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Hey, podcast listeners, it's Rhea Wong with you once again with Nonprofit Lowdown. So today I wanted to talk about something that I have been obsessing about ever since the SpaceX IPO. And it is this AI. And all of these fancy IPOs are coming down the pike, are creating millionaires, billionaires, and yes, even trillionaires at unprecedented levels. But the question that kept nagging at me was how do nonprofits access all of these new resources coming into the market? And so today I'm going to present some ideas about how you, as a nonprofit, might be able to increase your access to this new wealth so that you can do more good work. Before we get into this, if you are here listening and you find it useful, forward it to a friend, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcast. It just helps more people find this and get the information that helps them run their nonprofit. So thanks so much. Okay, let's start here. Imagine it's Tuesday morning and a founder that you've never heard of just got notified that their shares are about to vest or that there is a new IPO. All of a sudden they have $47 million in their bank account by Thursday, or they have $10 million on paper like that now by Friday, they're on a call with their wealth advisor. By Monday, they're asking, where should I give? And if your nonprofit isn't in the conversation, you're not getting that money. The strategy that most nonprofits are doing right now are. They're still cold calling wealthy people or hoping that these people show up at a gala. Meanwhile, the largest transfer of wealth in a generation is happening right now. And the window to be the top of mind is between 6 to 12 months. After that, the giving strategy is locked in. The advisor has pointed them somewhere, and the money is committed. So today I'm breaking down exactly how to position your nonprofit to be the obvious choice when newly liquid people are deciding where their money goes. This isn't guesswork. This is the strategy that advisors use, and this is how wealth actually flows. So this is what your nonprofit needs to do right now to capture this window. By the end of this episode, you'll know which relationships matter, how to get visibility in front of high net worth donors before they've even made that first gift. And what your nonprofit needs to do this week to not miss out on the wealth wave that's already happening now. There are two very important things happening that you need to know about in terms of wealth. The first is the wealth transfer Right now, baby boomers are transferring their wealth over to the younger generation. In addition to that, we have a scale of wealth creation that is driven by tech right now, and it is unprecedented. Soon we will be looking at the IPOs of Anthropic and OpenAI, which is not even to talk about all of the business that is happening aside from these very large organizations. So it's not just the big headline IPOs, it's also secondary market sales. So founder liquidity events happening constantly, venture exits, small companies getting acquired by bigger companies. And money is moving really fast. And most of it is happening in a compressed window. So here's the blind spot that nonprofits have. When someone has a liquidity event. They generally don't call their favorite nonprofit. They call their lawyer, they call their wealth advisor, they call their tax person. Their advisory team is the one asking questions about philanthropy, not the donor. And this is where most nonprofits lose. They think the donor is the decision maker. They're generally not. The donor at this point is overwhelmed. They just got $50 million. They're meeting with six different advisors. They're trying to figure out how to structure their wealth, how to protect their family, how to optimize their taxes, how to handle their investments. So philanthropy is one piece of that conversation. And frankly, it's not the piece that is leading. So what is happening is that the wealth advisor is asking, where should you go? The tax attorney might be asking, how do we make this tax efficient? The family office advisor is asking, what's the long term giving strategy? But these advisors don't know which nonprofits are worth the money. And it could well be that the donor doesn't even have any idea or connection to a particular nonprofit at that point. But each of these advisors know a different piece of the puzzle. So the wealth advisor knows the wealth structures. They know tax law. They don't know nonprofits necessarily. So they're likely asking for recommendations, they're asking for resources. They're asking, who do we refer our clients to? So that is your opening. Your job isn't to find newly liquid people. Your job is to be the resource their advisor recommends. Now let's talk about your current playbook and why it's not working. Perhaps you are doing cold outreach to newly wealthy people. I know you're out there, but let me tell you, these newly wealthy people are getting 100 million asks from their cousins, dentists, best friend, right? And the fact is, most of these emails are not going to get opened. 