PART 1 : Psychology
This is part of a series, in three parts, regarding what others might better understand about gift officers. In particular, ways in which data/infrastructure/prospect management can better support the revenue goals of the organization through major gift officers.
I’m often asked how we make major gift officers more effective in their responsibilities. To answer that, we have to begin with addressing two major concepts that are critical.
The first is the mentality of moves management for the process of getting prospects to become donors. I’ve always been an enormous fan of John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach for UCLA. During an 11-year span, Coach Wooden won ten out of 11 men’s basketball NCAA national championships…a feat that will never be repeated. However, more important to his players and the most important lessons in life, he built out a “Pyramid of Success” that had sayings that drove behavior that led to the overall achievements of both an individual and the collective team. My favorite, and specifically aligned with this subject, is “Never Mistake Activity with Achievement.”
Gift officers should always be thinking of the achievement or the end result. Just having actions for the sake of reporting is not an effective or efficient use of time or energy. Actions should drive prospects to “decision points” as to whether or not they want to engage in philanthropy, when, and how much. While I’m all for an occasional birthday card or casual email/text, those are activities and not achievements. Achievement is moving a prospect forward.
The second important concept is that gift officers are, for the most part, if not all, truly people who want to make a difference. They really want to bring in more revenue to support the mission of the organization. The challenge is the issue of “fear of failure.” Rejection is not fun. Rejection (a phone call and someone not being interested in chatting or making a formal solicitation and not having that gift come to fruition) is painful. There’s actual medical evidence that shows that rejection piggybacks on the same neurological path as real authentic physical pain. FMRI studies have shown the same parts of the brain light up with both physical pain and feeling rejection. In fact, a couple of studies have shown that Tylenol, a common pain medication, actually can help alleviate or mitigate the idea of rejection pain.
Our goal, with gift officers, is to make them like a duck---yes, an actual duck. First, rejection should be like water off a duck’s back. Water doesn’t stick and falls off and neither should the disappointment of rejection. The second is that, like the duck, there’s a great deal of grace above the water, but like a gift officer, the duck is paddling feverishly under the water which no one can see. That is the effort that is required of a great gift officer.