Growing a culture of philanthropy

I have had a number of contacts with organisations recently that caused me to think about the importance of a “culture of philanthropy”.   I don’t know when the term first started to be used, maybe someone can tell me? However,   if you Google on the phrase you will come up with a large number of excellent articles by top fundraising consultants such as Pamela Grow, Simone Joyeaux and Karen Osborne.  Significantly, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, in its 2012 Review of University Funding, makes growing a culture of philanthropy a key recommendation.

What exactly is a culture of philanthropy?  For me it is an appreciation within an organisation, from the top all the way down, of the importance of donations, grants and bequests. And of the givers themselves, including volunteers who are givers of time and effort.  The top means the board and the senior executive group, not just the chair and the CEO.  All the way down means including those vital people who meet and greet visitors at the reception desk, who answer the phones or who serve the drinks and nibbles at our events.  In the very centre, of course, are the program people, the operations staff:  the field workers, artists, teachers and researchers who actually do the work that donors and volunteers support.

How do you grow a culture of philanthropy?  And whose responsibility is it?  Well the good news is it is uses exactly the same skills you use every day as a fundraiser.  To grow a culture of philanthropy, you talk to people. You tell your colleagues stories about what you do, the people you work with, their challenges, hopes and frustrations.  But more, much more, than that, you listen.

The enjoyable times and successes in my fundraising career  happened because  development teams I have worked in were social hubs.  Thier  spokes radiated to lots of other people in different parts of the organisation.  So we had conversations, listened to criticisms, and built relationships with all kinds of colleagues surrounding us.  This led to our discovering donors, learning about projects and developing great cases for support.  It led to those surrounding colleagues sharing and enjoying fundraising. And it led to those colleagues becoming donors themselves.

The first signs of an incipient culture of philanthropy are when a development office becomes the “come to” office.  When people drop by because they want to chat and engage with the development team.  In an arts festival where I worked, the development office was the first place where people would come to learn about the programming plans. These weren't secret.  It was just that the programmers, the artistic team were to wound up in their own daily grind to share their information.  So marketing staff and the education people would learn in advance what they needed to know about the program from the development team.  In return, we discovered opportunities and got involved in things the marketers and education team could  plan which we then could take to potential supporters.

Another example involved a development office in a university that was, unfortunately, having something of  a leadership crisis.  The development office, which was very new, was in danger of losing its ability to engage with donors and continue to raise funds because of that.  But we identified worthwhile projects (and even donors) and started some green shoots of philanthropy.  This was because between us we engaged widely with colleagues across faculties and the administration. Ultimately, the university was lucky enough, eventually, to recruit a dynamic VC who believed in development and prepared to invest in it.  It subsequently has been very successful at development.

This brings me back to the point that a culture of philanthropy has to run from the top leadership through all points below.  Once the CEO, the chair, board members and senior staff feel comfortable dropping into the development office to share their experiences you can be sure that there truly is a culture of philanthropy at work.

The three terrible trip ups!

I am about share with you the “three terrible trip ups”. The three things that can go wrong in a major gift solicitation process.  In order for it to make sense, I'm also going to take you through the Seven Steps of Major Gift Fundraising. 

(This blog was initially a webinar for which I am grateful to EducatePlus for hosting).

Some of you may know these seven steps as five or six or eight or nine or 10 – I think I've even seen as many as 11 or 12. However I usually talk about the seven steps of major gift fundraising. And I also talk about the Case for Support being at the very centre of the seven steps. Each of the steps interacts with and is informed by the case to support. Often when I show the seven steps as a diagram I do so with the Case for Support in the middle as the hub and the seven steps as the spokes.

What do I mean by that?  Let's start with the first of the seven steps. Identify. My first job in major gift fundraising was a capital campaign to raise funds for a medical research institute for the University of Edinburgh. So it was fairly obvious how we would identify our prospects: our potential donors. They would be medical alumni. Or to some extent there might be drawn from the other sciences, biological sciences for example.  But immediately you can see how the Case for Support influenced identification of prospects.

