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Fostering Donor-Centric Fundraising: Insights with Lynne Wester | Nonprofit411 · Nonprofit411 Podcast

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Hello and welcome to Nonprofit411, where we dive into resources and strategies that help nonprofits not just survive, but truly thrive.
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I'm Sarah Barton, your host and fundraising advocate.
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Each episode, we bring you inspiring conversations with experts in fundraising, sustainability, and best practices to equip you with the tools and confidence you need to make a real impact.
Welcome to this week's episode of nonprofit 411, where we explore resources and strategies to help nonprofit organizations thrive.
I'm Sarah Barton, your host, and today I'm excited to welcome Lynn Wester, who is the co host of the podcast.
Fundraising is funny with Clay Buck and the principal and founder of donor relations group.
Welcome.
Thank you so much.
I'm excited to be here today.
Thanks for having me.
Yes, I'm excited to have you and to have a conversation, you know, about fundraising, which apparently is something dear to both of our hearts.
Absolutely.
Before we get started though I'd like to ask you my favorite question, which is what is your favorite hobby? Well, I live on an island in the Caribbean, and so my favorite hobby is spending time in the water.
Whether it be the sea, the pool, under the water, anything to do with water, I'm there for it.
So, love it so much.
And on the other side of my personality, I love jigsaw puzzles.
So I've got like this total dichotomy going on.
Water and jigsaw puzzles.
Well, I do jigsaw puzzles often with my dad.
But I have vertigo and so I didn't know this until we went to Hawaii, but the ocean and I don't mix anymore.
So I can't do water when it understood, understood Hawaii is such a magical place.
We work with the Hawaii community foundation and Maui strong raising money to help those recover from the fires.
So a very special place indeed.
Yeah, that is awesome.
So can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and about your background? Sure.
So, because I started when I was nine, haha, I'm 23 years into my fundraising career.
I started in higher education and 13 years ago while working a job.
I also started a blog and a website and then that took off and we now help nonprofits with donor relations, communications, events strategy, really all designed with the donor in mind to make sure that we retain them and have sustainable fundraising.
And so I have a team.
We do education trainings, webinars conferences, and then we also do private consulting work to help folks realign and really focus on the donor experience.
So it's a, it's great work that we get to do.
We're really privileged to do it.
Yeah.
So there's lots of that, that I would love to dive into.
I actually started my career in higher education too.
Did, did you do advancement work? I did.
I built the donor relations department at Rollins college in Florida.
Yeah.
So I transitioned, I've mentioned it a couple of times on the show.
Like I transitioned Ohio Valley university.
Like I was with them when they transitioned from DOS to windows and I was very familiar with windows.
And so I kind of, you know, I was the unintended techie, you know, on the windows side of it.
And so built up from there did advancement with just fundraising.
And then I also did admission.
So at one point we were behind and I did admissions is, is, is fantasy land sometimes.
Right.
Yeah, so I, it's such a great learning opportunity though, because in higher ed, when you're in advancement, you get to do such a broad gamut of fundraising.
Exactly.
It's good experience and it's also good experience in just how big a bureaucracy can be.
Yeah.
Thankfully I didn't have to deal a lot with that.
I was at a small private college.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
I have since then I worked in the last eight years I've worked in community health and we worked with WVU which is West Virginia university.
And so like that area of grant writing and working with grants is very different than working at a small private institution.
I love it.
I love it.
Yeah.
So I love that your work is donor focused.
You know, I think a lot of times when we start talking about fundraising, We automatically go to thoughts about what do we need? Right.
So I love that you start the conversation about being donor focused.
So how did you, like, how did you get to that shift where you were, you know, you realize that you weren't focused on what necessarily the organization needed first, but how you align with the donors.
Yeah.
So my first career prior to joining higher education was at Walt Disney World.
And they have some of the best training in the world.
I started there when I was in college and then did internships and then went to work there after I graduated undergrad.
And their belief is that the guest experience matters more than anything.
And so it was a natural fit to bring that mantra or mindset over to fundraising.
And like my simple motto is, if it done doesn't benefit the donor, we don't do it.
And so I love that because these are people that have chosen, they've made a choice to be generous in whatever form or fashion they choose to be generous.
And I think sometimes organizations lose sight that it's not really about them.
They are the conduit.
Through which the good happens.
They serve as the hope and the signal, and our work is really important.
But for most nonprofits, that work doesn't happen without donors.
Whether that be a grant maker, whether that be a funder, whether that be an individual donor or corporation, at the end of the day, you know, they are the, the fuel, the of our, of our catalyst, of our fire.
And so how we.
