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What the Fundraising
296: Real Talk on Confident Fundraising: Answering Your Questions with Mallory Erickson
00:45:53
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DonorPerfect Host
Do you ever feel like fundraising is a little foggy? Like you have goals to hit, donors
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Mallory Erickson
to connect with, and about 12 tabs
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DonorPerfect Host
or 47 open trying to figure out what actually works. The good news is that you don't have to figure it out alone. The 2026 donor perfect community Conference is a free virtual event designed to help fundraisers clear their vision, illuminate what's possible,
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Mallory Erickson
and get glowing results.
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DonorPerfect Host
Join me and some other amazing speaker speakers on June 2nd and 3rd for practical tools, real stories from nonprofit leaders, and a supportive community that truly understands the work. Because when fundraisers come together, we know that things start to look a whole lot brighter. Register now for the Donor Perfect community conference@donorperfect.com donorperfect-conference.
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Mallory Erickson
I think a lot of times we think that confidence is like a nice to have. Like, oh, it would be nice to feel more confident going into a donor meeting. And we don't actually associate a lot of ROI around increased confidence, right? We're like, oh, I'd love for my fundraisers to be more confident and. And that would be nice to build their confidence. No. The lack of confidence is costing you and your team so much money.
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Hey, my name is Mallory and I'm obsessed with helping leaders in the nonprofit space raise money and run their organizations differently. What the fundraising is a space for real and raw conversations to both challenge and inspire you. Not too long ago, I was in your shoes, uncomfortable with fundraising and unsure of my place in this sector. It wasn't until I started to listen to other experts outside of the fundraising space that I was able to shift my mindset and ultimately shift the way I show up as a leader. This podcast is my way of blending professional and personal development so we, as a collective inside the nonprofit sector can feel good about the work we are doing. Join me every week as I interview some of the brightest minds in the personal and professional development space to help you fundamentally change the way you lead and fundraise. I hope you enjoy this episode, so let's dive in.
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All right, welcome everyone. Today I'm here just by myself. It is me, Mallory Erickson, on this episode of what the Fundraising. And I am here answering questions from the community. So I've never really done solo episodes. Mostly, I think, because I just really love being in connection with other people and learning from other people. And because when I started what the fundraising, it was really with the intention of having this learning lab in public. I really did not start it thinking I'm a fundraising expert, so I know enough things to be telling fundraisers about. I was really genuinely curious about how we ultimately move more money into our organizations and feel more embodied and emboldened in our work. And I wanted to interview neuroscientists and psychologists and therapists and fundraisers from outside of the nonprofit sector, like political fundraisers. And. And I wanted to do it in public in a way that was sort of open source and sharing with the community because, I don't know, it felt like the right thing to do. And honestly, the real story is that I was starting to do it, starting to have these conversations. Learning so much Learner is my, like, number one strength finder. And I came out to my husband one day in the family room and said something like, oh, my gosh, I'm having all these amazing conversations about fundraising, and I wish there was a way that I could share them with everybody. And my husband was like, honey, that's called the podcast. And so I was like, I guess I'm starting a podcast. And I went on upwork or fiverr as I do, and I figured out how to start a podcast. And with the help of my friends over at We Are for Good, who definitely got on many a crying calls with me at the beginning when I could not figure out how to do pretty much anything. So it's pretty unbelievable now to be in a home studio and have the setup that I do today when I think the very first episode with Ethan Cross, I am seen with my apple headphones in with the wire constantly hitting my chin and making funny noises. And at one point, my husband was doing the dishes. Ryan was doing the dishes in the kitchen so loud in the middle of this very first interview. And so I had to run out to the kitchen and be like, please, please stop. And then I didn't realize that I didn't turn off the camera while I did that. So Ithan Dr. Cross just saw me kind of like run out in my, like, high socks and sweatpants because it was still Covid time. And then I embarrassingly came back in and continued the interview. But it's just. It's been a Wild ride since 2021 and so incredibly fun. And it felt like the right time to ask our listeners some questions and then really give them direct answers. So that's what I'm going to do right now. I'm going to ask myself the question and then I'm going to answer it, and we're going to go from there. So here is in no particular order, because if you listen to this show, it's my opinion because you like to be on a winding storytelling journey of curiosity with me. So we're going to let these questions roll in pretty similarly here. The very first question, though, is really tugs at my heartstrings a little bit, but it's how do you stop feeling so anxious before donor conversations? And