Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 326. The Habits of an Impactful Major Gifts Officer - Julie Ordoñez

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326. The Habits of an Impactful Major Gifts Officer - Julie Ordoñez · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:01
  Jonathan McCoy: technology alone can't solve the challenges nonprofits face. And that's why Neon One provides software that empowers you to manage constituents all while giving you the resources and support you need to connect to what matters most your people and their passions. Learn more about how Neon One is helping nonprofits create stronger connections by visiting neonone.com/weareforgood.
• 0:25
  Jonathan McCoy: Hey, I'm Jon.
• 0:26
  Becky Endicott: And I'm Becky.
• 0:27
  Jonathan McCoy: And this is the We Are For Good podcast.
• 0:30
  Becky Endicott: Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
• 0:39
  Jonathan McCoy: We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.
• 0:47
  Becky Endicott: So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 0:58
  Jonathan McCoy: So let's get started. Becky, happy Friday,
• 1:02
  Becky Endicott: Happy Friday, everybody. If you're as excited as I am to come into this conversation, buckle your seatbelt and hold on tight because we have brought the master into the house, the master of major guests into the we're for good podcast, we're going to be blowing up some mindset, some old tired mindsets that you had about major gifts.
• 1:25
  Becky Endicott: And we are diving into the habits of a major gift officer today. I'm so thrilled.
• 1:28
  Jonathan McCoy: So if you have missed the last couple of Fridays, we have been pouring into the habits of an impactful fundraiser series. And so today is really unpacking those habits and mindsets until specifically for major gifts. So if this is your role, this is your purview.
• 1:41
  Jonathan McCoy: This is your episode, like we're gonna give you the playbook of the things that you need to worry about and the things that you don't need to worry about too. So Julie is like such a great expert. I'm so glad to have her in our house.
• 1:52
  Becky Endicott: I'm so glad that you don't set with the fact that we're just going to release some stuff. This is going to be healing for all of us. We're just going to catch it and release it all. But before we dive in, we want to reintroduce you to Julie she has been on the podcast before Julie Ordonez is our major gift whisperer. She is a fundraising coach, a major gifts strategist. She's the founder of Courage Lab, and she is also the host and founder of the Nonprofit Courage Lab Podcast. She is also this incredible Senior Philanthropy Officer at New Story. And if you remember new story, we've had them on the podcast, they're one of our favorite innovative nonprofits. Jon, you're a monthly donor to New Story as well. I don't even know if Julie knows that.
• 2:36
  Jonathan McCoy: I love New Story. I mean, they captured my heart a long time ago. And so when Julia knows she was going there, I was like fist pumping so loudly and so
• 2:45
  Becky Endicott: like actually, I can substantiate that that physically was done. And I can see you fist pump. But I mean, Julie has just been in this work in the trenches, just like you have been major gift officers, she what she's been a one person development shop, she's been a major gift officer at many places. Remember, she was the top 1% performer at United Way of Greater Los Angeles. And since then she's just helping all of these clients and individuals like you raise millions, you know, through smart coaching, understanding the neuroscience and the psychology of what we're doing.
• 3:18
  Becky Endicott: And she is giving you the courage to ask more. So get in here courage lab queen, get into our house and teach us about some habits of a really impactful major gift officer.
• 3:28
  Becky Endicott: Welcome.
• 3:29
  Julie Ordoñez: Wow. Hi, Becky and Jon.
• 3:33
  Becky Endicott: Hi, friend.
• 3:33
  Julie Ordoñez: Gosh, I just want you guys to come and do an intro, every Zoom meeting I have and just like boom.
• 3:41
  Becky Endicott: I will put some music to it and be your hype squad, like whatever you need, we will make it work.
• 3:46
  Julie Ordoñez: Oh, y'all are amazing. Thank you for having me. I'm so thrilled to be here.
• 3:52
  Jonathan McCoy: I mean, it's really an honor, because we were just laughing before we got started that as we were sketching up this series, like I think Julie's name hit the paper before we even wrote major gifts, because you just live this out really well. And I think the heart of this series was to really give this playbook and when we see people that just consistently show up because so much in life matters about what are you doing consistently that's aligned with something bigger. And I just think you do this and coach this really ridiculously well. So like as we kind of lean into today's topic, one of the things we want to dismantle is like, are we asking the right bigger questions, you know, what is the right questions that a major gift officer should really be asking about, you know, the work that they're doing, or maybe the way that they're going about their work to kind of tone set with us with that.
