← We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits
We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits
651. The Art of Sustainable Fundraising + Building Resilient Nonprofits - Christina Martin Kenny
00:45:50
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- [00:01]
A
Hey, friends. Impact Up Pause is coming back on October 9, 2025. It's a worldwide gathering of change makers to restore energy, set boundaries that stick, and deepen the connections that fuel both our missions and our well being. You can join us in more than 25 cities, at meetups and online to reframe your relationship with work and perfection, to build wellness into your life and organization, and simply to pause, reflect, and take intentional action. Sign up for free today@weareforgood.com ImpactUp. We can't wait to see you there. Hey, I'm John.
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And I'm Becky.
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A
And this is the We Are for Good podcast.
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Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more, and be more for the causes that improve our world.
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We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an IMPACT uprising.
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B
So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers, and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
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A
So let's get started. Hey, Bea, what's happening?
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B
Favorite human alert in the house today.
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A
I know it's like we always everyone here is a friend, but sometimes you get to actually have friends that you've gotten to spend time with in real life that are experts that we can tap into these conversations. And today, if you do not know our guest, I'm so excited for you to have her added into your world because I promise you, you're going to be more centered in how we take care of the work that we're doing, but also the humans in this work. And we're going to talk all about designing sustainable fundraising strategies, but we're really talking about strengthening the people in fundraising. So it's an honor to have Christina Martin Kinney on the podcast. She is the founder of Guava Tree Strategies. And, and I mean, Guava Tree really works directly with nonprofits to design sustainable fundraising while also strengthening people. So this is kind of like core to her DNA. She's also one of our incredible hosts and organizers behind Impact up in D.C. and friends, the only way this movement has grown is because of people like Christina that raise a hand that say, I love community too. I want to lift a banner in my city and just keep showing up for people. And so we got to meet Christina back at Impact. Uphold fast in person, and it was just such an amazing space to be with fellow social impact professionals that just believe in something better. Together. And so today we are drawing on both her experience from being in in house and consulting roles before launching Guava Tree, and she's going to talk a little bit about that. Fundraising success requires more than just a one size fits all. There's no magic bullet here. She's also a recognized thought leader. So I want you to multitask, friends. I want you to go find Christina on LinkedIn because your life is going to be changed. She challenges the status quo. She starts really bold conversations and saying the things that some of us are thinking, but maybe we're not brave enough yet to say it out loud. Christina is stepping into these conversations on the daily. And so we are so excited to have you in our house today, my friend. Welcome to the We Are For Good podcast. We're just a little excited you're here.
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C
Oh, thanks, John. That was such a great introduction. And Becky, I'm so, so excited to be here. You guys are amazing, and I just, I'm so happy to be here.
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A
Well, it is an honor, my friend. I don't think I gave your bio really justice. I would love for you to connect the dots of maybe some formative experiences from growing up that led you into this amazing work you're doing today. Tell us a little about you.
