanthouse.org and then navigate your way to what you're looking for. If it's you're figuring out a policy way to end youth homelessness. If you wanna join our team, if you wanna sleep out this November, when we are having thousands of people sleep out in solidarity with young people experiencing homelessness and raising money to help us end this awful problem in our world, that's the place in the portal to do that.
- [30:33]
A
Well, thanks Again, for just sharing all your insights, all your experience. This is a very timely message. We're right in the middle of year end giving season. So again, thanks for being on the show to share your insights.
- [30:41]
B
Yeah. And Rob, thank you. I have such gratitude for folks like you who create these spaces for fundraisers to learn from each other. We're a funky industry where we have big responsibilities, but there's no real standardized, formalized training for us to get it. And so I rely on these people like you who are just putting out all of this great information to the world. So thank you.
- [31:02]
A
That's awesome. Thank you. Yeah, that's. That's been my goal. I'm glad you mentioned that because, yeah, it's my, my, when I first started this podcast was really to get great information out, get good leaders like you telling what they're doing, sharing what they're doing so that people can learn. So this is a, to me, an educational opportunity. Right. To learn about great best practices across the country, in some cases around the world. So, anyway, thanks for sharing that. That's definitely been my goal. And thanks for you, the listener. Thanks for tuning in. We will see you next week. Hey, friends. Well, I wanted you to know that this podcast can be found on itunes, Spotify, Amazon, Google podcasts, and wherever you listen to other podcasts. I also want to encourage you to, like, subscribe and share this podcast with others. This will actually help us get this great content out to more nonprofit leaders just like you. You can also join the network, Nonprofit Leadership Podcast Community. Find other resources and interviews of past guests, all on my website, nonprofit leadershippodcast.org well, thanks again for listening. And until next time, keep making your world better. This podcast is sponsored by DonorBox. DonorBox, helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business.