✔️ Major Gifts That Reflect Your Values With Sarah Staiger
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Is your major gifts fundraising aligned with your organization’s core values? In today’s episode, we're tackling the sometimes intimidating (but rewarding!) world of major gifts through a values-aligned, community-centric lens.
We are joined by Sarah Staiger, a fundraiser with over two decades of experience. Sarah is passionate about building power through organized people and organized money. She is a partner at Staiger Vitelli Associates and has been exploring Community-Centric Fundraising methodologies since 2017. She also volunteers with the Minnesota Association of Fundraising Professionals.
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Key Episode Highlights:
Put Values at the Forefront: Join Sarah and I as we dive into how to rethink major donor engagament. It's about connecting on shared values and building something bigger together.
Educate and Empower Your Donors: We are done with one-way conversations. Sarah emphasizes the need for continuous donor education and engagement, creating true partnerships and avoiding transactional communications..
Values-Based Qualification for Major Gifts: Sarah introduces a transformative concept: using a values-based qualifier alongside financial capacity to identify major gift prospects. This transforms supporters into advocates for your cause.
Investing in a Community-Centric Approach: Sarah makes a compelling case for re-envisioning how we report impact.. She shares how reporting impact in a different manner can lead to crucial cultural shifts within our sector and drive the mission forward.
Don’t forget to become a supporter of our show!
Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/VhzvjcgPQcI
Links and Resources:
Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/staigervitelli/
Sarah’s Values-Based Donor Qualification: https://www.staigervitelli.com/vbdq
Connect with Maria on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mariario/
Support the show: https://www.buzzsprout.com/208666/supporters/new
Transcript:
00:00:00 Sarah: Now that I coach other folks, it's a broad variety of like when it happens, when those conversations happen. But what we would recommend from our major gifts coaching is that you're starting to bring values into the conversation with donors really early. And if you're an advocacy or organizing organization or work for one, you may have or you may already have that information. We're finding that with organizations that take on advocacy and organizing as part of their programmatic, their program delivery, part of their mission goals. They're able to build relationships with major donors way faster because they've started talking about values. That's what happens in advocacy and organizing conversations.
00:00:44 Maria: Hi, friends. Ever wondered how you could turn your big ideas into results? I'm Maria Rio, your go-to guide for helping small nonprofits have real world impacts. Together, let's reimagine a better sector, tackle systemic issues, and yes, raise some serious cash. Welcome back to The Small Nonprofit, the podcast where your passion meets action.
00:01:16 Maria: Hi friends, welcome back to The Small Nonprofit podcast. I am your host, Maria Rio. And today I am joined by Sarah all the way from Minnesota. Sarah, thank you so much for joining us today. So excited to chat with you.
00:01:31 Sarah: Yeah, I'm glad to be here.
00:01:32 Maria: Can you please introduce your awesome self to our audience?
00:01:35 Sarah: Sure.
00:01:36 Maria: Who are you?
00:01:37 Sarah: Yeah, I'm Sarah Staiger. I use she/her pronouns and they pronouns as well. And I am based, like Maria said, in Minnesota, in the US, and I'm a community centric fundraiser. I've been a consultant now for the last two years of my career, which is now over 20 years doing fundraising work. And my partner Laura Vitelli and I have a firm called STAIGER VITELLI & Associates. And we believe that organized people and organized money creates power and that nonprofits deserve to have power to achieve their mission. So everything we do is kind of at the intersection of where people and money connect. And it's been a fun ride these last few years working with amazing organizations.
00:02:27 Maria: I'm so excited to chat with you today because of your approach to values-based fundraising and how that ties into first, making more money, which is amazing, but also into CCF because I think that's actually how we met through Community-Centric Fundraising.
00:02:44 Sarah: The good old Slack community, which is so enriching in my life. Yeah, I definitely come at my fundraising through that lens. And so does my partner, Laura. And I kind of think like anybody who has any little bit of curiosity about curious centric fundraising, Community Centric Fundraising is like my perfect, you know, the person I learned the most from and the person I love to work with.
