Episode 270: Using Faith Based Fundraising Lessons in Secular Organizations
It's another beautiful day right here on this edition of Around with Randall. I want to talk a little bit about the Nexus, the connection between what some people might think of as verboten in most nonprofits. That's the intersection of the lessons we can learn from faith giving in a secular nonprofit. All too often. And from a practical perspective, if it's pseudo governmental.
Some might argue constitutional. Well, some would argue that there are people who just don't want to be involved with secular or, excuse me, religious organizations, if they are maybe not religious themselves. We tend to put a very high wall between the two. What I want to try to do today is pull this back a little bit and say, you know, there's some lessons we can learn from the religious, faith based giving principles that can be very applicable in the secular, nonprofit world that may help us raise more money, make more connection with those who are interested in what we do.
That's the goal today, around with Randall. So we'll start at the top, work our way down and have five tackle things you can think about, learn from, maybe address in your communication, conversations, outreach, whatever you want to call it when it comes to the people you're trying to engage with. At the top, we have to start with why this is so important.
I think it's a I think it's wise for us to note that 30, 40 years ago, the religious giving part of our philanthropic world in the United States was probably north or was north of 40% of all dollars going to some type of religious organization. Today, that's dropped dramatically. We're into the mid 20s. So we've seen a diminishment of giving in terms of the percentage totality of philanthropic dollars into the religious faith based areas.
Part of that is, is that there's less people going to church that numbers across the country document that. The second thing is, is that more money has been raised or philanthropy has been driven in other areas. So you put the two together, you see that drop. But here's where we have to understand that how and why religious giving.
Sometimes faith based giving can be powerful. What we're talking about is alignment of values. And that doesn't necessarily have to have a religious connotation, a faith based connotation. For many people, it does. And I would throw myself into that. But I think there's a greater discussion here around what are the values that we espouse and how do we connect that.
And this brings us to one of my favorite and really, maybe the only real, true academic study of the kinds of people that make up any type of philanthropy group or being philanthropists. And that's Princeton File's 1994 study of the seven phases of philanthropy. In many ways, the devout, which is one of the Seven Faces. And by the way, if you haven't read the book, don't have the book.
I get nothing for it. You should get a copy and read it. I talk about it. An awful lot of those seven different categories of donors, the devout or the usually the ones that are connected to religious based, faith based charity or philanthropy. What I also talk about is, is it that's not necessarily true, that it's only about that religious faith based, that devout about religion.
It's about the idea of the connection that comes from when we align with things that are deep inside of us as a value set. Maybe some might say part of your soul, who and what you embody. There's a lot of different ways of doing that. It's about belief systems, religion, faith based. Giving does that very quickly. But all too often a lot of people are aligned with things that they believe in that have nothing to do with religion.
Maybe they have experiences as a child or have some type of knowledge of great food insecurity, and they grow up and become successful and they are passionate about how do we make sure those without the necessary daily requirements of food have it? Is that any less devout than somebody who might believe in one of the religious options that are out there in this world?
It's alignment of values. And that's the missing component that connects the two.
The question isn't about whether nonprofits should become religious, because I'm not advocating that, nor would I actually recommend it. The question is whether you understand what motivates your donors and their generosity. What is the value connection to what you do versus what they want to give to you? And this connects us to a whole bunch of things that I talk about normally regularly on a almost everyday basis with clients about what questions you ask.
And we'll get into that in the tactics, how you engage in the deeper, more transformational long term discussions that lead to things like plain giving, which we'll talk about a little bit. All this is to say is, is that we can ask the right give or present the right inquiries and figure out how to get to that devout mission based deep in their soul, who they are.
What are those drivers that motivate their giving before getting into the true tactics, I do want to spend a second talking about what success looks like when you do this well is number one is that it will expand your donor database if you actually and will break it apart in the tactics. A little bit around major gifts in interpersonal relationships are those one on one discussions versus mass fundraising.
In terms of language you might use in a letter, email, you know, social media, whatever that might be. That's more to, you know, as many people as you can find that might have an interest. It is a this is all about expanding the donor base and deepening the donor base that we are seeing a reduction, as we've talked about many times, of the number of families making charitable gifts.
I go back to the study that I see in the books, particularly by my two favorites, Nathan Chapelle and Scott Rosenkranz. The last one was nonprofit I, but before that was the Generosity Crisis. Two books you should have in your bookshelf and have knowledge of is, is that they talk about it in the generosity crisis that Nathan does around the two thirds of the households in the United States in 2000 who made a gift to some nonprofit, now we're under 45, 46%, so less people are giving.
