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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. Foreign. Welcome to Nonprofit Lowdown. I'm your host, Rhea Wong. Hey hey podcast listeners. Rhea Wong with you here. So this must be non profit Lowdown. So I am coming to you from very chilly New York City. Wherever you are in the world, I hope that you are staying warm because it is cold out here. Maybe that's the benefit to global warming. Anyway, I want to talk today about why the old model of fundraising is broken and what to do instead. So I'm going to be talking about this throughout 2026. But you need a system. I often think about that quote from James Clear, who is the author of one of my favorite books, Atomic Habits, and he writes, you do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. And y', all, it's 2026. It is time for us to build systems in our fundraising because we can not continue to rely on the heroics of one person in the organization. This is tied to my podcast from last week. Y', all, people are tired. We are burning out left, right and center. And until we decide to start doing business differently, we're going to keep saying the same thing over and over again. So let's talk about what it would look like to create a system for your major gifts. Let's get into this. Most nonprofits do not have a major gift system. Let's just be real. They have activity. And if that sentence makes you feel a little called out, good. This episode is for you. Because activity feels productive. But activity without a system is just motion, and motion without direction is exhausting. So if the fundraising lives in your head, if your donor conversations are stalling, if people are ghosting after what felt like a great meeting, if your board keeps asking questions you can feel the answers to but can't quite articulate, you know you're vibing, but you have no data. This is not because you're bad at fundraising. It's because you're being asked to lead without a system. So today we're going to talk about what that actually means to build a major gift system in 2026. And why guessing is costing you far more than you think. So let's take a step back. I'm going to say something out loud and that most fundraisers never hear. Now, I've been in this business now for over 20 years and I talk to lots of fundraisers, and no single fundraiser that I've ever talked to wakes up in the morning and says, you know what, I really can't wait to strong arm somebody today. The truth is, if you are in this work is because you care deeply about a mission, you care about your donors. You want fundraising to feel aligned and relational and human. But here's what I see over and over again. You're having conversations, you're sending emails, you're doing meetings, coffees, lunches, events. And yet nothing feels predictable, nothing feels repeatable, nothing feels clear. So everything lives in your head. Who needs a follow up? Who might be interested? Who you think you should call next? And that's not a strategy. That's cognitive overload. And eventually, sadly, we see this in the sector all the time. It leads to burnout. So when we're basing our major gift activity on vibes and guesswork, guesswork is expensive. It's not just financially expensive, but it is emotionally expensive. When you're basing your activity on guesses and vibes instead of actual strategy and framework, you're creating mistiming, lost momentum, the almost gifts that quietly die. Burnout disguise as commitment. And so you tell yourself, I just need to work harder. I just need one more email. I just need to get through this season. But here's the truth that nobody wants to say out loud. And I want you to write this down if you can. I hope you're not driving. You cannot fundraise relationally without a relational system. Let me say that one more time. You cannot fundraise relationally without a relational system. And so I'm here to tell you it is not your fault. A lot of us have inherited a system that simply does not work. And instead of acknowledging the fact that it does not work, instead of acknowledging that the strategy may be off, we just grind harder. And then we blame ourselves when it doesn't work. Without a system, even your best intentions create pressure on you and your donors. Let's think through what a real system does. A real major gift system does three things. It tells you one, who to engage, two, when to engage, and three, what the next right move is. That's it. There's no scripts, there's no gimmicks. There are no pressure tactics. And clarity and consent is what allows fundraising to feel human again. Maybe I should get a hat, make fundraising human again. Let's talk about the old model that a lot of us inherited, myself included. All right, so for those of you who I wish I had a whiteboard here, you're probably listening on your podcast. But imagine this. A lot of us have been brought up with this model of identify donors, qualify, cultivate, solicit, and steward. So it usually looks like a circle, identify as at the top. Then it moves to qualify, then it moves to cultivate, then it moves to solicit, then it moves to steward. On paper, looks great. Totally logical, totally linear. In practice, it does not work. It is organization centered. So let's talk about why it doesn't work. In the identify stage, we usually identify people based on wealth, or maybe they gave to another similar organization. Maybe we're trolling them. Maybe we do wealth screens, but we identify the