00:03:09 Maria: Yeah, and I love how, like, your clients are so attracted to that and they know where to find you, which is awesome. It really brings your people forward. But I wanted to ask a little bit about your Community Centric Fundraising journey. So tell me how you started to get familiar with the concept and what spoke to you about it.
00:03:29 Sarah: Sure, I think we realized in the prep for this, that it was in 2017 that the first article, blog post came out from, I think it was Nonprofit With Balls, Boulay's blog back then, now Nonprofit AF. Did you know that? Can I say balls on this one too?
00:03:48 Maria: Yes, yes. Well, it's too late, you said it.
00:03:56 Sarah: And I believe it was nine principles and it just kind of blew my world open. I had definitely felt those feelings that I bet a lot of your listeners feel where you're like, you know, I'm good at my job. I know how to do this. I know what I'm supposed to do. And it feels not, great. Like I feel kind of weird about some of the stuff that I've been taught. And some of us feel more than weird. You know, sometimes it's harmful. And so those principles just felt so different.
00:04:25 Sarah: And right around that same time, I was exploring grad school options and ended up doing a graduate program here at the U of M in Minnesota for Advocacy and Political Leadership called MAPL. And it just kind of all came together like, yes, we can't separate activism and organizing from fundraising. This is our call to action. This is, fundraiser's call to action. Put your money on the table and let's change these issues that are harming people in our community. Community-Centric Fundraising was just like the perfect, I guess, movement that I could throw my support and privilege, frankly, behind a group of BIPOC fundraisers doing it differently.
00:05:08 Maria: I love what you said, put your money on the table, like, yes, put your money where your mouth is, right? Nonprofits often struggle to do that when it comes to systemic change or even just like internal change, right? Or a resistance to change for some reason. So Boo's article, I think, really spoke to a lot of people. And seeing the movement grow over the past few years has been so exciting. Yes. Now, the Slack is huge. And there's a lot of white fundraisers in the space. So I wanted to ask you what you think is your role as a white fundraiser when it comes to Community-Centric Fundraising and just advocacy in general.
00:05:48 Sarah: Yeah. A number of, I had to figure this out over time. And I know a lot of people are in that space and I definitely consider that like a continued question I ask myself, you know, what's my role and what's my goal? And so the way I see that right now today, talking to you Maria is kind of a get your people role. I feel like I've benefited from the systems and the traditional types of fundraising that were done. And you know, as I came up and now it's about helping kind of use my personal power and privilege to point out where we've gone awry and to use values of everything Laura and I do.
00:06:38 Sarah: And STAIGER VITELLI is about, how do we make our values the tool that gets us to the outcomes we want and usually you can use your values to say like, this just doesn't align, this activity doesn't align. So that's where, as a white fundraiser, I feel like I have to use my voice to say that whenever I can.
00:07:01 Sarah: The other place that we make that kind of commitment to changing the status quo, again, that my partner, also a white woman, has benefited from as well is that we offer a deep discount. We offer a 40% discount to BIPOC-led organizations. And I get lots of, I get different responses from colleagues and friends on this. It's an optional discount, but it mirrors the disparity in institutional funding that the same BIPOC-led org gets, funded 40% less than the white led org.
00:07:33 Sarah: And I do not want to live in a status quo where that's true, especially when the clients we serve are like, doing the most amazing things. And I just can't imagine them doing it on 40% or why they should have to do it on 40% less money. So, frankly, it gives us an opportunity to talk about that crappy situation that orgs are being underfunded. And so that's why we do that. To be able to lift up our voices a little bit about it.
00:08:01 Maria: Yeah, I always appreciated that about you and Laura, like another way of putting your money where your mouth is. What are other ways that people can make CCF more actionable in their organizations or businesses?
00:08:18 Sarah: Yeah, so I'm thinking about putting your money where your mouth is. And one thing, I’ve popped into mind, I'm not sure if I've even shared this with you before, Maria, in our work together. But I think setting aside some funds to have your board, especially if they're a white dominant cultured board or a predominantly white board, have them trained in Community-Centric Fundraising. I was able to do that. It was one of the first actions I took when the movement became a broader movement and just having them start to wrestle with some of the questions many of us fundraisers are wrestling with is something that I feel is really a way to invest in your values as an organization. I could go on, but I'll let you tell me where you'd like me to go next.