this is really an incredible fusion of a lot of the different topics that we talk about on the show and a lot of the different ways that my training supports fundraisers and what I focus on with fundraisers, because the. One of the first things around how to stop feeling so anxious is to let yourself be anxious for a second. I interviewed this incredible woman, Dr. Britt Frank, who wrote the book called the Science of Stuck, and she talks about using the sentence that makes sense whenever you're feeling any type of way, right, you're feeling anxious going into that donor meeting. And instead of maybe saying to yourself, oh, my gosh, I shouldn't be anxious right now because I've done this a million times, just saying to yourself, that makes sense. Like, it makes sense that I'm feeling anxious right now. The stakes feel high. This is a big meeting. Just the process of saying that makes sense is like throwing a bucket of cold water on kind of our burning insecurity or fear in that moment. And what it allows us to do is it actually allows us to move through the feeling instead of resisting the feeling and getting into conflict with ourselves about the feeling and why or why not we should be feeling it. Instead, it just really allows us to say, hey, that makes sense. Makes sense that I'm feeling the way that I do and allows us to actually move through it and move on from it so much faster. So that's sort of number one. The second part of that stress and anxiety is that we know, you know, fear and stress and that dysregulation. I also did this incredible interview with this, the head of Wayne State's fear Research lab, who wrote the book called Afraid, and his name is Arash, and he talks about two ways that you can reduce fear around increasing your knowledge and increasing your sense of control. And this is a big reason, actually part of the inspiration in creating Practivated, which is the first ever donor readiness or fundraiser readiness platform, and donor conversation platform, where we use generative AI to have fundraisers, be able to practice and prepare for donor conversations and a part of that, and then get feedback on it on these different indicators and be able to grow and close any conversation gaps that you might have in order to raise more and move more money towards Your mission. And a big piece of that is muscle memory, right? So a big part of anxiety and stress comes from the unknown and uncertainty and our feeling of not being able to handle it. And one of the ways that we reduce those feelings is that we have more muscle memory around success, and we have more muscle memory around handling something that might come up. And something I say to folks a lot is when you're feeling that really intense fear around something, sometimes you just have to survive it in order to be able to do it again and move through it. And unfortunately, when we're nervous about something, we're afraid of something and we avoid it, we're actually making the situation so much worse for ourselves. And so a big kind of component of Practivated is really helping people get over that action line, to take that action, to build that muscle memory to show themselves that they can survive it and not show them in an actual toner meeting, which really reduces some of that stress in the moment. And so those are two things I would think about. You know, whether or not you have a tool, whether or not you have practivated, there isn't another tool like it. So I can't really say a tool like practivated. But however you can practice, I really recommend that you practice, that you put in that muscle memory that you do role play with your team if you don't want to use a tool like practivated, because that muscle memory matters so much in terms of how you feel going into that donor meeting. And, you know, know, the last thing I just want to say here is I think a lot of times we think that confidence is like a nice to have, like, oh, it would be nice to feel more confident going into a donor meeting. And we don't actually associate a lot of ROI around increased confidence, right? We're like, oh, I'd love for my fundraisers to be more confident and. And that would be nice to build their confidence. No? The lack of confidence is costing you and your team so much money, and it's doing it in a few different ways. One, you are downselling your offer. You are not valuing the experience, the opportunities, the sponsorship of your organization correctly at all. When you do not have enough confidence going into those donor conversations. So you are asking for way less than you should be asking for. The other way that confidence really impacts your time, and therefore your time, your manager's time, potentially, if you're on a big team, is every time you need to talk to your manager about a donor meeting or your fundraiser needs to talk to you for 30 or 45 minutes before a donor meeting. That's part of what confidence. The lack of confidence is costing you. It's costing you the need to talk through every single conversation that way and often ruminate on that conversation. Now, I'm not saying that people don't need support in order to have thought partnership to help prepare for different meetings, but the more confident that you are, the shorter amount of time you could be using in preparation for each of those meetings and the more flexibility and agility you'll be bringing to every single meeting because of all of the past repetition and coaching and training conversations that you've been having. The other way the lack of confidence is costing you is in the time you're ruminating over things. Again, I'm not saying that we shouldn't prepare for donor conversations. Obviously, I built an entire platform around it. However, we don't just prepare. We don't just write the briefing sheet. We don't just think about things strategically, we ruminate on them. We loop over and over and obsess about it and are anxious about it and second guess ourselves. And that self doubt is contagious and pervasive. And