2. Maybe you're hoping that they find you on your website, but frankly, by the time they land there, they've already talked to an advisor. They're already taking advice from somebody else. Or maybe you're waiting for them to attend your gala. And also maybe at the gallery, you're hoping in some weird way that you're going to ascertain that they have the capacity to make a major gift. The thing I would also say, too, is even if someone attends your gala, it takes about 18 months to warm up the relationship for a major gift. And frankly, by then, the gift decision's already been made. Or maybe you're throwing them onto your organizational newsletter, but you're broadcasting to noise. They're not even paying attention. Here's what's actually working. You need to be the nonprofit the advisor thinks of. When a client asks where to give. That changes everything about how you move. So I'm going to walk you through four levers that I think you should be thinking about in order to get in front of the right people who can actually make money happen. These are the actual ways wealth is flowing from newly liquid people to nonprofits. So it's not theory, it's not hope, it's actual money management. So of these four, pick the ones that matches your board's existing network. Do that one really well, then layer on the others. Okay, lever one. The advisor Play. This is the highest leverage move, and it requires exactly one thing. A board member or major donor with a connection to a wealth advisor or an M and A. And that's it. That's how it works. Your board member has a friend. That friend works at, let's say, Morgan Stanley Private wealth, or they're a tax attorney at a firm that closes tech deals, or they run a family office. Or your board member calls them up and says, hey, I chair a nonprofit. Listen to the boarding care. We help newly liquid founders think through giving strategy. Would it make Sense to grab 30 minutes and talk about how we work with your clients? Now, notice that you start with the need of the donor, not the need of your organization. So starting there, that it's not a pitch. It is a conversation that positions you as being helpful to their client. Because the truth is, advisors are always getting asked, where should I give? Constantly, by their clients, but they generally don't have a good answer. They know wealth management. They don't know nonprofits. So they say, let me get back to you. Then they call your board member, and suddenly you're the person that they recommend. Now, when their client gets liquid and asks, where should I give the advisor Says I know someone. They work with founders exactly like you. Here's their number. That's the warm intro. The client is already thinking about giving. They're already asking the question. You're not cold calling them. You're answering the exact question they're asking. Let me tell you which advisors matter most. Wealth advisors at institutional firms. Morgan Stanley, Private wealth, ubs, Goldman Sachs. These firms explicitly hire teams to work with tech founders. They manage 10 million to $500 million accounts. When a founder at your target mission area gets liquid, these are the firms that are in the room or M and A attorneys. These are the ones who close tech deals. They know exactly when someone gets liquid and for how much. They're in the room at close and they can recommend your nonprofit as a giving partner or family office advisors. So at 50 million plus, founders often set up family offices or work with multifamily offices. These advisors are building long term wealth strategies, which includes philanthropy. You don't need to build 10 advisor relationships, you need one. One really good relationship and one advisor who gets what you do and refers clients to you. And that relationship compounds. The advisor can become a referral engine if and only if the donor has a positive experience. Right? Because the last thing an advisor wants to do is to recommend you and have their client come back and say, yeah, that was a terrible experience. So if you manage this relationship right and you manage the donor experience right, you could perhaps count on this advisor for two or three serious donor introductions per year at the 25 to $100,000 level. So, so that's 250 to $300,000 a year from one advisor relationship. But how do you build it? People know people. So if you have your board chair, you can ask your board chair, your other members of your board, or your ed to audit their network. Do you know anyone who works at a law firm, a family office? If yes, you have your opening. So it'll take one call. Would it make sense for us to grab 30 minutes and talk about how we help your clients think about giving? If no, ask your major donors if they have a wealth advisor. That's an intro point. Then develop one thing, a one pager major gift strategy for newly liquid founders include how to donate appreciated assets, DAF options, tax efficiency, specific giving opportunities at your nonprofit. So that's your resource. So the mistake that most nonprofits make, they try to build 10 advisor relationships at once or they don't have the assets to back up, or they talk about themselves and not about the client. So if you do that you'll fail at all of them. So focus on one, do it really well and then expand. So let's talk about lever two, the deal book. LinkedIn play. So this is the active prospecting lever. It doesn't require any existing advisor relationships. It, it's systematic, it's repeatable, and it directly feeds into lever one. But it is a much longer shot. So here's how it works. You can scan DealBook or CrunchBase for IPO announcements and liquidity events. Then you identify someone whose mission alignment matches your nonprofit. Then you check, do I have a warm path to this person? You most likely do. You might know someone who knows someone who knows them. That's