Episode 256: Using the Salon (Exclusive Small Gatherings) to Elevate a Cause, Deepen Relationships
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.
It's an honor to have you join me, Randall, on this edition of A round with Randall. One thing we all want as fundraisers, as people who are relationship builders, is to find easier, more productive, more efficient, just simply more genuine ways of either enhancing or starting a relationship building towards the opportunity of a gift. And today, we want to talk about how to do that in a more efficient way, with the idea of using salons as either an entry point or an enhancement opportunity.
The hope is that you will find a way, by doing more things like this, to create a sense of effective communication and quick elevation, maybe even qualification or requalification to the things that your organization is trying to fund. Is there a connection not only to the mission, but probably more important to a project, or to a direction that we're trying to figure out where the passion of the donor might lie?
And so today we're going to take this apart and hopefully give you some practical suggestions of things that might be helpful. So, let's kind of start at the top the bigger picture. And then we'll get into the tactical and at least six different things that you can really think about when you and in. Sure when you think about producing and putting on salons.
So let's start with the concept of a salon. What is it? Well, this is the idea of a smaller gathering that is very intimate, very short, but with one specific thing off the table. We're not asking anybody for money. What we're looking to do is to introduce a concept or a direction, or seek feedback in a more confined space.
And as we go through this, what we're going to get are ways in which you can make attendance engagement better, easier for you and for your donors. These gatherings are really about thoughtful conversation and interaction, not about fundraising pitches. And all too often we think, oh, we got people in there. We need to ask them. No, we'll go back to one of my favorite all time sayings, not the one I use at the end of the podcast, but one that I use quite often when I'm talking about relationships.
If you ask somebody for money, you'll get advice. If you ask them for advice, you'll get money. We want to get into the advice business, or at least the sharing business, so that our participants, our donors, our prospects don't feel like we're running at them or walking beside them. So, these donor salons are small. They're usually 8 to 15 people, typically usually hosted somewhere.
That is unique. So it's going to be at a home or a library or an interesting place at maybe a hospital or a university, a gallery, maybe it's a classroom. That's where we're focusing on this idea of a shared vision. And they're distinguished from events. These are not events. Events are what I consider like golf tournaments and galas and poker runs and basketball tournaments.
And to pick your favorite event, bowling balls ons. I'm not saying events are bad, but the purpose of the event is to raise money. Also, awareness in mass numbers. This is about elevating individual relationship opportunities, and we're focused on trying to figure out a person or a couple's or a family's curiosity about where they think we stand, where do they stand, what are they interested in?
And even maybe the exchange of ideas. And so, some examples could be the head of school having something at their own home. It could be a faculty member doing something actual, a classroom. Like they're going to teach these 15 people. But we'll get to some of those details and how it's a little different, obviously. Maybe it's in somebody, the home of someone who's on the board that all of this is around the idea of creating a more, smaller, more the word intimate kind of way of kind of a moment to talk about what we're doing.
Why is this important? Well, a couple things are occurring that I think we all are feeling, but there's actually data to show it. What we're feeling is it's harder and harder to get in front of people when we call our phones. You all have one. Most likely a smartphone has a lot of information about who's calling. And sometimes you look, I don't want to talk to that person or it's a name of an entity or even worse, it has no connection.
It's just a number. People don't pick those up. Emails are becoming more challenging because of a Randall made up word, “the spamifiction” of all kinds of communication. In fact, people are becoming more protective because they're concerned about the thoughts of cybercrimes. So they don't reach out. They don't reach back. You know, I was like, I just don't get involved.
The same is true of telephones. And as a result, it's getting harder and harder to get people to engage. We want those face to face meetings, particularly on the major gifts, or at least the leadership annual gift levels at a minimum, moving obviously into principle in plain gifts at the top. There's also some interesting insights when we look at data around why salons in particular, as an alternative way to engage, actually are helpful to us on creating moments or opportunities for future discussion.
So Bank of America and Indiana University did a study where they talked or asked about the idea of shared values and trust. And what they found out was, is that this idea of connection, of understanding and trusting in the values that an organization. Well, that's hard to do in a letter, in a phone call. That's why you want to do it face to face is one of the top motivators for donors institutional donors, corporations, foundations, individual donors, people.
Small group engagement also includes increases donor retention and giving likelihood by somewhere between 25 and 40%. When you look at the studies done by Adrian Sargeant and Boomerang that when we have small group discussions, not lectures, it's kind of the difference of how I look at my children sometimes and say, you think we're in a conversation. This is the one way communications lecture, because I want them to understand that we have a problem and dad parent needs to fix it or get his point across.
