Latest / Scrappy but Successful [Consultant's Personalities When No One's Watching] / 49. Turning Donor Gifts Into Loyalty That Lasts with Alison Jeffrey

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49. Turning Donor Gifts Into Loyalty That Lasts with Alison Jeffrey · Scrappy but Successful [Consultant's Personalities When No One's Watching]

• 0:00
  What's happening, everybody? Welcome to Scrappy But Successful. This is a show where I sit
• 0:04
  down with your favorite consultants and we find out if they're successful today because they're
• 0:09
  sophisticated or because they're a little bit scrappy. I'm your host, Jack Tompkins, CEO of
• 0:14
  Pineapple Consulting Firm and Pineapple Analysts AI, always helping small businesses become more data-driven. Fun
• 0:19
  fact of the day for our guest, Calgary. It's got the world's most extensive elevated
• 0:24
  pedestrian skyway system. So think of those cold winter nights in Canada. It's got over
• 0:29
  18 kilometers connecting 130 buildings. You can walk throughout the entire downtown without ever touching
• 0:34
  the sidewalk. But that's neither here nor there. Today I'm joined by my friend Allison
• 0:39
  Jeffrey. She's the founder of Allison Jeffrey Consulting. She works exclusively with nonprofits. She does
• 0:44
  fundraising as a function, works on the overall strategy of the company and strategy of
• 0:49
  the fundraising within the universe. So, Allison, we know that you are successful today. Thank
• 0:54
  you so much for joining. question we have for you. Do you think you fall
• 0:59
  more on the sophisticated side or more on the scrappy side?
• 1:03
  Hi Jack, great to be with you. those elevated walkways they are called the plus
• 1:09
  fifteen, the plus fifteen network, and they are fifteen meters in Canada above the ground.
• 1:15
  So I didn't know there was 18 kilometers, so you've taught me something there too.
• 1:22
  Yes.
• 1:24
  In terms of sophisticated or scrappy. I'm gonna take that from a non-binary way. I
• 1:31
  would say I follow more the 80-20 rule. I'd
• 1:36
  Sure.
• 1:37
  say 80% is likely more sophisticated a function of the work I do and major
• 1:42
  gifts with philanthropy. I'd say I really, really squeeze all the juice out of the
• 1:49
  20% that I am scrappy.
• 1:52
  Yeah.
• 1:53
  And there's there's nothing I there's nothing not scrappy. When I'm scrappy, it's like almost
• 2:00
  shamelessly. I don't hold back. And so yeah, I think I think that blend works
• 2:07
  well for me and gives me that little bit of flexibility to move up or
• 2:14
  move down.
• 2:15
  There you go. Okay. All right. I like we'll see if the data agrees with
• 2:19
  you. take me back to the beginning. Did you grow up in Calgary? Did you
• 2:23
  have any entrepreneurs in the family?
• 2:25
  In Alberta, just a little bit north of Calgary, my parents were both civil servants,
• 2:33
  so career bureaucrats, very proudly serving in different government departments. I was not exposed to
• 2:42
  entrepreneurship within my family, with my parents or my siblings. I just two years ago.
• 2:51
  found the person in the family that I am most alike in terms of entrepreneurship.
• 3:00
  And that's my Uncle Joe. I he lives in Glasgow, Scotland, and he's he's definitely
• 3:09
  a senior. And I learned that he he had just an extraordinary career in entrepreneurship.
• 3:18
  And so I just felt like I had I had found the DNA link in
• 3:26
  talking to my uncle about his a bridge between entrepreneurship and philanthropy. And I had
• 3:35
  no idea.
• 3:37
  Okay, and when you say you just found him, meaning you've always known him, it's
• 3:40
  just now you realize he was on this wasn't a twenty-three and me, you found
• 3:43
  out you had a distant cousin or something. Okay.
• 3:45
  No, no, I've known this like he's this colorful,
• 3:49
  Yeah.
• 3:50
  you know, full of vitality, favorite uncle. I I had just gone over to Glasgow
• 3:54
  with the express purpose to really spend time with him. He was kind of the
• 4:00
  last of that generation, my my father's brother, and we just really took the time
• 4:06
  to sit down, and he was so open to conversation, and I just kept on
• 4:12
  asking. Questions where my curiosity took me, and I I learned things I just had
• 4:18
  no idea about.