the whole game. But it's a long game, so let me walk you through it. So step one, you set up a weekly scan. So Monday morning, 15 minutes, go on Crunchbase. Look at recent IPO announcements and series funding rounds. Write down five names, founders or CEOs or senior level execs who just got liquid and work in your mission area. Step two, LinkedIn Research. For each name, search them on LinkedIn just to find a connection path, if any. Do you have any mutuals? Does someone on your board know them? Is the founder In a community where you have visibility, is there a second degree connection you can activate? So you're looking for warm, at least not cold. Then step three, create a tracker. You can do it in ClickUp, you can do it in Google sheets, wherever the title is. Newly liquid prospects connection mapping. Then you list the names and you tag them with a connection level. Red means no connection. It is cold. Yellow is one degree away. A mutual connection. Someone on your board knows someone who knows them. And then green, direct connection. Your board member knows them. You have a warm intro path. Step four, work the greens first. The ones where you actually have a path, you call your board member. You say, hey, I know you know Sarah Chen. She just had a series B exit. Would you be comfortable making a warm intro? I'd love to have a 15 minute conversation about giving strategy. The important thing about this outreach is that you have to present it as a value add to them, not a money grab for you. It's all about the warm handshake your board member essentially is vouching for you. Now, step five is you look at the yellow ones. These are one degree away. And you're looking for a mutual. So you can ask your board member, do you know anyone who knows Sarah Chen? Sometimes they do. Sometimes the mutual connection is someone else on your team. You make the ask through that path and the red ones leave them alone for now. Cold outreach does not work. Here's why this matters. This lever gives you a system to find newly liquid people before anyone else does. You're not waiting for them to come to you. You're noticing when it happens and moving fast. So most nonprofits see crunch based announcements and think, oh cool. And then they do nothing. They don't have a system, they don't have a process. So the moment passes. But with this lever, you have a repeatable system. Every Monday you scan. Every Monday you identify prospects. Every Monday you check for warm pass. And every week you have two to three warm outreaches that didn't exist before. So here's the math. You're potentially identify five prospects per week. Maybe 20% of them have a warm connection. That's one green opportunity per week, one board member intro per week, four per month. That means 48 per year. Obviously not all of them are going to become donors, but some do. And the ones that do are warm introductions and not cold. So they're pre qualified by virtue of being recently liquid and mission aligned. And the other thing this lever does is it feeds lever one. So you're finding newly liquid people. Some of them will have wealth advisors. So if your board member knows them and makes the intro, you're suddenly meeting with someone post liquidity when they're actively thinking about giving strategy. That's the warm intro to an advisor influence prospect. This is probably the most accessible lever, particularly if you don't have a direct connection right now to a wealth advisor. You don't need an existing advisor relationship. You don't need founder board members. You just need a board member willing to make an intro when you find a yellow or green prospect. So let's talk about lever three that can play now. This is probably where most of you are going to play, assuming that you don't have the kind of network that can get you in front of newly liquid founders. Lever three is the candid play. So this is somewhat passive. This play is you don't find prospects yourself. When folks open dabs at Fidelity or Schwab or et cetera, there's often a link to Candid where they're asking the donors to do their own research. As they say, what you need to do is to be findable when newly liquid people are looking. So the reality is Schwab and Fidelity, et cetera don't have their own nonprofit directories. They refer everything to Candid, which used to be called Guidestar. But here's what's important newly liquid people often open DAFs immediately post liquidity. It's the easiest vehicle. You don't need appreciated shares. No capital gains tax. You get an immediate tax deduction. So you have no pressure to give right away. And so the money sits there while you figure out where to send it. So a newly liquid opens a Schwab dapp. They get an email. Hey, where would you like to give? They search Candid. Let's say they search education nonprofits in Brooklyn or climate tech nonprofits or fundraising coaching. Your nonprofit needs to show up in that search and it needs to look like the obvious choice. So what does a winning candid profile look like? First of all, complete information. Do not skip fields. Incomplete profiles are going to get filtered out. Specific giving opportunities not support our mission. But your gift of 25k funds, 3 years of intensive coaching for a nonprofit ed or your 100k gift covers a full cohort in our group program. Real impact metrics. Not we serve a hundred clients, but rather our clients increase major gift revenue by an average of 340k in year two. Here's the data. What you have to know that a lot of