the more we feel around one conversation, the more it infiltrates everything that we're thinking about. We get out of a donor meeting and we're starting to second guess ourselves and we have no way to process that conversation or debrief with a coach because our managers are not always available. Or maybe we don't have a manager so we don't have anywhere to go to really process and close that loop and feel confident. So then we ruminate on that conversation for the rest of the day. Then maybe that donor doesn't reply immediately when we follow up and then we start to ruminate on that. And all the while we are not reaching out to other donors, we're not connecting with other folks because we're doubting our previous behavior. All of this is costing us so much money, so many opportunities. And so you want to be thinking about ways that you can be providing that kind of support and thought partnership and also increasing confidence of your fundraisers, your managers, et cetera, because it's having a really big impact on your, like, efficiency and time management as an organization. Okay, I went down a little bit of a soapbox there. So let me move on to question number two. Oh, what do you do when fundraising just feels exhausting and I've lost motivation? All right, my friends, so if you are feeling exhausted and I'm going to be totally candid, here and a little bit vulnerable. I have been experiencing some really intense emotions recently, mostly because of what is going on in the world around us and some kind of particular trauma stories that I have that are related to some of the news cycles. And I have been feeling my body wanting to go into freeze. And that exhaustion, that loss of motivation that is freeze. That's the nervous system response where we just, we feel tired, maybe we feel depressed and it's our body trying to protect us. It's essentially our body saying whatever is happening is too much and we can't be exposed to other stimuli because our body thinks that maybe we can't handle it. And so its job is to try to get us not to move, to freeze in place, to not risk anything, right? Because if you're already feeling really tender, really overwhelmed, then you don't want to put yourself out there and maybe get rejected or ghosted or whatever it is or even experience uncertainty because that can be dysregulating. And if you don't feel like you have kind of the emotional or regulation capacity to handle that, then your body is going to go into freeze. So one thing I just want to say is like that one of the things that sometimes we over index on here is that we think because we're tired and we're exhausted that what we need is rest. And I'm not saying that sometimes that is not the answer. Like check in with your sleeping habits, check in with your eating habits, check in with your like, you know, energy and have you been resting? Have you been taking care of yourself? Like please rest if you haven't been. But sometimes. I was reading an article recently about how sometimes we over index on rest and we're waiting for that rest to rejuvenate us. We're going to sleep earlier, we're getting. Our sleep scores are phenomenal, but it's not helping us recover from this burnout, from this lack of motivation, from this exhaustion. And oftentimes what we need in those situations is upregulation and inspiration. And that could be anything from like experiencing awe, like maybe you need to go and like see something beautiful, or maybe you need to go for a run around the neighborhood, or maybe you need to jump on a mini trampoline like I often do, or you need to connect with a friend of yours who always inspires you with how they do things. And so I offer that to say like sometimes we're more dysregulated. What we need is downregulation and deep breathing and relaxation and quiet and maybe hatha yoga. Sometimes, though, when we've lost that spark and when we're really feeling tired, what is actually going to change our experience is more of that, like, upregulation space. And what I would recommend for everybody, because I don't know, you know, the person who sent this, like, exactly what they're experiencing or exactly what's causing their exhaustion. The thing I would say is that sometimes you have to play around with this. Like, sometimes you have to try something, tune into your body, see if it had an impact, if it worked, if it did anything to support you, and then if it didn't, you need to try something else. And so part of nervous system regulation tools. And I'll make sure in the show notes we have a link to. I have a stress management course, 30 minutes and totally free. And I recommend that you take that because it's going to give you a number of, like, cognitive tools and somatic tools to really play with. And it's all about testing, testing different things, seeing how they resonate, seeing how they impact your regulation and then going from there. And the last thing I'll say here is, you know, the question was, like, what do I do when fundraising just feels exhausting? The thing is, is that our. We get one nervous system, so we can't really compartmentalize as easily as we think that we can. And so, you know, if fundraising is feeling exhausting, it sometimes has to do with fundraising, but sometimes it just has to do with everything that's happening in your life, making everything feeling pretty exhausting. So I just want to sort of call that out. But I would say that maybe another piece to this is to think about how upregulation might relate to some of your fundraising activities. Like, do you want to send donors a bunch of voice memos while you're walking around the block and thinking about them? Do you want to go on a walking meeting? I had a donor that I would always go on a walking meeting with. We would walk the reservoir together. Do you want to figure out kind of how to find inspiration and motivation in something that sounds a little bit more enjoyable in your fundraising work, to connect those dots a little bit? So those are some suggestions there.