So if you're not connecting to that motivational core, then you're missing out on the opportunity. The second thing is, is if we get into the concept of that motivation, that devout nature of people who show the most amount of passion for what you do and what the organization represents, it deepens the relationship. It creates a stronger loyalty and retention.
What we know by numbers we've studied this many different ways in our industry is, is that those with a what I call a faith based motivation to give actually tend to have, demonstrate and have proven to have higher lifetime value when it comes to all of their charity. So if we can manufacture what we do, the questions we ask, the things we want to to find out more about, focus on their kind of that emotional core, then what we end up with is a very strong correlation to what the data is telling us about those that are tied to their own religious beliefs, and the giving to that.
The other thing is, is that when we do that, it goes beyond transactional. It goes beyond being transactional based. It really moves into the idea of giving to their identity. And that has incredible power. And you can do things by thinking about it from a different perspective around narratives, around service and dignity and compassion and stewardship. Those things aren't beholden to religion or faith.
In fact, I would argue they're universal for many nonprofit donors. The last thing is, is that when you do it in this way, whether mass communication, which we'll talk about or individual, which we'll talk about, you're really enhancing your own credibility not only with your donors, but with your community. You're tying this idea of engaging in these different motivations and having a sense of openness to what they see is their specific interest.
And they view that as you view that as more inclusive to the people in the community that want to give. All this to say is, is that when we look at it in its in its in its real essence, that there's so much to be learned from faith based giving that leads us to greater donor bases, connection and deepening of relationships, longer term, higher lifetime value in terms of what they might be able to give.
And they also builds credibility in the community that you're doing the things that the community needs and wants to serve a greater purpose.
So let's take a leap right into the tactical five things that you can do that will really launch into the learn lessons of faith based, faith driven giving. But do it in a secular, non-religious way within your nonprofit. If you happen not to be religiously based. So the first is, is that it's all about language calibration and message design, that the way in which we communicate is about, as we mentioned, those values, they're human centered.
They're also legally neutral. So, think about it this way. We're replacing the religious belief system, which, unless you're religious or religious or nonprofit, is not going to fit with what you're doing into things like service, stewardship, dignity, compassion, responsibility, community benefit, continuity. Think about languages around and we talk about this. Then paralleling right into what is most important about outcomes are impact.
Family, students, graduated patients stabilized, rather than what we might see in a religious state or a kind of connection around moral judgment or spiritual framing. We're talking about, at the end of the day, really, these kind of styles of figuring out how do we connect to what somebody wants to see as impact.
I would argue, and I do a little bit more of this now that there's an interesting side conversation, which I'll mention for about 15 or 20 seconds and let it go, that I actually believe this is misused in religious giving or religious institutions, churches that this idea of obligatory giving. And I've done a couple podcasts on that is that we all too often in churches, mine included, we'll stand at the pulpit and say something around, hey, you know, it's you have to give X percentage instead of sitting down with people to say, what is it in the church you want to give to?
So that's even a stronger heightening of this language and message calibration, because if someone really wants and believes that their religious connection is in the choir or the church of the church, they hear the music, they can feel it when they're in the congregation or in the parish, out sitting in the pews or in the synagogue or wherever.
And it's the music that moves them closer to their God. Then why would you talk about something general and not go talk to them about the music and what's needed to make that even better? What you're going to pay for anyway? The same is true here. If we get into this idea of mention, of stewardship and compassion and responsibility and income or impact, what we end up with is connecting to who they are as a person, what they want out of life.
And as mentioned, what we also begin to move into is planned. Giving because we know the plan giving statement of legacy. When I work with a clients and I'm doing two right now around building a plan, giving program and training the gift officers about what to say, when to say it. We don't talk about death. We talk about legacy.
What is it you want the world to be more of when you no longer can influence it? How do we use what you want to do with the tools you have, or the resources you have to make that possible? Well, if you talk about it from the standpoint of that language calibration and message design, you can listen appropriately.
Two ears, one mouth. What you get is an alignment towards somebody's personal beliefs that makes them devout to what you do. If you're willing to listen for willing to ask the right questions, and you're willing to frame the language in the right way, so you're going to maybe create a short style guide. How do we communicate this? We're going to audit our website, copy key statements donor.
And to make sure that there's no unintentional what I would call ideology or imply the ideology. I'm not interested in trying to be secretively religious here. What I'm trying to do is figure out how do we connect to someone's core for more transformational gift opportunities. This isn't about softening language. It's about precision. It's the precision of aligning human motivation with institutional neutral content, language discussion, writings.