00:09:02 Maria: Yeah, absolutely. No, I liked when we were preparing for this conversation, how you were saying that you were bringing donors and board members along with you. So like learning together and how that actually helped speed up the process of getting to the meat of, why is this unethical and how can we change it to be more ethical, especially when it comes to major gifts. Because I know that's something that you know Laura really do really well. And that's usually where people have the most difficulty living their values. So, you know, if this horrible company that's destroying the planet comes to you with a million dollars and no one's gonna know that you took this money, do you take it?
00:09:48 Sarah: Well, we'd say, what are your values? And how does or doesn't this receipt of those funds, you know, impact your values? Frankly, for some organizations, for probably many organizations, their values may say yes, for lots of reasons. We'd rather have the money be in our hands than theirs. We don't have any values against protecting our planet, so we were fine to take these funds. But for a lot of our organizations, we value things like equity and justice.
00:10:23 Sarah: And so I think what, sometimes can trip up folks I work with is that that feels like opening up just a big long question or a can of worms with your board or your volunteers. And to that, you know, I would say that's the point, right? We need to get right into those questions and sit there and wrestle with it. Like, what do we do and how does justice and equity show up? And yes, there are many tentacles of a question like that and bringing those leaders into that conversation is the way you start to change a culture as opposed to just a practice. So I think that's important.
00:11:04 Maria: Love that. And what do you think fundraisers can do to push those things forward internally or externally or with donors? What does that look like?
00:11:14 Sarah: Yeah. So one of the things we often tell people is kind of the first, like tip, related to Community-Centric Fundraising and starting to bring that into your organization is first, go to your values. If you're one of those organizations, so I live in the US, I live in Minnesota where George Floyd was murdered. I live in a neighborhood where racial uprising was very, very strong and mighty and visible. If you're one of those organizations that came out and said, we're committed to supporting BIPOC communities. We stand with those communities.
00:11:55 Sarah: A lot of predominantly or white dominant cultured organizations came out and made those claims. And if, that's a values claim. And so people with… inside of organizations can use those values claims to say, so how does that show up in our fundraising? And one of the things that we like to remind folks is you don't have to have a board decision to become a community-centric fundraiser. You get to be a community-centric fundraiser, which means you're asking some, sometimes a little bit annoying questions.
00:12:28 Sarah: But Laura was my boss, my partner, who is my business partner now, was my boss for 10 years. And it made our relationship so much stronger that I could ask her those questions and agitate. And it gave her the information and questions she needed to take to our board and the rest of our team to start to create those changes just by asking questions about, how does… how do our actions in fundraising align with those values we put out publicly?
00:12:53 Maria: And do you ever have donors ask those questions as well? How do your values align with how you fundraise? Or are you usually the one that's approaching donors with these conversations?
00:13:03 Sarah: That's a great question. So now that I coach other folks, it's a broad variety of when it happens, when those conversations happen. But what we would recommend from our major gifts coaching is that you're starting to bring values into the conversation with donors really early. And if you're an advocacy or organizing organization or work for one, you may already have that information. We're finding that with organizations that take on advocacy and organizing as part of their programmatic, their program delivery, part of their mission goals. They're able to build relationships with major donors way faster because they've started talking about values. That's what happens in advocacy and organizing conversations.
00:13:54 Sarah: So I guess the answer to your question is, hurry to get there first. If they've already told you, find it out, you know, from your organizer on staff. And if you haven't, it's a great reason to call someone. We have a free donor qualification call script on our website. And we can maybe link it for folks, but it's all about, like leading with, hey, I'm Sarah, I work for X organization, I'm new, or we're starting to learn about our donors values. Will you talk to me and share with me why you choose to give to this organization? How do your values align? So wherever you're at, it is like the point to start. It's such an important question that can lead to really strong major gifts relationships down the line.