• 4:20
  That's awesome. Okay. So what was his entrepreneurial life? Like I'm sure it's it sounds
• 4:23
  like there was quite a bit to it. What was his main business or two?
• 4:27
  He he was he purchased a China shop in Glasgow after the war. He had
• 4:34
  worked in the shop and then the owner suddenly passed away. And he was able
• 4:42
  to, you know, put together some some money and and took a took a share
• 4:50
  in the in the business. And so you know, before, you know online online business
• 4:58
  you know was ever dreamt of decades, decades earlier. Like he had some really innovative
• 5:06
  ways of marketing the business, keeping like a broad geography of customers engaged and aware
• 5:14
  of what he had. And there was a story he would tell about the storefront
• 5:22
  displays and he turned them into these almost like mini adventures and almost like vicarious
• 5:30
  scavenger hunts where he would, you know, change things slightly with these like beautiful, exquisite
• 5:38
  porcelain figurines. And so he was, yeah, I just I I just was wowed at
• 5:46
  how original he was with a very traditional product line.
• 5:52
  Right. Okay. Do you get so obviously you're working with nonprofits today. Do you have,
• 5:57
  you know, his creativity from an entrepreneurship perspective and and some of the fundraising stuff
• 6:02
  that you do?
• 6:03
  Yeah, I'd like to think so. I would say one of the areas that I've
• 6:09
  I've been really creative in over my career has been in what what we would
• 6:16
  call donor stewardship. So when a donor has made the gift and then, you know,
• 6:23
  depending on the size of the gift and the capacity of the organization, you want
• 6:30
  to keep the donor engaged and reinforce how meaningful their gift has been to the
• 6:37
  mission. And I remember I remember A time I was working for a hospital foundation
• 6:43
  in Toronto and a Hong Kong billionaire, and it's all public, so it's it's fine
• 6:50
  to say, but had made you know a record-breaking gift to the hospital. ties to
• 6:57
  Canada, and so there was actually a a building named after him. And every year
• 7:04
  the the organization would create, you know, extensive impact reports for this donor in English
• 7:11
  and then also get them translated into Mandarin. And we would have them in hard
• 7:17
  copies shipped over. And we never really, as I understood the organization never really heard
• 7:24
  back from the donor as to whether this was what he wanted or this really
• 7:31
  did let him feel engaged. So Our CEO was contacted by the CEO of one
• 7:38
  of Canada's top banks, who is also the banker for this billionaire in Hong Kong,
• 7:45
  and said to my CEO, I'm about to go on a trip to Hong Kong
• 7:51
  to meet my client. Is there anything you would like me to take for you?
• 7:58
  And so we thought about that and you know, have we sent these big impact
• 8:05
  reports? Yes, we have. what if we sent, you know, I I don't know if
• 8:12
  it was this kind of cliche, but like, you know, maple syrup or something like
• 8:19
  that, like Canadiana. But I I said, what? Because he had invested in the the
• 8:26
  Hart Institute. And I said, what if we sent him a stethoscope? A litman stethoscope,
• 8:32
  and what if we got it engraved?
• 8:36
  Ooh.
• 8:39
  and look, I I knew this from a previous life. I was married to a
• 8:45
  doctor, and there was something like that just captivated people about stethoscopes. And you can
• 8:51
  buy a stethoscope from Amazon for $100, it's not, you know, but anyways, so So
• 8:57
  the idea was that we would go ahead with the stethoscope for this this donor.
• 9:03
  And I got it engraved with a Chinese proverb that said, Wherever you go, go
• 9:09
  with all your heart.
• 9:11
  Very, very nice. Very on point too. I like it.
• 9:15
  And it just, you know, I would say I literally led with my heart more
• 9:21
  than my head there, but it all lined up. And he wrote back to our
• 9:27
  CEO, which he had never done before, as a handwritten note, telling him how meaningful
• 9:33
  it was for him to get the stethoscope. And his grandchildren were just so intrigued
• 9:39
  by this. And you know, like so it it gave him. a conduit for communication
• 9:46
  and whether you talked about you know giving and generosity, it almost doesn't matter. But
• 9:52
  yeah, that was that's probably my most creative and most tender story that way.
• 9:58
  That's so good because it I I don't know if most of your donors are
• 10:03
  super wealthy folks, but for those
• 10:05
  Yeah.
• 10:06
  that subset of people, it's always difficult to give a gift, because what do you
• 10:09
  give a person who can buy absolutely anything? So it has to be something meaningful
• 10:13
  or something like that.