prospect list based on wealth, not on interest. Then if we do any kind of qualification process, it usually looks like looking at a wealth screen. Maybe we ask for an introduction, but we qualify, quote, unquote, people to be in our caseload without actually ever having a conversation with them. We qualify them without their consent. Then we reach out and we try to start this cultivation process, right? We ask them for coffee, we ask if we can send them information, we invite them to site visits, et cetera. We cultivate them. But ultimately we have a hidden agenda, which is that we're hoping that, that they will like us so much and like the organization so much that they will open their checkbook, let's say, properly identify them. Let's say we qualify them in that we know that they have money and they return our phone calls. Then we cultivate them with some magical, unknown alchemy of different activities. And this is for folks out here who have a moves management system. I'm going to die on this particular hill. The concept of moves management is not bad in concept, but it often happens in the absence of actually talking to a donor and in the absence of actually customizing an experience for a donor. But let's say we befriend them, we cultivate them, and then at some mysterious point in time, we solicit them. When we solicit them, and by the way, this is the reason why donors don't return your phone calls, is that they don't want to be surprised. They. They don't want to be blindsided by an ask that they did not expect. And when we do solicit, a lot of times we don't know the amount that is appropriate because we haven't asked them what their capacity is, what their timing is, and the kinds of things that they want to fund. And the timing is usually on our timeline, not on their timeline. So it's usually tied to things that are org centric, like our end of year or a capital campaign date or some arbitrary milestone that we have to reach. So we solicit on our timeline, not on theirs. And then we move into stewardship briefly until the next ask. A lot of times the stewardship cycle mirrors the cultivation cycle, which is to say it's based on our best guess. Like, at what point do we actually ever ask our donor what kinds of things they would like to see in order for them to feel like partners in the work? I often think of the end of the cycle as a gift and stewardship is tacked on as an afterthought as opposed to being part of the process. Because of the way that we treat our donors, they don't feel partnered, they feel processed. And the fundraisers out here who are doing the best work and have the best of intentions, they feel like they're chasing people who never asked to be chased in the first place. The problem isn't the donors. The problem is the model that we have inherited. So if you're out here and you're listening to this and this is resonating with you, I'm here to tell you it is not your fault. It is because you have inherited a flawed system. And maybe this system worked for a time when people weren't as busy as they are today, but here in 2026, we are battling for attention. I was referencing recently, you know, back in the 90s, because I'm old enough to remember the 90s when we first got email, right? And it was so exciting to get an email right? Like you just waited all day and you, as soon as the ping happened, you opened the email because it was so exciting. Or if you sent an email, you talked about it. We're way past that, y'. All. We. Nobody is out here needing more email. And so we have to recognize that the time that we're living in has shifted. And therefore our time strategy for how to engage people must shift. So let's talk about the shift. The other thing that I want to flag here is that donor mistrust is at an all time high. And I'm sure that you see it yourself in your own behavior, because we have so Many things coming out of so many emails, so many phone calls, so many text messages, all the social media, we have become a little bit numb to all of it. And we lead with skepticism. And unfortunately that skepticism has bled over into the nonprofit field. And so a lot of times people, when you reach out to them as a fundraiser, unfortunately, there is a gap of distrust that you are going to have to overcome simply because of the age that we're living in. So in 2026, the fundraising has to be donor driven. That means that the decisions are going to be based on signals, timing, consent and relationship. I'm going to go over these in detail, but the thing that I want to underline, highlight asterisks for you is consent based fundraising. I'm big on consent in my personal life, I'm big on consent in my professional life. And so why is it that we actually are not asking for consent from our donors to engage them? Let's talk about what this looks like. When you build a system around signals, timing, consent and relationship, you're no longer relying on assumptions or urgency or fiscal year end panic. And I want to talk about what this is. This is the foundation of what is called the Engagement Fundraising Operating System. It was developed by my friend Greg Warner and it is a whole new paradigm of how to think about fundraising. This Engagement Fundraising operating system is not about doing more, it's about doing what matters on purpose. Let's talk about what the framework looks like. If you have in your mind the old model of identify, qualify, cultivate, solicit, steward, I want you to replace that with a new model. And