00:14:44 Maria: Just starting out is really important, but I definitely see the connection with values because that's what brings so many of us into the sector in the first place. So we're putting in our energy and our time and blood, sweat and tears because we believe in it. It is aligned with our values. So having those conversations with donors early on sounds so, so great. But how do you navigate like CCF? One of the pillars is valuing time as much as money and not valuing, like one donor more than another based on the amount of giving that they do. How do you apply that value or that pillar of CCF to major gift fundraising?
00:15:27 Sarah: Yeah, I love this question. I want to shout out to, I think it was Michelle Shireen Muri with the Ethical Rainmaker podcast. Little Shine Theory, Maria, your fellow podcasters out there. I think they interviewed an Oregon Food Bank and talked about valuing money. And it set Laura and I off on like, how do we actually create a framework for this? How do we give something to organizations that they can, when they're trying to figure out, okay, how do I actually value time and money equally when I'm doing major donor qualification? Especially small nonprofits that are maybe doing that with like an executive director's free time or one staff member.
00:16:07 Sarah: We, what we came up with is, think about what you're already measuring. So maybe that's like attendance to events or for some organizations that are engaged in organizing, maybe it's responses to calls to action if you have an email system like that. Or maybe it's just people who have introduced other folks and you know that through some record keeping you've done at your small shop or large shop. And if you've already measured that, you can set that up right next to your dollar amount, your minimum dollar contribution, as your values-based qualification methodology.
00:16:40 Sarah: So what we recommend in our teaching on values-based major gifts is, what's your minimum dollar amount, which could be $1 to qualify someone, and then what's your values-based qualifier? Is it that they've attended two events in a year? Is it that they've introduced three other people? Is it that they've, you know, volunteered with your program over the last 16 months. Figure out what that is, the thing you've already got to measure, and then it has to be those two things together that qualifies someone into your portfolio for major giving.
00:17:16 Sarah: And that's how you actually put into practice the principles of Community-Centric Fundraising. One of the ways, there's lots of ways. This is the way that we've been offering it to folks and it's worked really well. They're more likely to take your call, you know, if their values, aligned. So we really find a lot of success with that plan.
00:17:34 Maria: I love the additional like values-based qualifier because so many people can get money, so many people get money just for a tax receipt and don't actually wanna hear from you. I've had those donors where like they've been to an event before and you call them, they're like, why are you calling me? It's COVID, there's no events. So having that values-based relationship and qualifier I think is so impactful. And I think it's pretty unique. I haven't heard many people implement something like that yet. So how are your clients finding implementing that? Do they find it easier, hard? What do they like about it?
00:18:12 Sarah: Yeah, so I'd say it depends on where they're at with their larger major giving program. When Laura and I implemented this values-based qualification, what it made simpler was people taking our call. So you had a different reason to call and connect with them except for just money. Fundraisers like me who have done, and again came up on donor-centered fundraising, we have trained the public, the donors in our communities to expect to be asked all the time and without notice. And so fundraising becomes this thing that people are a little nervous about.
00:18:55 Sarah: And as we found clients incorporate other reasons that they wanna check in with people. So if your voicemail or your email says, hey, I noticed you've been to three of our organizing events this year, and I noticed you're also giving a monthly $10 contribution. It's just, it opens up a little bit of safety, a feeling of safety that there's maybe more to talk about than just the money.
00:19:18 Sarah: The other thing that we've learned and our clients have shared back with us is that when you have somebody who has literally done nothing other than give you money, they may be telling you that that's all they wanna do, that they don't have time, that they have money. And so actually like hearing our clients over the last couple of years of implementing this have really helped us hear that in a different way. Like, oh, you're choosing not to come to these other events or introduce others because you don't have extra time right now and we all know how valuable time is, right?
00:19:49 Sarah: So I feel like basically, the answer is we just keep learning more and more reasons why this is a deep, meaningful practice of engagement with folks and helps you get it right the first time. We don't have time to waste. We need people in our portfolios that will take our call. And so I feel like that's the major message we're learning from clients is that it helps those calls get taken once we find the right people.