• 4:37
  Julie Ordoñez: Yeah, that's so good. I think that two like mindset challenges that are barriers for raising major gifts for so many fundraisers right now, is this spirit of being overwhelmed. So a habit that a lot of nonprofit leaders have is being overwhelmed.
• 5:04
  Jonathan McCoy: Oh my gosh, call it out.
• 5:06
  Julie Ordoñez: And
• 5:07
  Becky Endicott: so true.
• 5:08
  Julie Ordoñez: I'm so overwhelmed. I'm so overwhelmed.
• 5:10
  Julie Ordoñez: I don't have time, there's so much to do, I can't afford to take a break. I've got to keep pushing through, I'm so overwhelmed. And when you're overwhelmed like that, it's an inside job to fix it. And so something that was a real breakthrough for me, and a question that I asked myself in my own work, because my goals are massive, right at new story in my role as a fundraiser, I am responsible for 7 million this year. And it's all from individuals. This is not like I'm also grant writing, and I'm also hosting a gala. And I'm also XYZ thing, no, no. And so a question that I asked myself is, is it possible that there are people who are taking bigger risks than I am, who have bigger goals and more responsibility and less access to the resources that I have? And they're not overwhelmed? So we think the answer to overwhelm is I need to raise more money, I need to hire more staff I need and we need more. And then that would that way, it'll all will have it under control? No, you won't.
• 6:27
  Julie Ordoñez: Because you're already overwhelmed with less. Right? So if you just get more people on your team, you will scale a culture of overwhelm. And so we think the answer is more to our overwhelm. Well, I just need no no, the the the answer to raising more and overcoming overwhelm is focus. So the antithesis of overwhelm is focus. You may be heard, like, phrases like focus will set you free. You know, I think that's fabulous. What I say to my clients inside courage lab is where there is a lack of focus, there is a lack of funding. So, so being overwhelmed, and not having enough money are like brothers. We don't reach our goals, because we're trying to boil the ocean, or trying to build Rome in a day, we're trying to do everything all at once. And so therefore, you're mediocre at best at 10,000 things, and most of them you may not even enjoy doing and they do not leverage your unique strengths as a fundraiser.
• 7:48
  Julie Ordoñez: So when we focus on the highest level, ROI opportunities, and use our strengths to do that, it's actually energizing. It requires courage, and anything that requires courage. It's like you're scare sighted, you're scared and you're excited, right? It's the same energy in your body, when you're on that edge of like, Oh, I'm mildly terrified. I'm sufficiently challenged. And my all my senses are awakened because this goal is big. And my commitment is high. And I'm going to go after this. So now the next step is just to be courageous and take bold action. Right? That's energizing, it doesn't mean you're not scared. It doesn't mean you're not tired. It just means you have the the energy within you to do something that requires courage, right, which I teach people, it's time to ask for more. Fear is exhausting.
• 8:48
  Julie Ordoñez: When we are afraid, and we don't have the skill of managing our thoughts and our mindset. It is so exhausting, because what we do is we end up talking ourselves out of taking action.
• 9:05
  Julie Ordoñez: They don't want to give they won't give more. They're out of town. I don't want to bother them. They don't really care about what we're doing. I this is I don't want to seem ungrateful if I asked for more, I mean, these are this is fear talking. It's not in the budget.
• 9:23
  Julie Ordoñez: I certainly can't invest in my skill set and my training because we don't have the money.
• 9:26
  Julie Ordoñez: We don't have the money. We don't have time we're overwhelmed. We're overwhelmed, doing things that don't raise money, we're overwhelmed by doing crap. That is not a our high ROI. Activity. Right. And so, fear is exhausting and it makes us smaller as leaders, and it makes our mission smaller. It makes our impact smaller, and there's nothing noble about that. And courage. It's momentary discomfort, but in the end, it creates greater impact.
• 10:07
  Julie Ordoñez: You get to maximize who you are.
• 10:07
  Julie Ordoñez: And it's exhilarating.
• 10:13
  Jonathan McCoy: Okay, you know, we're just like dying on the sidelines over here. Okay, you go for I'll go first thing, guy.
• 10:20
  Jonathan McCoy: Here's the thing. Here's the problem. We were in fundraising our entire careers. And every time we go to a session about how to raise more money, they pull up the like the flowchart, you know, the cultivation solicitation,
• 10:32
  Becky Endicott: although I see the arrows going into a circle.