it's still a cycle, but instead of identify, we look at engagement qualification. We break up into two phases, pre qualification and complete qualification. I'm going to walk through that in a second. The cultivation is the same, but instead of solicitation, we replace it with co creation of a proposal and then finally we get to stewardship. So it is a six step process. Because we've broken up qualification into two steps, I'm going to talk about what that means. And because we've reimagined the system, here's the difference. At every stage of the process, the donor is opting in. We're not doing stuff to them, hoping to make them do something for us. Instead we are presenting invitations and value to them to allow themselves to step forward. That brings me to the mechanics that actually change everything. There are four mechanics in this new model that I want to talk about. Mechanic 1 engagement data. We stop guessing. So when we develop our prospect list. When we're trying to identify people who are in our pipeline, we're not looking at random names and donation information on a page. Instead, we look at data, we stop guessing, we track responses, we track initiation, we track follow through, we track depth over time. If they are not responding to your email or responding to your newsletter, or clicking on anything, it's likely that they are not your top prospect. And so when we go to the data, we are basing our outreach not on vibes, not on hope, but on signals that they're sending us, that they're interested in raising their hand. But we're not done yet. And this is where the genius comes in. With this particular model, we have a two step qualification process. Why? Because I'm going to guess you are out here and you're busy, you don't have a lot of time to spend on people who don't want to talk to you. And so in major gift fundraising, disqualifying people is as important as qualifying people. What do I mean by disqualifying? I mean that anybody who is taking up time in your portfolio should be qualified to give. That means that they have capacity to give. That means the timing is right for them. That means that they have a reason for giving. That means that they've shown some level of engagement or some kind of relationship with your organization and that you have permission to engage them. Remember the consent piece. And so in the absence of doing a thorough qualification process, major gift fundraisers end up spending a whole lot of time with people who maybe don't have the money to give. Maybe the timing isn't right. Maybe they had no intention of really giving in the first place. They just kind of liked hanging out with you and they're not engaged in any way. Remember, we want a thorough pre qualification process. In this pre qualification process, we can do it in a couple different ways. We can do it via a conversation or we can do it via a survey. And the survey is designed very intentionally around these five different things that we're trying to find out. If they pass the gate of pre qualification, it means that we're not pursuing them until interest is demonstrated. If there's no mutual curiosity, we pause. That's not rejection, that is respect. And where I find a lot of people make this mistake is they're putting a lot of desperation energy. They're chasing down every single person who kind of gives them a look. It's the equivalent of being in a bar and going up to every single person who kind of winks at you to See, if you want to get married, it's exhausting, right? So pre qualification, think of it as the, the banter before the date. Then once they pass the pre qualification stage, by demonstrating that they have these factors that I discussed, the capacity, timing, et cetera. And by the way, I just want to plug in here. When we talk about capacity, when we're talking about major gifts. Capacity are gifts of assets, not of income. So anybody who indicates, for example, that they have a DAF or they have a family foundation, or they are interested in a qualified charitable distribution, or they have flag that they have left a bequest to you, or they want to give a stock or crypto, that's major gift territory. But let's say you have this nice juicy group of people who've identified that they've completed the survey, they have these different components that you're looking for. Now we move them into the full qualification stage. The qualification equals consent. Once you have these folks who are pre qualified, you then have a conversation. And the conversation is when they agree to be in your caseload, therefore they are only fully qualified. When they say yes, they're saying yes to exploring a partnership. They're saying yes to understand what that means. They're saying yes to continuing the conversation, they're saying yes to get a plan for how you might build a relationship together with the understanding that if and when the time is right, you will co create a proposal together. There's no surprises, there's no gotcha. They are fully aware of what this means. Think of yourself as a philanthropic advisor or like a lawyer with a clear scope of work. You want to lay out exactly what it looks like. And if they say yes and you have been transparent and clear, then they are in your caseload. Anything else is projection mechanic 4 let's talk about your caseload. Caseloads are earned, not assigned. What I mean by that is how many of us have been given a list of 100 people and told this is your caseload, right? That doesn't mean