these tech people are very data oriented. And so your profile on Candid should reflect the ways in which your potential donor is thinking. You want clear and specific focus areas. So for example, you're not going to say we focus on youth development. You're going to say specifically we place young people in careers in technology or whatever it is now. You're also going to want board and staff bios, which signal credibility and stability. You want to make sure that you have recent financials and 990 data because candid is pulling this automatically. But you want to make sure yours is current. So here's what you can do. This week. Go to Candid.org, search your nonprofit. Audit your profile. Is it complete? Is your mission statement specific, or is it generic? Do you have concrete giving opportunities listed? Spend two hours rewriting three sections. That candidate profile is your baseline. Newly liquid donors will search it. This is table stakes. Every nonprofit should have a strong candid profile. Not because it's going to generate $1 million gifts, but because it's where donors look when they're researching you. So if your profile is weak, they move on. You never know what you've lost. Now there's also the national philanthropic trust. NPT is where sophisticated advisors park larger DAFs. So we're talking about DAFs that are six figures and up. This is a little bit tougher. But getting visibility with NPT requires advisor relationships. So if you want to speak at their conference or co create content for their advisor committee or join their nonprofit advisory council, it's all about getting recommended by someone who's already in their network. It's a high barrier to entry, but if you can build an NPT relationship, the gifts are bigger. For most of you listening, my recommendation is do candid first it's table six. It's accessible. Then layer NPT if you have advisor connections. Okay, lever four. Founder Networks and Thought Leadership this is for the nonprofits with board level founder connections or existing credibility in startup spaces. So here's why it works. Newly liquid people hang out in specific places like YPO chapters, founder circles, Alumni networks, Stanford's Graduate School of Business, MIT Industry forums. If your mission let's say you are a tech focused nonprofit. If your mission aligns with this cohort, you can get in front of them through speaking, writing or board visibility. So this is a lower lift strategy than advisor relationships, but it does require that your ED or board member has some existing credibility in the founder space. Let me give you three plays to think about. Play one Get a board seat or advisory council seat in founder networks. YPO has local chapters. They have causes that member leaders champion. So if you're mission alliance and you have a board member in ypo, you can get visibility. The same with founder alumni networks. If you have a founder on your board, they can vouch for you. So the benefit here is that you have direct access to newly liquid people in a context where they're already thinking about impact and legacy. Play 2. Thought leadership and Founder Media. So this is where founders read like Axios newsletters founder podcast like How I built this substack Y Combinator. So if your Ed and or founder board member authors a piece like how to structure philanthropy as a founder or the giving mistakes. Newly liquid people make things that will make newly liquid people sit up and take notice. What it does is it positions your nonprofit as someone who understands founder psychology, not just the need of your nonprofit. So the benefit here is that you are softly positioning your authority. So when that founder gets liquid and thinks where do I give? Your nonprofit is already top of mind because you provided value to them before you asked for anything in return. And then the third play founder focused webinars or workshops positioning your nonprofit as a running strategic giving workshop for foundation founders or for tech folks or whomever you're trying to target. So the focus of the webinar is not donate to us, but rather here's how to Structure major gifts, maximize tax efficiency and give with intention. Depending on the networks that you're in, you may have 30 to 50 newly liquid people in a room all thinking about giving. The benefit is that you get the relationships going, you provide value, and the founders tell other founders you have a referral engine. So the question then is how do you begin? First, audit your board. Do you have any founder board members? Do you have any advisor connections to founder networks? If yes, ask them to make an intro or sponsor your nonprofit into their community. If no, you focus on Levers 1 and 2. This lever requires existing credibility. So here's how all of these four work together. You can systematically scan Crunchbase and LinkedIn. That would be lever two. By finding newly liquid people with a warm connection to your board member. And then your board member makes the intro. You're suddenly talking to someone post liquidity. That person researches you on candid lever three. Then they read your thought leadership. Lever four, they're already connected to an advisor. Level one. You become the nonprofit that advisors recommend to future clients. So these aren't separate plays, they're supporting moves. So if you're listening to this and you don't really know where to get started, my recommendation is this. Start with lever two. This is the most accessible. You don't need pre