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C
Yeah, thanks, John. You know, I think I was always going to go into social impact work. My parents are both immigrants. My dad came from Cuba, my mom from the Dominican Republic. Both of them came to this country leaving behind a lot of things, not necessarily for choice. And, you know, my grandfather on my mom's side was. He was a politician and he was imprisoned by the Dominican government because of his political thinking, because of his political leanings during the time of a dictatorship. And when he was released, that's when they came to this country. And he just had such a passion for freedom of speech, thought, and just doing good in the world. Right. He used to say that I was going to be. I was going to be his, his president grandchild. And while I don't have political aspirations, social impact just really felt like the right fit, you know, I mean, I started colle as a theater major and I was in a production my first year of college that was really about social impact and social justice and ended up changing my major and really just more intentionally going into this work. And so I spent my junior year abroad in London and I was doing an internship. It was more of a work study than an internship. And I was hired at a, an, an ngo, Women for Women International. And my role was to support the executive director who had just been hired to open a UK office. So it was just me and her and I learned everything, right? I learned so much. It was such a transformative internship about international fundraising and NGOs and communicating with donors. And I really, because it was just the two of us, I really got to do everything. And that was just like, this is what I'm meant to do. And so I've spent my entire career in this space in fundraising in the nonprofit world, working with international organizations, with domestic organizations. For a while I was doing some grant writing, consulting for a D.C. based consulting firm. And I carried this portfolio of international human rights, humanitarian organizations and political advocacy democracy organizations doing all kinds of work from voting rights to fighting against predatory lending, paid leave, affordable and accessible childcare. And so those are sort of my hats, right? Is really my entire experience has been in some kind of advocacy, making the world a better place, whether it's firsthand providing direct services to people in, in other countries or at the legislative side and really trying to move the needle on politics. And it's been, it has really been a joyful career. It's had its ups and downs, which we'll talk about. I am definitely the fundraiser who has left roles sooner than I ever anticipated because of a lot of the things that I talk about on LinkedIn, you know, whether it's overloaded expectations, unrealistic revenue goals, or organizations not thinking strategically or sustainably and having to lay off staff because they didn't hit their revenue goals. And so there was a point earlier this year when I had been at an organization for exactly one year when because of political, not necessarily political funding cuts, but, but it was sort of the writing on the wall was there that as a political organization, I was in house, I was their director of development. They were not going to do well under the current administration. And so the organization shut down. And I had only been there for a year and I just, I could not bring myself to go through another search. I just couldn't do it. I was tired. I had a newly turned 2 year old. I was burnt out. I was really lucky to have severance and to be able to just take a minute. I literally took a month off and I didn't do anything. I didn't think about work or searching for a job or anything. And then I started talking to people that I was meeting on LinkedIn and building connections and I started thinking about how much I loved my grant writing, consulting work and what was really resonating with folks that I was talking about. On LinkedIn was staff retention and fundraising. Staff retention more specifically. And how do you raise money beyond thinking about this quarter or this year? And how are these two things linked? And that's how guava tree was born. Guava tree is a humble nod to both Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Both of my parents grew up with guava trees in their property. But they're also a very strong and resilient fruit and tree. And I really loved the metaphor there. And so that's where I am. I'm. Since I launched a couple of months ago officially and now I am working with clients every day at the intersection of sustainable fundraising and staff retention and how you fundraise for the long term while keeping your people around.
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B
I just freaking love the first question of like, tell us about your journey. Because we are not one thing. We are not one human being. We are not one dimensional. We have. We are made up of so many people and memories and experiences and just from the onset of this conversation, you talking about your grandfather and what was his name?
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C
Alfonso.
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Alfonso. And just this temerity of spirit of speaking up and being bold and doing the right thing and having this justice arc. And I'm watching you take that into your own story and you've really put it on fire. And I, and I want to thank you on behalf of we're for Good, you know, for expanding the table and you know, not just through impact up and thank you for being a wonderful D.C. host. It was so fun to see you in April and get to hug your neck, but just the way that you're expanding ideas and I want to get into this designing sustainable fundraising strategies because I think that a lot of people are probably wondering what does that mean? What does sustainable fundraising mean? And we've had recently polled the community and said, hey, what are the things that you're really worried about? What are the things that are heavy on your heart that we can create some content, some community, maybe some frameworks around. And this concept that you have really wrapped your entire brand around, I feel like is something that is so of the now. So talk about what sustainable fundraising means to you and why is it so critical and of the moment for nonprofits today?
