Episode 228: Proposals that are Dormant - What to do and how to do it
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.
Thank you so much for taking a few minutes of your day to join me, Randall, on this edition of around with Randall. What happens when we look into our portfolio? We thinking about our metrics. We're trying to figure out how to make our numbers work, and we see this series of proposals that aren't yay or nay. They are unknowns.
It's unclear where the donor or prospect is at. We don't have a clear understanding of what we should do next. Today's conversation is about the tactics around moving people from an indecision to, at least somewhere, the idea of reengaging our solicitations after a delay. So let's start with why this happens. What are the root causes for really dormancy when it comes to philanthropy and the proposal process?
The first is that there was in the in the kind of the process of the of the relationship developing, a misalignment of timing. It's possible that when we asked may not be the right time to have asked, and we've talked about this in a number of different places about the timing of asks. But when this happens, there's lots of reasons for why it's mistimed.
It may be because we didn't ask. We did not ask when they make these decisions. And I would use me as an example with my wife's in philanthropy. We make our decision at the end of the year. It's kind of when I know what money's available, but it also could be other things. Maybe it's something that has nothing to do with us.
There are life events. There are divorces and illnesses and births, business changes. As I record this, there's a lot of indecision on tariffs in stock markets. And things happen financially that it changes somebody willingness to financially plan, which would include their philanthropy. Or that may be from a timing perspective that they're just not in the mentality to make the decision right now.
The second is what I would call a value gap, that when we think about the prospect, they didn't quite connect to the impact or the meaningfulness of that particular ask. They don't see the connection in the their gift making that big of a difference or really emotionally being ready for that kind of difference or understanding that difference that it may not have aligned with their interest.
We have talked many different times about passion. We should be spending more time talking about what people's passions are and then tying it back to what we do. The third is, is that maybe there are instances in your relationship with them as maybe a gift officer or the institutions, or maybe it's another institution's experience with them that hasn't been as positive.
It's been underwhelming. And so there's a value gap hold. The third is something we did internal that our follow up wasn't consistent in the different episodes where I talk about solicitations, I'm always talking about don't ever leave a solicitation without a some kind of tentative deadline, a conversation around when can I follow up to see if this works for you?
If we don't do that, then we're left with we don't know where we're at right now, and in the short term, that's okay. And we'll get into the tactical things of what you can say and do in those dormant situations under three months. But a lot of times we just keep staring at that portfolio report and the solicitation report.
We don't actually do anything about it that's inconsistent follow up. And isn't it our responsibility as a nonprofit, as gift officers, as fundraisers that we at least are initializing all of their most of the conversations to get to those higher level gifts? There's an old adage that I use with my clients that they did it just a couple minutes ago.
I always tell them when I'm checking in kind of where we're at and with a different work that I do. I tell them that even if they're not ready for the next step or whatever we need to do next, that I'm always willing to wait on them. They should never have to wait on me. And in some ways, that's exactly what relationships like are in philanthropy for gift officers is we're all we should always be properly.
We'll talk about this language and some things you can say and do to do this well, not just sitting back waiting for them to get a hold of us. We should be prompting. Hey, I'm here. I'm ready. But it's on your time frame. This is going to help us get rid of what might be thought of as. As I talked about in episode 134, these zombie proposals are they're stagnant.
They're stalled. What are we going to do? This internal missteps also include maybe it's poor documentation. We're not aware unless we ask the contractual or gift agreement situation might be off or that. And I know this never has never happened. Staff turnover that somewhere along the line the handoff wasn't done correctly. If you're new in an organization, you might have a new gift officer.
You might have a lot of these kind of yeah, dormant donor proposals, zombie proposals out there. You don't know what to do. You just suck at them and say, I'll start over. That's what we want to get into today. That as we begin to move into the tactical, is we've got to figure out how out of this situation.
And I think about it, stealing from one of my all time favorite shows. And it turned out to be one of my wife's favorite shows. The idea of triaging Mash, triaging the situation. And when you triage, you're looking at the scenario and you're creating what I think of as decision points or decision trees. Where are we at in this moment based on this circumstance, we kind of want to push ourselves into one or excuse me, 2 or 3, maybe four different options.
And then there are steps within each one of those options today. It's really two. I believe that the first part of the triage is figuring out how long these proposals have been dormant. So the first thing you have to do is step one is define dormancy. And that's what I was just doing. I like to do it kind of 0 to 3 months or three months to 12 months.
If you have a proposal that's dormant 12 months, unless there's extenuating circumstances, I have to believe that's probably not going to be a very good proposal anymore. At a certain point. So we'll get to that at the very end. So our first part is the inventory. How many proposals relationships do I have out there that are dormant. And number two, can I tear them three months or less, 12 months or less or 3 to 12 months?