Of course identifying prospects is only the beginning. The next step is researching them. In this first job, I was very lucky.  It turned out that I got to share an office with what was then a very unusual creature. A Prospect Researcher.  At that time – this was about 20 years ago – I'm not sure if there were any Prospect Researchers in Australia. There were only a very few in the UK. Our institution was one of the first to have one. And I was lucky enough to share an office with her. Lucky because by sitting next to me, Liz, that was her name, was able to listen and see and participate as we developed the Case for Support. She got to learn about the campaign and what we were looking for. She then became very good at finding what turned out to be some extraordinary good prospects. Some of whom became some of the significant donors to the campaign.

For example, she heard about somebody who had sold his business –a place where pharmaceuticals were tested – to an American competitor. It turned out he was a medical  alumnus - although one who had dropped off the radar. Sadly this gentleman had a significant amount of cash – several million pounds. Eventually he made a very generous gift to the medical research Institute. Again you can see how research interacts with the case to support.

What is research about? It's about discovering what the linkages and interests are that people have with the case for support. It is also about their capacity to give. In this case, of course, we discovered that this person had a large amount of money. But research is also about understanding where a person is in their life cycle or career cycle. For example do they still have children at school or at university, or are they empty nesters? Are they still midcareer or building a business, or like this gentleman have they just sold a successful business?

What else is research for? It is to find out how to develop a relationship with a prospect. But there is an important step that comes before that.  Planning.  I am sure you will got your own aphorisms, but the one I use is, "To fail to plan is to plan to fail".!

And what is planning about? It's about planning how you develop the relationship. How you cultivate each prospect. How are you going to introduce them to the case for support? How are you going to involve them? Who are you going to involve them with? What types of activity will they enjoy?

It turned out that the prospect I was talking about earlier had, with a couple of friends, developed a cabaret act they liked to perform. So what did we do? We invited them to perform at some medical reunions. That was a way of cultivating him.

I often describe cultivation is the dance steps that take the prospect to the ask. Generally I suggest that you start with big events, public events – lectures, open days et cetera. Events at which the key prospects don't necessarily feel singled out. Although of course you will ensure that people are well briefed about them. And then later as you research them more and know them better you're able to tailor more intimate events. Usually these are aimed at bringing the prospect together more closely with the volunteers or the leaders whom ultimately you want to be the askers.  Those who will offer the prospect the opportunity of contributing to the campaign.

And as you know, if you don't ask you don't get. That is ultimately what we have to do. I could talk a lot about asking. And I run workshops on asking. However I think the best way of explaining it that I have ever heard was from Guy Mallabone, of Global Philanthropic. He describes asking as, "Putting a number on the table". You are letting somebody know an amount which you hope they can contribute towards achieving your Case For Support.

However, rarely does anyone reach into their jacket or into their drawer and bring out a cheque or a bag of coins. In fact the first time that happened – someone who began to write out a cheque – I asked to put it away. It wasn't the purpose of that visit. I hadn't gone there to ask for money. We hadn't developed the relationship. We hadn't done the research.

There may be a number of reasons why somebody isn't able to give you the money straight away. Often they may commit to a gift or a pledge but they're not in a position to hand over the money. In one example I asked somebody for a gift, which they were keen to make. However our research hadn't told us he was in the middle of a divorce settlement. It was an amicable settlement which is why we hadn't heard about it.  However it meant that he would not be able to make his gift until that had been settled. On other occasions a person might need to talk to an adviser a financial adviser or stockbroker. Or they may want to talk to their family, their spouse or their children. Hence there may be missing pieces in the jigsaw that need to be filled.

And then, finally, perhaps the most important step. What do you do after they've made a gift? Well thank them of course. And thank them again. But much more than that. You need to look after them. Keep them informed. Let them know what their money their investment is doing. Steward them. Cherish them.

This is most important because apart from anything else you may want to go back and asked them to make another gift in the future. This is particularly true in universities. But it may also be in schools where there is more than one generation passing through that school.

So these are the seven steps. Identify your prospects. Research them to discover their linkage interest and ability. Plan how to build the relationship. Cultivate them, the dance steps. Then of course ask and close. And finally look after them cherish them so you can ask them again.

Now let's talk about the three terrible trip ups.