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C
Yeah, I'm so glad you're asking this. You know, I have worked with so many organizations who say I can't even think beyond this quarter. I remember one time when I was grant writing, we were the organization wanted to apply for a three year grant because who doesn't want. It was a three year unrestricted general operating support Grant who doesn't want three years of general operating support, right? Unrestricted funding. And the application asked for a three year budget. And I remember I said to the executive director, okay, we need to think about a three year budget. And she said, three year budget. I can't even think beyond this year. Like, no, I can't even think beyond this quarter, never mind this year. And so many organizations are stuck in that most nonprofits are under resourced. Honestly, even the organizations that have like 10 million in revenue, they're still under resourced. We are just an understaffed, under resourced sector. And this idea of thinking long term, just we freeze. We can't think long term. Right. And so there's so much chatter about getting multi year unrestricted operating support and diversifying your fundraising. And the first thing I want to say about diversifying your fundraising is that, yes, that is important, it is critical, but you can get 100% of your funding from individuals. And that is a diverse revenue source. As long as so much of your funding doesn't come from one individual that if that person disappears, you don't have an organization anymore. But somehow we have conflated this idea of diverse fundraising with that means you need to get funding from every different type of funding there is available. It's why we see job descriptions right now for directors of development and chief development officers that want a grant writer, an event planner, a major gift officer, an annual giving person. Um, they want somebody to do stewardship and communications and somehow bring in earned revenue. Right? It's nobody can do all of those things. And that's one of the things I talk about all the time. It's different skill sets. Sustainable fundraising is diverse funding. It's also knowing where your strengths are and focusing really intently on the one or two things that are going to see your organization grow. One thing I say all the time and that I get pushed back on when I challenge these types of jobs descriptions is, well, if one person isn't going to do it, it's not going to get done. Then it doesn't need to get done. If your organization is making 2% of your revenue on direct mail, you don't need to focus on direct mail. But not enough of us really understand what that pie chart is. Where is all of your revenue coming from? And so January 1st or July 1st, depending on your fiscal year hits and organizations say, okay, we're at zero. Where's the money going to come from? And so sustainable fundraising is the ability to think beyond this year. And it's knowing where your money is coming from. It's really getting granular and understanding. Okay. Our two biggest sources of revenue are individuals and grants, right? And we, last year we started to see some traction with corporate, right? And so it's, it's matching your calendar with your time, right? Or with your like your capacity with your priorities. So if 30% of your revenue comes from individuals, 30% of your time should be spent on individual giving. It sounds that simple. But did you know that non. Now, I challenge this a little bit, but 55% of a fundraiser's responsibilities are on non revenue generating activities. That's the standard across the board. I don't agree with it, but I believe it 55%. Now I, I don't agree with a little bit, Becky, because the, the source that I found that from considered stewardship as non revenue generating. And I, oh my gosh, deeply, deeply disagree with that. But I remember being a director of development and I spent 15 hours every single week in internal staff meeting. That does not do anything to raise revenue. And that's where one. So we can argue about the 55%, right? About what actually counts as fundraising and revenue generating and what doesn't. But I think that that stat really jumped out when we think about capacity. So I think sustainable fundraising, to go back to the original question, is knowing where your revenue is coming from and how much of it, right? And when you build a plan, this is one of the things that I do with all of my clients is we walk through, I get so granular. What is your donor retention rate? How many individuals gave money to your organization last year? How many were new donors? How many were repeat donors? How many grants did you get? What was the average gift side of the size of that grant? How many events did you do? Did the, you know, how much did those events raise? Did you do peer to peer, Right? I'm a big fan of like marathon fundraising and those kinds of peer to peer program, right? And I break down literally every single one of those things and then look at, okay, now that we see this, we have a pie chart. We know where our revenue is coming from. But I look at that like two or three years in the past so you can start to see what's moving up, what's moving down. And then you throw some numbers. What does 10% growth look like? What would it look like for our organization to grow at 10% or 20% so that when your board comes to you and says, we're raising the budget by X next year, you have the data to back it up and say, well actually I think we could get to 15% growth if we do this right. And you know that information, right? And so many organizations just don't have a full picture of what their fundraising looks like and that's why they start every year at zero. It's why they can't think three years in the future. But when you have all of this information and then you can start to think, wow, we grew our individual giving by 30% last year. We had no idea. And organizations, sometimes they don't reach their revenue goals, right? We've all seen that happen. And then there's this kind of defeat. Well, we didn't reach our goals well, but let's look at that. You didn't reach your goal but you increase individual by giving by 30%. That's huge. So let's focus a little bit more on individual giving because maybe we increased our individual giving by 30% but we were spending more time on grants and we didn't get as many grants. Right. So that kind of knowledge really helps you figure out how to start the fiscal year not at zero, but with a clear plan of this is how we're going to spend our time. This is how we're going to do the work.
