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Hey you, it's Rhea Wong. If you're listening to Nonprofit Load on, I'm pretty sure that you'd love my weekly newsletter. Every Tuesday morning you get updates on the newest podcast episodes and then interspersed we have fun special invitations for newsletter subscribers only and fundraising inspo because I know what it feels like to be in the trenches alone. On top of that, you get cute dog photos. Best of all, it is free. So what are you waiting for? Head over to riawong.com now to sign up. Quick heads up. I'm running a free live webinar on turning Giving Tuesday into Major gifts discovery fest November 11th at 12pm eastern. If you want a 30 day plan, an impact brief template, and our 72 hour sprint scripts to book leadership gifts before year end, grab your seat in the show notes. It's free. Welcome to Nonprofit Lowdown. I'm your host Rhea Wong. Hey Nonprofit Fam. It's Rhea here with Nonprofit Lowdown. This episode is for the folks out here who have been listening to me for a while, who may have caught one of my trainings, who might be in my audience or my email list or follow me on social media. Bottom line is if you have ever wanted to work with me on your major gift strategy, this is your nudge. This is the time. I want to let you all know I only have 20 spots left between now and the end of 2025 to work with me in my program, the Big Ask Gift Program. Now the other thing that you should know is that prices will go up in 2026. So if you ever wanted to work with me, now would be the time. How do you make this happen? Book a darn growth evaluation, call in the show notes and we will talk about whether it's a right mutual fit for both of us. Now let's talk about board members. When I talk to people who are interested in working with me, oftentimes it is the board that is the blockage and it's usually some combination of board members who don't want to invest the money or who will say things like we only have $1,000 for professional development. So in today's episode what I wanted to do was break down for you and for your board the case for why this is a great investment. I think that it is always important when you try to make the case for a board member for approval of an expenditure that you make it very clear in black and white plain numbers what the ROI is. And I say this a lot. When I think about expenses, I think about it in one of three things. So if expenditures do do not fall into one of three categories, then you probably shouldn't spend it. One, it makes more money. Two, it saves time. Or three, it increases operational efficiency. In this case, enrollment in my Big Ask Gift program does all three things. I'm going to talk about it, go through it one by one. But when you enroll at my program, you will see if you do the work, if you amazing results. And I gotta tell you guys, some of the results that my students are seeing really is even blowing my mind. These are students out here who are doing the work, but my God, we are seeing some incredible wins. Like Amy who closed a hundred thousand dollars in one weekend, or Tommy who closed a 75k gift or. Or folks like George who are racking up 50k gifts like it is. Like it's just candy. I would never sell you on something that I didn't feel really worked. And what we're seeing are some serious results. That is just something to keep in mind. But let's talk about board members for a hot second here. The goal of this podcast today is that we want to make board approval simple and fast. So we'll walk through the math, we'll talk about the story, and I will give you a ready to forward packet that your board can pass in one sitting. This is a clear investment to unlock predictable major gift revenue. Let's talk about why boards block things. Boards block when the case is fuzzy. If boards can't see ROI in under a minute, they punt. And we know that every punt, every hesitation means lost time and lost money. So every single day that you are moving forward without a strategy and without taking action on your major gifts, you're leaving money on the table and it's leaking out of the pipeline. Because let me tell you something, your donors are being spoken to by other people. Your donors are being spoken to by people who have an airtight strategy. So do not lose your donors because of hesitation. Here's what we're going to do about that today. There are three moves that we're going to make today. One, we're going to frame the ROI of working with me in my Big Ask gift program with plain numbers and price. Your no strategy tax. That is the amount of money that you are leaving on the table without a clear strategy. Two, we're going to give your board five concrete jobs that fit into a 40 to 60 minutes a month. And finally three, we're going to give you a board approval packet which will be a one side story, a one page brief and an eight slide RO deck script script which with affordable email and a calculator that you can use for your board members. So again, if you've been listening for a while and have considered working with me, now is the time. Like I said, I'm holding 20 client spots between now and December 31st and prices will go up January 1st. If you're a non profit who is at least a million dollars and you have an existing individual giving plan and you want to level up to major gifts, apply today for a donor growth evaluation Call with we'll put it in the show notes. On the call we'll map a 90 day plan and we'll hold 2025 pricing if we are a fit. Okay, let's talk about roi. When we think about roi, we want to keep it simple. There are three things I want us to look at. Revenue, Quite simply, are you making more money than before working with me hours back? Are you being more efficient with your time and have you mitigated risk? When we calculate the net roi, which is the net return on investment of participating in my program, what we're looking at is incremental revenue plus the value of the hours saved. So when we consider all of the time that we save you by providing with scripts, templates, strategies and all of the time that you're not spending chasing after people who don't want to talk to you, and we look at the hourly cost, that is how we calculate the value of the hour saved minus the cost of the program. So right now my program is $1,200 a month for 12 months. We take all that and we divide it by the cost and that is the net ROI of working with me. When we look at the payback, we're looking at the cost divided by the monthly net benefit. So typically what we're seeing is payback by month two. And in some extreme cases people are seeing payback within a couple of weeks. Then you will see a net per month afterwards. So let's say month two to 12. Everything there is gravy and that is just really conservative. So let's talk about revenue. The no strategy shows up as a bill that you are paying each month. So let's make it real. We are going to price it. In the show notes, you are going to have a calculator. In this calculator we're going to have a couple of inputs. For