• 10:34
  Becky Endicott: Yes, I see. It doesn't even fully makes sense when it's like this.
• 10:39
  Jonathan McCoy: What I love about this series, and I love about Julie, because every time she comes in our house, she re centers us is that why are we not starting looking within, like what is holding us personally back, before we start talking about all these stupid tactics, and you know, you hear a lot of tactics, we love the tactics, too. We talked about those sometimes. But this is what this is about, like centering and getting this, right, so you have the capability to step in everything else, like this is so powerful, and I'm here for it. Okay, you can hop in.
• 11:12
  Becky Endicott: Okay, I'm gonna throw myself under the bus. And this example is a major gift officer, which is going to be great, because I see or saw myself in what you just described when I used to be a major gift officer. And I want to give everybody a little context, if you take in Myers Briggs, like I'm a super high J, I'm a doer, which works well with Jon who's super high P and visionary. That's why you know, our peanut butter and jelly goes together so well. But really, because I'm at high J, I have a propensity, when I am in stress, to do a lot of doing things, busy things that make me feel like I'm actually solving the problem, but all I'm doing is creating more anxiety, less self care for myself. And I, I like feel like Julie just came in and said, If you can move away from that mindset, which keeps you exhausted, and you use a little courage, which helps you feel exhilarated, then you can move into feeling so empowered in your zone of genius. And all it takes is some pause, to, to stop to evaluate, start within, push it out. And this is how major gift officers get confidence.
• 12:26
  Becky Endicott: They get really super solid about what they're saying what the mission is, they know their people. And it just makes working easier. And it feels better physically, mentally, emotionally. Way to go, Julio,
• 12:39
  Julie Ordoñez: You mentioned confidence, Becky, and I know, everyone in the world wants to be more confident, right? Like, it feels great, confidence is such a great feeling. And I'll tell you why. Maybe our dear listener is not confident. Now this might sting a bit. Okay, but it's because I love Yeah.
• 13:00
  Julie Ordoñez: The reason you're not confident, is because you lack integrity, nonprofit fundraisers are helpers. We love people fiercely. And so we are so aware, typically, more so than any other sector of others needs. And we are adept at meeting them. We're helpers, we're servants, we love humanity. That's why we do what we do. And typically, what I see a lot is that nonprofit leaders are not loyal to themselves. So an example is, Okay, today, I'm going to call 10 donors. Today, I'm going to go do yoga. And then the day goodbye, and the calendar is full. And you say, Oh, I'm so tired. Oh, my gosh, I didn't even call those 10 donors. And there's no way I'm going to make yoga. And it's just another Tuesday, where you did not keep your promise to yourself. People remark on my confidence, they say, Oh, wow, I love your confidence. How did you get so confident? I want to be confident like that. And I and it's completely possible for anyone. This was hard earned, because I keep my promises to myself. So confidence in your fundraising results comes from doing something even when it's uncomfortable, it's painful, you're tired, you're afraid.
• 14:38
  Julie Ordoñez: Those are not reasons to let off the gas and talk yourself out of taking the action that you said you were going to take. If you wake up in the morning and you say you're going to call 10 donors then make a commitment and say come hell or high water whether I'm tired, whether I'm scared, my brain is going to talk me out of it. If my brain is going to try to keep me safe and say, no, no, no, Becky, don't do that, because you're tired. You don't know what to say. You don't know, if you're bothering the stone or you don't have a strong enough relationship, where do you get off picking up the phone, your brain is going to try to protect you. Because your brain is like, this is a new thing. This is a risk. We don't do this, Becky, this is weird. Stop it, stay safe, stay in your comfort zone.
• 15:23
  Julie Ordoñez: And what you can do is the little devil on my shoulder, yes, like, create a plan for those slots, right? The the mentally mature leader says, I know brain, I know you're scared, we can do this. I've committed to doing it. And I said I was going to and I'm going to keep my promise to myself. Whether I'm tired, whether I'm scared, I decided ahead of time, that that is not enough reason to bail on the promise that I made to myself.
• 15:52
  Julie Ordoñez: That's the reason people don't have confidence, because they would rather bend over backwards to keep their promises to other people and meet other people's expectations than they would keep their own word to their self. The same is true in your major donor outreach, right, our mental discipline and our attitude. towards it. We have a bad habit that we we've been learned, we've been trained to do this, we've been socialized to do this, talk ourselves out of taking risks, that the nonprofit sector has a habit, it is native to the nonprofit sector to talk ourselves out of taking risks. And so we betray our own promises to ourselves, we lower our self confidence because subconsciously, we're like, I can't be trusted.