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Foreign.
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A
You want to learn more, head over to weareforgood.com Rex that's weareforgood.com REC S for VIP access to orgs and amazing humans doing really great work. Cmk full stop. This is so vital. I love that you have said know our own data like start from within, know ourselves, know thyself right even to understand our metrics. And I will say I'm as you're taking me back to Becky and I sitting in Healthcare foundation that there was this beautiful gala but when we sat down to weigh out staff time, the amount of meetings we were in the type of donors that this was attracting, which were transactional and less invested in the mission, it just didn't make sense. Like, it was taking all of our time and it wasn't leading to where we needed to grow. Like, it gave us a path to actually sunset an event, and not just to do it callously, but to do it with data and intention. And this is why this makes sense. And our leaders leaned in in that moment, even though it was highly disruptive to say, I think we actually, this event needs to go away. But it freed us up to pour into individual giving or major gifts and just redirect in certain ways. So I love this so much, friend. I think this is so powerful. I want you to be our coach for a second. Like, we are hiring guava tree. Okay, I'm getting on the phone with you or zoom with you. I want to get really tactical, because once you've really defined your starting line, your benchmark, what are a few, like, next steps of, like, where you can start, like, kind of mapping the path forward? What's. What would you say?
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C
Yeah, you know, one thing is there's this whole movement of fractional fundraisers and interim fundraisers, and I haven't really owned either of those because I want organizations to hire me when they're in transition. Your fundraiser just quit, or you have a new ed coming on or whatever that transition looks like you need to take a pause, and we're going to work together so that your next fundraiser, director of development, executive director, whoever, is actually set up for success instead of spending their entire first year trying to figure all of this out. So, like I said, the first thing I do is we get really, really granular. We look at all of your data, and, you know, I said to an organization one time, what is your average major gift? And they said, oh, we don't have major gifts. I said, that's not true. Your major gift might be a hundred dollars. That's still a major gift. Right. And I know that there is a whole school of thought of how we shouldn't label gifts as major gifts. And I believe in calling everybody who's not a major gift level an annual donor. And, you know, actually focusing on donor retention and stewardship so that everybody is an annual donor. Right. Instead of just treating them as major gifts and everybody else, if we frame them as annual donors, then the goal is to get them giving every year. So I look at what is a major gift for your organization. Okay, so how much did you raise from people who gave that average threshold and above last year, and how much do you need to raise this year? And then you can actually see, well, our budget is. Was this last year, and our budget is this next year. And maybe your board gave you a substantial increase without talking to you, because I've been there without understanding the fundraising. Right. So instead of panicking, let's think about how you can actually get there. Right. Maybe that maybe they gave you a 30% increase. Right?
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Right.