00:20:16 Maria: I love that. One of the things that I always hear when I tell people, like move over to CCF, like this is good, this is better than what we're doing now. It might not be perfect, but it's working better and it's more aligned to what we say we believe. One of the challenges that people feel is, oh, how do I know that's going to raise money? Like if I'm talking to someone who's giving $10 a month, like how does that turn into something greater? What would you say to someone who's asking something like that?
00:20:49 Sarah: Yeah. Well, I think I have a couple kind of a two pronged answer. We'll see if I can retain the second prong while I answer the first prong. But I think what I've learned by the movement leaders in CCF, again, BIPOC individuals who have really helped educate me and many, many, many others. So I still very much consider myself a learner in this area. But what I feel like there's been a little bit of a movement within the movement to remind all of us users about is like these actually, the principles are not actually set in stone. Like they're out there so that we can put new ideas into fundraising and then test them and use them and expand them.
00:21:35 Sarah: And to me, that's like permission to use my values and my personal values and my organizational values to try stuff and then see what actually works. So I think that's like what I would, one of the things I would share with someone who was just a little tentative about, can we be a Community Centric Fundraising organization? It's another way to think about it if it's a little easier for you to sell internally to your listeners, here's a little pitch script, is, talk about it as an innovative fundraising culture. Like that's what you're going for is like, can we center our own organizational values?
00:22:14 Sarah: You know, CCF has their values laid out as well as their principles. I suspect we've done a few values assessments with CCF values. And even some of the organizations you think of that maybe wouldn't align, we found do have like two or three values in common. So starting where there is overlap and then being innovative about how to apply the principles has been like a really strong path to just starting to drip the approach into an organization. But innovation has failure, right? Like we accept that in the culture we all are part of and live in, but for some reason, we're not willing to make those type of innovative strides with new fundraising techniques or some of us aren't.
00:23:03 Sarah: So pitch it as innovation, if that's what can move the needle within your organization. Build that bridge wherever it needs to be built. Try stuff that might fail. Give yourself a small, you know, cool to play in to like do some stuff with ecosystem fundraising or valuing time as money. And if it doesn't work, you don't have to stick with it, right? But usually when we're being innovative in our organizations, we're allowed to try some stuff that doesn't work. I've found most of my innovative testing with CCF has led to increased giving over time and way more sustainable giving. So the stats are coming in as we practice this together.
00:23:44 Sarah: But I mean, business has been doing this for a long time. And corporate America likes to come in and run our organization sometime. And man, I think we know this. I think we know this. We can come out and do Community-Centric Fundraising and be innovative and I think make better bottom line, stronger bottom lines and feel better about it at the end of the day.
00:24:07 Maria: So what does that look like in dollar value? Right, like what does that, like I love all these techniques for people to push it forward, but something that as a fundraiser, we're all about the numbers, money doesn't lie, you know, that's forward. That's the one metric that they care about internally. So what does that look like for your clients when it comes to that dollar amount?
00:24:31 Sarah: I'll start with when we started, my partner and I started practicing this within our own organization when we were staff because that's where we learned how to do this approach. And that's where we first practiced Community Centric Fundraising. And we were seeing 10% growth in individual giving every year. And we saw that for 10 years in a row. Some years it was more than 10%. But… So that was pretty big and you know, 10% it's like, well, it's not a lot, you know, year over year, but to have that level of consistency every single year for 10 years, which were… there was a few recessions in there, I think.
00:25:08 Sarah: But gosh, we started this firm in 2021, so the 10 years preceding that. So there was a lot of ups and downs for our fellow orgs during that time. So 10% year over year developing a relational major gifts approach using what we knew. And we were not a community centric, you know, board approved organization. We were learning community centric principles and we were a group of fundraisers who thought they were pretty awesome. So 10% there. And then what we're seeing now with clients, we've started to work with clients who have much lower minimum contributions that qualify donors into their portfolios.
00:25:47 Sarah: So we've been curious, like, does that still work? Does the high return on investment for major gifts still work if you're working with someone who's giving, let's say, $250 a year versus 2,500? And overwhelmingly, what we're seeing is yes. So we have a couple of small nonprofits that are seeing at least 25% growth in their major giving portfolios year over year. Now we're into two years, so I can actually share that. But I suspect it'll be higher.