anything. But when you use this new strategy, the caseloads are earned and they're people who've opted in willingly consented to be in your caseload. And the caseload entry is based on alignment, not obligation. This protects the donor and frankly, it protects the fundraiser. Because now you are spending time with people who understand what you're doing, why you're doing it with total transparency. And therefore your ROI goes way up. Because you already had the conversation about the engagement, you were clear, you had a process. When you have a System like this, it prevents premature asks, it prevents donor discomfort, it prevents fundraiser shame. I don't think we need more shame out here. Shame is a toxic emotion and it prevents the relationship from being damaged because you've asked for consent. And here's the part that people don't talk about enough is it lets leaders stop carrying fundraising alone because you have a process, and that process is scalable and repeatable and can be taught to all of the people in your organization that carry fundraising. So let me ask you, honestly, I want you to pause this podcast and really think about this question. Where is your system breaking down right now? Is it the engagement? Is it the follow up? Is it the clarity? Is it the capacity? So if you can't answer that clearly, that is the signal, and I just want to flag here that some of you will listen to this and think, oh, I'm going to issue a survey to my whole database. Please do not do this, I beg of you. If you do nothing else. The survey strategy is very intentional and specific and it should be done in batches. So the survey is not a research tool. The survey is an engagement tool. The survey is the first step towards opening a conversation. Remember, your job is not to close a gift, it's to open a relationship. So every single survey that you send out, if you do send out surveys, you should be prepared to have a follow up conversation with every single person. So if you're going to send this out to your whole database and let's say a hundred people respond, unless you have time to have a hundred conversations within a week or two, you probably should not do that. So if you do choose to do this, I would advise a slow roll where you're batching out. And by the way, why not start with your board? This strategy is very, very nuanced. Everything from the way we word the email to the way that we word the survey, to the way that we follow up after the survey. So if this is of interest to you, and with great power comes great responsibility, there are two paths that you can take. So path one is you listen to this podcast, you decide to give it a whirl, you possibly risk burning some donors because you don't necessarily have the strategy down. It'll take some guesswork. You might put some undue pressure on your donors. So that's path one. Path two is a real system, the engagement Fundraising operating system. I have now been able to work with hundreds of nonprofits that have used this and we've really worked out the kinks. This system means that there are clear decisions and aligned asks. And here's the hard truth here. If nothing changes in your current operations, how long can you survive on this guesswork path before you burn out? And I know some of you are listening and thinking, I'm already burnt out. So if that's you, let's talk. For those of you who are new to the podcast, I have spent my entire career in nonprofits. I was an executive director for over a decade and the last. Gosh, what year are we in the last eight years I have really dedicated myself to be a student of major gift fundraising and the psychology behind giving. And so this is where my work comes in. What I do is I help organizations implement this system, the Engagement Fundraising operating system that I just laid out so that fundraising stops depending on heroics. The way that I do it is through my program called the Big Ask Gift. It is not a course, it's not outsourced fundraising, and it is definitely not a quick fix. It is an implementation partnership. So if you decide that you would like help with this and you want to learn more about what the Big Ask Gift program is, let me just talk about what that is. Within my program. It is a cohort based model where you're working with other nonprofits side by side and we're embedding the system. We are building the Engagement Fundraising Operating System to live within your current development shop. We build the system, we launch the system, we test the system, we relaunch, we embed it and we make it livable. So if this episode is hitting close to home, the next step here is simple. You can book a call to talk to us. It's called the Donor Growth Evaluation Call. I'll make sure that it's in the show notes. On this call, we'll look at your systems. We'll identify where the momentum breaks and decide honestly what the right path forward is for you. Because clarity beats another quarter of partial fixes. So I'll leave you with this. What would change if fundraising stopped living in your head? And what would make it possible for you, your team and your donors if you finally built a system? It's 2026, y'. All. We do not have time to waste. So thanks for listening. If this is interesting to you at all and you want to learn more about this, go ahead and book a Donor Growth Evaluation call and we can walk through your system. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next time. 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.