• 16:46
  Julie Ordoñez: Because when I say I'm going to do something, I don't do it. I can't do this, I can't raise this goal. And then you take action to to perpetuate that belief you have about yourself.
• 17:00
  Julie Ordoñez: Those kinds of thoughts don't lead to taking bold action, right? So confidence comes from Action. Action, we wait to feel confident. And that's not how confidence works. I earn this confidence, because I keep my word to myself, I don't always get it. Right. Right. But if I say I'm going to do something, I'm a little more thoughtful about what I say I'm going to do.
• 17:30
  Julie Ordoñez: Because I know I'm going to do it. And when I do it, I'm like, if I did that I can do this big thing over here. Right? It builds momentum, we underestimate the power of just taking one action step that we said we were going to do. Don't try to call 10. donors. If yesterday you called zero the day before you called zero the day before that you called Zero, how about you call one donor and you just keep your word to yourself? Just do that, that will build confidence, doing what you say you're going to do.
• 18:41
  Jonathan McCoy: Okay, do we just roll the credit music at this point? I think what beautiful tone setting for everything to follow. I mean, you know, because if you can't keep your word to yourself, how can you even move on to talk about what are the habits that you need to embrace to be able to do this successfully? How do you coach somebody before we jump into habits? How do you coach somebody through that step? How do you rewire your brain that, and I'll just put a caveat in here. I went to Tony Robbins back in April. And it's like there is so much power in our words to ourselves, how we show up for ourselves, all of those things. And I believe in that in a moment you can make that decision, because it's like, you just have to do it. You have to actually show up. How do you help people take that action?
• 19:24
  Jonathan McCoy: Because on some level, it's so simple, but it's so hard, you know, we have so much competing thoughts and mental energy.
• 19:33
  Julie Ordoñez: I have a story.
• 19:33
  Julie Ordoñez: So I was meeting with a client today before this interview. And I said, What is your goal for fundraising for this year? And she said, $200,000. And I said, That's a great goal. I said So on a scale of zero to 10 How committed are you to raising$200,000 Whether or not it's easy, hard come hell or high water, you're tired. You get a bunch of nose you don't feel like it? How committed are you?
• 20:11
  Julie Ordoñez: And she said she thought about it and then she says hmm, I'm an eight. I'm an eight. I want to do this. I think 200,000 is a good goal. I want to do it, but we don't we don't really mean 200,000 You know, it's I just we're not will be able to keep the lights on even if we don't raise He's $200,000. And so I said, Okay, so 80% commitment is no commitment, here's what's going to happen, it's gonna get hard. It's not going to be exciting anymore. You don't realize this, but when you ask for more, you hear no more often, my personal goal is 7 million. So I need to ask for above 20. To get there, I hear no a lot. And when you're in the thick of it, it's hard, you're tired, nobody's there to give you an Attaboy. And if you have 80% commitment, quote, unquote, that's when your brain kicks in.
• 21:22
  Julie Ordoñez: You don't really have to raise 200,000, you know, you could just settle for 130. That's really what you need. And you know, this, this person, they've been traveling a lot, you shouldn't reach out to them and ask for more, because you don't really have that strong of relationship, and you don't want to bother them while they're traveling. We have to just commit, commit to the 200k just be like, Look, I'm gonna commit to this. And then we can get creative about Wow, 200k. That's exciting. I made a commitment.
• 21:53
  Julie Ordoñez: So now I'm going to do it. So let's, what how would you like to raise 200k? Do you have one donor who could cut a check for 200k? Once you make a commitment, right, then we can get the creative juices, there's energy that comes, when we put ourselves on the line like that we missed out on the momentum that is within us. When we're at 80% committed, no, then what's going to end up happening, you ain't gonna raise 200k, you're gonna raise whatever it is that your brain, your your primitive brain is going to help you feel safe to get it done. So it has to be a habit of interrogating your own thought life. Why? Why do I think this? What is? What is really going on behind these reasons? Didn't the donor Tell me this? Or am I just trying to talk myself out of it again,
• 22:54
  Jonathan McCoy: something just flips a switch when there's that essentialism, you know, and I think if you're at a nonprofit, and you don't know why, like, that's a big block. You know, I think that's a block
• 23:06
  Becky Endicott: Which we've experienced before.