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DonorPerfect Host
I have to be honest, more than anything right now, people are asking me, just tell me what to do. I know that so many people are sitting down to work on fundraising and thinking, okay, where do I even start? You're juggling campaigns, emails, donor meeting events, and about a hundred other things. And sometimes it can feel like you're trying to navigate it all in the dark. That's exactly why I love the donorperfect Community Conference and why it was created. This free virtual event is designed to help fundraisers clear their vision, illuminate what's possible, and get glowing results. On June 2nd and 3rd, you'll hear real stories from nonprofit leaders, learn practical strategies you can actually use, and connect with a community of people who understand the challenges of nonprofit work. Join me and some other amazing speakers, including Joan Gary, Clay Buck, and Julia patrick, for the 2026 Donor Perfect Community Conference. Register for free today at donorperfect.com donorperfect-conference I can't wait to see you there.
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Mallory Erickson
Ooh, here's the next question. How do I stop feeling like I'm asking for money and start feeling good about fundraising? Oof. We could spend the rest of today talking about this, but we're not going to. But I am going to answer this question. So this is such a kind of complicated question for a few reasons. One is, on the one hand, I want to say there's nothing wrong with asking for money. So we can't be afraid of talking about money. That's one piece of it, right? Is that we have a lot of stigma around talking about money being bad or that talking about money is the exact same thing as being transactional, when actually being transactional is about only caring about money. It's not about talking about money. We can talk about money in totally transformational ways that are rooted in belonging and identity and healthy relationships and all of those things. So on the one hand, I want to invite people to do a little inquiry into into the discomfort of asking for money. And there's a lot of societal reasons that we feel this discomfor. And I did an interesting interview with Vanessa Bonds years ago, who wrote the book, you have more influence than you think. And some of the research in her book was about even just asking for things or discomfort just asking for things in general, which, like women tend to be much more uncomfortable asking for things, not just money help. All the things I don't know seems true for me. And so one is that I think it's important to invite some inquiry into, like why we feel uncomfortable asking for things and inviting people in. So on the one hand, I want us to like, analyze that. On the other hand, I mean we the mantra Inside Power Partners is that great fundraising is not an ask, it's an offer. So on the one hand, I don't want us to feel guilty for asking because I think that is a part of life that there's a lot of stigma around where there shouldn't be. On the other hand, I also really want you to recognize that inviting people to be a part of something meaningful, to make change in their community that they want to see is such a gift and such an opportunity. And we should be so proud and really recognize the sacredness of what we're doing by helping people move money towards what matters most and towards building the world and the community that they want to be a part of. And so I think the other side of it is really recognizing that you're not asking somebody to do something that they don't really want to do. You're not hounding people for money, unless you are hounding people for money. And if you are hounding people for money or you are actually being really transactional or you're using clickbait cringy urgency, then you know what? It's really hard to feel good about that kind of fundraising. Like, you're probably never going to be able to feel good about that kind of fundraising because that kind of fundraising doesn't feel good to fundraisers and it doesn't feel good to donors. But if you aren't fundraising in that way. So like, if you are fundraising in that way, you should read my book what the Fundraising and you should learn about the alignment fundraising way, because that is like a fundraising practice change that needs to happen. But if you aren't fundraising in a super cringy way, then I actually think the inquiry that the, the invitation I would make to you is to recognize that what you are really doing is giving people an opportunity and to orient around how special and how important and how sacred it is to be doing that because we get to do impact driven work every day. And that really is a privilege. And a lot of people, maybe for whatever reason, can't work in nonprofit or social impact, but the way they get to live out their values is through how they participate and how they give. And, and those invitations are what allow them to be the version of themselves that they want to be. And so I also want to help you see the power and the sacredness and the importance of, yeah, you're not asking for a favor, you're not asking for a guilt gift. Again, unless you are. And if you are, you're right, that's not going to feel good. But for most of us, that's not how we're fundraising. And