• 10:15
  Mm.
• 10:17
  Is that a common thing when a big donor and you y like they they
• 10:21
  donate a gift and then you give them back something meaningful? Is that how that
• 10:26
  typically works?
• 10:27
  you know, in in in the finest ways it does. You never want to you
• 10:33
  never want to give a gift that intimates that you are, you know, not that
• 10:39
  you're like misappropriating funds, but that you're not being intentional with the funds, right?
• 10:46
  Right.
• 10:47
  So, you know, it's just like we all get you know solicitations in the mail
• 10:53
  and we like and we don't like when they stick in, you know, tea towels
• 10:59
  and stickers and stuff like that. so that I would say, to go back to
• 11:06
  your lead question, like that was a very sophisticated where we landed with that, it
• 11:12
  was very sophisticated. Because for a hundred dollar stethoscope, for a you know, a billionaire
• 11:19
  who gave millions, you know, no one would question that spend.
• 11:24
  Yeah. yeah. I I didn't even think about the angle of they gave you a
• 11:26
  bunch of money and now you're like, cool, we're gonna spend it on a gift
• 11:29
  back to you. Like that's not why they gave it. This is so interesting. Okay.
• 11:32
  Were you were
• 11:33
  Great. Yeah. Thank you.
• 11:36
  you always in this world? Like take me back to Allison as a kid, like
• 11:40
  in in elementary school. Are you are you volunteering for things? Like do you have
• 11:45
  this nonprofit urge as a kid too?
• 11:48
  I think I, you know, my my family, while they didn't necessarily like volunteer or
• 11:54
  they did some things in community. We were, I was I was raised in kind
• 12:01
  of a political family, so we would, you know, we would contribute volunteer hours that
• 12:08
  way. So I I do have good memories of seeing my parents, you know, showing
• 12:15
  up that way. I think early on, if I look back, I wouldn't have identified
• 12:21
  it at the time. But, you know, for me, my my currency is connection. like
• 12:28
  I I crave it, I seek it. I'm I'm I'm I'm an outgoing introvert. and
• 12:35
  so I'm I'm always looking for you know, whether it's in the you know the
• 12:42
  grocery store lineup or with a colleague at work, I I'm I'm just like a
• 12:48
  a fiend almost at times.
• 12:51
  Yeah.
• 12:52
  because I I know what my motivations are. It's like I I need that hit
• 12:57
  of connection. And and I I I think that that was You know, I can
• 13:03
  I can go back and think of times where I I was motivated to do
• 13:09
  things, to feel connected to others.
• 13:12
  What did you do in COVID when the world shut down? How did you connect?
• 13:17
  I I remember I was living on my own. I just met Mark, who is
• 13:23
  now my husband, so we had a relationship that got really fast-tracked by COVID, but
• 13:29
  I was still living on my own. It was pretty much early days, but where
• 13:35
  we were starting to have like like a public awareness around. where we would we
• 13:41
  would s we had been saying social distancing, but then there was this awareness like,
• 13:47
  no, we still have to stay stay socially connected just in different ways. So there
• 13:53
  was this one day and I was just out on my patio. It was like
• 13:59
  maybe April, May, so still a little chill in the air. and I I saw
• 14:05
  this couple walking. And this was even at the time where you you weren't really
• 14:11
  supposed to be even out that much, like early days.
• 14:16
  Right.
• 14:17
  And so I saw this couple. I was on the second floor apartment, so it
• 14:22
  wasn't high rise, and I I leaned over the balcony and I called out and
• 14:28
  I said, like, ha, hi, hi.
• 14:31
  Yeah.
• 14:32
  And they they looked at me and you know how sometimes you know it takes
• 14:34
  you a second, like where's that voice coming from? And
• 14:36
  Yeah.
• 14:37
  and so our eyes locked, and I said, Do you want to have a conversation?
• 14:44
  And
• 14:45
  Ha ha ha.
• 14:47
  like this is obviously the 20%, like this is not sophisticated Allison, like this is
• 14:51
  the I'm being so awkward here, and and you're just gonna get it. And and
• 14:55
  they looked at each other and they they bolted like they were no longer walking,
• 15:00
  like they they were kind of
• 15:02
  Yeah.