• 23:08
  Jonathan McCoy: Yeah.
• 23:08
  Becky Endicott: It's, it's a horrible place. When you don't even know that you can confidently go out and say, where the money's gonna go.
• 23:14
  Becky Endicott: Because you've just been handed a goal from somebody, that's way above you, that's a terrible space, feel you all out there that are in that. And I also want to say Julie is our pushy, bossy, tough, loving Italian grandmother, I had one of those P.S. she was my favorite person on earth, who tells us like it is it, it stings a little, but I will tell you, I have never thought about how my limited self beliefs, were impacting my output in mission work. And I gotta say, it's probably not a stretch to say that if I'm doing some negative self talk in my own head at the office, I'm probably doing it somewhere else in my life, too. And so I love that you went there. I think what you're saying, not only do I believe it, I've lived it. And I would just want to say on the back end, that if you can dive into major gift work in this way, and let's be honest, major gift work is like 90% mental, it is a mental game of getting over yourself, the stigmas fears, all of it, if you can get past that, you will be a force for good.
• 24:30
  Becky Endicott: And the best part, you know, I love this, Jon is you're going to be a healthier human being, you're going to enjoy your work more, you're going to enjoy having a breath and not living, you know, in chaos, like you're talking about or overwhelm, which I want to say is probably the word that would describe pretty much my entire nonprofit career, even though I loved it.
• 24:50
  Becky Endicott: You know, I loved it. So I want to get into some tactical questions here because I want to know from you, what are the three daily habits or maybe even actions you love that word action? So do we, what are three daily habits and actions for success in this major gift officer roll hit us with three.
• 25:09
  Julie Ordoñez: I look at my CRM every day. At news three, we use Salesforce. I love Salesforce.
• 25:14
  Julie Ordoñez: And I'm looking at what are the asks that I have I'm looking at my portfolio, which ones How can I move, you know at least three opportunities forward and take it one thing at a time. It's constant reprioritization, because things happen, right?
• 25:37
  Julie Ordoñez: You hear back from a donor and they say, Hey, actually, my stock is in the tank. And so I'm not really going to give much more this year. And that's just the way the cookie crumbles. And so, now it's like, alright, well, who are my top priorities?
• 25:53
  Julie Ordoñez: Because this is no longer going to be an opportunity in the short term. So there's looking at the portfolio, seeing what opportunities are open, and how can I move things forward? It's also looking at the short term like quarterly metrics and goals. What are the things that I need to be doing to bring people closer who have something active this quarter and long term? So what is a long term cultivation stewardship piece?
• 26:31
  Julie Ordoñez: How can I build a relationship with those long term opportunities? And scheduling that out? Right? So it might not be something that I do today, but it might be something I do in three weeks. So practically, what that looks like is I use Google Calendar and create tasks and reminders for myself in advance, because donors like the more conversation that you have with people, right, and the more questions that you ask them, I don't ever leave anything up to curiosity, like, oh, I, I wonder when they will give or how much they're thinking then and I don't play those mind games. I'm like, okay, great. So you plan on giving $100,000? When do you typically make that decision?
• 27:16
  Julie Ordoñez: When do you plan on giving? And they're like, Yeah, my wife and I meet in October, November. So can you please ping me in mid November? Absolutely. You got it. Then I go into my Google calendar. And I put that on there as reminders. And now I'm, I set it, forget it, and Google will do the rest. Google will remind me, hey, you know, follow up with this donor. Go get the money. Julie. If you don't have a CRM that allows you to be able to look at what you've got going on all the solicitations that you've made, and what the status is, and you're like, Oh, I, I am, I am behind and I need to like really buckle down and do some outreach today. Then just block off your calendar and decline meetings and tell people look, I'm in focus mode. This is the way the cookie crumbles. If you need something from me, hit me up on Monday. And just like do what you need to do because you you have a you have a job and your focus is to bring in resources that are going to change people's lives. So it's if you don't meet the goal, if you don't do that, who is responsible? Ultimately, it's you.
• 28:38
  Becky Endicott: Taking a quick pause from today's episode to thank our sponsor, who also happens to be one of our favorite companies Virtuous. You know, we believe everyone matters. And we've witnessed the greatest philanthropic movements happen when you both see and activate donors at every level.
• 28:53
  Becky Endicott: And Virtuous is the platform to help you do just that. It's so much more than a nonprofit CRM.