Number one, language calibration probably the most important. So we took the most amount of time with this. Number two is donor discovery and motivation. So we can do this in both the interpersonal one on one relationships we have with primarily leadership. And you're giving major gifts and plain gifts but also apply to and you'll give it because it comes down to how do we figure out what motivates them inside our organization.
And I want to go back a second. I talked a few moments ago about that idea of the parishioner or the congregant who is interested in music, because that's what moves them to be closer to their own religious belief system. And you want to talk to them about what that is instead of just saying, well, we just give to the church in general.
The same is true for secular.
During the qualification process, during the more importantly, probably during the cultivation process, adding a couple open ended right design questions will dramatically change your ability to create the connection to their core. What experiences shaped your interest in this work? Going back, we'll use that example. And maybe I mentioned earlier someone who grew up with food insecurity early on in their life, and they start telling you a story about not having enough food when they were a kid.
You're tapping in to their devout inner belief system that may tie if you're a food bank or food pantry or food provider right into why they might give you everything. So there's not another kid like that.
Another question you can ask when you think about giving what feels most meaningful to you.
This gets into the thought process of maybe there's various things they give to trying to figure out if you're that one or what that value set is that you could match based upon what you do. Mission based.
Another question is there a life moment that influenced you about how you view philanthropy?
I'll repeat the questions because all too often we're talking about people instead of with them. And the with part's important because that's how we get to listening. What experience has shaped your interest in our work in this work? Number two, when you were when you think about giving what feels most meaningful to you? Three is there a life moment that influences or influenced how you view you're giving?
This is about calling into or working through a lot of emotion and data around what they view as gratitude or duty and duties, a word that comes up quite often in religious perspectives. If back to our food bank example, and you could do this for the way I kind of feel about my legal education, which I've talked about, that without it I wouldn't be where I'm at.
I sense a duty to want to make a difference and duties a word that's used in religious connection an awful lot. The duty to God or to the prophets or to, saints or to whomever. You want to record these motivations? How about religion? What moves people in the in your CRM? Because that's what you want to talk to them about all the time and then connect them to the programing, the output that connects them to what they view is that duty.
Most mistakes in this area occur because nonprofits tend to talk too much and not ask the right questions. Gift officers want to tell people what we do rather than ask what people want to support, what moves them, what is their core. So number two is that the stunner discovery motivation, by the way, you can do this on surveys for, mass numbers.
I don't think we survey our donors often enough. Maybe that's a great podcast. How do you create a survey for a mass number of people to figure out? How do we connect them to what they want to know about this mean? What make that part two of this one third is about story architecture and kind of the narrative that we really want to talk about.
This mirrors in many ways for me, and Christianity could be in Judaism or, or Buddhism or the Islamic Muslim faith. The stories that we learn in my faith, it's the Bible, but the Torah or the Koran or whatever it might be, you don't remember every word, but you remember the stories. For me, it's the prodigal son. It's the story.
The different ways in which, for the Christian faith, Christ uses the parables to tell different stories. Do you remember the stories because they demonstrate a sense of transformational connection. It's a sense of before and after, of lessons learned, of outcomes that are that can be tied to the core of that particular endeavor. And what we can tie our or connect ourselves to in better understanding in the secular nonprofit is exactly the same.
It's around maybe it's around dignity, maybe it's around service to the greater good. Maybe it's around their experiences, around the various things in their life. What we're trying to figure out is trying to blend the quantitative impact, meaning what we do with the qualitative testimony of the stories. If all you do is tell data how many people we served in the food kitchen, that can be pretty interesting.
You pair that with one kid without affecting this many children, and this is an example of a kid. They'll remember the kid and realize the impact. So this isn't about moral superiority or that kind of framing. It's not about implying judgment. It's about using ten to 12 to 15 stories that categorize a theme, a connection, what you do and how it makes the world a better place.
That is directly tied to the way in which we see stories being used in a faith based world. A well chosen story thought out, or having a series on that really elevate the connection about values elevates someone's connection to you based upon what they bring to the table in their own values. Number four is you shouldn't do this without some sense of education.
And what I mean is board staff, there are limits. There are legal boundaries to this. We are not interested in making an organization, religious or faith based. What we're trying to do is figure out how we connect better to our donors. So there's no endorsement, there's no, you know, exclusion, there's equity and access and equality and neutrality for anyone who needs food or shelter or health care or education, that this is about a conversation framework, and that we need to encourage our staff to be more open to it.