Focus our work on their experience means that that's our competitive advantage when it comes to being nonprofits right is how we treat the donor after they make their gift.
You know my friend Madeline and I talked about frictionless fundraising like, how do we make sure that they have a frictionless experience all the way through, because we want them to do it again.
And in America, only 60 percent of people give so we want to make sure that we say, Oh, that's great.
And you're identifying as a donor and identifying as someone who's generous, which not everyone can say they do.
So I have a belief about the 60%.
I think that we're not asking the other 40 percent well.
You know, I, and so, yes, and so I come from the school of improv comedy, so I'll say yes, and I think there are some people that it doesn't matter if you've got the Sarah McLachlan song and the dolphin riding a sick puppy with the cancer and, you know, during a hurricane, and they were And don't see charity maybe as the answer so they may give in other ways or they may see themselves as generous in other ways but maybe they're not going to hand a check or click online to a charity so yes and I also think that in non profit land we 40% And not enough time on the 60%.
That really does grow our base.
It really does grow, you know, just the wealth of opportunities.
So I'm yes.
And how about that? Yeah.
Yeah.
I do think that there's an opportunity to increase.
giving, but I, I think that it is really based on, you know, what are we doing for the donor? I mean, you know, I really do believe that.
And since we haven't all maybe adopted that mindset and I love that it came from Disney, I just got done listening to the last lecture.
Are you familiar with it? I actually met, I was grateful enough to meet Randy Pausch he worked in Imagineering when I did and he wrote handwritten thank you notes like they were his job yeah, and such an amazing soul.
He's now gone and he's just a, he was a fantastic, I say is, because To me, he still lives on and pancreatic cancer was a beast to him and many others.
And, but his idea of these, like treating people well, isn't difficult.
Yes.
Right.
It's just intentional.
It is.
And that's how we, you know, we teach a lot about generosity and gratitude.
And, you know, with, with this, this sweeping new technology, AI and things like that, people like, Oh, well, how do I get rid of menial tasks? Like writing thank you notes.
And I'm like, that's not a menial task.
That is the core of relationship building is that when you do something nice for me, I say, thank you.
And so I want us not to lose the actual art and practice of gratitude.
And my mom was my original teacher before Disney in that I couldn't play with my birthday or Christmas presents until I had written my thank you notes.
So nice.
I still practice gratitude.
Like I went out today, I have note cards, like, they carry stamps where I go.
And I think if I can help organizations understand the return on that, that's part of the good in the, in the globe that I could do.
Yeah.
I also am a card writer.
Spoke with one of my former coworkers the other day.
We were just talking about like the importance of the handwritten note, you know, the importance of taking care of the people that, you know, gratitude was definitely a kind of a hallmark of that conversation too.
And so, I do think, you know, in starting or beginning our conversations about what we're doing in the organization and thinking about that donor experience is, is what sets nonprofit organizations apart, you know, and so what are some of your recommended practices.
To for organizations to be able to do that.
Yeah, I think the first one is being intentional and setting aside time.
So I hear from nonprofits all the time.
What is my solicitation strategy? How am I going to acquire new donors? And so are you spending a fraction of that same amount of time in gratitude and impact, telling donors what they're giving did, thanking them, you know, for so, so I would say being intentional and purposeful about it.
I would say the second thing is understanding that sustainable fundraising that, that is, that values retention, that, that values relationships and not just transactions also needs to value the return on the engagement that you're putting out.
So sometimes people say to me, Oh, wait, you're, you want me to thank donors more than once? And I'm like, yes, yes.
Before you ask for more money and they're like, But that's an extra stamp.
But I'm like, they never hesitated when they gave to you about what extra they were doing.
So how, how do we cheapen that relationship to the point where we're not willing to buy an extra stamp or we're, but we'll spend hundreds of dollars on acquisition, which has less of a return.
So it's, it's being intentional.
It's also.
building that, you know, everybody says they want a culture of philanthropy.
I want a culture of gratitude because that will lead to a culture of generosity and philanthropy.
And I, so being intentional, incorporating the mindfulness of that, that generosity and gratitude is actually a strategy for retaining donors, like it actually works and there's tons of studies all the way to Penelope Burke to, you know, Adrian Sargent, like we, we know all the data behind it, but then it's also a choice.
I would say it's a choice about the type of organization you want to be.
Do you want to be an organization that is a taker, or do you want to be an organization that's a giver? And you get to make that choice.
Adam Grant, who's one of my favorite authors, wrote a book called give and take.
And if you haven't read anything by Adam Grant, he's phenomenal.
But he, you know, you will only you will only get so far when you are a taker.
And so, I just think what is your gratitude and generosity mindset at your organization? And are you grateful for donors? Because sometimes I hear from nonprofit professionals or fundraisers.