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C
What makes sense, maybe that's a 10% increase in major gifts. Maybe that translates to only getting five more major gift donors or getting five major gift donors to increase their gift. Right. It's about breaking down everything so much and so simply that it starts to be an easier picture. People think fundraising is so hard, and it is. And the reason fundraising is hard is because we don't have the systems to actually understand how to fundraise. Building relationships with donors is not difficult. Knowing how to spend your time and how to figure out what a diverse revenue source looks like and how you build a sustainable fundraising strategy, that's the hard part. Right. And I like to work with organizations so that it all just kind of clicks and feels easier. Right. And so it really is about understanding as much of your data as possible. I will tell you both as a, you know, I've been in house and I've been consulting. I have never, ever walked into an organization and asked, what is your donor retention rate? And gotten an answer. How do we not know this information? That is your key metric, right? Because once you know that, you know where you need to focus. But we want to focus on acquisition, and that is the piece that, sure, yes, new donors are great, but if your donor retention rate is less than 20%, you need to think about who's in house already, because otherwise you're going to spend a lot of time and money acquiring new donors who aren't going to stick around, and you're going to be back at this. And so sustainability, there's so much of that is built in with retention, right. If your donor retention, and I know an average donor retention rate among nonprofits is like 40%. And everybody thinks that that's the benchmark. Oh, well, our donor retention rate is 40%. So we're average. We meet the average. And I'm like, well, but why wouldn't we strive for 60 or 70%? Why do we just accept the status quo?
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A
CMK, I am obsessed with this because this is my problem with best practice. With when we talk about best practice, it's like it creates this invisible ceiling as if we all need to do it one way and you're missing your leverage. I think what you said there though about are the numbers actually in front of you is like one of the biggest gaps. Because when you don't know, you can't control it, you can't build strategies around it, you can't even think about it on a regular basis of what's centering, what are we actually trying to accomplish here? And I think just keeping it in the shadows is not helping or serving anybody, you know, but bringing it forward allows you to own it and say, let's make it better, Even if that's 1% this year or whatever it is.
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C
Well, and when you have that data, I really do believe that fundraising gets easier because then suddenly it's like, oh, we don't need to increase our budget by 30% or we don't need to raise are this much money. We, this, this mystical figure. We need to increase this by this much and this by this much. Right? And it just becomes a little bit easier when you actually know what's in front of you. Right? I mean, we've all heard it before. Knowledge is power, right? And so the more information, the more knowledge you have, the better. We talk so much about mission driven fundraising. No data driven fundraising. We need data.
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B
This is such a powerful unlock for organizations, is understanding that that retention piece is so vital to not even just sustainable funding, but to community growth and scale. And I love the example that you brought up, John, because I want to say that we are for good was birthed from this notion that we saw in this employee giving campaign when quit talking about money. And we just started talking about our shared connection and the stories that drive it and the passion that we feel in wanting that thing to be better. We watched our retention, which, I mean I, I would say our general retention, John, was probably like 45% in annual giving for that org, but for the employee giving campaign, it was between 70 to 80% every single year. And it was like, I remember our eyebrow quirking and going, whoa, there is something here. There is an unlock here. Those people who believe and keep showing up, they are not the transactional donors, they are the believers. And so I think this is really an important conversation to reframe Time, energy, funding. Absolutely knowing your data. But I want to get into the people too, because we just recently hosted Impact Pause and we're so excited to just keep that conversation going as we're getting into year end giving because we're, we want our fundraisers and our Change makers, to feel rested, to feel solid. You are saying this, Christine, I think that it's such a powerful unlock of what if you got up to January 1st and you didn't feel the stress of, oh my gosh, what is this year going to look like? Where is the funding going to come from? Where do, where's my next step? What if we were grounded? What if we were all connected into each other, supporting each other? And I want you to kind of connect the dots as you have it, from what you've seen in sustainable fundraising to how we help strengthen the people who are behind fundraising. So from your experience, how can we reimagine how we support our staff for the long term? And we're coming up on year end giving season, but I think this is an evergreen conversation. How can we support each other so that we can go toward those beacons, you know, that show us whether it's sustainable fundraising, whether, oh, we're going to try something innovative. How do we support each other when we get there?
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C
Yeah, Becky, you know, this is, this is where my heart is because I talk to fundraisers in house every single day who tell me, I don't think I can do this anymore. And I've been that, I've been that person more times than I can count. It is why I am consulting, because not just because I didn't want to go through another job search, because I didn't want to go to another organization with 40 responsibilities listed on a job description and be expected to magically double revenue in a year, which is what we're seeing. You know, and so, so much of that, it starts with our job descriptions. It starts with what we are expecting people to realistically accomplish. And you can have somebody who's been in house for seven years and you can, you can do this exercise right. You need to figure out everything we just talked about. What are the two areas that are really going to move the needle for your organization? You can only pick two, and that's how, that's what your person should be focusing on. Everything else, it's either not a priority or you've got to find a way to outsource it. I mean, I did an exercise, I went through the just, I clicked on the first 15 job descriptions that popped up on LinkedIn for Director of development. Just the. I don't even know what these organizations were. I just looked at the first 15 and I listed out the average number of bullet points and it was over 20, I think. And some of these responsibilities were what I said this before, right. To basically be an entire fundraising department as one person. And people will say to me, well, but if you're a director, you're overseeing all of those activities. But I've been a development team of one more times than I can count. And we are hiring directors of development as the sole fundraiser because we're saying, oh, well, we're going to give them a lot of responsibility, so we can't hire somebody entry level and we want them to raise a lot of money. So we need somebody who can do a lot of things. I mean, it's a recipe for burnout. It's a. It's just a recipe for burnout. You hire somebody with that level of responsibility and they're just not going to stick around. It's why average fundraising turnover is 18 to 24 months. Some estimates say it's as low as 16. And people will say to me, well, we don't have a staff retention problem. We just can't keep fundraisers. That's a problem. Right? You have organizations that their programs and their communication staff have been around for years, but they're going through new fundraisers every 18 months. And they. And they. They think that it's a problem with fundraisers. They don't see that it's a problem with how we've built fundraising. And I've seen people say, well, I say, where did you get this job description? Oh, we just looked at LinkedIn. We copied, like, what looked good from another one that we saw. There's no thought behind it. So it starts with hiring and making and getting really, really clear. I mean, imagine. And I actually did see two of the job descriptions I saw only had seven bullet points, and it was, like, very clear that they were going to be focused on two priority areas as well as, like, some database. You know, just there are things, the 55%, whatever that looks like. There are all things. You know, it's not that your. Your fundraiser can only be responsible for two or three things, but it's what are they actually carrying? If you want an annual giving person who's going to be talking to donors every day, and then maybe they shouldn't also be writing grants, because those might be two different skill sets. Or if you want a grant writer, they probably shouldn't also be responsible for planning events, it starts there. It starts with getting really, really clear. And again, I'd say, even if you've already had somebody on staff for a while, sit down and say, you know what? You're probably doing too much. We want you to only Focus on this, right? And then from, you know, from hiring, I argue it goes into onboarding. What does it actually look like? The number of fundraising staff, especially in an increasingly remote world, who have never seen their programs in action is insane to me. I did a poll on this on LinkedIn one time, and it was something like 70% of people who answered the poll have never actually seen their program. You hire somebody to be a fundraiser in your organization. The first thing I want them doing after they've gotten their email login is seeing your programs. I don't care if you have to fly them halfway around the world to do that. That needs to be built into your budget, right? They need to see the work that you're doing, because otherwise, how do you talk about it? And fundraisers pick up on stories that nobody else really does. I remember I got to see programs in action one time. I was in EAS Africa, and I spoke to a woman who said that she took a bus, 15 hours, one way to attend this program, that we were doing 30 hours round trip on a bus. And I was like, that's a story. That is the impact of the work we are doing. That this woman spent 30 hours traveling just so that she could experience our programs. And that's not something that anybody would have ever really thought is worth sharing. Right? Because when we think of program staff, as much as, you know, as great as they are, they're thinking impact numbers, they're thinking delivery, they're not thinking as much about the experience and how that tells a story. So when we think about hiring and onboarding, it really needs to be from this perspective of slowing down, taking a pause. I'm very on theme here for you guys and understanding how we're setting people up to