I mentioned a few moments ago, maybe you want to have a style guide for the mass communication. Maybe you want to do something more often. And I'll give you an example here in a second that will elevate this at the board level. How often do you spend time asking your board members in public in the board meeting, per se, to talk about their personal motivations for being involved?
Forgiving. Which brings us back to those questions that we mentioned. Why, when you think about us and you're giving to us, what's most meaningful to you, think about a board meeting where you get three people to do this or what life moments elevated your philanthropy, your influence, your philanthropy to what you do today? When I talk about numbers are talking about emotion, connection.
This will normalize this process. More people become more okay with it. It becomes part of who we are and trying to figure out not religious beliefs, but that we're trying to dissuade comfort because of uncertainty. Most discomfort comes from that uncertainty, not actual opposition. And really what I'm saying is most people really don't think about it at a deep enough level to have the framework.
And so they are fearful of it. And so they just oppose it naturally. Last is what I call tactic five. And I mentioned this earlier. When you do this at the highest level, this moves us right into plain giving, which is something I talk about in about the last 30 podcasts. I would guess probably a third of the time that we have to do this.
This is where the money's at. What we know is, is that people will spend their lifetime giving to a church or a faith based organization if they believe and they have that connection. And what's the number one indicator for an estate or plane gift? Long time, consistent number of donations. And I have to be large, just regular. Which means this is that emotional connection at its highest point that we can enter into conversations about legacy much earlier, that this is about a sense of continuity of the organization long after someone's maybe not able to do this anymore, that you're stewarding a person, not just their resources.
It can have a multi-generational effect like some churches do. You see families stay with them for years. This is a real emphasis on a permanence of impact, of alignment that directly ties to someone's personal views. Think about it this way faith motivates donors not just in years, but in decades because of that wholehearted connection to faith with the right language, with the right kind of discovery and questions, with the ability to, to, to appropriately, work with the architecture of stories and creating the metaphors that will allow people to remember maybe not the number of meals served, but the kid who needed the meals, training your board and staff that leads into the most
deeply connected part of lean to be playing giving. We can learn a lot from faith based giving and apply it in a secular way. By the way, I wish some religious places would use some of this stuff to connect to their parishioners, congregants, members of their of their faith in a more wholesome way than just sit at the pulpit and ask them for 5%, or demand that they make gifts to be part of the congregation.
All this is to say is this is transformational. This is how we get to that emotional core. And in doing so, what we find is, is that we have an opportunity that motivating, motivating or figure out someone's motivation is more than just a label religious, non-religious. It's about broadening the connection and at the end, understanding your donors. Why people choose to give, why it's important to them, and in doing so, giving them more options to give.
The connection between understanding why faith based philanthropy has lessons for the secular world today is all about pulling some of those things out and applying them for greater success. And if we can do that, boy, is that a win? Because your nonprofit benefits, it's better, has more resources to invest in the things that the community needs, that your mission provides.
Don't forget to check out the blogs at Hallettphilanthropy.com. Two per week 90-second reads. I'm really surprised by the number of people that have reached out in this process. And the second part is, that I really appreciate when people reach out to me. Over the last probably six months, I've seen a lot more of it where people are emailing me at podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com and saying, hey, would you talk about this?
Or I got a question about that. We'll have more of those episodes coming up. But the idea is, is that we might have a chance to really meet you where you need to be. If you tell me how I can be helpful. Uniqueness of my amazing experiences, none of which I actually have any credit for. I mean, I was given these opportunities by mentors and organizations who invested in me.
I'd like to share them with you. Podcast helps. And to me, that comment or some topic you want me to spend a little time with, don't forget that what you do every day makes a difference. You are important. You are. You are changing lives. Remember what my all time favorite saying is? Do the podcast and this probably 5 or 6 go kind of explaining where it all came from.
And the kind of one of my, historical heroes and Jim Lovell and the NASA astronaut. Some people make things happen, some people watch things happen. Then there are those who wonder what happened. You're someone board member, volunteer, beach gift officer, infrastructure, CPO, whatever. Making things happen for people who are wondering what happened, what a way to spend a life.
Talk about devout. How do I help the world, my community, others have a better experience, the things they need. And if you're committed to that, if you're devout to that, that's pretty cool way to spend an entire career giving to others so that the world and those that need it are better. And in doing so, you help yourself as well.
I'll look forward to seeing the next time right back here on the next edition of Around with Randall. Don't forget, make it a great day.