I didn't work with donors who want a conversations two way. We've talked about this idea of active listening. You go back, listen to that podcast about figuring out the passion. We've talked about that on a number of podcasts. We can't do that unless you listen, which is means it's a conversation, communication. The psychological impact is, is that when you get people in a room and you let them, we'll get through the details of what it might look like, feel like you're in a moment touch something, feel something.
Talk with somebody important. They're sitting on a couch with only 10 or 15 other people. People feel more likely to be heard and valued. And now we're talking about getting toward what I was referring to earlier. You ask somebody for money, you get advice, ask for their advice. They feel connected, valued. And the salon is a signal of almost exclusivity at the highest levels of being heard, of being valued.
It's almost as if you want to create a culture, a climate where if you're invited to one of these special you're you are one of few because sometimes our most philanthropic opportunities are by leaders who want to be leaders, particularly if we look at prints and files in seven phases of philanthropy the dynasty. Many times they want to be seen as a leader.
Well, what a great way of elevating that sense of connection and sense of placement in the community by having small, exclusive events.
The other thing is, is that these are easy to stand up and to produce because they are more intimate. Now we're going to talk about the details about but logistics for a few minutes. But they don't have to be overly complicated. But what they do is provide multiple opportunities. If you think about universities, particularly ones that have done this very well, now moved into obviously independent schools, some hospitals do this when it comes to snowbirds that when I started my career in secondary education, independent schools, I, I was traveling because we were in Kansas City and then second opportunity and wonderful job up in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Nobody with money was sticking around, particularly in Saint Paul, Minnesota over the winter. We were in Miami. We were in Fort Lauderdale. We were in Naples. We were in Fort Myers. We were in Orlando. We were along the coast, you know, the northern coast of Florida. We were in Palm Springs. We weren't in Santa Barbara. We were in Texas.
We were doing all kinds of these events. And in doing so, boy, did we elevate conversation, because now we're not on anyone's home turf. It's very collegial. We'll talk about maybe some of the content you can produce or bring to the table. So these are the strategic values about getting into motivations and about language and about a kind of sense of connectedness, a natural kind of way of creating a sense of, of elevation of the of a donor or a prospects self view in terms of being exclusive or being invited to this process.
And it's almost becomes, if you do it correctly, feeling organic, even though there's a lot of planning reasonably so that goes into it. So let's get into some of the tactics. Six things that you need to think about when you think about salons. And this is kind of a checklist. Well, at least six big ones with a lot of little checks underneath each one.
The first is, is what's the what's the purpose? You can't just use these without having a purpose, because very quickly the word will get out. I don't think you want to go or there's not a lot of value in going. So you have to be first and foremost very clear internally to start about what we're trying to get at.
And there's a lot of different ways to look at this. So I use the example a few minutes ago around alumni. So universities in business schools, that's someone we'll talk about this here in a moment about the kind of the who or what speaks or what the agenda sounds like is coming two weeks away from home. That's reasonable.
And or it's something that's a future need. So there was the example of in Chicago, Illinois, with a client where this particular physician needed some specialized equipment at about three and a half to $4 million, and they used it from a grateful, patient perspective. The specific purpose was to introduce what could be done in, in and kind of an elevation of of care with some additional equipment from people that he had already taken care of and had done miracle work.
To be candid, or is this about how we get people connected, like alumni groups or leaderships and alumni groups? The ideas is we're looking for something specific or something unique, maybe futuristic, that you're going to try to create an environment where people feel like it's special. And we're going to talk about something very specific.
We may and should. We'll get to this in a moment to get feedback, but we want to control the agenda. This is not just a cocktail party for cocktail party sake. Number one, what's your purpose? Lots of options. Endless amounts of options. But don't go in without a purpose. Number two is inviting the right people. And as we said earlier, it's probably somewhere between 8 and 15.
If you get more than that, then there are actually some studies that show that it begins to segment into clicks or smaller groups that you may not want. You may want the larger context. So, the bigger is not necessarily better. In this particular case.
The right participants also brings up the question of how you get them there. So how do you invite them? Well, there's a lot of different ways of doing this. And this is about culture in your organization. I've seen some places use not quite wedding level invitations, but printed invitations. And I've seen other places just making phone calls. And I've seen people reaching out with email with an invitation that's digital, followed by texting and an email follow up and phone calls.
There are all kinds of ways, but you need a formal and I don't mean it in terms of the type of invitation, but a formal process to ensure that there's a real invitation going out in some way, shape or form. But the key in the invitations is not how or what you choose to invite people to these events.
I found that the key is the follow up, that if you invite eight couples for a particular event, that the team is making phone calls and emails, who knows them best of the of the invitees to ask them to please come take a few minutes to talk with us. So this gets into a lot of thought around who is the best group of people to do the follow up.
