Talking Shop EverTrue

Comprehensive capital campaigns: Much-needed strategy and structure? Or antiquated and artificial approach to advancing the mission?

On the latest episode of the Talking Shop podcast, co-hosts Erin Moran and David Lively draw on their experience as former Campaign Directors (at DePaul and Northwestern) to explore the complexities of campaign planning and execution, what works well and what doesn’t work so well, and – gasp! – whether comprehensive capital campaigns are obsolete, altogether.

Erin and Dave examine the upsides of comprehensive campaigns (they can align with long-term University strategic plans) and the downsides (temptation to focus on ever-larger fundraising goals instead of the impact of each and every gift). They consider issues like the impact of artificial timelines, donor acquisition and fatigue during long-term campaigns, and whether targeted micro-campaigns are a viable substitute.

Tune in!

On this Talking Shop episode, co-hosts Erin Moran and David Lively tackle a big topic: What is the optimal fundraiser portfolio size?

The answer is, as with most questions that Dave and Erin confront: It depends.

When it comes to portfolio make-up, Dave quotes his friend Ben Porter, Chief Advancement Officer at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business: “If you’ve seen one university, you’ve seen one university.”

Most organizations roughly follow the “Robert Dunbar” approach to portfolio size and stack major gift officer portfolios with about 150 prospects. At Northwestern, David and his team made the argument to shrink portfolios to about 40 prospects and have experienced excellent results. And at EverTrue, we partner with tech-enabled fundraisers to have 1:1 contact every year with 1,000 prospects.

While thoughts about the number of prospects in gift officer portfolio varies (and depends on factors like business rules for assigning prospects, prospect rating criteria, logistics of assigning prospects to portfolios, etc.), when we dig into the data on portfolio health, there is a common theme that arises:

The prospects in gift officer portfolios should be folks that will be solicited (like, actually asked for a gift) within the next 36 months.

On this episode, co-hosts David Lively and Erin Moran discuss optimal portfolio make-up, criteria for a "managed prospect," and the foundational power of good data in building good portfolios.

“We all need to be able to speak to why this profession is important and how we all uplift each other.”

On Erin’s first day at Grinnell College, part of her orientation included an explicit explanation that, “You are here because of a lot of alumni who made a lot of gifts.” From day one as a student, she was intentionally educated about the positive impact of philanthropy.

Where do scholarship dollars come from? What resources are needed to raise those dollars? How was the new sports arena funded, or the new computer science building? Everyone on campus needs to be able to tell these stories (student affairs, career advisors, faculty members, deans, student leaders). And it’s on us as advancement professionals to lead that messaging.

On this episode, David and Erin confront the reputation of the advancement industry and our individual roles in shaping the narrative. They consider how our donors and potential prospects learn about higher ed fundraising. Which do they hear more of: impact stories about the diseases cured, degrees made possible, and lives changed by philanthropy? Or do fundraising headline scandals (a-la “Varsity Blues”) capture more of their attention?

Building a culture of philanthropy means telling stories of the impact of donations, over and over again, across all channels, at all levels of the organization, to students, faculty, staff, alumni, and to the rest of the world. Philanthropy is love!

"You rated this person as having a capacity to give $1.5MM, but I met with them, and they can clearly give upwards of $25MM. What gives?!"

On this episode, Dave and Erin explore a tale as old as fundraising time that costs advancement shops a lot of time and energy: the communication breakdown between fundraisers and prospect researchers.

Dave and Erin have been on both sides of this proverbial fence, and they talk through suggested solutions to the silos based on their experience. They hone in on the junctions in the lifecycle of a prospect where the People, Process, and Performance trifecta can be better aligned.

Some highlights from this episode:

"The prospect research profession is based on publicly available information. We have not yet hired paparazzi to be on our prospect research teams."

"They're just not talking with each other. And this really requires a partnership. Both teams need to understand the process of doing the ratings and the process of fundraising."

"The prospect research team shouldn't have to be the prospect cops or the proposal cops."

"Fundraisers are typically good at figuring out two of three important factors from their conversations with donors: capacity and affinity. But they're not particularly good at timing."

Tune in to the Talking Shop podcast on EverTrue Studios (www.evertrue.com/studios).

On this episode, Dave and Erin talk about proposals that may give the appearance of being alive, but are actually lifeless and refuse to die.

Zombie proposals: how to spot one and what to do when you realize you've got one in your portfolio.

Catch more brilliance on the topic of zombie proposals in David's recent Chronicle article, published with his Northwestern colleague, Brijesh Jani: https://www.philanthropy.com/article/how-one-university-used-data-to-eliminate-zombie-proposals-and-improve-big-gift-fundraising