• 15:03
  like slow job. And so yeah, that that really sticks in my mind and I
• 15:07
  get teased about it at home, you know. My husband will say to me, like,
• 15:12
  do you want to have a conversation? Hearkening back
• 15:15
  Yeah.
• 15:16
  to that. But yeah, I just I just I just squeezed any opportunity that I
• 15:22
  that I could. you know, I would I I would go after it. I would
• 15:28
  s I would like many of us, I mean it's not that original, but I
• 15:35
  just remember that feeling so much that I I needed conversation, you know.
• 15:41
  So okay, this is great. I also love just that fact of hi, I really
• 15:46
  want to talk to somebody and you're somebody. Let's like let's talk.
• 15:50
  Yeah.
• 15:51
  in in today's world, when you're when you're doing fundraising, are you the one who's
• 15:55
  actually going out there and doing the fundraising? Are you setting the strategy?
• 16:00
  Hmm, great question. I have a pillar client that I've been working with for three
• 16:07
  years, extraordinary organization, a leader in domestic violence, prevention and awareness. And so They're a
• 16:15
  pillar client, so I'm I'm actually a a functional, I I do a functional role
• 16:22
  with them as a chief development officer. so I do set the strategy, execute strategy
• 16:30
  with the team, and I do solicitation of major gifts, planned gifts, which I l
• 16:38
  I love. and I I have other clients. and and that's a a hard line
• 16:45
  for me. You you don't solicit for more than one charity at a time, right?
• 16:53
  You don't switch the caps and so that's how you know I've organized it. I
• 17:01
  do love fundraising and this this arrangement really allows me to be at the top
• 17:08
  of my game. as a strategist and as a solicitor.
• 17:14
  Okay. So I I want to learn from you because I'm I would classify myself
• 17:17
  similarly. I'm an introvert, but I'm a very outgoing introvert, especially at times. Whether that's
• 17:21
  an amnivert or whatever that middle ground was, I
• 17:24
  Right.
• 17:25
  don't know, but I'm I'm so bad at sales. The only thing that I can
• 17:30
  Yeah.
• 17:31
  sell is a win win win. Like well, you know, we work with other consultants,
• 17:34
  so it's a win for us, win for the consultant, win for the client as
• 17:39
  well. It's the only thing that I can like easily sell. And I'm trying to
• 17:44
  think of like, okay, like it's a clear exchange of goods and or services for
• 17:49
  the thing that I'm selling. For the thing that you're selling is fundraising. It's it's
• 17:54
  donation. And so like, how do you actually go about the sales process or the
• 17:58
  the fundraising, the solicitation process while being a very friendly person who's looking for connection?
• 18:03
  Do you just slide in and by the way, this is a really cool organization
• 18:08
  and hopefully they get inspired? Like, how do you actually have that solicitation conversation?
• 18:13
  I think what makes me feel good right now in terms of how my brain
• 18:20
  is responding to this question is just how varied it is.
• 18:26
  Okay.
• 18:28
  which actually makes it not be a sales process.
• 18:33
  Perfect.
• 18:34
  so thank you for for asking it in that way. You know, what it is,
• 18:41
  it's like the The currencies here are meaning, purpose, making a difference, legacy. for some
• 18:49
  people, although typically not at you know these higher the h higher level giving is
• 18:57
  like tax advantage, you know, but you know, th that's the that's typically like a
• 19:04
  very small thing element kind of slipped in there. You know, I remember maybe a
• 19:12
  decade ago and I I was also working in the women's space and and just
• 19:20
  getting to know some of the clients of the organization and and just feeling from
• 19:28
  their stories Much they were yearning to be believed in. Like how much they were
• 19:35
  yearning. I remember a client had said, like, I'm I'm not looking for a handout,
• 19:43
  I'm not looking for a handout, I'm actually looking for somebody just to hold my
• 19:51
  hand just for a period of time till I can just walk on my own.
• 19:59
  And I just felt this yearning like so deeply in my soul from the client's
• 20:06
  perspective. And I also knew that I was talking to philanthropists who had, you know,
• 20:14
  come into money, or maybe they had always been in it. They had been born
• 20:22
  into it or inherited it, married it, earned it, any combination. And there was also
• 20:30
  a yearning. Like there was this yearning to make a difference. There was a yearning
• 20:37
  to make something of their money, which I feel a little emotional actually, which which
• 20:45
  you know created this ability to make something of themselves. That they couldn't just buy
• 20:53
  from the market, that they couldn't just, you know, get the later model at the
• 21:01
  car dealership. You know, it was it was something that and and one other story,
• 21:08
  Jack, if you allow me. Like
• 21:12
  Yeah.
