Winning major gifts depends on consistently productive outreach to the right major donors and prospects. Of course, who you reach out to matters.
If you spend most of your time on wild goose chases you’ll generate a lot of activity without much to show for it. And that’s why so many fundraisers now use MarketSmart’s system to collect and monitor donor-driven data. This is qualitative data that helps you understand why each supporter cares, what they care about, and when they’d welcome your outreach.
Donor-driven prioritization helps ensure that you’re spending your valuable time wisely.
Then, once you have a system for prioritizing the right people (whether you use MarketSmart’s or some other tool), you have to prepare yourself for making outreach. Do you know what to do?
After reading this, you will. There are four aspects to effective major donor outreach.
1. Know What to Say
More than likely, your initial outreach attempt will happen by phone. While it’s possible you might use other channels – which we’ll discuss in a bit – the nuts and bolts of what to say in your first outreach attempt more or less apply regardless of which communication channel you’re using.
So, your goal is to make a strong and clear first impression on that opening call. There are 5 main goals you should set for yourself in order to achieve that objective.
Build trust
Open the call in a way that positions you as someone the prospect can trust. This works best if the person is already expecting a call from someone in your organization, which they can do by giving permission via surveys and email communication with an automated pre-qualification system such as MarketSmart.
But even with that built-in advantage, the gift officer still must present themselves as sincerely interested in who this person is, what they care about, why they support your organization, and that your goal is to help them become the best version of themselves. Ideally, you’ll begin doing this within the first 30 seconds. We call this “getting over the chasm of distrust” and it must be done quickly.
Note that you should not ask for a gift in the opening call. To build trust you must tell them the reason you’re calling and who you are. Then ask them a question that resonates based on what you learned from their survey response. If they gave prior permission for outreach you can remind them of that. If they didn’t, then ask for permission to continue the conversation. Asking for permission signals respect. That’s how you earn trust.
Next, discover and offer
Once the conversation has started, you can extend it by focusing on the person. Ask questions. Lots of questions. This is easier if you have taken time before the call to plan some questions to ask, rather than trying to come up with them on the spot.
And all you need is a few good ones, like “How did you first get involved with our organization?” and “What inspires you most about our mission?” Or, be more specific by recounting something they said in their survey response.
What’s likely to happen is that as they answer those, you’ll think of good follow-up questions that will continue the conversation and take it places you never could have planned. When this happens, the person will feel good after the call is over. They will feel heard, valued, and respected.
Take time in this call to discover things about this person, and then if it’s appropriate based on where the conversation goes, offer them something you know they will value based on what they’ve said so far.
This can be anything, such as an update about a particular program, a video from a benefactor or a volunteer, information about a new board member – it really depends on how your conversation goes. But if you have something to send them that is relevant to your discussion, they will see it as valuable.
Continue the conversation
Continue the conversation as long as it’s working well. If you reach a dry spot, bring out another question you haven’t asked yet to start a new topic. Continue listening with sincere interest and curiosity, and demonstrate that with more follow-up questions.
Some of the best follow-up questions only have a few words, such as:
- How so?
- And then what happened?
- How did you feel?
- What else?
You can get more specific depending on the topic, but the idea is simply to keep the person sharing their perspective and their story.
Challenge them
The goal of every call is to end with some kind of challenge. With the first outreach call, the most natural challenge is usually very simple: Get permission to make a second call.
There are other challenges that entail greater risk and commitment from the supporter such as meeting in person, doing a video call, volunteering, taking a tour, or attending an event. But one challenge to avoid in the first outreach call is asking for a gift.
Even if they offer a gift, you might want to think hard about turning it down. The goal here is not to get a small gift when you know they have capacity to give much more later. The goal is to build trust and start a relationship. You can build momentum from here, create more resonance for them with your mission, and later on win a much bigger gift.
Wrap up
Finally, review the main points you talked about, confirm the challenge they accepted, especially any dates and times, and give them your direct contact information. It’s best to ask for their permission to give this to them.
The more times you ask permission for even small things like this, the more trust you will build because they won’t feel like you’re pushing stuff on them.
2. Master the Art of Leaving Voicemails
The goal of all major donor outreach is connection, trust, and engagement. You do this by positioning yourself as a value-provider, not an extractor. Hyper-personalize what you say and what you offer based on what you know about them. If you prepare for your calls beforehand, you can have great success with this nearly every time.
But what happens if they don’t answer the call?
Then, you have to leave the dreaded voicemail. The good news is, you can prepare for this too. The voicemail will contain many elements of your call, especially the opening 30 seconds, but in truncated form.
The best voicemail messages take a total of 30 seconds. And you can achieve this by writing it out beforehand, and then practicing it until you can say it flawlessly and without it sounding like you’re reading.
