Episode 204: Changing the Emphasis of Moves Management Meetings - Putting Passion First
Welcome to another edition of Around with Randall, your weekly podcast for making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett. I'm so humbled that you take a few minutes of your time today to join me Randall on this edition of Around with Randall.
In working with clients you're always looking for or trying to attempt to be a value by creating new ways of looking at things. And in conversations with a current client, we came across that and it was kind of an idea that I just was sparked in the moment. But it was profound enough where I thought I would talk a little bit about it here that might be helpful to you. And that's the idea of a different way of looking at moves management meetings.
Today what we want to talk about is is there a different way of highlighting or emphasizing something that's more important than just the basics of what we think about. So if we want to talk about that, let's go back and let's talk about for those maybe who don't have the normal environment where a moves management meeting is used. Let's talk about what they are and what their advantages are.
All we're talking about is gift officers and I use that in a very generic term, annual giving, major gift, plan giving, whomever is building relationships with community members. Building a normal regular meeting could be every week, could be every other week, but there is a normal meeting where you're gathering as a group. I would prefer to keep it at an hour or less because you can get sucked into a lot of different things. But I would also say if your staff's larger, sometimes you may have multiple, so you group them or buy maybe area of responsibility or by the level at which they serve, depending just on size and scope.
All this to say is there's a lot of different ways that you get the people together, but the key is is that it's a regular meeting every week for 30 minutes, every two weeks for an hour, every month for an hour and a half, a lot of different variants that go along with this. So as we think about this, what is the value of having these gatherings of gift officers? And then we'll talk a little bit about what's in them and finally, the tactical today, what are we trying to actually accomplish and what we can do to change that?
Number one is is that they create a level of accountability. If we are moving into a meeting on a regular basis where we have to talk about the people and the things that we're doing as gift officers, as people building relationships, then what we know is is when we ask people to report out what's most important to them in terms of that particular activity anywhere in life, there's more likelihood that those things are going to be done. Well, if you gather people on a regular basis to talk about the people they're building relationships with, it becomes very obvious if someone's not doing anything or they're not doing maybe enough because others are reporting on, well, I had this call, I've done this, I've done that. And then you come to person A, and if nothing's happening or the wrong things are happening, becomes very illuminating in this meeting. So accountability is a big part of that.
The other thing I would advise is to start the meeting, which we'll talk about this in a moment with the metrics, the report of what everybody's responsibilities are, how we're monitoring their success. Keep it simple, keep, you know, you don't need 50 metrics. We're talking about five or five six seven that are just simply kicked out of your CRM on a regular basis. So accountability is number one.
Number two is it showing some type of tracking or progress towards goals. That leadership should be not just rewarding someone while they are being successful. It's really reaching down when somebody's maybe not something they're doing wrong, but they don't have all the results that they want. Reaching down and lifting them up, pulling them up. To do that, sometimes it's nice to celebrate wins when somebody's having some challenges. And I don't mean close gifts all the time. Because I had four great calls and I've got four new meetings. Let's celebrate that. So really tracking and building progress towards success.
Number three is is that it identifies roadblocks, i.e. What are you hearing that I'm hearing? So if you're in a community that's maybe a little bit smaller and you're talking on a regular basis, you've got maybe one, two, three gift officers. Well, it's a bad farm year and it's a small rural community. You'll hear that. What does that mean? So what you're able to do is pull all of these roadblocks together. Are they real? Are they just kind of made up? Are we pushing through some of the challenges that we should do and work through on a regular basis?
Number four is is that we get to share best practices. What I did that really worked, maybe you could steal it. I love the acronym for the Council for Advancement of Case Council for Advancement of Supportive Education. And really what it means is what they claim is copying seal everything. Most everything we do is not a region. There was somebody who did it before. How do we share those, how to share that knowledge? Well, a moves management is a great way to do it. I change what I said on the phone or I've changed my direction in this, which is what we're going to recommend here in a minute. And that's helped us or helped me get through some of the trials and tribulations of building deeper, more meaningful relationships.
The last thing is is that it really is illuminating when it comes to improving donor relations. And I mean that in donor relationships. And this is going to start pivoting us towards where we want to go is if we talk about the right things in the meeting, that's a reinforcement, particularly from a leadership perspective what we really want. And that's really what we need to spend some time talking about. What is it we want from our gift officers? What is it we're incentivizing? What is it that we're talking about on a regular basis? And that's really what is most important
So before getting into what we want to change in our moves management meeting, let me just give you a few things tactically that might be on the agenda on a regular basis. So we talked about reviewing key metrics. We're going to talk about portfolio review. And I don't mean in depth one because in an hour and an hour and 15 minutes you can't. There maybe there's a report that could be run.