So, we talked about the design or the purpose of what we're trying to do. Let me give you an example from my past. It was pretty simple but highly effective. Every year when I was in independent schools, I talked about going away. Let's talk about staying at home is I created a process where the headmaster invited about 5 to 7 sets of parents, usually new parents, not always, but most of the time to breakfast with him at the school in his private conference room.
And attendance was amazing. The formal invitation came via email, followed up by the assistant to the headmaster, and then I would make sure that we had attendance and we had a little breakfast, and it was all about engaging new parents in both annual giving, volunteering the auction, but also around why and how we operate financially. It was a salon seeking their input.
We did invite all the parents we'll get to get to. This is a part of the process. You only need to invite the right people. So that's one example, the right participants. Maybe it's donors to a specific area. You're doing something in cardiology well, do you have cardiology donors? You could have something for just the cardiology people. Or if people have indicated a restriction on cardiology, so the right participants.
This also begs the question and we'll kind of combo two and three. So the right participants with the right setting about a host. You need someone to host this event. And again you have a million different options. I talked about the headmaster. He technically was the host and although he didn't do anything other than talk in the schedule in the conversation.
But I've done it with people's homes where they take care of it. I've seen it done. I've recently had a client that I worked with who did it in a museum that people would love to go to. The choice in setting is really important because there's some basic things like you want an intimate, quiet conducive to conversation.
You're looking at homes, gardens, galleries, libraries, unique places, but there's two things that come from this. Number one is the place. Is it someplace that people might go? I've never been there before. Even the Headmasters Conference room. When you would ask if you've ever been in here before, the answer was no. There was a sense of exclusivity with it.
Then you add, if you go further into people's homes, maybe something along a beach or something along the lake, or that cool home that everybody drives home, I wonder what's in there. There's lots of options. The second thing is, is that the host needs to be connected to the organization. Obviously, in some way they're relational, meaning that they're not performative.
Or maybe you didn't think you'd hear today performative, meaning that they think of this as their event and they're going to perform and know we're going to concentrate on what the need is, the purpose. And so we can have some very generous offers. But if it's the wrong host that becomes off putting, or if it's not an interesting setting, that might be not as interesting.
So as a result, we would pair the right host with the right environment. Choosing the setting. We get people who go, I'm not quite sure what's going on, but I want to go there. So we've covered purpose participants setting. Now we get into what the activity actually is. This is not the activity to have an open agenda. There should be a very specific agenda to what you're trying to do, and you can lay it out and a lot of different pieces, but generally it should look something like people show up, there are cocktails and or breakfast or food, a chance for people just to sit and chat for a few minutes.
There is some form of bringing the group together. The host thanks everybody for coming. Then we'll get into here in a moment. As a sub part of kind of the schedule or agenda. There is a I don't call a presentation but a conversation starter, somebody doing something. And then there is a thank you for coming and seeking input from the group about what they heard.
And the goal should be that it's about an hour. We're not looking to hold people there for two and a half, three hours, an hour, 90 minutes max. That includes social time. But there's an agenda to this and it's not formalized. So we're not looking to do a presentation like a PowerPoint. But there are some cool things that you can do to engender the conversation, to bring it up, to force people to feel and touch things.
Maybe you want to put something up on a on a poster board of the plan, and confidential wants you to see this, and we want your input. Let's have someone talk about it. The equipment that I was speaking about in Chicago, of the doctor who was trying to increase the way in which he treated patients with their specific, internal, medical needs.
We actually did three of them, but we only did three because we actually brought the equipment, had the vendor who wanted the business pretty bad, bring the equipment into the home of the person who was hosting. And we let the potential donors put on the equipment. There were some visualization tools. There were some interesting things with a CyberKnife, the donor's eyes lit up because it was very specific.
We're not asking them for anything other than opinions in that moment, but they can touch and feel. If you're mentioned the, the, institutional or going to do events away from home alumni tactics. When I was at the academy, the best thing I could do it was a it is. But when I, when I was there working enjoyed the premise that the school's four main pillars were it was college professor, college preparatory, Catholic, all male and military.
These kids were in military uniforms, freshman. Everybody's a private one becomes a cadet colonel. We brought seniors to talk to these alums who had gone to school just in the same exact uniforms they had 50 years ago, just the same. So it wasn't that they got to touch anything, but they got to hear from a who they once were.
So all of this brings us to this idea of a set schedule, but having lots of variants or options to elevate kind of an emotional connection. And once the evening's done, you let people go. It becomes about follow up. Number five. Within 48 hours, you will have a handwritten note in front of them saying, thank you for coming.
Personalized gratitude for their input. And when we think about this idea of follow up, it also makes sure that within a week to ten days, we're going to have a gift officer following to say you were there, we'd like your impression and we'd like to talk to you about maybe some of the things that we're doing involved with this and see if you have any interest.