A few tips about voicemail messages:
- Mention personal information such as the date they sent in a survey
- Sound friendly – leave yourself a voicemail and see how friendly you sound
- Make an offer that is personalized based on what you know about them
- Ask them to call back – be specific about this
- Speak clearly when sharing your contact information
- Be polite but persistent – don’t just try once
Remember, many people don’t respond to voicemails. It might be days before they even hear the message. So don’t call back every day or they’ll have six messages in their inbox. But don’t give up after one non-answer either.
Again, especially if they gave permission for someone from your organization to reach out, then you can have confidence they want to talk to you. So, keep calling.
3. Follow Up with Multiple Channels
Some people communicate best by phone. Others prefer other channels. You might have a phone number for someone, and no other way to reach them. In that case, part of your voicemail should include other ways to reach you. And, if you do have other contact information on them, use it!
Following up on different channels feels a lot less pressuring to the prospect than following up with the same channel over and over.
For example, suppose you’re getting a sales call for a service you might be interested in but aren’t quite sure. They call you six times in two weeks, getting you in person twice, and leaving four voicemails. That’s a lot of calls! You’ll feel noticed, but your anxiety might start creeping up if it continues.
But then, suppose the same salesperson calls you once, emails you a couple days later, sends you a postcard, sends a short text message, and then messages you on a social media channel.
That’s still a lot of communication, but it won’t feel like nearly as much pressure because you got just one contact in each channel. And you’re likely to respond with the channel you prefer most, and will ignore the rest even if you are aware of them.
You can do this same thing with major donor prospects.
This is why email drip series work so well. It’s an occasional email. Some emails can include videos. Others link to scheduling apps or even just helpful or valuable information like blogs, articles, and reports. Postcards and letters work great, because mail has more permanence and feels like more thought and time was invested in its creation.
SMS works great for quick follow-ups and reminders.
For new contacts you haven’t connected with yet, we like this cadence for outreach and follow-up:
- Outreach #1
- Outreach #2: 3 days later
- Outreach #3: 7 days from the start
- Outreach #4: 11 days from the start
- Outreach #5: 15 days from the start
- Outreach #6: 19 days from the start
- Outreach #7: 22 days from the start
If you make some of these attempts with different channels, they will not feel pestered at all, especially if they gave prior permission.
The keys to follow-up are patience, persistence, politeness, and personalization. And – using multiple channels.
4. Use LinkedIn
Lastly, LinkedIn is a great channel to use for making outreach to major donor prospects.
The reason is because of all the social media channels, this one has the highest concentration of wealthy people, and it’s the place where many of them are most active. Some statistics about LinkedIn you might find intriguing:
- 40% of LinkedIn users check their account every day
- 41% of LinkedIn users are millionaires – let that one sink in
- 37% of all millionaires use LinkedIn
- Twice as many high-net worth people use LinkedIn compared to Facebook and X combined
Best of all – 36% of ‘mass affluent’ people use LinkedIn for ‘discovery and consideration ‘ for financial decisions.
Put all this together. Of all the social media channels, LinkedIn is the only one that attracts more wealthy people, and those people are willing to engage with financial topics on there. So, the idea of talking about money on LinkedIn is a low barrier for many people.
Succeeding on LinkedIn
There’s a lot to be said for how to succeed on LinkedIn, and it begins with having an effective LinkedIn profile.
Next, you want to make smart choices about how you use this platform.
As a gift officer or other nonprofit professional, you’ll be easily tempted to engage with other people like yourself. But don’t fall into this trap. This is not the main reason you’re on LinkedIn.
You’re on here to engage with potential donors.
This means your posts should not be about the fundraising industry. Your posts should focus on proving and communicating the impact of your organization and how donors can participate in that. Focus on stories of impact, big achievements, and transformational outcomes.
Try to create a variety of media – infographics, videos, and special reports as PDFs, as well as links to your website. You can also post about some of the challenges and details of giving major gifts. This might include the nitty gritty of stock options, IRAs, required minimum distributions, and changes to the tax benefits of giving.
All of this positions you as a driving force for a cause, and as an expert in your field.
And remember – one reason to be on LinkedIn is that some of the people you make outreach to will automatically hunt for you on here, just to vet you and see if you’re for real. Having a solid profile will build trust before you even have a single interaction with them.
There’s a lot more to be said about productive outreach, but you now have a set of four areas to focus on and master your skills and habits:
- Know what to say – even before you call anyone
- Plan and use effective voicemails
- Follow up using multiple channels
- Use LinkedIn to build trust and make more connections
And all of this begins, as mentioned at the outset, by prioritizing the right prospects for outreach and then preparing yourself for the task.
Related Resources:
