Through culture and institutions, our western world encourages us to value the items in the left column of the table more than the items in the right column.

But the best leaders, the best gift officers, the best colleagues (and the best spouses, friends, etc.) value the characteristics on the right more than the left.  If you wish to become more effective, focus on what actually is valuable.

To fully live into her promise, a development leader’s most valuable skill set is what I refer to as “authentic inquiry.”  Here is how I define the concept:

Authentic Inquiry is the gentle art of relationship-building through the process of asking well-framed questions based on your sincere interest in the other person and to which you do not already know the answers.

That’s it.  It’s that simple.  To build relationships well, you must ask thoughtful questions which are born out of a genuine interest in the other person and to which you do not already know the answers.  This is the behavior of exceptional gift officers as well as exceptional leaders.

The problem, of course, is that Authentic Inquiry as a skill set is not taught.  It’s not taught in primary or secondary school.  It’s not taught at university.  And it’s not taught in any robust way at professional development seminars for advancement folk.  The best way to learn it – at least at the present time – is to watch and learn from exceptional mentors and successful colleagues.

If you are aiming to become a better development officer, if your goal is to become a leader, or if you wish to grow into a stronger leader, there is nothing more important you can do than develop the skills of Authentic Inquiry.  The hallmark of effective development work is that it gets accomplished by mobilizing and activating others in support of a worthy mission.  When you care sincerely about others and you display that care through the asking of thoughtful, real questions, the relationships needed for success will be strengthened.

Meals are an experience.  Good meals activates us.  Exceptionally delectable meals with family and friends during special occasions are stored and relived as indelible memories for years to come.  Some people (perhaps you!) can recall with fervid clarity the over-the-top chocolate dessert they had at a special restaurant a full 10 years later!  When they retell the story, their smile broadens, they ooh and ahh, and their eyes get wide with excitement.

Reading a menu usually is not an experience.  Although effective menus  help us choose our meals by portraying food as appetizingly as possible with savory descriptions, we don’t remember the menu.  We don’t retell the story of reading the menu.

Even less memorable and rousing is the reading of a recipe.  This is almost never an experience  - even when it does create the “to-die-for” dessert!  Most of us simply can’t envision the scrumptious outcome from reading the recipe.  It is too technical to elicit great emotion.

Finally, at the lowest level of positive impact is the grocery list.  For most of us, we don’t even want to see the grocery list because shopping is a chore.

So, here’s the point:  To get the diner interested in the meal, the restaurant shares a well-crafted menu, not a recipe and, certainly, not the grocery list.  But as development officers, we spend much of our time telling donors and prospects about our grocery list of needs.

For instance, whole case for support statements have been developed that are little more than a list of needs.   We do the equivalent of telling our donors we need egg yolks, cornstarch, dark brown sugar, cocoa powder, bittersweet chocolate, and heavy cream and expect their mouths to water in anticipation of our delicious chocolate pie.  And, in the worst cases, we don’t even suggest that our needs will be combined into a good recipe.  We simply list a bunch of needs like an unfocused grocery shopping list and then wonder why our prospects are not making significant investments in us.

At the most basic level, we should be preparing giving menus that artistically paint the pictures of appetizing outcomes their gift choices will help us achieve.  And when we do our work exceptionally well, we should go beyond the menu.  We should offer experiences to our prospects and donors.  We should give them opportunities to experience for themselves the work of our institutions and organizations.  We should connect them with those we serve, ask them for their advice,  invite them to participate in fulfilling our mission, and engage them with others who believe what they believe.  We should give them memories that they will want to share – even 10 years later.

Yes, you need donors to help you get the egg yolks, the cornstarch, and the cocoa powder.  But you will have much more success getting those ingredients when you make the compelling case for the chocolate pie.

Start the year off right with high-quality, mind-stretching, solution-rich professional development opportunities.

The Gonser Gerber Institute is offering the following webinars and workshops to help you and your team do the best possible advancement work in 2014.  Below are three programs being offered early in the year:

5 Essential Tips:  Innovative (And Inexpensive) Ways to Strengthen Your Donor Relations Program – I’ll be leading this webinar next Monday, January 27, from 11:00 – Noon Central.  If you are looking to enhance your donor relations and stewardship efforts in 2014, this program is for you.  I look forward to seeing you online next Monday!

Measuring Performance to Improve Results in Alumni Relations and the Annual Fund – This webinar will dig into various strategies to best measure the effectiveness of your alumni relations program and the Annual Fund.  Led by Cristian Murdock and me, this webinar is scheduled for Wednesday, February 5, from 11:00 – 12:30pm Central.  Join us for a session that is sure to help you measure your effectiveness better.

Major Gifts A – Z:  A Training Session For New Major Gifts Officers – One of our highest evaluated workshops of all-time, this workshop is a must for new gift officers in your shop.  Led by Gonser Gerber consultants Ron Gunden and Chad Jolly, this workshop will be presented in Dallas, TX, from Thursday, April 10 – Friday, April 11.  If you or someone in your shop is new to the fundraising field or has been a gift officer for less than 2 years, this workshop will provide great value!

I hope you and members of your team will take advantage of these high-quality professional development opportunities.  I look forward to seeing you at one of the Institute’s programs in 2014.

If you have questions about any of these programs or other Institute programs, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

Recently, Seth Godin blogged on the subject of giving.  His entry entitled, “What do we get when we give to a good cause?” was a bit off base from my perch.  His answer to this important question was simply, “A story.”  He said,

“In fact, every time someone donates to a good cause, they’re buying a story, a story that’s worth more than the amount they donated.”

Well, kinda.

Unfortunately, Seth’s “story” answer encourages advancement officers to focus on “story-telling.”  Even seasoned advancement officers can get confused about the fundamental nature of our work and lament the fact that they don’t have enough data about that program, or enough information about this initiative, or enough collateral materials to tell “the story” effectively.  All because they have bought into the notion that their primary responsibility is to tell “the story.”

But our first job isn’t about telling a story.  It’s about listening for a story.  The donor’s story.   Our first job is about asking thoughtful questions and listening to the people who care about our work.  It’s about better understanding them, their values, their passions, and their interests.  And, then, secondarily, our job is to educate them on how our mission and work aligns, supports, and affirms those values, passions, and interests.  Of course, we may educate them using stories, but not always.  Sometimes we educate by providing them with an experience – engaging them personally in the work itself as a volunteer, for instance.  In fact, I would argue that providing an experience for our donors and prospects is a much more effective pathway to activate their generosity than is simply telling them a story, no matter how compelling.

Additionally, it is clear today that donors get much in return for their giving besides a story.  Research has shown that giving is linked to better physical, psychological, and emotional health, a more positive attitude, and even living a longer, more satisfying life.  Giving, it is becoming clear, is a hard-wired attribute of healthy human living and we dismiss it at our own peril.

Hank Rosso, founder of The Fundraising School now a part of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University, is quoted as saying, “Fundraising is the gentle art of teaching the joy of giving.”

Advancement professionals are teachers.  We are teachers of one of the most important lessons in life – that it really is better to give than to receive.  And, like any good teachers, we must begin not by telling stories, but by understanding our students.  Only then can we teach effectively.

“Reflect on your present blessings, on which every man has many, not
on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”  —Charles Dickens (M. Dickens, 1897)

If you live in the States, the 4th Thursday of November is the day set aside to be thankful.  We are encouraged to focus on our blessings and good fortune.  It is a day to be grateful for all that fills our lives with joy.  Thanksgiving – the day of expressing gratitude.

But why do we do this?  Why set aside a full day as a holiday to lift up the importance of gratitude and reflect on the favor we’ve enjoyed? Part of the answer, I would argue, is born out of the collective wisdom of human experience.  Like a wise whisperer from generations past, something down deep inside tells us that it is good to pause and balance our selfish drives and greed with deferential and authentic expressions of gratitude.  That we are better people when we give thanks more and serve ourselves less.  That living fully into thanksgiving brings a quiet peace to our lives.  We just “know” these things.

But, today, with various streams of research focusing on the topic of gratitude and its impact on the human condition, we are finding evidence for the wisdom and philosophies of our progenitors.  Regular expressions of gratitude, it seems, bring with them a whole set of positive and powerful life-affirming benefits.  Robert Emmons, professor of psychology, at UC Davis, is a leading researcher in the area of gratitude and his findings suggest that those who regularly choose an attitude of gratitude experience significant improvements in several areas of life including relationships, overall emotional well-being, academics, energy level, and even dealing with tragedy and crisis.

Specifically, those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events.  Participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based) over a two-month period compared to subjects in the other experimental conditions. Young adults who focused on gratitude reported higher levels of the positive states of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and energy compared to those who focused on hassles or on a downward social comparison (ways in which participants thought they were better off than others).

And, if you provide leadership in your organization, here are some key findings.  Groups that express gratitude regularly report similar positive affects as mentioned above and report that the sense of entitlement and jealousy among group members is diminished.  Sharing our reflections of gratitude, it seems, is not just good for us individually.  This ages-old practice also appears to make us much more effective together.

So next Monday morning, when your team gathers for the normal staff meeting after this Thanksgiving, commit to focusing on gratitude regularly.  Begin the meeting by having each team member share something for which they are grateful.  Not only will people feel better, the team will be strengthened.

Happy Thanksgiving to each of you!