Oh, they just, I know they can give more or, you know, they say things like low hanging fruit, or I'm going to, I'm going to pin that guy down and get some money from him.
And I'm like, that's a human being who's a giving soul.
And who are we to place in judgment of that? So one of the things that we've been teaching for about eight years is rather than focusing on the amount of money that a donor gives, focus on their behavior.
So first time donors, loyal donors, donors who increase because the amount is one tiny thing we know about donors.
And it frankly doesn't tell us much at all about them except for what they could afford on that day at that point.
And so we need to unlock that more and really think about donors holistically, not just transactionally.
Yeah, I, I think that's really important, you know, and when I speak with individuals who do plan giving, what is beautiful about fundraisers who do plan giving is that when you ask them what is important about their work, they'll tell you about the legacy of individuals, right? They're like, this person cared about this so much that they funded this into the future, you know, and, and those stories about the humans.
are the things that really matter.
Like, you know, it matters.
It matters why they did it.
And it matters that it continues to have an impact.
And those are the things that make fundraising a very beautiful opportunity and profession, you know, and when we take those things out of fundraising, it becomes overwhelming and scary, I think.
You know, for the fundraise, for the fundraiser, and it doesn't, it doesn't do anything for the donor.
It doesn't do anything at all for the donor, right? Like us restating our mission statement, that's, that doesn't do anything for the donor.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
So I love that.
I think being intentional definitely incorporating gratitude and being intentional.
Those are practices.
There's so many things in our life that are practices.
I do think that COVID, the COVID experience.
Which is just such a marker in our life.
And I hate to always talk about it as the COVID 19.
I haven't been through a pandemic more than once.
Right.
I know.
Right.
So definitely a stake in our life.
But I think that through it, many organizations started to make everything very automated electronic, you know, not intentionally just out of necessity.
And we've, we've forgotten some of the practice, you know, and we've had a lot of turnover in our employee sector to for the nonprofit sector.
And so, The new people coming in have maybe not experienced or witnessed, you know, fundraising in this manner as the donor, as donor centric and gratitude based.
So are you, do you feel like you're seeing that? I am.
I'm seeing a lot of people.
I mean, we, we have turnover.
We've had turnover for a while.
It's getting worse.
I, I think there's many reasons for that.
I mean, we could start a list.
But I also think you know, having been in the industry for a while, it, it takes some self awareness.
reflection as to why you work in non profit.
And I love Simon Sinek's start with why, right? And 99 percent of the people I run into in the non profit world are good, caring people that, that really have their why, they may have lost it somehow.
So when I worked in higher ed and I was having a day where I would lose my why, I would go walk across campus and actually see the students that benefited from my work, right? It, it, it grounded me in Why I do what I do.
And I think that sometimes we get too far removed from the work or the work becomes the work unto itself.
And, you know, one of our core values at DRG is joy.
And, you know, that's why we do fundraising is funny.
To be honest, we wanted a podcast and there's a million podcasts out there.
And so there's something for everyone, but frankly, clay and I, who've been in this industry for a long time, we wanted a podcast where somebody could turn it on and feel like they were at a bar or in a little seated area near a conference near us and was just laughing about.
The funniness that is fundraising, the stuff that never happens in any other field happens in fundraising.
And while there's value in content and there's value in, in education, there's also value in joy and laughter.
And the fundraising shops where I wanted to work the most, those that I think raised the The best money from and have the great relationships with donors are those that have joy.
And so sometimes I would question where's your joy coming from? Because this is such a wonderful presentation.
Do you know what I mean? And I just think there's some There's some really I just think there, that we can incorporate joy into our profession more.
Because sometimes we miss that.
It's not all, you know, one of the great things about nonprofit workers, we're not actually doing heart surgery.
We might be supporting heart surgery.
So, you know, that brings me some joy to say that when I make good mistakes, which I do often, and I learn from them, I also, I also can have some levity about it.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
I like that.
I am.
I incorporate joy into my regular life.
My husband will tell you that most mornings I wake up laughing or making jokes about something.
So I think that it's super important.
So I love that.
It's, it's a value that you mentioned and, and you're right.
I do think that there is a lot of joy in fundraising.
You know, I think when nonprofit organization nonprofit employees get overwhelmed.
It's the first thing to go.
Yes, right.
Absolutely.
The joy is the first thing to go and I'm coming off of a period of burnout.
I've definitely had to recover from burnout.
And there were a lot of things that I've had to relearn.
In fact, All of the things you mentioned like intentionality and being grateful, like those are part of the practices.
And analog has been a big piece of my joy return, right? I have to balance my digital and my analog.