The first: speed dating! Going straight to step 5

I can still vividly remember my best example of this. I had just joined a University to help manage a campaign. It was for a Centre of Brewing and Distilling. It was a university in Scotland where, of course, whisky distilling is very important. Within my first few days the vice chancellor said to me, I want you to come down to London with me. We're going to meet with someone who may be able to make is a very substantial gift. He had had a tipoff that this person had come into a substantial amount of money.

The prospect was the chairman of a well-known family brewer. So we went down to the brewery, a historic site in London. We were shown around the brewery, the process by which the beer is made. Converting the hops and barley into liquid, fermenting it and then producing the ale, which we then got an opportunity to taste in the tap room.

Then we all went to the boardroom and sat around the table. It was an oak panelled room with velvet curtains and hunting prints on the walls. The chairman began to talk about the family business the history of the firm and how he had and how he had become to be involved in it. After he had spoken and it was a very interesting story it became time for the vice chancellor to take his turn. Almost immediately he began by saying thank you for this opportunity to come down and meet with you. What we would like to ask you to make a gift of around £1 million to our centre for brewing and distilling.

You almost immediately feel the atmosphere thickening. You could hear a pin drop. Everybody appeared to be frozen.  Barely a flicker crossed the chairman's face and within a moment he resumed the conversation. He switched it to some anodyne comments before inviting us to an already scheduled lunch. It was not the convivial  lunch we had hoped to enjoy.

Of course, we had done no research. We had done no cultivation. No planning. We hadn't explained the case to support. We had simply asked.

The aftermath to that came a few months later. We finally felt it was time to mend bridges. The vice chancellor invited the chairman of the lunch. We met at a club in London. Soon after the chairman arrived, before we had started the soup, he reached into his pocket saying, "I have decided I would like to make a gift to your campaign". And he handed over a cheque which we dutifully accepted and looked at suitably gratefully. It was a cheque for £5000. What he had done is something clever. It's called inoculation. He had successfully prevented us from being able to ask again for a large gift for a least the duration of this campaign. Asking too soon. That's terrible trip up number one.

Terrible trip up number two: falling in love with cultivation.  Stopping at step 4.

I haven’t as much  a story,  as a general warning.  However I will give one illustration which is also about inoculation  It was during  a campaign I was working on for a sculpture space. 

Our prospect was a wealthy widower, a collector of art. We had invited him to be on our campaign board, or advisory committee. He had suggested that these be held in his home. As time went on, his catering for these meetings became ever more elaborate. He was a keen cook. What he was doing was effectively saying I'm making my contribution not only by being on this committee but also by hosting these meetings. Meantime he was also quietly making it clear that he wouldn't be in a position to make a substantial contribution. Nonetheless, he was enjoying the cultivation.

What very often happens is that those people whom we want to involve with the prospects  – Vice Chancellors, Headmasters, Heads of Department, Deans – are initially reluctant to be involved. Then they discover that they enjoy it. It's sociable. they get to meet interesting people. Important people show an interest in them and their work. Sometimes if we are not careful, these relationships go off piste. They begin to meet each other outside of our carefully planned cultivation process. They forget that this is a carefully planned process. These are steps in the dance that a leading towards asking for a gift. Forgetting that is terrible trip up number two.

Terrible trip up number three: forgetting the donors. Forgetting step 7.







The development office where I was working was in its own building, an old freestanding building on a university campus.  We were coming to the end of the quiet phase of the campaign. We would soon be going out to talk with some mid-level donors to offer them the opportunity to become involved.


From where I was,  I could see the rest of the office.  One day one of the ground keepers knocked at the door, in his orange overalls. He and his co-workers had been cleaning up a part of the campus and he had something he wanted to show us. We went down to the pickup truck outside. On the back of the truck were several blocks of granite on which were inscribed names. It was the honour board for a campaign about which we had known nothing. A campaign from several years ago of which there was no record in our office. And amongst those names, were several of those who we were about to go out and talk with about this new campaign.

Imagine if we had gone to them and did not acknowledge and thank them for their contributions to a previous campaign! This is the third terrible trip up, forgetting your previous donors. Not showing that they are cared about, that their previous contribution is remembered.

So these are the terrible trip ups.  I’d love you to share some of your own stories.  It is from these that we all can learn.