succeed in their roles, you know, to, you know, back to what we're talking about with year end, if somebody is, and I've been this person executing a year end fundraising campaign and following up on every major donor who writes their checks on December 27th every year and writing the grants that have midnight deadlines. Can we please stop with the midnight deadline on December 31? Like these foundations really just, just need to not do that. But how do you not burn out when you're, when you're doing that, right? How, how do you go through end of year and then January 1st rolls around now you're like, oh, I have to steward all those donors. I have to start writing tax receipts and thank you notes and calling, making phone calls and, and, and, and, and, and, and so there's Just no break. Right? And that's where this becomes the. So critical is maybe you need to hire additional support. Maybe the three grants that you have due on December 31st at midnight can be outsourced to a consultant or a board member or a volunteer. Because those grants, they're time consuming, but they take more time for an individual who's multitasking running a whole development department on their own than somebody who can say, yeah, I can spend 10 hours writing a grant between now and the end of the year to support this organization that I trust and know. Or, right, you know, it's. It's volunteers, it's board members, and sometimes, yes, it's consultants we can hire out to do those kinds of things, you know, and so it's like, how do we pull things off of our plate? I'm increasingly seeing build a culture of philanthropy as a bullet point on a job description for a fundraiser. And a culture of philanthropy is about an organization where philanthropy is woven intrinsically through the entire organization. Not when everything is the responsibility of the fundraiser. But now we want the fundraiser to do all of the fundraising and somehow be responsible for teaching everybody else at the organization why their work is important. You need a culture of philanthropy before you can successfully hire fundraisers.
- [36:46]
A
I mean, just so much wisdom threaded in this conversation. My friend and I appreciate your allyship in talking about the retention crisis. It's something that's been very passionate to both Becky and me. To lift the conversation, we titled it like the retention is an inside job. Because it's not just about retaining the donors, it's about retaining our staff. And that starts from the work that happens within. Is there, you know, maybe a misconception out there or maybe there is something that is misunderstood of what does staff retention actually look like in practice? Is there some kind of simple way to think about this that could be an unlock for leaders listening and want. Wanting to make a better place, wanting to make a place that people want to stay and invest. What do you think is that missing piece?
- [37:31]
C
I hear from nonprofit leaders all the time who say if I hire a fundraiser, I expect them to raise their salary back within X amount of time. We are not ATMs, we're just not. Honestly, my biggest misconception, you should not hire a fundraiser with a revenue goal for at least two years. They should not have a revenue goal for at least two years. So when you have a fundraiser and they're expected to raise a certain amount by a certain amount of time, they're only going to focus on transactional fundraising and things that are going to move the needle quickly instead of building long term relationships. And so that's when you get into this pattern of transactional fundraising and starting every year at zero and not knowing where the money's coming from. When you hire somebody and say, we want you to spend the first two years building relationships, yeah, they're going. They will raise money. I promise you. If you hire a fundraiser and tell them you don't have a revenue goal for two years, we just need you to build relationships. They will raise money. They will probably raise more money than they would have if you had given them a revenue goal. But I think the biggest myth is just assuming we need to raise money. So we're going to hire a fundraiser.
- [38:45]
A
Yeah, I love that call out and the lead time and it centers the dignity in our work and the value of building relationships and the long game that we need to be bought into. So good.
- [38:57]
B
Total long game. And you're taking us back to core value number four, which is it's not about the giving, it's about the belief. And if you can tap into why someone believes and why they're hanging around, and not just hanging around and giving, but opening your newsletter and coming to your event and volunteering, all of that is currency. And when you recognize that and develop it and say thank you, that to me is the giving process that is as much as a part of driving the revenue at the end. So I think this has just been a really therapeutic conversation probably for all three of us. I hope it has been for you who are listening. And, you know, I want to take us back to Seth Godin, who said, we want brain surgeons to do the same thing every day. We want them to have repeatability. But we are here on this earth trying to figure out in our missions how to solve problems. And it's going to take a lot of different ways to get there. And. And so if you haven't figured it out, congratulations. You're a change maker. That is why we are here. And so I want to take it back to story Christina, and I know you must have a bazillion of them. Can you lift a story of philanthropy? Maybe it's a story of generosity where it just stayed with you in your life and what's bubbling up for you today.