And so I think for fundraising, that's such a great reminder because No, I'm a I'm, I'm going to say this, I'm terrible at making phone calls, but making phone calls is really important, right? It really is, you know, today I had a really long day of zoom, zoom, zoom, webinar, zoom, podcast, recording, you know, all the things.
The hour prior to this, I had freeze.
So I, I'm here with my parents and I said, dad, let's go get in your golf cart and let's go drive around the neighborhood.
I need my brain clear.
I need to go feel some air.
I need to not see the screen.
And like just those resets sometimes really do that.
And so it may be a reset on your perspective.
It may be a reset on your environment.
It may be a reset on what your priority is as well, because.
In the nonprofit world, you know, if I hear one time a day, we're busy.
If I hear a thousand times a day, I hear somebody say they're busy.
And I'm like, right, but you're putting busyness above prioritization and innovation sometimes.
And so we find ourselves saying, well, I'm busy.
I can't get to that.
And I'm like, Is being busy more important than getting to innovation and moving the organization forward.
So again, everybody's different.
Everybody resets themselves in a different way.
But the analog certainly does help.
And sometimes for me, resetting is going into the tech and I like mindless tech, you know, everybody's got their candy crush or their, you know, whatever it is, you know, middle of the night scrolling on reels, whatever that is, but also pulling out.
So same thing.
If you're burnt out in one area, do something that revitalizes your passion.
Or find, you know, it's a phone call and maybe it's a long drive and a listen to a podcast.
Maybe it's calling somebody who understands you and understands the world you work in and just sending them inappropriate memes.
I mean, that's what Clay and I do.
Like during the pandemic, we became so close because only us understood only us, if you know what I mean.
And, and we would just, that's how we commented on the world sometimes.
Yes.
And, and I think, you know, along, you kind of alluded to it, the prioritization and what I have found is that.
I do a much better job when I separate from my current work to do planning and thinking.
So, you know, in my move to intention and my move to, I, I do it in a notebook, so I keep my journal note with me so I can do it handwritten.
But Having a time separated for that thinking and the processing and the processing of the good and the bad, right? That so many times we just push through it and we don't take the time to actually process and think about it.
And that weighs on us.
It stays with us until we process it.
And so, you know, I'm a, I'm a trauma informed coach.
And so I've had a lot of trauma background training The best description I've heard of trauma is that, you know, when we experience something difficult or out of the ordinary, it creates a loop of, of cortisol and that loop keeps dripping till we close it.
And I loved that.
I'm like, that's such an easy, that's an easy concept to visualize.
But, you know, in our work, a lot of times we don't take the time to close our loops.
So we don't take the time to celebrate the good we have done.
It's just onto the next, onto the next, onto the next.
And I'm like, yeah, but you know, there's something to be said for taking a moment to look back and like, have some joy about it.
Yeah.
And I, I have found that if I don't write down like the things that I have accomplished in a day, right.
I don't remember them.
And so I've been trying to make a practice of at least jotting down a couple of things that I did today.
So I could be like, Oh my gosh, I'm so glad I got that done.
Or I'm so glad that I, you know, connected with them because I forget.
I mean, my memory for remembering my joys is about half a second, just like, you know, yes, but the hurts or the, the things that don't work out, Oh my gosh, they last forever.
Yeah, they last forever.
Yeah.
And there's so many joys in the day.
And I think like, you know, it is true.
Our donors and our yeah, our donors and our funders, they bring such joy.
If we can just take a moment and be like, Oh, I'm so thankful that they're in this with me.
I'm so excited that they're interested in solving the world problem that I'm passionate about, you know, Then it can really be uplifting.
Love that.
Yeah.
Well, Lynn, it's been a great conversation.
Can you tell our donors where they can find you? Absolutely.
You can find us at donor relations.
com or fundraising is funny.
com.
Love to hear from you.
You can see us at conferences.
You can reach me on social at donor guru, and I'd love to hear from you.
At donor guru.
I love that.
And you get one more question.
So the last question I always give everyone after they tell us where they can find him is what is the last piece of advice that you want to give to our listeners? Do one thing, do it really well, and then move on.
Don't get overwhelmed.
Find out your big rocks and focus on those so that you don't get lost in and be overwhelmed.
Right.
Just do one thing that you find, do it really well, and then move on.
I love that.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
My pleasure.
I've enjoyed this conversation.
I look forward to being able to share it with the listeners and to our listeners.
I look forward to you tuning in next week.
Thank you and have a great week.
Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Nonprofit 411.
I hope you found today's conversation as insightful and inspiring as I did.
Remember, building a healthy nonprofit requires a holistic approach.
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