example first year donors, we're going to have a baseline versus a target retention and your average gift size. Then we're going to look at multi year donors, your baseline versus your target upgrades and your average upgrade. Then we're going to think about the discovery attempts. How many conversations are you having that actually end up in a meeting? And of those meetings, how many gifts are you actually closing? Because when we know our close percentage, we can estimate what incremental changes in close percentage might translate to. We're going to look at the hours saved per month and conservatively. And so based on these numbers, you're going to get a monthly net benefit when you're going to expect the payback from this investment, a 12 month conservative net and the tax that you're paying on not having a major gift strategy. I want to talk about one of my clients as just an example. So this is a client that does food justice in la. They were very busy, but they did not feel productive. And so we did a big step back and we ran a fast signal scan on people in their pipeline that had demonstrated recency, affinity, capacity and engagement. Then we sent a couple of light actions to see who raised their hand. We did thank you calls, a short update and a low lift visit. And there were two donors who leaned in based on the coaching that they received. They raised $100,000 from two donors in one month. So here's a takeaway. We're looking at the signals, we're looking at staff action with coaching, and we're getting cash in the door fast. Now, you might be saying, Bria, this sounds great, but my board isn't engaged in fundraising or they're not engaged in the way that I want them to be. Because, let's be real, most boards are not engaged in the way that you would want them to be. But Here are the five ways that board members could be engaged in fundraising. 1. Surface signaling. So can they do? Three thank you calls a week from a hit list. 2. Warm introductions, one intro per director per month. 3. Small circle hosting. I've talked time and time again about how galas are dead. So can your board members host a kitchen table or a zoom circle per quarter? We're thinking 45 minutes, six to eight guests, two stories. One next step. Four. Stewardship moments. Can they send a note and check in to your top 30 donors tied to outcomes? And 5. Accountability rhythm. Can we get a 20 minute pipeline huddle each month so that we can assess where we are with meetings, proposals, cycle time, upgrades and net new money? The script for the board is you don't have to ask for money. You open doors and create moments. Staff can do the ask, but we need a framework to best maximize their time. Let's say this sounds good to you and you do want to enroll in my big Ask if program. What happens once you do is we will build and run a 90 day major gift plan and install the engagement fundraising operating system within your existing development shop. What this looks like is you're going to get discovery scripts, we're going to right size your caseload, we'll talk about upgrade pathways, we'll have proposal templates and a fast review lane. We'll have a board menu and cadence for what how they can be involved. We'll have dashboards and we have live coaching opportunities so that we are building live and qualified prospects are moving closer to the close. So when we run through the calculator we see the payback month stated from your particular inputs and conservatively you should expect anywhere from a 3 to 10x return on investment within 12 months. What we're going to include for you is affordable email to the board in the show notes below. It will outline the investment, the payback, the 12 month conservative net and the no strategy tax that you will calculate in the calculator attached. The idea is that you want to make it easy for them to say yes. We invest X, we break even by Y. The net money will be Z in 12 months and we'll also include an ROA brief so it'll be a one page. We'll fill and attach it on the call. It'll have the header, the problem cost and the story that you tell to help make the case for your board about why this is a problem that you should solve right now. If this sounds good to you and if you do want to work together, remember, book your donor growth evaluation call. Look at the assets that we have included below and we'll help you shape up these assets for presentation to your board. A couple of the things that board members have said about why they may object to participating in the Big S Gift program. Things like we tried this already, we have weekly metrics and we have a stated payback by month staff capacity. We don't have enough staff or hours in the day. The truth is major Gifts is the most efficient way to raise money. It's about 10 cents on the dollar compared to 50 cents on the dollar for event fundraising. It is the sort of thing that you have to prioritize and that you have to set staff time aside to do. But the ROI is huge. We don't have bore time 40 to 60 minutes a month with a simple menu. What if it flops? We've Run the numbers. You see the most conservative case. But the other thing that I will share is I have a money back guarantee. So if you enroll in my program, you make a good faith effort to do all of the things and there's some crazy world in which you don't make up the cost of participation in new or increased donors. I will refund your money and I've never had to refund anybody. The reason being is that we carefully screen everybody in the program to make sure that we can really help you. So these are the metrics, red or grain. There are no surprises. Bottom line, we're going to make board approval easy. If this is something that you want to do. If you see the value of having a major gift strategy and how I can help you. Remember, boards say no to fuzzy things. And so what we're going to do is that we are going to help them. We're going to give you a one size story, we're going to give you board jobs and we're going to give you a board approval packet which you can get if you book a donor growth evaluation call. So final point here, check the show notes. There's the board ROI brief, ROI duck script, ROI calculator and then apply for your donor growth evaluation call where we will help you to shape all of these assets for your board. I have 20 spots available from now until December 31st. And remember, prices rise January 1st again. If you are an organization of over a million with an individual giving plan and you are ready to level up to major gifts, now is the time. I'll see you next week. Hey fundraisers. Looking to nail those big fundraising asks? Check out my big ask gift program@riawong.com Bag say goodbye to uncertainty and hello to confidence with my program. Get expert strategies and personalized support to secure those game changing donations. Don't let fear hold you back. Join me and take your fundraising to new heights. We're enrolling now@riawong.com bag. That's riawong.com bag. So if you like big asks and you cannot lie, I'll see you in the program.