Leadership giving is greatly under-resourced in advancement work, and it’s time to do it better.

Costs for higher education and non-profits are up. Donors are down. We are under real revenue pressures. Advancement shops are being asked to raise more money: immediate budget-relieving support. Along with that, we all want to help build a pipeline for the next campaign. It’s a tall order.

This is complicated by the reality that at many organizations, mid-level donors are engaged poorly. We are great at pumping out annual giving appeals to a broad base. We have gift officers that can do personal meetings with major gift prospects. But very, very few shops really do a great job with “leadership” giving, which is directly on the path between the two.

We can do better. And we better get on it, because if we don’t, these under-engaged donors will choose other causes, and take their investment elsewhere.

So, I’m going to spend time today describing two scenarios for leadership giving work. And tell you how my friends at RNL solved this problem. Like, for real.?

Here’s what’s happening when you do leadership giving work poorly

In many shops, leadership gift officers have to engage donors with channels one at a time, in very disconnected ways. This means pulling a lot of lists, looking up donors individually, using separate systems to send emails, texts, create video greetings (if they can even do that at all). It’s cumbersome, error-ridden, and involves a lot of interruption and waiting.? And if you are using Excel or Google Docs to run your leadership giving outreach, well, 2012 called and says hello.

While your gift officers are waiting for lists, wasting time, and getting frustrated:?

• Your gift officers are spending their frustrated downtime looking at other jobs. (Yep, they are.)?
• The donors are giving to other causes.?
• Your data is getting old, including things like new gifts (which can lead to embarrassment).?
• You can make some real costly and even legally dangerous errors on contact data and opt-out preferences.??
• You could collide with other communications going out from your shop at the same time.? (again, embarrassing.)

It's often just a horrible experience for donors and leadership gift officers. No wonder, as one VP said to me, leadership giving has become our “big mixup in the middle.”?

And here’s what happens when you do leadership giving the right way

The scenario is fundamentally different when this engagement happens in one platform, with all your engagement channels connected, and tools easily accessible to your engagement officers.?

When you do leadership giving engagement through an omnichannel approach , in a single platform, connected:?

• You can move from text, phone, email, and video messaging quickly.
• You can execute a defined, coordinated contact plan.?
• Donors feel a real, urgent need for giving because your engagement is steady.?
• You have a connected conversation across channels.
• You warm donors up to give.?
• You quickly arrive at the contact channel that works best for a donor.?
• Leaderships gifts can be made easily via a digital wallet portal (Paypal, Apple Pay, Venmo) if a donor wants.
• You can easily pass a prospect on for a major/planned gift discussion.

The right tools make the giving experience better for the donor and keep a leadership gift officer engaged and doing the job they signed up for.?

Above: Just one real story of “before and after” adopting common sense tech that keeps leadership gift outreach moving.?

We have the technology to engage donors across channels, with a better experience and low friction.?

My friends saw the need here, and they spent the past year working out the technology to make this all possible. They got real. Their solution is not some magical creation powered by future robots or space leprechauns. It uses data, and tested technology that a couple thousand people already use every day.?

This is the type of thing we need to be doing right now for our gift officers, and in particular the younger, new professionals we often assign to leadership giving. The solutions we use have to be optimized for those who will be making quick, personalized outreach. We must be reducing friction and making it easy to engage one prospect at a time. And it all has to be cost effective.

Those are the criteria you should be using when you seek out the tools to support your gift officers. Don’t chase magical rainbows. Chase common sense.?

I write a lot of nerdy stuff. This one is pretty straightforward. Do you want some bigger gifts? Then you’re going to want to actually contact leadership prospects at scale in a personal way. You should get the tech to do that.

RNL Leadership Giving is available now, and you can get started in weeks, not months, at about a third the cost of other solutions on the market. All within a secure platform that’s already booked over $1B in giving and is used daily by thousands. Grab a demo today , and get on the path to getting your team the tools that will create the best donor experience and boost your fundraising results.