You've heard me say this on multiple occasions that we want our portfolios to be a lot smaller than they tend to get to. If we could get to 40 50 maybe 60. We are then spending time if they're the right 60 or 50 or 40 people. But the people who actually want to make a sketch rather than hoarding 200. Well, every study who we've which we've looked at in this podcast and I talk about constantly from a data perspective whether it's blackpot in there, study wide or EAB and looking at 400 gift officers or what came out of Northwestern is is we have so many people in our portfolio. We have no contact with. Well, why are they in your portfolio? So our portfolio sizes, the right. Getting some help on individual challenges. I've run into this.
So on your agenda, that discussion of specific donors. I don't know what to do next. Frankly, this is the part of the agenda I miss the most as not being a practitioner any. It's the creative ability to figure out how do you help someone get to where they want to go. And I'm going to talk about the gift officer. Talk about the donor. I have a number of clients that I feel so privileged to be supporting. But what's interesting is it's a part of what we're doing in three or four cases is I'm actually supporting them with donor contact, donor relations, donor conversations. I.e. they have me in the meetings. And a client recently was very kind to say this, but that my conversation with them literally took their gift from X to X times six based on some things that we talked about. I'm not sure I totally agree with that to be honest. But I think that I missed that in how do you help others build more meaningful relationships based on the fact pattern that they bring? So part of that is here's my challenge in situation, different, difficult or specific donors or situations. And then lastly is this conversation around, you know, what are we doing next with these donors? And that's where we want to land today. How do we change our move from management meetings? Where we land?
What are we trying to accomplish? And then circle back to what this means for actually supporting the long-term basis of deeper, more meaningful relationships. So, we've covered kind of the big picture of why, maybe some high-level tactical ideas of what the agenda might look like. There could be more detail, but you get the sense.
So, what is this change that I’d be advocating that came out of client conversations? Well, over the last year and a half—probably two years—I’ve been challenging clients, and through the podcast, on thinking about how we build relationships more meaningfully. The idea of figuring out how to get to larger gifts stems from the exact conversation around: do we really know our donors? Are we more transformational?
And I say this every time, so there’s no confusion, in case you've never heard me say this: transformational gifts are not a dollar level. They are where a donor's emotional connection to your organization is at its height because they’ll maximize their gift opportunities. That's what we want. But we've layered so much of our gift officers’ lives, our accountability, and our conversations around transactional gifts. I need to make sure that I’m closing a certain number of gifts, hitting a monetary goal, and having a specific number of meetings. These are all very important, but they’re very short-term based.
You might remember, in a podcast probably three, four, or five months ago, I talked about the value of long-term identified donor opportunity—long-term value. You can put a math number with it. How do we create the highest gift potential or possibilities with our donors? This will help with many functions of what we do, including, most importantly, getting people to buy in at the highest levels of the missions we represent.
The experience that brought you to these conversations is the donors’ experiences. What does movement have to do with this? The challenge that the client was having is that they were having so many transactional conversations with donors and pushing their gift officers hard. They needed the officers to have more knowledge of who their donors are, what they believe in, and what they want to achieve. They’re trying to figure out how to do this in a bigger office setting, where it’s not just one-on-one interactions.
So, I suggested changing the moves management conversation—the moves management meeting. The person who oversees all the gift officers asked, "What do you mean?" I explained, "What if we just said, you’re not allowed to come into this meeting or ask for money until you can tell me what the donor’s passion is?" The client replied, "How would you do that?"
I suggested, "If I were leading the meeting, I’d ask, who are your top two or three people whose relationships you’re aiming to deepen over the next month or two? Who are the people most likely to get to a solicitation in a reasonable timeframe?" They identify those people, and then I say, "You’re not allowed to ask them for a gift. You have to come into this meeting, look at all your colleagues, and talk about them—not about the transactional gift—but report what their passion is. What is it they most want to accomplish?"
This leader, who I respect immensely, looked surprised on the Zoom call. She said, "We’re forcing them." I replied, "Yes, but the second part of it is reinforcing training. What questions do we want the gift officers to ask to understand what their passion is?" You can create a tactical advantage by pushing people to deepen those relationships, by saying in moves management meetings, "You physically can’t ask for a gift until you look me or your colleagues in the eye and say, 'Here’s what this donor wants to do with their philanthropy.' Not just for our organization."
For those who struggle with this, we’d discuss how to educate them. Let’s talk about the education piece for a second. I cover this in several podcasts and trainings—whether it’s the multi-step moves management process or the different donor cycle parts. If you want more details, go back and listen, especially to episodes around 185 or 186, where I discuss cultivation and asking specific questions to understand donor passions.