• 21:13
  I r I remember working with a a CEO. kind of early in my consulting
• 21:17
  and and we were we were part of it was she wanted to learn and
• 21:23
  wanted to be coached around major gift solicitation and she had had a very interesting
• 21:29
  background in in the sector she had worked in HIV AIDS mental health distress and
• 21:35
  so you know at one point she she said Allison like I I I just
• 21:41
  I I just don't know how to ask somebody for $10,000. That was a number
• 21:47
  she gave me. I I just don't know how to ask somebody for $10,000. And
• 21:53
  she
• 21:54
  Right.
• 21:55
  said, and and she was like downplaying what I'm about to share. She said, you
• 22:01
  know, based on my work, like I know to how to ask somebody ten different
• 22:07
  ways if they're about to take their own lives. Like if they're just ready to
• 22:14
  throw it all in. But almost like you know, that's nothing compared to, you know,
• 22:20
  this deficit that I don't know. And I said to her, anyone who could give
• 22:26
  you $10,000 would have no idea how to ask somebody if they were about to
• 22:33
  take their own lives.
• 22:35
  Right.
• 22:36
  And and so, like your presence. You what you represent is that extraordinary humanity and
• 22:45
  courage. And that people want people who are in that yearning for something greater than
• 22:55
  their bank accounts want proximity. Sometimes you know they decide how close they want to
• 23:04
  get to it. But that proximity of the rawness of humanity, of how desperate, desperate
• 23:14
  people can get, and then how the human spirit, the collective human spirit, can bring
• 23:24
  people back up. And I don't know too many spaces other than this sector in
• 23:33
  philanthropy that affords the margins. For that kind of vulnerability.
• 23:40
  This is how good you are. I forgot the question that I asked. And I
• 23:43
  just I was so drawn in by the story and thinking of like, what are
• 23:47
  the organizations, or not even the organizations, but what are the things that I care
• 23:51
  about that I would I would say, look, I I can't dedicate a whole lot
• 23:55
  of time to this, but I really want to make a difference. And if money
• 23:59
  helps make a difference, then I'm willing to donate. Like that's that's kind of the
• 24:03
  picture that you're painting, right? Okay.
• 24:05
  Yeah, yeah. And that you will be different from having
• 24:09
  Yeah.
• 24:10
  done that. Like it's yeah. I I mean I don't have a spiritual practice. Like
• 24:16
  this is my spiritual practice. It is.
• 24:19
  I believe it. okay, take us to the business side of this. So how did
• 24:24
  you start the business? And how long have you been in business? How did you
• 24:30
  start it? who are your first clients?
• 24:33
  Yeah, I I had been working in-house I I've probably worked less in-house than than
• 24:38
  I I have, or I haven't, pardon me. but it was more how I would
• 24:44
  be paid. Like I'd be paid as a contractor, not an employee. And during the
• 24:50
  pandemic, probably it was the second summer of the pandemic, I just was really feeling
• 24:56
  flat. Like what were the words like languishing? I remember that was a a hot
• 25:02
  word and quite quitting was coming about. And I I was just really losing my
• 25:08
  spark for my work. And I've you know created a career, followed a career path,
• 25:14
  that's it it's so Cliche, but the love what you do, and you'll never work
• 25:20
  a day in your life. But I'm much closer to that than anything else. Like
• 25:26
  I'm not a Sunday scaries kind of person. But I was feeling myself rusting out.
• 25:31
  and and it it was, you know, I I really was paying attention to that.