The other part of this is figuring out because not all proposals are equal. Is the value of those proposals. And this is one place where, because we may have put a proposal in front of someone with a dollar figure, I hope that's dead. I'm going to worry more about the ones that are $1 million or 500,000 or 100,000, rather than a bunch of that are 10,000.
It doesn't mean we're not going to deal with those 10,000, but I'm going to deal with the ones that have the most opportunity for the biggest impact. This also presupposes that you've done all the due diligence that the ask amount is generically about right. You're not assuming that it just as a guess that they would do a million and you've asked for a million, and they thought it was going to be 25,000.
So the disconnect, the dormancy is based on just total internal misstep. I'm assuming that's not the case. So how long does the dormancy been in place and what's the value in each one of those two categories? The third is to set a goal. I talk a lot about goals here. Obviously on a round with Randall around, how do we make sure and help ourselves, whether it's color coding, our calendar year.
So you doing that every day is a goal to make sure that you're efficient, effective, know where you're spending your time to our metrics. Well this could be a but what I would think of as a pseudo or mini metric in the next 90 days. How many of these can I try to address? I didn't say solve, just address.
So step one inventory. Step two tier 30 day or three months or less three months to 12 months three. And then prioritize in there based on dollar figure. And the number three is how many of these can I truly address in the next 90 days? Three months? So if you do that now, you can begin to look at the decision tree, because what you do next is completely dependent on whether or not they're 0 to 3 or 3 to 12, because they're going to be different conversations that you may have.
And now we really begin to move into the tactical, the language, the techniques, the conversations that you can have. So let's start with the time lapse being less than three months, probably more than two days, but it's not five days. There's a month or two where I'm not quite sure where we're at. And so the first thing when you come out of that kind of decision tree, that that action step that we have to figure out is what type of interaction did we have last, because that's going to determine how we react in our initial conversation, or at least outreach.
There's kind of two ways to think about this. There's an active interaction meaning in some way, shape or form. There was a hard, direct conversation. Maybe you gave the proposal to them and said, I'll check back with you. Or they said, I'll get back to you when I know. Maybe it was at an event or an activity. And, you know, a lot of people you've already asked in your, hey, how's it going?
There's been some type of idea I zoomed or zoom. It have to be a really quality email active discussion and the hold up is around. Something's off. What can you say? Well, first of all, I believe if you've asked somebody for a major gift and I probably should have said this at the outset, if we're talking about 50 bucks, just keep asking.
But this is a major. You've asked for a significant amount of money and significant. Remember, transformational isn't a dollar figure significant? It isn't a dollar figure by definition. It's probably when somebody's passion is lifted, when it's an impactful gift for me, you know, it could be $2,500 is an incredibly impactful gift because that's a lot of money for a billionaire.
It could be $1 million, and it's not impactful at all. So realize it's about who they are and the gift level and their level of engagement. Not about a dollar figure, but we're focusing on major gifts under three months. What's an active conversation? We're not quite sure. What can you do or say? Well, the first thing is you should probably call them.
If you've asked for that kind of money, it's okay to call. You may not get them. Or if you do, what do you say? So either a voicemail or an on a on a phone call. How about something like, I was just looking at a couple of notes and realized we hadn't talked, and I was thinking about your generous interest in this particular project.
Whatever you asked for, I'd love to reconnect and hear more about what you're thinking about it. Find out what might be possible. Remember what I said about what I say to my clients. I'm always willing to wait on you, but you should never have to wait on me. People don't just make decisions to give large sums of money away.
Normally, Mackenzie Scott being the exception is amazing as she is. Unless there's some kind of impetus by the organization, by volunteers of the organization, by a gift of the organization saying, we really want to talk about this.
So it can be as simple as reframing it as I'd love to reconnect, combine, see what you think. You said you were going to take a look. I'd love to know more about what your perspective is on what we put in front of you. In some ways, when I say it's important to put a written proposal, could be just a page or two.
If you're asking for $10 million, it might be 20 pages. Put something physical in front of them is because that document could be your. As I always talk about next step, I'd like to review that document. I'd like to review your impressions of that document. I'd like to think here what you think about that document. Did it reflect what we talked about in that document?
It opens the door for me on a less than 3 to 3 month dormancy zombie proposal, with an active conversation last to reengage them to find out what the holdup is. What's the challenge?
Let's go to the other side under three months, and let's say it was passive. The last interaction was some kind of email, or it was you left a voicemail as a check in. It wasn't very engaging in terms of moving to action. Well, then your language changes just a little bit because you've already brought it up once. Now, I'm not suggesting you call two days in a row and have leave voicemails like, what are you doing?