so why should we feel like. Like it is? We shouldn't. Okay, here is the next question. How do I handle objections without Feeling pushy or desperate? Ooh, I love this question, you guys. It's such a good question. So I think this is really where curiosity comes into play, because, again, there's actually two pieces here. One is, you know, in my book, what the fundraising, I talk a lot about alignment Fundra, the methodology that I teach in the Power Partners formula. And one of the things I mentioned in the book is that alignment can't just be a strategy. It really has to be an intention. Because a donor can feel that. They can feel the intention or the lack of intention. Right. Anybody can send an email that says, hey, I'm trying to figure out if there's alignment between you and our organization. But if your intention has to be to really be looking for that alignment in a conversation with the donor. And when you are looking for alignment, whether or not there is alignment, which means, again, that there might not be, and you need to be open to that. When you're really exploring alignment, you're curious in that conversation. And then it's not about overcoming an objective. Then it's not about overcoming or handling an objection. It's about when a donor pushes back or asks a question. It's about genuinely getting curious and exploring if that means that you're not aligned or if there's something nuanced to discuss, to figure out if alignment still is really there. Right. So if a donor was going to say to me, well, I don't think you should expand that quickly, or I think you're expanding too slowly. I think this growth is way too slow, and I don't really see the value in this level of investment. If that's. If you're only going to grow that much next year, that that kind of objection opens up the opportunity for me to say, okay, that's a really interesting perspective, and I'm happy to share more about why we've set the goal around this number and how we're thinking about the intentionality here and the way it's going to impact not just expansion this year, but in future years. But before I do that, I'd actually just really love to understand a little bit more, like, where that opinion is coming from. Have you had a past experience with a nonprofit where you felt like they grew too slow or they did grow too slow? And I'd love to just learn a little bit about that. Or maybe you have something from your own experience and you're trying to kind of pass on that learning to me, and I'd love to know that, too. And that curiosity really opens up the Opportunity to go deeper with the donor, which is. And learn more about them. And what you're trying to discover, you're not trying to overcome an objection. If that objection is really rooted in misalignment and you being misaligned right, then why would you want to overcome it? Because let me tell you, some money is very expensive to accept. So you don't just want to overcome any objection. What you want to figure out is, does this objection mean that we don't understand each other, that we're misaligned around where we're trying to go, and curiosity is the only way you're going to really figure that out. So that's my kind of number one. And then I don't think that feels pushy or desperate anyways, because you don't just want their money at all costs. Like, not all money is created equal. So the way to avoid seeming pushy and desperate is to not be pushy and desperate. And I know how hard that can be when inside you feel desperate financially and you're worried about hitting goals or missing goals. And I still really want to encourage you that the path to that sufficiency or the path to that abundance has to happen through alignment. There just isn't another way. Because even if you're going to get a quick win now financially, it is going to cost you a lot more down the road if it is out of alignment in that way. Okay, how do I ask for a bigger gift from a donor who's already been giving at the same level for years? Wow. Okay. So such a normal question. But also I just want to say I think we are asking the wrong question when we ask this question. And full transparency. I'm sure I asked this question like 45 billion times, so no shade or shame whatsoever. But essentially what we're doing when we ask this question is what we have, what we are only looking at is money. So this is a great example of how we are transactional, because all we're thinking about is that move from $5,000 to $10,000, and that is not really taking the whole purpose of that donor relationship into the equation. So when I read this question, how do I ask for a bigger gift from a donor who's already been giving at the same level for years? The very first thing I'm thinking about is how does the donor feel about what they've done so far? Did they. Is the amount that they have been giving rooted in a previous ask or were they giving it without a specific solicitation? How do they feel about It. What difference did they want to make with it? Do they feel like they are making that difference? What are their, like, deep desires and hopes and dreams for the organization, for their life, for the difference that they want to make? Who do they want to be? And what does a really meaningful gift mean to them? Like, nothing about this question lets me know, like, are they giving? And I don't mean at the top of their financial capacity, but are. Is this their best gift? It might be. Like, maybe it is. And if so, why are we trying to think about, like, what else we can squeeze out of this person? Maybe you are their favorite organization in the entire world, and they are giving more money to you than their financial advisor tells them they should be every single year, Right? Then the goal for that donor is not just, like, how do we get them to give more? That's the wrong question. I think the question is, like, which of our donors are interested in deeper engagement? And then of those who are interested in deeper engagement, who has the, like, financial appetite and ability to give in a way that's going to be more meaningful to them and more intentional for them to be the person that they want to be, to make the difference that they want to make. Those are the underlying questions that then drive towards that. Okay, if you're inviting somebody to give double what they gave last year, it's not just like, double your giving. Is that inspiring? Like, you gave $5,000 last year. Do you want to give $10,000 this year? Like, double your giving? I don't know y' all like that. I'm like, why? For what? It's not rooted in any of the things that we know are why people give and what people care about. It's, like, disconnected from the entire experience and intention of giving because we're only thinking about the money. We're thinking about this, like, transactional metric. And we are. We are attributing value to it based on the amount of it alone. And, like, we're missing the whole point. We have lost the plot. And this is not for the fundraiser. Who asks, this is 100% not your fault. This is how we've all been trained to think about it. You know, we think about upgraded gifts just around the increase in the dollar amount. We don't even talk about it as a sector in terms of elevating our impact, in terms of intentional impact, in terms of. We only talk about it in these really transactional ways. So the fact that we're asking these questions makes perfect sense, because this is how all the training is designed and how all the langu is designed, but this is real broken, y'. All. And to identify whether or not somebody can or wants to do more is a whole host of discovery and alignment work that isn't sitting down and saying, hey, you gave $5,000 last year. How do you feel about 10 this year? So that's what I'm gonna say about that. So interesting. Okay, I love this question. What does nervous system regulation actually look like in the middle of a fundraising call? Yeah. Okay. Because a lot of times people think that nervous system regulation means you need to, like, lie down on the floor or, like, close your eyes and meditate. So I'm on video right now for those of you watching on YouTube, but most of you are going to be listening on headphones, so I am going to just describe this to you. So there's a few different. The whole purpose of nervous system regulation work is to come back into your body, right? It's to get anchored into your body. So there's a number of different ways that you can do this without anybody noticing. So one is you can place both feet on the ground and you can bring your attention to your feet. Maybe you're doing this right now as you're listening to me, and you can make sure that your entire right foot is on the ground and hitting the ground. And just make sure every part of that right foot is really pressed into the ground, every corner of that right foot pressed into the ground. And while you're bringing your awareness there, maybe just take a few deep breaths as well. And then I want you to bring your attention to your left foot. And I want you to wind your attention around your left foot. And just make sure that every corner of that left foot is really touching the ground, anchored into the ground. And keep taking a few deep breaths. This is one grounding technique that you can do in the middle of a meeting and nobody is going to notice. Another thing that you can do in the middle of a meeting is to, in your head, look at, try to think of, like, five things you can see, four things you can hear, depending on where you are, three things maybe you can touch, and you can do these things really subtly. All of that is about bringing your awareness back into the present moment and into your body. The other thing you can do is you can take a few belly breaths through your nose while the other person is talking. So you just put your hands on your belly. Nobody has to notice and take an inhale through your nose. Right. Maybe you're not going to do lion's breath immediately after that when you're in the middle of a donor meeting. But you should be able to take a breath through your nose without it drawing a ton of attention to you. So those are some recommendations that I have for some nervous system regulation. Also, if you have a practivated sticker or any sensory sticker, mine is on the back of my phone, you can just rub your fingers back and forth on it. Sensory stickers are really great way to, to activate your vagus nerve and down regulate your system. So highly recommend them. And if you have an event coming up and you want a bunch of them, want a bunch of practivated ones, reach out to my team and we will send you some. Okay, let me see what other questions we have here. Oh, interesting. Okay, so the next one is actually about practivated. So it says, how does practicing with AI actually translate to real donor conversations? So one thing I just want to say maybe to kick this off is it is pretty mind boggling to me how little we embrace practice in our sector. I don't know why we think we should be a profession that doesn't need practice or that we think you don't need practice after you're at a certain level of sophistication in our sector. And not everybody thinks this. Actually. We work with a lot of really incredible fundraisers who are bucking this trend and demonstrating really different outcomes with practivated. But in general, I've been sort of shocked by certain people's responses. And I think we would never say that LeBron James doesn't need to practice. Right? We would never be like, oh yeah, well he's the best basketball player, so he doesn't need to practice anymore. Of course not. Like LeBron James probably practices the hardest. Like he's getting the most game ready now when he's practicing for the game and they're practicing plays based on the team that they're going to come up against, they're not doing an exact replica of the game. Right. They don't know exactly how the game is going to go, but they're building enough muscle memory so that no matter what happens in the game, they've run through all the different scenarios enough times that they have the flexibility and agility to show up in that moment and really be able to connect and stay present with that donor. And I think the thing that we don't realize about transformational giving in particular, and major gifts work in particular, is that the transformational gift lives in insight gathering, in connection, in deep listening, and all of the parts of our brain that allow for that require that we are present and regulated and that we have the muscle memory to handle whatever comes our way. And we think that, oh, I'm a confident fundraiser. Maybe you think that or you think, oh, well, I've done this a million times. But I will tell you, I was a very confident fundraiser in 90% of my donor meetings. But when a donor picked up the phone and was like, how'd you get my phone number? I will tell you, my plummeted. And in those moments, I became flustered. I didn't say what I came there to say, and I totally botched the conversation. And so what we think about at Practivated is like, how do we really build the muscle memory for number one, how do we build muscle memory for fundraisers? Through reps and through situational practice that allows them to have all of the different situational memory in their body and in their brain to really be able to handle everything, everything when it matters. And also, how do we then give feedback on the gaps, knowing that every single fundraiser is different, right? We all come to this profession from different experiences. We all have different types of transformational skills. We all have different gaps, different challenges, different things that we're great at. And the goal is not to all be the same type of fundraiser. Let me tell you, like, there are so many amazing ways to be an amazing fundraiser. The best way for you to be a fundraiser is to be the best fundraiser in you. And that's about bringing out the best in you and allowing you and enabling you to be truly connected in every single donor conversation. So that means you need to go through the reps, you need to get feedback on these different indicators, you need to identify the gaps that are unique to you. And then, inside practice activated, you talk to Tivi, our AI coach inside the platform, about how to close those gaps in your voice. It's not trying to turn everybody into a, like, Mallory fundraiser, right? I have one style, one way. And I will tell you, for years, I thought I was a bad fundraiser one because I was like, there's no way everybody wants to throw up before every major donor meeting. But also because I would be handed these scripts of what to say in donor meetings. And I was like, this is not my voice. Like, this is not my style. I don't know how to make this work for me. And the incredible potential of generative AI is that those days are over. Like, if anybody is handing you a script and telling you that your best fundraising version is reading somebody else's fundraising script problem. We have a massive problem. You have a massive problem because the best fundraiser in you is not inside a script. It is about bringing out the best in you that allows you to connect more deeply, more authentically, more human than anything else. And I think, you know, there's so much fear in our sector right now about AI replacing fundraisers and, you know, somewhat for good reason, because sometimes I worry that we are so desperate as a sector to deal with some of our challenges and we are so we lack so much creativity in how to take care of fundraisers that we think maybe our best option is to create robot fundraisers. But let me tell you, if that doesn't burn us this year, it's going to burn us in a few years. And the opportunity that we're missing here is that a high has the potential to actually transform our fundraisers and our fundraisers experience and our fundraisers ability to do things that only humans should be doing. And that's what we're trying to endorse