• 25:37
  And so My husband and I had bought a house and I kind of waited
• 25:43
  until everything cleared and they had the, you know, attestation that, you know, I could
• 25:49
  pay the mortgage and and then I, with all due respect to the organization and
• 25:55
  the CEO, you know, extraordinary costs, I quit my job. with no job to go
• 26:01
  to, which if my bureaucrat parents had told me one thing, I wasn't saying taught
• 26:07
  me one thing, but they didn't teach it, but they told it to me over
• 26:13
  and over was never leave a job unless you've got one to go to. And
• 26:19
  I I left my job. And I I remember like I do when I hear
• 26:24
  that from people, my gosh, you're you're leaving, we'll miss you. Where are you going
• 26:30
  to? And I just started saying it was a little bit easier because no one
• 26:36
  was working un you know co-located, but I just said to my own backyard, like
• 26:42
  I I don't know where else I'm going. But you know, it was it wasn't
• 26:48
  that long. And then my you know, there's there was a lot going on that
• 26:54
  summer. Like I finished my job on a Friday, last Friday of July, and my
• 27:00
  beloved father at the age of 93 passed away the next day. He had he
• 27:06
  had been in hospital and you know it was a long goodbye, but And yeah,
• 27:12
  I had a couple of weeks and then through through somebody who I knew at
• 27:17
  that role who had moved over to a cancer support organization and they had a
• 27:23
  post a posting for an in-house role and I, you know, I called my friend
• 27:29
  Steve and he said, I thought about you for that role, but you know, I
• 27:35
  I just don't know if it would kind of be enough for you. And we
• 27:41
  talked for about an hour and then at the end of the call I said,
• 27:47
  Well, you know, Steve. If all else fails, I'll just do some consulting. And he
• 27:53
  said, wait a minute, like is that an option? I said, yeah.
• 27:58
  Ha ha.
• 27:59
  And he said, well, let me put you in touch with our CEO, because that
• 28:03
  might actually be her preference. And you know, so by the end of the following
• 28:09
  month, I had this client and that engagement with this CEO. She was she's new
• 28:15
  to the role. That was I I just can't believe my good luck that I
• 28:21
  had such an amazing first client. And because of that, I you know, one led
• 28:27
  to the next. And she's she's kind of grandmothered in for me because every year
• 28:32
  at the anniversary, because I'm coming up five years in September, and and I'll do
• 28:38
  like a anniversary client gift. And I of the clients I had from that year,
• 28:44
  and I I'm I really love curating. I guess kind of back to the stethoscope
• 28:50
  story, but I love curating things and handwritten notes. And I always extend a gift.
• 28:56
  Her name's Natalie, and she hasn't been my client. for three years, not at that
• 29:01
  organization anymore, but I always sent her a gift because she was that anchor that
• 29:07
  gave me that confidence and the cash flow that I could make a go of
• 29:13
  this.
• 29:14
  That's awesome. Okay. Okay, cool. So it's sort of like happenstands, a couple things lined
• 29:20
  up nicely, although maybe not all of them are good events. And so you launch
• 29:26
  then. you're good at strategy for other people. How are you at strategy for yourself?
• 29:33
  Extraordinary. Yeah, yeah.
• 29:34
  Really? Okay, good. So you this is very much practice what you preach, drink your
• 29:40
  own champagne kind of situation.
• 29:42
  I don't know how to do it anything different.
• 29:44
  Ha ha ha
• 29:45
  you know, I I have an MBA, so it's not like I never had any
• 29:51
  strategy training, but I mean it is it it is very much who I am.
• 29:57
  And in fact, when I started my consulting practice and because you know I I'm
• 30:03
  strong in the fundraising function and I I'm a revenue generator, right? Like you it's
• 30:09
  easy to set easier to sell yourself if you actually you know have a track
• 30:15
  record of bringing more money in than you're you're gonna invoice for. But I I
• 30:21
  just lost my train of thought there isn't that wild.
• 30:25
  Because you're so excited. You're
• 30:27
  I would I would lead with. So in the sales process, I would lead with,
• 30:33
  you know, I'm I'm a fundraising expert. I have my certified fundraising executive. And so
• 30:39
  I would start these engagements and the feedback I started getting was, you know, in
• 30:45
  terms of fundraising and expertise, yeah, you're you're excellent fundraiser. We've learned a lot, especially
• 30:52
  in major gifts. and they wouldn't like totally say this, but it was the intimation
• 30:58
  was, and there's a lot of good fundraisers out there. So y yes, you are
• 31:04
  very good and there are many people who are very good. But the differentiator was
• 31:10
  that I'm bringing a strategic practice. and and you know, I remember hearing this the
• 31:17
  first time. Heard it again, heard it again, you know, handful of times in the
• 31:23
  first six months. And I realized I don't I don't have to turn that on.
• 31:29
  Like you wake me up at three in the morning, ask me a question, I
• 31:35
  might be tired, but it's gonna have a strategic lens through it.
• 31:41
  That's just natural for you.
• 31:43
  It it is. It's one of those, one of those, yeah.