• 28:56
  Becky Endicott: Virtuous helps charities reimagine generosity through responsive fundraising, volunteer management, and online giving in we love it because this approach builds trust and loyalty through personalized engagement. Sounds like Virtuous might be a fit for your organization, learn more today at virtuous.org, or follow the link in our show notes.
• 29:23
  Jonathan McCoy: I'm seeing so many things just stuck together and really sink. But this hopefully is giving whoever's listening today, permission like this, if this is your role, this is your focus. And you've already talked about the power that when we have a focus, we get more creative, and we get more curious and all those things which are so powerful forces. But we have to own the fact that that is our responsibility. So this other stuff we have to get rid of. And we'll do some do this and not that. But before we hop into that, I want to give you some runway to just talk about how do you figure out relationships to prioritize? You know, I mean, we're an environment here, everyone matters, and they do like we truly care about everything. But if you're a major gift officer, you have to prioritize where you're spending your time. relationally How do you do that? And what does that look like practically speaking in your lane?
• 30:13
  Julie Ordoñez: Love it. This is one of the foundational principles of being an excellent major gifts fundraiser is knowing how to prioritize your donors.
• 30:25
  Becky Endicott: There you go.
• 30:27
  Julie Ordoñez: So for me, I am looking at highest ROI opportunities only. So what that means is donors who are current donors, and also cold prospects actually, who have the capacity, the gift capacity to give six or seven figure gifts, that is my focus. So their current donors, and there's people who, you know, they give towards similar missions or their referral, like they're connected to a board member or advisor, or volunteer or current supporter. And you know, they're interested in learning more. So we have a new story, we have a fantastic research analyst who is pretty much my work BFF, we talk every single day, or he is fabulous.
• 31:24
  Julie Ordoñez: And we work very closely together. And I really see him as a fellow strategist, news story is maybe bigger than most of our friends who are listening in news stories goal this year is 25 million. So, and I'm responsible for seven of that.
• 31:44
  Julie Ordoñez: So I really rely on great research. But even if you're a one person shop, and I have been many times before, you can spend time prioritizing your time doing research and identifying current donors who are who have the capacity to give more. And usually people have like a spidey sense about this, if you have a donor who's giving you$2,000 or $5,000. And you sense that they have the capacity to give more they likely do. I was meeting with a client last week.
• 32:22
  Julie Ordoñez: And she was like, Yeah, this donor, they give $8,000. But they have a family foundation, and I looked at the Family Foundation website. But they're like 990 isn't updated. Or their website wasn't updated. It was from like, 2018, in terms of the grants that they were giving out to organizations, right. So I said, Okay, well, have you gone on to GuideStar? And have you looked at their 990s? She says, No, I haven't done that. She goes on to GuideStar, she looks at the family Foundation's 990.
• 32:57
  Julie Ordoñez: And she sees that they have over$15 million in assets, and that they give close to a million dollars a year away. Now, mind you, they're giving her organization 8000. And then my client says to me, Well, I really feel kind of silly, that I haven't asked for more. This is what nonprofit leaders do not understand. They don't understand how wealth works ultra high net wealth, people who have ultra high net worth net worth right there, their wealth is 30 million plus, that's what it's considered in the US. Their wealth is constantly exponentially growing while they are asleep. Now the other distinction that fundraisers don't understand, and they need to is the ultra high net worth their person, their relationship to time. So fundraisers and nonprofit leaders don't put enough value on their own time. They're too willy nilly asking people for their time. If you're an ultra high net worth individual 99% of the time, your money is growing.
• 34:12
  Julie Ordoñez: Because you have a diversified investment portfolio, you have lots of different components of your wealth, right? You have real estate, you have stocks, you own businesses, and these things are growing over the course of time and profitability. And this is what the nonprofit fundraiser does not understand that there is tremendous wealth. And we must ask for more. Anytime that we can, anytime that it's strategic, and it makes sense, we must ask for more. Because it's on us to change our communities. We are the ones.
• 34:55
  Becky Endicott: I really appreciate you sharing just that story in that outlet, because I think you're right. It's just a different lens of looking at major gifts, and it's a different lens of looking at wealth, and looking at the value of wealth and looking at the value of time. And honestly looking at the value of prioritizing relationships. I'm going to throw this example in on top of yours, which I thought was so exemplary. I had a major gift, prospect and a high ultra high net worth donor in my portfolio, who made a modest gift to my campaign. However, he was so bought into The mission, that he was my most powerful donor, because he was not afraid to call anybody. He was not afraid to go on every single call with me. He would make time in his calendar to write thank you notes or do whatever. And he was also super tough. He like gave some really tough love to his peers. And he could because he had that clout. So I'm also going to tell you as you're prioritizing your relationships, don't just prioritize them based on wealth, because donors, even in the major gifts space, have a lot to give. Who are your rabid passionate advocates? And so thank you for opening our minds.