- [40:26]
C
Yeah, you know, I think this story feels like it could have been my own in so many ways. And I think it's, you know, so one time I had, I got an email or a phone call actually from a frantic donor that her Monthly giving had paused because she, her credit card got hacked. And I looked her up, you know, I missed the call. I looked her up before I called her back, and she was. She had been giving $5 a month for the last like eight years. And I called her and I had the most. I was on the phone with her for over an hour, and I had the most wonderful conversation with her. And I asked her, how did you find out about us? And she said that her daughter had gone through the organization's program and that she herself had never finished middle school. This was a girls education organization. And her daughter was now at Columbia. And she, you know, she was on a limited fixed income pension, but she, she felt that this organization gave to her daughter every. Her granddaughter everything that she wished she had had for herself. And so she gave $5 every single month because it was what she could afford, right? And for me, you know, my grandmother never finished the second grade, right? And so that same story, it felt like it could have been my own. But that is philanthropy. It's not about the 78 figure gifts. It's about people feeling so deeply tied to a mission that they're giving personally significant gifts, right? That's how I like to frame major giving or giving, whatever, in ways that are personally significant to you. And this, that $5 was very personally significant to this woman. And you know, you could say all of the things about what spending that much time with somebody, but it was truly one of the most. Just one of those stories. I think about that woman all the time, right? I think about her often because so many of our non profits, so much of our work is creating opportunities for kids, for people that we wish we would have had ourselves, right? We've all seen those shirts that say, I am my ancestors wildest dreams. Right? And I think that especially for a lot of organizations, that's the mission, that's the work that you're doing. And being able to tap into those kinds of individuals is really, really powerful.
- [43:15]
A
Gosh. I mean, you're gutting us. To me, this is why, like this work, even though it's hard, even though there's so much limiting belief and so much scarcity and so many things, it's like you come back to the core of it, and it's like it's everything, you know, and you get to be part of these stories that really matter to people. And I just think just love that you took us there. I love that you chose a $5 a month story that has stuck with you. So, Christina, how can Our friends listening today connect with you.
- [43:47]
C
Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn. I hang out there a lot and my website is guavatorystrategies.com I will also say I have a free resource on my website. It is a 17 page hiring workbook that walks organizations through everything we just talked about in this podcast. And it's not just for if you're hiring, it's great for you. But even if you're not hiring and you need to get clarity on how your organization is viewing fundraising, it's a really great resource and I put a lot of time and thought into it and it's free and it lives on my website. So download it, email me, tell me what you think and yeah. Guava treestrategies.com well, Christina, you know the.
- [44:31]
B
Podcast well enough to know we end all of our conversations with a one good thing. So what's bubbling up for you today?
- [44:39]
C
Take care of your people. Ask them what they need.
- [44:42]
B
That's it.
- [44:43]
A
Simple as.
- [44:43]
B
That's it.
- [44:44]
C
It's that simple.
- [44:46]
A
Yeah. So good.
- [44:47]
C
Ask them what they need and actually be willing to listen and hear it and provide that.
- [44:54]
B
And when you do and when you show that you have listened and integrated, guess what? You chip away at the retention crisis that we're facing just a little bit more. Because people feel seen, because people feel heard. They feel that their information is valuable and that they have value. So, Christina, we knew you were going to come in here and knock our socks off and you did. And I just think there is something to being a technician and an expert and giving wise counsel at what we do in this work and reimagining it. But to have the ability for you to bring in this humanness and this awareness that we are all human beings who need to thrive, to be able to do this work, to put both of those together, we are just incredibly lucky to call you a friend and ally in this community. Thank you for teaching us so much today.
- [45:47]
C
Oh, thanks for having me, John and Becky. It was really my pleasure.