with practivated, is not only using AI to bring out the best in every fundraiser and to get more people fundraiser ready. Right. We know that the market for fundraisers is changing, that we're having more people come into the sector with transferable skills, but without fundraising experience. We're seeing so many more fundraisers go into healthcare without healthcare fundraising experience, which is a really unique type of fundraising. Right. It is not always transferable to go from a small non profit into grateful patient. Now, does that mean that you can't be a phenomenal grateful patient fundraiser? No. But you do need to be trained differently, right? You do need to be met where you're at and trained and supported and allowed to put in the reps and get the feedback so that you can become a great grateful patient fundraiser. And I think so often we give up on fundraisers too early or we bring fundraisers in without adequate training, without giving them the reps, without giving them the feedback and then we're like, oh, it didn't work out and it costs us a lot of money to do that hiring over again to bring in new fundraisers. And we're always left wondering like, well, what would have happened if I had trained them better or what would have happened if I had been able to do more as a coach or a manager. And in all fairness, like so many fundraising managers, managing their own portfolio, managing huge teams of fundraisers, understandably, they don't have time to talk to a fundraiser for 30 minutes before every donor call. So we built Practivated to do that because we believe that fundraisers deserve world class training and support whether their manager is available or not. And the best managers know this. And they don't see practivated as competing with them. Especially because you can personalize practivated for your institution and for your requirements. But I think more importantly, wonderful, amazing managers know that they want to be doing more for their fundraisers, that they want to be supporting them more than they have done the physical or time capacity to do. And the other thing, I'll say just to kind of like reduce any, I don't know, feelings of, oh, well, I should be able to do that as a human coach or as a manager. I shouldn't need practivated, y', all, generative AI. I mean, I could never, as a human coach, listen to a 10 minute donor conversation, score a fundraiser instantly in an unbiased way on 16 different indicators and then be able to go into every single indicator and quote from the donor conversation exactly why the fundraiser got the score that they did and exactly what they could have said differently to improve human connection and improve that score and improve the donor conversation to raise more money. Like that is not humanly possible. And so when I think about generative AI and the potential for generative AI to truly revolutionize our sector, I'm like, let's think about, like, what can it do that we as human coaches and managers can't do? Like, let's think bigger than just like, how does it take off some of my, like, routine tasks? And how about we think about the gaps that fundraisers are actually dealing with, the things that are actually keeping them up at night. They're actually struggling with both fundraisers and managers. And let's ask, could it solve those problems? That's really the framing that I entered building practivated from was like, I have been trying to solve this fundraiser enablement challenge for five years in every other way. And I would joke like, oh, I'm not five people, so I can't do this thing. And then generative AI started to come on the scene and I was like, wait, like there are certain ways I could become five people. And actually maybe even better than me being five people, I could create a way for this to be really personalized and for people to get this in a safe space, judgment free environment where they feel safe and supported, to grow, to find their fundraising voice, to figure out how they can message something in a way that feels really authentic and organic to them and stays in alignment with the organization's messaging. Framework around this campaign like that is how a fundraiser goes into a donor meeting on fire. And that is what we are here to do.
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I hope today's episode inspired or challenged
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you to think differently.
- [45:25]
For additional takeaways, tips, show notes, and more about our amazing guest and sponsors, head on over to Malloryerickson.com podcast and
- [45:34]
if you didn't know, hosting this podcast
- [45:36]
isn't the only thing I do every day. I coach, guide and help fundraisers and leaders just like you inside of my program, the Power Partners Formula Collective. Inside the program, I share my methods, tools and experiences that have helped me fundraise millions of dollars and feel good about myself in the process. To learn more about how I can help you, visit MalloryErickson.com PowerPartners Last but not least, if you enjoyed this episode, I'd love to encourage you to share it with a friend you know would benefit or leave a review. I'm so grateful for all of you and the good, good hard work you're doing to make our world a better place. I can't wait to see you in the next episode.