• 36:14
  Becky Endicott: I feel like we're already shifting so much in the way we're looking at major guests.
• 36:19
  Becky Endicott: Now we're going to move into our next question that is Jon and I's absolute favorite, which is, what is the do this, don't do that habits, have an impactful major gift officer?
• 36:31
  Julie Ordoñez: Do be solutions oriented, do not be problem focused. We are so focused on the problems and how hard things are and how we just oh, we don't have enough. We don't have enough time. I'm overwhelmed. I don't have time. I don't know how it's like, okay, well, what are you going to do about it?
• 36:53
  Jonathan McCoy: Okay, so good.
• 36:53
  Jonathan McCoy: How about KPIs? I mean, you know, we love talking about our KPIs or key performance indicators. What about those?
• 36:59
  Jonathan McCoy: What are the ones that really matter? And major gifts? And what are the ones that don't.
• 37:05
  Julie Ordoñez: You could say that maybe I'm a little old school in the sense that I think the best way to raise major gifts is a one on one meetings in person. Nothing's going to top that. Not your Gala. Not your silent auction. Not your some kind of I mean, events are great for prospects and an opener and an introduction, I think. But in terms of moving the relationship forward to a deeper place and understanding why someone gives an understanding what motivates them, and what their what is their intention for being involved. And at what capacity moving forward, there is nothing that will ever top and in person, one on one meeting. And so, you know, the second best to that would obviously be zoom, or a phone call. That is something that I think is really important is getting meetings with people.
• 37:53
  Julie Ordoñez: And I kind of want to talk about email, because some people are not going to meet with you. Some people, like I said earlier, right there, they value time immensely. So they're not they're not going to take a meeting. So we have to get really good at developing relationships over email, because particularly in my work at news story, we have a lot of VCs and people who are in technology and who are investors and who are always on their phone. And they're emailing and they're on a plane and they're, you know, I'm like, Hey, do you want to come to this event, and they're like, Oh, I'm at this retreat in Panama that week. So I'm not going to make it like that's the kind of person that I'm emailing with, right. And so I need to be able to build a relationship with someone that I have never met over email. And part of how I measure that is I have, you know, an email tracker that notifies notifies me how many opens, you know how many times they opened it, if they've clicked on the email, because here's the thing, we think that people are ghosting us. I'll tell you what a real ghost is.
• 39:02
  Julie Ordoñez: If somebody's ghosting you, they put your email right in the garbage Bosh. They don't even know if that's true. They don't even open it. Right. But I email cold prospects. And I see that they opened my email five times in one day. I'm like, wow, they're really thinking about meeting with me. Maybe they're looking at their calendar, and they're trying to figure out if the dates that I propose work, because if they were not interested, maybe they would have opened at once or maybe not at all, because that is an option. They don't have to open your email. So I advise people on like, I don't know, if you're being ghosted. Are you really looking at the open and the click rate because that is a KPI that you could track for? Are my emails engaging? Like it might take some time to get a response? And that's okay. I think people give up too soon.
• 39:56
  Julie Ordoñez: And those are some things that you could track that maybe other people aren't talking about, but I definitely look at and I'm like, Oh, they're not really ghosting me. They're just maybe really busy. And, you know, that's normal. And so I'm just gonna follow up and yeah, and I would say donor renewals, but I think we kind of, we talk a lot about that as we should. Because that's really the number one priority is current donors and engaging them and getting them to step up.
• 40:29
  Becky Endicott: And the email tracker is really smart to connect back to what you were talking about in the three habits if you or if you're waking up every day, I'm coming into the office and building your plan of what are my actions going to be today you're in CRM, you can literally see oh, so and so is due for a follow up, they've opened my email six times, it's been two weeks. I need I'm due for a follow up what an easy way to sort of automate and prioritize at the exact same time. So love that going to take that hack. We'll be using that and other places in the we're for good ecosystem coffee. Okay, last question.