What are you doing? But if you called three weeks after you gave them the proposal, there wasn't a whole lot of movement. You didn't have any follow up. They didn't call you back then. That's kind of passive at the moment. So you're going to have to call again. Again, I believe in the call. People respond better when you call them.
Leave a voicemail. I will get back to you. You can always call me back. Emails are easy to ignore, particularly when we're at this stage of a solicitation. And now we're talking about closing.
So this dormancy lead you into questions when they're a little bit more disengaged around. Are you still considered this? Does this still appeal to you? Is this something you think might still be a good idea?
This passive moment, the reason we don't use the same language is because we're not quite sure where they're at. We've let too much time go. Remember, dormancy doesn't or lack of communication. Something doesn't mean no, it just may mean there's a challenge. And we got to figure out what that is. But we've got to get into the conversation.
So less than three months active. Hey you and I talked about this recently. I'd love to have find out where you're at. Tell me more about what you're thinking. How has this resonated with you? I want to review what your thoughts were on that proposal. Dormant, meaning 3 to 6 months still, but they're passive. Are you still interested?
Is this something that we could talk about? So that's under three months. From three months to 12 months. We've probably let too much time go. And at this point everything's passive because there's no connection. But I don't want to let all the work I did. If I did it well, to put a proposal in front of someone, just go to waste without at least trying to reengage them at some point.
There's kind of an uninspired prospect who is not making a gift. If they were truly inspired, they would have pulled the trigger, gotten back to me. I gotta figure out what the disconnect is in that, in that lack of inspiration. So once again, how do you reach out to them? I am a believer. You put a major gift in front of someone.
You got to call them again. You can leave a voicemail, but it's up to you then to follow back up. Certainly leave your number. They can get back to you. Hey, I'd love to chat. What does that language look like? Well, first I think it's okay to admit without actually admitting that there was an issue. There's been a delay.
There's been a challenge. Bob, it's Randall Howard. It's been a while. I'd love to try to reconnect. It's been too long. It's been four months since we've spoken. In some ways, when you do that, you take pressure off of someone accepting blame for why that's occurring. Now I'm going to assign blame. It's your fault. As the gift officer, the nonprofit, the representative of the organization, you need to be more engaged and not be waiting that long.
With that said, I don't want them to think I'm blaming them. It's been a while. I'm sorry we haven't chatted. Now the question becomes probably trying to do something different, because what you've done up to this point hasn't worked. So maybe it's an invitation to an exclusive activity, or to join you for something. I'll give you a great example.
Just happened there is the U.S. Army, Jazz Band coming to Omaha, and it's a free concert, but I'm having, because of my father knowledge of the military in the United States Army. These are the pros. Pros. These guys are going to be phenomenal. How cool would it be to call up a donor and say, hey, there is this unbelievable event.
It's a once in a lifetime deal. And it's, by the way, in this case, it's free. The military doesn't charge for what they show. Would you come with me? Or maybe your CEO's hosting a little bit of a private luncheon for a number of key constituents? Maybe it's, leadership Q&A where they can engage. What is it that you can do that's a little bit different and invite them into the conversation?
The first step is to reengage, and then after that you can then get into once they're there. Hey, we were having this conversation. I'm sorry that it kind of didn't I didn't follow up. What do you think it's trying to figure out why there is no inspiration. Why aren't they inspired in all of this? It's finding a new paradigm or structure to have the conversation.
Maybe you want to have someone else invite them into a conversation. Maybe it's a peer or a board member. You have to do something different. I've seen it be effective where particularly in large organizations, and maybe we're going to talk about this in a moment. A plan giving expert or dedicated person who says, we're doing some really interesting things based on some of the potential tax changes with our legacy society.
No, you're not a member, but I know we had this conversation. Would you like to hear some more about this? I'd love to bring someone to talk with you. You're going to change what you do because if you've done any follow up at all, there's been no connection or you've not contacted them in that long, then they haven't contacted you and there's no connection.
And we all know that's not good, but you're going to have to find a different way of reengaging in the end. In the 3 to 12 months window, uninspired. Their passive, your passive, the communications in past. There is a moment where we have to just say my term plus and release that you can't keep people in the solicitation stage for too long because eventually you might have put some in front of them.
But it's no longer solicitation. It's dead. Part of what we're trying to do here in the 3 to 12 month window is figure out who can be, you know, like the phoenix risen from the dead, or they're just dead. And it's okay. Probably we should have been a little more aggressive. But there are worse things like, hey, we don't know what to do.