• 31:47
  That's awesome. Okay. So one of the questions I like to ask too is how
• 31:51
  do you continuously prove value? Yours is a bit easier because to your point, you're
• 31:55
  a revenue generator and it's pretty easy to say, hey, keep me on because that
• 31:59
  number keeps going up.
• 32:01
  Yeah. And and you know, the work I do with teams, if there's longer engagements,
• 32:07
  I mean there's also you know, efficiencies created with really getting the team focused on
• 32:13
  the higher impact, higher value areas of fundraising, you know, it's a portfolio business. So
• 32:19
  there's many things that people could be doing in calling it fundraising. It doesn't necessarily
• 32:26
  mean it's the right thing or the right mix. So you know we we kind
• 32:32
  of we we bring in the focus, we deepen the work because you deepen the
• 32:38
  work and you elevate the revenue.
• 32:41
  Okay. Okay. I like that. Deepen and elevate. Okay. All right. Let me hit you
• 32:46
  with some lightning round, scrappy verse sophisticated questions.
• 32:49
  Okay.
• 32:50
  let's go back to childhood. How are the grades in school?
• 32:54
  I was a yeah, a good good student. I would say, you know, likely earlier
• 33:03
  on, kind of more people-pleasing kind of perfectionism. I think by you know, high school
• 33:13
  and then into university, I really understood I got a good mix of the areas
• 33:23
  that bees were fine. Like
• 33:27
  Okay.
• 33:28
  I I learned to really segment and align my effort with what needed to be
• 33:34
  the big wins for me and then the things that, you know, those solid bees
• 33:41
  were the right level to aim for.
• 33:45
  Such a strategic answer, even as a child. Like I knew what I had to
• 33:49
  do and I did it. And that's, you know, I focused on what needed to
• 33:54
  be done. what were the family vacations like growing up?
• 33:58
  You know, we didn't do a lot. Like I I'm I'm one of four kids,
• 34:03
  but I'm the the last and big big gap between me and my siblings. So
• 34:08
  they did much more of the like the camping and the driving trips. me and
• 34:14
  my parents, you know, we we had the trip to Disneyland, we would go out
• 34:19
  to the coast here. My parents they sent me when I was Between grade nine
• 34:25
  and grade ten, they sent me to Scotland for a month and we had family
• 34:30
  there and I lived with them. and it was it was such a fantastic experience.
• 34:36
  And so I had I had more independence and I was, you know, part of
• 34:41
  a big family, but almost like an only child. So yeah. I you know, and
• 34:47
  I'm sure I've i it kind of blocked some things out. And if you ask
• 34:52
  my parents, like, you know, did you take Allison on family vacations? They might have
• 34:58
  like a more of course we did. And but these are the things I remember.
• 35:03
  You know how it goes, Jack.
• 35:06
  Okay, they're going, what are you talking about? We went on a vacation every summer.
• 35:10
  Early business, any fake it till you make it clients where you took on something,
• 35:15
  you're like, I could probably do that. I haven't done it, but sure, I can
• 35:20
  totally do that. Anything along those lines?
• 35:23
  It's I'd say the closest I came to like in fundraising, you're either fundraising for
• 35:29
  operations, so it's annual campaign. Or you're fundraising for a capital project, so capital campaign.
• 35:36
  And those can be, you know, years in the making and in the execution. And
• 35:43
  there's usually good consulting work with capital campaigns because there's rarely in-house expertise for that,
• 35:50
  because it's not every year you do one. And so I I think early on
• 35:57
  I got offered. opportunities with capital campaigns and quite quickly and and they're not a
• 36:04
  one-person initiative. So you know I wouldn't I wouldn't present myself as somebody who could
• 36:11
  do run the whole thing. But I think I would I kind of even that
• 36:18
  out by saying well I can do some readiness work but I'm not going to
• 36:25
  be you know the full executor. Another one I would say is I've learned over
• 36:32
  the years that as much as I admire them and I am one myself, I
• 36:39
  actually don't work that well with founders.
• 36:43
  interesting.
• 36:44
  Yeah, and and so I've got pretty strong personality, you know, and and pretty confident
• 36:53
  in what I do. It's it's I'm not a generalist, not a Jane of all
• 37:02
  trades. And so I want to work with leaders who really value expertise and are
• 37:11
  let me take that back, are ready for expertise. Yeah.
• 37:18
  Okay. Somebody who knows what they want and knows almost like being coachable to some
• 37:24
  extent.