• 41:01
  Becky Endicott: Yes. Last question. And we put this at the end, because we want to make sure we never miss taking care of ourselves. And I think it's really easy. And I'm going to speak from past experience of someone who has not done this well, as someone who does not prioritize my own mental health doesn't prioritize self care and work because it is easy, major gift officers and you know it to get caught up in the frenetic hustle of however big your portfolio is, and how many actions that are connected to that. And when you get down to urine, like we're coming up on, and you're trying to hit your targets, and you're trying to close out all of these the pressure mounts. So talk to us, Julie, about taking care of ourselves, talk about sustainability and support how you take care of yourself, and just kind of give us a mental health habit. I'm gonna say it again, Julie sorry. And give us a mental health minute. And maybe give us some habits that that major gift officers can utilize to take care of themselves.
• 42:05
  Julie Ordoñez: Now, this is really good. It's really important. I would say that the number one thing is to keep your word to yourself. So that includes your, your healthy habits of like, Hey, how about like you eat good food and like don't eat garbage? Like, Hey, how about that? How about like, you just like drink water. Turn off your phone, like, stop, stop it. Like if it's, you know, whatever time make a commitment.
• 42:33
  Julie Ordoñez: If it's six or 7pm. Every single week, I do a date night with my husband and we go and try out new restaurants. And that's something that I look forward to. And it's like a time of reflection and rest. And, you know, I can go really hard for you know, three or four days or a whole week if I know that I have a restful weekend ahead.
• 42:51
  Julie Ordoñez: And some people are just so overcommitted that. They're just like i There's no rest in sight, because you haven't scheduled it. There's nobody else's, no one else is responsible for that. But you I think in relation to major gifts, you have to consciously at the top of your day, just commit to not being overwhelmed. Because, again, remember, there's somebody out there who maybe has similar challenges to you.
• 43:22
  Julie Ordoñez: They're a single mom, they have big goals, things that they've never done before. Maybe less resources available to them. And they're not overwhelmed. It is possible.
• 43:38
  Jonathan McCoy: I mean, that's so good. There's so much here and I know this episode if you came and you're not even a major gift there's so much here for the taking you know I think you can franchise this courage lab into every sector of our life.
• 43:51
  Jonathan McCoy: And so I hope you're doing that Julie but tell us how people can connect I mean you show up online in really powerful ways shows you know what are the channels to follow you on and how do you can you learn more about courage love and all the things
• 44:02
  Becky Endicott: And the podcast.
• 44:02
  Becky Endicott: We want to know about the podcast We want to know where people can go get empowered for their major gift nonprofit major gift asks on the on the Nonprofit Courage Lab Podcast.
• 44:09
  Becky Endicott: Hit it.
• 44:11
  Julie Ordoñez: Yeah, thanks. So I love to hang out on LinkedIn and Instagram online.
• 44:15
  Julie Ordoñez: @juliemordonez on Instagram. And you can check out my podcast which hit number three on the nonprofit charts this month.
• 44:29
  Becky Endicott: Proud of you.
• 44:29
  Becky Endicott: Way to go rockstar.
• 44:33
  Julie Ordoñez: It was cool. I'm so grateful for everyone who's listen and left a rating and a review and given me great feedback. It's been so awesome.
• 44:41
  Julie Ordoñez: Nonprofitcouragelab.com is where you can check that out. And it is a podcast all about how to ask for more and raise major gifts. So I'm all about courage and strategy in that it's going to be super helpful and it's going to be like a powerful kick in the butt. So if you need that then like please go listen to the podcast. It will really encourage you. Yeah, my website is Julieordonez.com. You can check out Courage Lab there. And I would love to connect with you.
• 45:18
  Jonathan McCoy: I mean full hearts. So much, my mind is just spinning like I think this is really going to be a gift to so many people this episode today.
• 45:22
  Jonathan McCoy: So thank you for coming in this house. It's so good to see you my friend.
• 45:26
  Julie Ordoñez: Yes, thank you so much. You guys are the best.
• 45:30
  Julie Confer: Hey friends, thanks so much for being here.
• 45:32
  Julie Confer: Did you know we create a landing page for each podcast episode with helpful links, freebies and even shareable graphics? Be sure to check it out at the link in this episode's description. You probably hear it in our voices but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before. We'd love for you to join our good community. It's free and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode. You can sign up today at we are for good.com backslash Hello. One more thing If you loved what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating and review? It means the world to us and your support helps more people find our community.
• 46:03
  Julie Confer: Thanks friends. I'm our producer Julie Confer and our theme song is Sunray by Remy Borsboom.