existing advisor relationships. You just need a board member who's willing to make intros. When you find a green or yellow prospect, run this weekly 15 minutes. Build your pipeline. This is the table stakes. Every nonprofit should have this dialed in. It's your baseline. When newly liquid people research you, you need to look strong. If you have existing advisor connections, layer in lever one. This is the passive plate you're positioning. So advisors recommend you start with one relationship. Do it really well. If you have founder board members or deep credibility in startup spaces, layer in lever four, thought leadership, speaking, visibility and founder networks. So the point here isn't that you're going to do all four at once. It's to know which lever you pull first based on your board and your existing network. Then you can layer in the rest. Let me give you three big shifts in this mindset. One, you're not chasing newly liquid people. You're positioning so that they find you. So that activity is different. It's less pitchy, it's more strategic, it's more relationship focused. You're focused on adding useful information before you're asking for anything. Two, the advisory team is your customer, not the donor. You're trying to get visible to wealth advisors, to tax attorneys, to family Office folks. They're the gatekeepers to major gifts in the post liquidity window. And three, the six to 12 month window is real and it closes fast. If you're not in front of newly liquid people early, you won't get the gift. That's where most nonprofits fail. They're too slow. Let me give you the math. A Systematic Crunchbase and LinkedIn scan could generate about one more outreach opportunity per week. So let's just say that 2 to 3% of those convert to conversation. That's roughly one qualified conversation per month from newly liquid prospects. So if 20% of those become donors at the $25 to 100k level, you're looking at 6 to 12 donors per year feeding from this one lover alone. So that's 150 to 1.2 billion million annually, depending on conversion and gift size. One strong advisor relationship can generate 25 to $100,000 per year in new major gifts. So over five years, that's 125 to $500,000 from one relationship. A strong candid profile can generate 10 to $50,000 per year with minimal maintenance. One board member in the right founder network can open the door to multiple six figure gifts. These are not lottery tickets. They're predictable, repeatable revenue streams if you set them up right. So if you're listening, here's what I want you to do this week. Take one. But if you have zero existing connections, start with lever two. It's the most accessible if you want to start immediately. Monday morning, 15 minutes. Go to Crunchbase. Look at IPO announcements and series funding rounds in your mission area. Write down five names. Search each one on LinkedIn. Check. Do I have a warm path to this person? Red, yellow or green? Tag them. Create a tracker. Bring the green ones to your board members. Would you be comfortable making an intro? Do this every Monday. You'll have two to three warm outreach opportunities per month by month two. Now, if you have existing advisor connections, identify one board member or one major donor who knows a wealth advisor. Have that person send a 30 second email. Hey, I am involved with this nonprofit at XYZ and helps newly liquid donors think through a giving strategy. Would it make sense for us to grab 30 minutes? That one conversation is your foot in the door. Now, if you don't have any connections, go to Candid.org, search for nonprofit and spend two hours auditing your profile. Is it complete? Is your mission statement specific or generic? Do you have concrete giving opportunities listing? Rewrite three sections. That candidate profile is your baseline. Newly liquid donors will search it, so make sure you're not losing them there. And if you have a founder board member, ask them, are there founder networks, alumni groups, or communities you're active in where it would make sense for us to have visibility? If you can get one potential speaking opportunity or introduction on that calendar, that would be golden. Now, one more thing. Lever 2 only works if you actually run it. Most nonprofits know about Crunchbase and LinkedIn. They don't use them systematically. A lot of people will see it, so they'll think, oh, that's cool, and they'll move on to your calendar because you don't have a process. So this week, make it a process. Make it a habit. Set a calendar reminder for Monday morning. 15 minutes, Crunchbase, five names, LinkedIn, check tracker update. That's it. Do that for three months. By month four, you might have some conversations happening with newly liquid people who actually have warm connections to your board. So that's the difference between hoping for major gifts and engineering them. Newly liquid people aren't hard to find. They're in the news, they're on LinkedIn, they're in your network. You're just not looking for them systematically. So this week, start looking. The best time to position your nonprofit for newly liquid wealth was three years ago. The second best time is Monday morning. So let's go. If you go to realwong.com you can sign up for free. For my newsletter, I present free webinars every week. I provide all sorts of resources and insights about the nonprofit world and how I'm thinking about it. Best of all, we provide cute dog pictures. And it's free. So what are you waiting for? Riawong. Com. We'll see you there.