The highlight is simple: start asking questions about the donor. What’s most important to them? What are they looking to accomplish? What makes them joyful when they give? Where do they find the greatest joy in terms of an organization they support? What do they want their gifts to mean? This approach can lead into planned giving conversations—whether they might match cash gifts with something from their estate to maximize impact. Any of these questions can help move toward more transformational conversations.
As soon as we said this, the leader shared an experience. She explained that one of their gift officers, who’d embraced this approach, met with someone who initially supported another organization for assistance with a particular issue. They weren’t deeply connected to this gift officer’s organization but had come up on a screening. Rather than ending the conversation when this came up, the gift officer leaned in, asking meaningful questions: "What’s important to you? What do you want to accomplish?"
The donor revealed that the other organization never asked these questions—they simply stated their needs. The gift officer then asked, "If we could help you achieve your goals, would you be open to further discussion with us?" The donor replied, "Absolutely," because they had things they wanted to accomplish.
Think about sharing that story in a moves management meeting. Imagine requiring all gift officers to return with stories like that. For instance, they could say, "I’m meeting with Bob and Cindy Smith, and I’m asking all of these questions. When I return, I’ll share what their greatest goals in life are." This change would turn your moves management meetings into discussions focused on the passions of everyone you’re working with.
That meeting would be much more alive than dead. It doesn't mean you don't remove what we talked about—the metrics, folio size, or where we should be. If there are issues with certain donors, that moves into the emotional side. But instead of being stagnant and focusing on how many asks are they making in this next month, how we are talking about how to elevate the people that want to support us to the highest possible levels?
This would also introduce something that I keep preaching, but I'm not sure many people are listening. It would bring in the conversation of planned giving on a more regular basis with people or gift officers who normally don't think of them as options for planned giving vehicles because they're looking for cash today to meet the transactional gift, to meet their metrics, so they can move on to tomorrow. Don’t forget, passion opens up people's assets as options for their gifts. Most major gifts are done through cash—not all, but a lot of them. Planned giving is all about asset allocation to people or organizations you want to support.
What are the numbers? Marilyn has one, and there's Serreti who has another one. They’ll come up with about the same numbers. For the next 25 years, we're looking at about $85 trillion changing hands generationally, being passed from the baby boomers who managed the money to Generation X or maybe even to millennials. So if $85 trillion is being passed, meaning people are passing away and leaving their assets to individuals and/or organizations, or paying taxes, we know based on history that somewhere between $9 and $13 trillion of that—14% is what the estimates are—will go to nonprofits in support of their work.
If you move into forcing gift officers to come in and have the conversation about passion, you're opening those opportunities up. Because if you get to someone's heart and their passion, and you hopefully help gift officers understand why that's important, you'll open up those assets. It's delayed gratification; you may not get the gift today, but boy, that's where the money's at. Particularly as we've seen inflation push up, gifts through cash are made as disposable income. We have less of that because of inflationary pressures.
All this is to say that you as a leader, or if you're the gift officer saying, "I'd like to talk about something else rather than just what I'm going to do next with Bob," I want to tell you what Bob's passion is and how we can connect it up to what we do. So I can go back and talk to Bob about how we can help him get to where he wants to go. I'm talking about game-changing conversations, getting to a higher level of depth in relationships that create more transformational gifts.
And if you don't have a movement meeting, I'm advocating one. And if you've got one, I'm advocating for you to pivot towards the idea of action. Get the gift officers not to talk about transaction but instead, what it is that the donors, the prospects, want to do. That's how we elevate.
Maybe there's a technique here that came out of a client conversation that I'm sharing with all of you, that might be of value and could make a difference with your organization. Simply by asking the question differently in a moves management meeting.
Don't forget to check out the blogs at Hallettphilanthropy.com—two or so a week, maybe three some weeks—just things I see and read, from the personal to the industry to general. Probably something in 90 seconds that might get you to go, "Wow, I didn't know that," or "Hey, that's something to think about." That's all I want them to be—to give you something to turn those cogs in the brain in terms of what you're trying to accomplish.
And if you'd like to reach out to me, it's Halop, a Randall at Haloplanthropy.com. We live in a critical time with a lot of indecision, a lot of chaos going on in terms of our world. And nonprofits are built to handle these things. And people make things happen. Some people watch things happen, then there are those who wonder what happened.
What this means—my favorite saying, the one I always use, that old Gaelic one—people making things happen. That is philanthropy for those who are wondering what happened, the things and the people in our community that need assistance, that need support, that need a hand up. That's what we do every day. And I hope you understand the value you bring to that.
And if you spend a little more time on passion, less about transaction, what we'll find is more people and more connection of people who want to make things happen for things that go on in the community that you do for the people who are wondering what happened.
I look forward to seeing you the next time right back here on the next edition of Around with Randall. And don't forget, make it a great day.