We want to capitalize on that particular opportunity, that connection, and that we're going to check this internally to make sure we're not missing anything in the post script. It's only eight, ten, 12, 14. People may be couples, so it's down to 6 or 8. It shouldn't be that hard to follow up. And you can have people say, well, thanks for having me.
It was really nothing, but I'm not interested. Okay, let him go. Bless and release. But it's a way in which you can increase, more likely, the ability to convert into a conversation.
The last thing is that you want to do is you want to measure success. And I'm all for measuring dollars because of an ROI business. But I think there's other ROI metrics you can use to find out if you think this is working. How many follow up individual conversations occurred from this? How easy was it? Was it easier to get this than just cold calling?
Could you measure do some kind of, surveying and or maybe just get the gift off? Yes. What do you think? And you kind of categorize it or bring back the data after the meetings or after the phone calls to find out what they think about what was their sentiment about all of this? A part of the measurement process is how you make it easy for the donor to engage.
What I mean by that is, if we go through the idea of the kind of when we bring in a scientist or we bring in a doctor or a professor, the key here is to dumbing it down to a level that everybody can understand. My rule of thumb was, hey, you can only use words that have ten letters or less or three syllables or less.
And I meant it because if you make it unrelatable, then the metrics of follow up, because there isn't connection, get worse. So when you think about the follow up and the metrics, they are intertwined with the agenda and making people feel like they've touched, felt were part of something that had a little bit of emotional connection, that their input was valued.
So in all of this, it's about setting out all of these steps, these six. What's the purpose? Who are the participants? How do you choose the right setting and who can host? How do you kind of build an agenda that gives somebody something interesting to think about, look at, talk about how do you follow up quickly and how do you measure that success based upon that connection?
If you do those six things, you will have better salons. You'll have opportunities. They don't have to be fancy. They don't have to be black tie fact. I advise against it. Things that I would say are common mistakes is making them too formal? Absolutely. Top a list is don't ask them for any money or anything else at that event.
Don't overload the agenda. Make it simple. It's kind of free wheeling, but with some agenda items but not too intense. And make sure you ask their opinion if you don't. One of the cardinal sins common mistakes is, well, thanks a lot for coming in and going like. But nobody asked me what I thought. This is an opportunity to elevate that conversation, that that relationship, that connection in small doses that are easy produce, maybe even free if you can get the donor to pay for it.
When I did the headmaster in the mornings, it's just breakfast every morning. We did two a week for like six weeks. And your participants probably are high end people. You've, well, screen them. This is not for everybody. We're trying to get to more major principle and plan gifts. So who you choose and how you do this is very prescribed.
Although it may feel very conversational. Salons allow you the best opportunity. Try one the next quarter. If you're not doing it, you don't need to do eight. Try one. Make it a good one. Focus on the quality of the event and the quality of the interaction, and trying to get to more transformational conversations down the road. Not at the salon.
You'll be surprised how much you learn, and you'll be surprised how quickly. Maybe some gifts come to fruition because people feel that connection when they have a more intimate setting. Salons are a great way to introduce and or to elevate conversation, discussion, engagement. Hopefully today you get a chance to think about how you might do that in your nonprofit.
Don't forget to check out the blogs at Hallettphilanthropy.com. Two per week. Come out on Tuesday and Thursday. 90 second reads. It is things I see, read, think about maybe something of interest to you and if you'd like to reach out to me, it's podcast and how it's going to become this topsy turvy world of ours is one moment up, one moment down.
It's kind of like watching the stock market. You never quite know if it's going up or down or why or why not. But what I do know is, is the consistency of philanthropy in being such a critical factor when it comes to our community and filling the gap, as I always talk about the difference or kind of the gap, free enterprise doesn't want to do certain things.
It's not profitable. Government is not all that efficient. Philanthropy. Nonprofits kind of fill that gap in between. And it does so because of my all time favorite saying, some people make things happen, some people watch things happen. Then there are those who wondered what happened. And in today's world, we need more people who are making things happen. First of all, we need to be people who make things happen, even if they're small steps.
We need to find others in the community, leaders, philanthropies who want to do the same. And by doing so, the organization, the mission, the projects that the strategy that we impart from our nonprofit into the into our community becomes more valuable, becomes more of a gap filler. You're doing this every day. And the thing that I would ask only of you, but of myself is, how do we be more engaging in wanting to be people who make things happen?
Because there's too many things, too many places, too many groups of people, too many individuals who are wondering what happened. The more we do to help them and the organizations, the better our community is. And I think we know that maybe try to lean into it a little bit more every day. Great way to spend a career. I can't imagine any way better than helping others make this world a better place.
We'll look forward to seeing you the next time, right back here on the next edition of around with Randall. Don't forget. Make it a great day.