00:26:19 Sarah: And then I just want to once again shout out the other thing that we see, kind of another metric to consider, is the old kind of basic planning tool was, you're probably going to need four people to qualify to get one person to kind of connect with you for your portfolio. And we generally use that metric, but we're seeing organizations that are doing advocacy and organizing work, so if they have an organizer on staff or they have someone playing kind of that organizer role of just getting to know people and asking them about their values, they only need about two people to every one qualified. So you just need way less donors to find that one major donor. And then you think about how that reduces your time spent. And that's a huge get as well for an organization.
00:27:08 Maria: I love that. Okay, first, so much money coming in, that's amazing. And time saved, also amazing. You know, this actually makes me think of these relationships that I've had with donors over the years, especially the past like three years, where I've been very open about, like my values and how I see, you know, the nonprofit industrial complex and how we all play into it. And those conversations have been so important to me in feeling like me and the donor are on the same page.
00:27:41 Maria: Feeling like I'm safe with that person, like they understand what I'm talking about, like my community members are safe with them, like they're not going to ask for, can you get a darker person to hold the check please for the photo? You know, that they're not going to say anything out there. And even with my, like, billionaire donors, they're so interested in having these conversations. They want to live their values.
00:28:06 Maria: That's why they're partnering with your nonprofit. For the ones that aren't doing it for a tax receipt, right? That's why these are, these individuals or Corporates or anything like that, that's why they're with you to actually address an issue. So I don't know, sometimes I see fundraisers who are scared to talk about their values in case they push the donor away for whatever reason. I don't know if you've seen that as well.
00:28:32 Sarah: Yeah, I think, I just want to say really plainly and just sort of own that by having a values-based approach and a community-centric approach, there will be some donors that once that becomes clear, they will decide to give their money elsewhere. And what I have seen and experienced personally is that even if you choose, so I've done this with a seven-figure donor, I have stopped just short of pushing on values that I felt might be out of alignment in a long-term relationship. Like, oh, that's interesting that they said that. And I didn't push because I really wanted that seven-figure gift and we got it.
00:29:19 Sarah: But the next year that person was out because of a political agenda that the organization I worked for supported. I mean, yeah, we got the gift, but the next year we didn't. And it almost was harder for the organization to have thought that we could count on something like that and then come to find out our values weren't aligned. And as a fundraiser, that's my job, right? It's still, like early. We talk about it in fundraising, like a no is awesome. Like we love to get a no because at least we know we don't waste any time.
00:29:46 Sarah: I think surfacing those misalignments in values fast and frequently is one of the most important jobs we have as fundraisers. And it helps us, you know, people like me, with whiteness as a privilege, I can kind of, like help surface some of that stuff for maybe the people who might come after me or beside me or that I might follow in the future. So I just feel like it's part of our job. We have to surface that.
00:30:19 Maria: Yeah, I definitely agree. And I just have always like been very surprised by the reaction of donors when I'm having these conversations with them, like wealth hoarding, tax avoidance, you know, like these are conversations that a lot of people would be scared to have with their donors. But these are the things that they have been thinking about since the murder of George Floyd. Like they've really been thinking about how they relate to systemic racism, capitalism, like why should they have a DAF?
00:30:50 Maria: I've actually had two donors close down their DAFs, and it's because of conversations like this, where it's like, is this actually how you want to live out your philanthropy dreams? Is this what you want to do to make the world a better place, and how does that address that value? Has been so great in building actual, authentic relationships with donors. So I really want to hear from them, and it's not like, oh, it's that person that always, you know, says something sexist or X, Y and Z. So living your values, I feel, is such an important thing that is still overlooked by many organizations, sadly.
00:31:32 Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, it's hard to understand, you know, why that is. But I think maybe just like our donors, maybe people are, because I agree with you, Maria, like, vast majority of donors benefit from these deep. Laura and I borrow the term from organizing, loving agitation, questions about things that are just lovingly agitational. So, are you going to say that about taxes? Do you mean that, you know, whatever. So, and for the most part, people are so down for those conversations. That's why they're with us. That's why they followed our organizations in the first place.