So. Figuring that out in this decision tree becomes really important. I would also add this for those that are maybe more plain giving or legacy potential dormant prospects is giving them something to come to or to give them information or I did. I've done this a number of times over the last year and a half or two. I do a a training for financial planners of, you know, just here's philanthropy, here's what it can do.
Here are different options. Most who don't understand any of it, I've never heard most of it don't know that much about it, but it would better serve their clients. We're not asking anybody for anything. Inviting a donor to step in and say, hey, you know, this guy's doing this. Would you be interested in some thought you know, just information.
How do you get if you think someone might have been a long term transformational donor, multiple gift opportunities, or maybe there been gifts before getting them to think about a legacy and then repositions you about. Well, we did talk about this a while ago. Is that something you might like to talk more about? Lastly, what are the messaging kind of tactics of this?
What resonates? So the first is, is you cannot pretend it's business as usual. There's a delay, it's stagnant, it's a zombie. You call whatever you want. There's no contact. Don't. It's not business usual. You have a purpose. Express it. I'm trying to figure out where we're at and would like to make this work for you. Number two, focus on curiosity and value and alignment.
Curiosity that they have about what we were talking about. Value of what that gift can do, alignment with what their passion is with what we're trying to do as an organization. And finally, you got to personalize this. That's why I said originally you got to have a 90 day kind of I'm going to handle five of these. This is not every one of these is going to be the same.
You got to figure out what kind of based on my last and the decision trees last contact, do I want to set up the next stages of opportunity of conversation?
You have to figure out as well the idea of prioritization, particularly if you've got a lot of these I mentioned earlier about how you might look at it 3 to 6 months or I'm sorry, 0 to 3 months, three months, 12 months. And then by dollar figure, start with the closer ones, bigger dollar figures and then move into the 3 to 12 months bigger dollar figures.
See what you can do at the end of the day, what maybe the most tactical is, is look and find five and identify a plan three, four, two, one. Anything's better than just let them sit and then break them apart. 3 to 6 month active passive three to 3 to 12 month I'm sorry 0 to 3 than 3 to 12.
I keep doing that I apologize, set it up. Write it out. Don't be on a no card. You don't have to be a dissertation. It's just what's my plan? Craft a message for each one of them. Take a note or two. Give yourself some notes. There's something off here. Don't wing this. You've done all the work. You've got a proposal.
I assume you did the work to get the puzzle. Take a few moments and think about what strategy do I want to use based on what we've talked about today to get in that conversation. And finally, as a team, or if you've got a small group or whatever, have a conversation with the rest of the team about a kind of an every six month, a biannual dormant prospect review, who is too far out.
There's urgency, like I talked about in episode about 32, 3 or 4 around making phone calls, getting someone else to also make phone calls so you don't feel alone. This is the same thing. How do I get others to help strategize? But more importantly, maybe create some internal pressure that we can all be looking at? How do we get over these things?
I know it sounds crazy, and I'm sure none of you you've ever had a dormant, solicitation where you didn't know what to do. But I've run into this more and more, particularly as we've had a change in administration, change in kind of some economics people are trying to figure out what to do, and that's not a bad reason for people to hold off on making the gift.
But that's not an excuse for being dormant. That just means dormancy really means you don't know where they're at. And we can't have many of those. If fewer people are giving and bigger dollars are making a more of a difference, we need less dormancy. Even if that means people tell us, come back and see me in a month or two when things calm down, or we've had a sickness in the family that's not dormant.
That's somebody telling you I'm ready to go, but I need a little time to figure out whatever the challenge is. I'm okay with that. It's when we don't know that becomes a problem. And today's all about reducing those I don't know. So we have more plans to close guess for the things that are really important. Don't let this just go address it.
It's hard because it's embarrassing and it's I screwed up and I should have done something different. Yeah, it's my son. Life isn't about what happens to you. It's how you deal with it. It's here. Deal with it. You'll make it better for yourself and all the goals that you have. By not letting so many dormancy stay the way they are.
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It helps me to become. It's an interesting time, and I think over the next 3 to 18 months, we're going to learn that more and more people need nonprofits need you to be great. Don't forget, some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. Then there are those who wondered what happened. The more people we work with, the more people that we are affiliate with.
The more we are people who make things happen for the people and things that are wondering what happened. The essence of philanthropy, love of mankind, love of humankind. The better you're going to feel about what you do, the more value you're going to feel and the impact, and the more we're going to be able to help those who need it.
It's never been more important to do what you do every day. I hope you understand that, feel that, know that value and realize you know if you perfect, but you can't have your head in the sand either. Address the problems, fix them, move on, build relationships, have conversations, listen to people's passion, connect it to what you do, and you'll move your nonprofit forward and help your community be a better place.
I'll 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.