• 37:25
  Yes.
• 37:26
  Okay.
• 37:26
  I I I've never met a leader who didn't value the expertise. They weren't always
• 37:32
  ready to pay for it. and and they weren't always the business might be ready
• 37:39
  for it, but personally they weren't ready for it. Yeah.
• 37:44
  Right.
• 37:45
  And those are some hard ones because I I I don't work with people I
• 37:49
  don't like. And so you're in relationship with somebody you really like and but you're
• 37:54
  you're just anticipating that you're not gonna be able to make make the impact that
• 37:59
  you you you said you would. You know, you wanted
• 38:04
  I
• 38:05
  to, you want to.
• 38:06
  Okay. Okay. take me inside the office. what's your like laptop setup? Do you have
• 38:12
  multiple monitors on the desk?
• 38:14
  No, I'm I'm almost a hedonistic minimalist. I I don't do well with clutter. my
• 38:21
  nervous system goes on fire. it's it's pretty bland. I I'm I would say I
• 38:29
  I don't know if it runs contrary, you can you can tell me Jack, but
• 38:37
  I'm I'm I I've got like low technical acumen with like an extraordinary capacity for
• 38:45
  data and analytics. Yeah, but there's a big gap there, right? I'm just always like,
• 38:53
  you know, where's where's the button to make this bigger? But then I'm like, let's
• 39:01
  cut the data this way and this is a variable and
• 39:07
  Okay, I I love it. I mean obviously right my wheelhouse. That's that's the stuff
• 39:11
  I'm all about.
• 39:12
  Yeah.
• 39:14
  okay, what is the most unique thing in your office? Any trinkets, any previous client
• 39:21
  gifts or anything like that?
• 39:24
  You know, I'm I'm I'm in a build in the office because I almost kind
• 39:29
  of stripped it bare as a summer project so that I
• 39:34
  Okay.
• 39:35
  could I because I'm a minimalist who loves beautiful things.
• 39:42
  Okay.
• 39:43
  Yeah, I I'm not a Scandinavian aesthetic that it all has to be shades of
• 39:49
  beige. You know, I I love beautiful things. I don't have that many. I mean
• 39:56
  I have this picture that I do love a lot. It's been in my life
• 40:02
  for quite a while. And
• 40:05
  Okay.
• 40:06
  it it's a bit of a collage. It's got some words on it. And this
• 40:12
  pink, this fuchsia in the bottom and it also and then there's this you can't
• 40:19
  really see it but this arrow and and that pink i'm just in the process
• 40:25
  of rebranding and and that pink is going to play a prominent role in the
• 40:32
  aesthetic so i i think i'm waiting till i get some brand assets and then
• 40:38
  populate
• 40:39
  I mean, she's strategic, she's organized, she helps people make dreams come true. She's all
• 40:44
  sophistication, folks. I I'm I gotta go a hundred percent classy, a hundred percent sophisticated
• 40:49
  Allison. I love it. Yeah.
• 40:51
  That's the diagnosis. Okay. Okay. I leave it to you. You're the expert.
• 40:57
  Thank you so much for coming on. what do you want the folks out that
• 41:01
  are no? Anything you want to promote?
• 41:04
  I just want, yeah, I I really want to encourage people to to dream bigger
• 41:10
  with the change that they want to make in this world. That really is a
• 41:17
  lot about who we are and where our values lie. And literally like No gift
• 41:23
  is too small. And you know, we're told by our financial advisors all the time
• 41:30
  that, you know, start early and then you know make smaller investments and they'll grow
• 41:37
  over time and you know the magic of compound interest. And I I would say
• 41:43
  there's a lot to be said for that in the philanthropic space that you know
• 41:50
  don't hold off before getting involved and showing up with monetary gifts to causes that
• 41:56
  you believe in. it it will change your life and the way you feel about
• 42:03
  yourself in community and in relation to causes that matter to you, which can also
• 42:10
  feel overwhelming at times. So it's it's good self-care. Philanthropy is self-care. I'm gonna write
• 42:16
  that somewhere. Yeah.
• 42:18
  There you go. Philanthropy is self care and dream bigger, everybody. Allison Jeffrey, complete sophistication.
• 42:23
  I'm a big fan. Thank you so much for coming on, Allison.
• 42:28
  It's been such a pleasure. Thank you for inviting me, Jack.
• 42:32
  Thanks everybody. Stay data driven and dream big.