00:32:11 Sarah: But we're, oh, I was just going to say, I think nonprofits are really squeezed to do like so much with so little. We don't have flexibility from a lot of our foundation funders. I'm going to get probably some nasty remarks, but we don't have a lot of safety net from some of our largest funders. And so it can make organizations kind of clam up and not want to take risks. To your question about like, why do people, why do orgs maybe not lean into this value stuff a little more? It can seem a little risky, but I think it's worth it. I think it's beneficial in the end.
00:32:51 Maria: I have found that being very transparent with donors has been really helpful in erasing that fear and that risk. Like, I had this donor who gave $100,000 to a program, and the next year, I'm like, we're looking at a $400,000 deficit. I don't know if this program will be around if you give me another $130,000, $150,000. So I want you to know that upfront. Like it's really important that we continue to do this work as long as we can, but we're facing a significant deficit with this issue, right, with inflation at the time, sorry, at the time, last year was terrible. So it looked kind of scary.
00:33:35 Maria: And having the foundation donor be like, yeah, we definitely see why and understand and give us that kind of autonomy and power to just use the gift as we needed to that year was super helpful. They were actually willing to split the gifts. So half of it was going to this program and half of it was going to a different one that was seeing an exponentially increased push for services. So the food bank.
00:34:03 Sarah: Yeah, I think that transparency that you talked about with foundations, we can apply to individuals as well. So the same thing.
00:34:11 Maria: And when we were preparing for this conversation, you talked a little bit about the annual report and how transparent you can be with that. I wanna share that with the audience because it's such a good tip. Please, probably [come].
00:34:23 Sarah: Yeah, so I'll tell, what I remember and then you're welcome to tell me what I forgot. But what we've shared in a few places, a few small places, and it's exciting to share this out in a larger place so that we can see how it feels for organizations and that feeling of risk. But one of the ways that we've considered and practiced community-centric principles is rethinking annual reports. First of all, you don't have to do one. Just let that sit for a second. And then second of all, you're like, yes, I do. What if you, instead of doing a report to donors or an annual report, you did a report to your community. And you shared it with donors and asked them how they feel about it and ask them if it's going far enough.
00:35:13 Sarah: Ask them if they feel like, you know, you're being bold enough and being able to accomplish what you want to accomplish with the, you know, the current revenue. And you may end up in a conversation that, with a donor over something that's a report to your community, that is actually for your community, by the way, not just made up for your community, like actually is for the community served. There's a whole presentation. It's made to look nice, like all the same love and care we put into our donor reports, but it's actually for our community. And then we bring the donor in to say, hey, what do you think? And I just think that can have, that can create some really interesting conversations. I've tried this on a small scale and I would love to see people trying, with on a larger scale and hear how it goes.
00:35:57 Maria: What do you think is the benefit of an approach like that?
00:36:00 Sarah: Well, literally centering the community, I think, is, it's a way to practice doing that and build that muscle memory within a staff team or a staff member if you're, ultra small shop or a whole organization. And then seeing how the donor responds to the community being centered, which I almost wanna guarantee no donor is gonna say, why is this not a report to me? And if they do, it's probably like a good signal that they might need a little loving agitation on their values. And then like, maybe you wanna see if this is like a good fit for what you're trying to do. Because theoretically a donor who supports your mission wants to see your mission take, like all the spotlight, right?
00:36:49 Sarah: So if you have 10 conversations say with a donor, with top donors about your community at the middle, the center of your work, that might help you internally to say, look, when we centered community in our community report, donors loved it. How else can we do this? So maybe it takes a little bit of that risk and kind of contextualizes it in, actually those 10 donors, those people we actually know, they were not threatened by this. They felt like this was really important and really interesting. So you can start to build your own proof with inside your organization to start to change and shift to these principles.
00:37:26 Maria: Something else that I love about this approach is that it kind of… by centering the community, you don't have to be the donor. So it's not like, thank you so much, you superhero, you solved poverty with your, you know, $10,000 donation or something like that. It's really keeping it real for the community. Like, hey, we are trying to be as accountable as possible in our processes. We were able to deliver, you know, 30,000 meals or something. But we had to turn away X amount of people.
00:37:55 Sarah: And here's what they have to say about it. Here's their pull quotes. You know, here's what the people we served, of course, with consent, with permission, you know, say about knowing that we had to turn some folks away. I mean, I just, that's what, I think people, too, what you're saying before, I think that's what people want to hear, and many people at least, and I. Like I'll take my own blame for my piece. I have told them that you did it, message so many times in any annual report where the community I was fundraising for was barely, if any better off. And that never made it to the donor. So it's kind of on us, especially people like me to change that narrative for the donor. Like thank you and we are, we've got work to do. I hope you'll stay by our side.
00:38:50 Maria: Yeah, thank you. But all these issues were not solved.
00:38:53 Sarah: Yeah. We still have poverty, we still have homelessness, we still have, you know, whatever your issue is. Our planet is still weeping for what we're doing to it. So yeah, just think it gets deeper into the donor’s psyche.
00:39:06 Maria: Yeah. And it gives them the opportunity to really partner with you, to be agitated that this is the situation for our community members to, like know and have the veil lifted if they don't have that lived experience and get angry, get excited, get–
00:39:25 Sarah: Love a donor who gets angry. I mean, not at me, but about the mission, like, love that. So much you can do there with that relationship.
00:39:37 Maria: Yeah. Oh, such a lovely approach. And I think it's just so beneficial for more and more people to really fundraise from their values. Cause I feel like A, that's going to probably keep you in the sector longer, and we need people with values in the sector, please stay. But also it gives the donor that true opportunity to partner. And also, also, also, also, also, it gives you the same amount of agency and power as the donor instead of putting them on a pedestal and being like, you are, you know, the difference here.
00:40:11 Sarah: Totally.
00:40:13 Maria: It gives you the opportunity to work together on this issue. And like, have real conversations? I love that.
00:40:21 Sarah: Well, we should do it sometime together. I wish we had a donor base. Maybe we can find a client that could offer.
00:40:30 Maria: If you need help. Let us know. So I wanted to ask, how can our audience listeners connect with you if they want to continue the conversation?
00:40:42 Sarah: Yeah. We would love that. We are at STAIGER VITELLI on social media and staigervitelli.com, S-T-A-I-G-E-R-V-I-T-E-L-L-I, the world's longest website. And we have lots of free stuff. We have a commitment to the Community-Centric Fundraising movement. Actually, we just kind of got clear on this in the second year of our work. We wanna give a thousand folks free resources to help actually implement practices that are rooted in the principle.
00:41:15 Sarah: So I mentioned one earlier, we have our values-based donor qualification script, and that's at our website, forward slash V-B-D-Q, which is Values-Based Donor Qualification. So that would be an awesome way to start kind of getting a feel for what we offer. If you want that script, you'll get added to our community of care e-news, and we send more free stuff there, and you can always opt out. But we are trying to extend the Community-Centric Fundraising community. And I would actually just love to hear from people what they'd like more of too. That would be fun to hear. And we're happy to provide.
00:41:59 Maria: I would like more free stuff.
00:42:00 Sarah: Yeah, I mean, what's free stuff? Tell us because we really–
00:42:04 Maria: Yeah, what's free?
00:42:04 Sarah: We really want that.
00:42:06 Maria: And you're trying to help me move it.
00:42:09 Sarah: We know, we've been fundraisers for long enough to know that you just need stuff to be free and easy sometimes. So we want to provide.
00:42:16 Maria: Oh, yeah, definitely. Thank you so much for joining me today, Sarah. This has been so good. Exactly what you want me to do.
00:42:24 Sarah: Oh, thank you. I am so excited for this podcast, for you, and people are so lucky to get to learn from you like I have. I'm grateful.
00:42:33 Maria: Well, thank you all for tuning in today. I'm Maria Rio with The Small Nonprofit, and we will chat next time. Bye for now.
00:42:44 Maria: Thank you for listening to another episode of The Small Nonprofit. If you want to continue the conversation, feel free to connect with our guests directly or find me on LinkedIn. Let's keep moving money to mission and prioritizing our well-being. Bye for now.
