But what about non-campaign major giving?  A primary indicator of a mature development program is the existence of an effective ongoing major gift program.  So that even outside of campaign years, major gifts continue to be received. To keep major gifts flowing every year, make sure the following 3 keys are implemented.

1.  A Case for Support – Do you regularly revise and ask major gift donors and prospects how they perceive your case for support?  Keep in mind that your case for support is different than your case statement.  Your case for support is the message.  It is why you are raising major gifts and how the identified major gift priorities will substantively advance your institution.  Your case for support is never about your needs.  It is about your mission, vision, and values and the priorities which will allow your institution to serve better.  Your case statement, on the other hand, refers to the document or vehicle you will use to deliver your case for support.  Some institutions still produce a multi-page, 4 color, case statement.  Others present their case statement using iPads.  You can have, simultaneously, a visually appealing case statement and an ineffective case for support.  To be effective, focus on crafting and seeking feedback on your case for support.

2.  An Organizational Structure That Encourages Activity  - How do you track and encourage ongoing activity with your major donor prospects?  How do you share information about donors and prospects among development team members?  Mature and ongoing major gift programs share similar organizational characteristics.  First, there are specific meetings that focus on prospect management and the upkeep of major gift officer portfolios.  These meetings occur at least monthly and are “command performances” for all development team members involved in major gifts.  The agenda for these meetings rarely deviates from discussions about prospects and strategies.  These meetings ensure that “getting out from behind the desk” happens regularly for all responsible for major gift donors.  Second, there is one person who is tasked with reporting on major gift officer activity. Regardless of the types of performance metrics you use, there is a staff member who reports regularly on the number of visits, solicitations, and gifts received (or other metrics) for each major gift officer. This structure helps to ensure accountability.  Finally, timely visit reports are completed after each substantive visit with a donor or prospect.  These reports are short but content-rich.  A rule of thumb is simple:  If you learned something during a visit that will be of value or will help explain the donor’s relationship with the institution 3 years from now, complete a visit report.  Anything less significant and it isn’t worth a major gift officer’s time to document.

3.  The Engagement of Institutional Leaders – Does your president participate in prospect management meetings?  Do your deans have portfolios that they actively manage?  Are governing board and/or foundation board members utilized during the cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship of prospects and donors?  The engagement of your institution’s leaders in the ongoing major gift program is key.  It signifies to donors and other constituents that major giving is important to the institution, even when the campaign is over.  Also, it encourages a sharing of information about donors and projects that can help both the major gift staff members as well as the institution’s leaders.  Finally, when institutional leaders are engaged, it helps ensure that major gift program progress continues.  If more resources are needed, for instance, there is a much better chance of obtaining them when leadership is involved.

When helping institutions assess their readiness to conduct a campaign, a typical weakness is the tenuous relationships between the institution and its top 100 donors.  ”We haven’t really continued the cultivation of our top donors since the last campaign,” is a common acknowledgment.  If you make the above 3 keys a priority, you will ensure that this won’t be a weakness of your institution.  And, most importantly, you’ll raise more money each year to help your institution transform lives.

As I watched the folks around me, I noticed a good deal of frustration.  Sure, it can be annoying to have your travel plans delayed as most of these passengers had.  But, I also watched as the airline representative behind the counter greeted every customer with a stern look and negative shakes of the head.  I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I could see the results of her communication.  For flyer after flyer, the results were the same — people walked away more discouraged and frustrated than they were before interacting with her.

Finally, at about an hour and a half late, our flight was called to board.  My flying colleagues and I were about the escape the cramped confines of the airport gate for the cramped confines of our commuter plane.  As we boarded, I heard several passengers continuing to murmur about the flight delays and the poor customer service.  We loaded our bags above our heads and got settled in.

The pilot welcomed us on board over the PA system.  And then he told us that we’d have to wait even longer as airline mechanics investigated a problem with an on-board computer.  The sighs and groans were easily heard.

And then something magical happened.

The stewardess came over the PA and said, “We still don’t know yet when we’ll be leaving, but I’m going to be optimistic and go ahead with some of the pre-flight instructions.”  It wasn’t the message the plane’s passengers wanted to hear and more sighs were heard.  Then, the stewardess  started the pre-recorded flight instruction message and broadly smiled.  It was almost a goofy smile.  It was clearly out of place.

As the recorded voice began talking about not smoking, highlighted the location of the bathrooms and exits, and described how to use the seat as a flotation device, our stewardess smiled and began to perform for us.  She turned dramatically, she danced, she shook her index finger at us in that “no-no-no” manner.  She ran up and down the isle to show us where the exits and bathrooms were.  She was having fun.  Or at least she was faking it really well!

Witnessing this performance, you could tell a few passengers weren’t paying attention at first.  But then the plane grew more quiet as she presented the instructions to us.  I looked around and could see more and more people watching her and responding positively.  The murmurs began to be replaced by laughter and smiles.

And then she stopped.  She threw up an arm and paused as if a spotlight were on her.  The passengers – the very same passengers who just minutes before were expressing a couple of hours worth of frustrations – erupted in applause.   She bowed, still smiling.  We sat at the gate for another half hour, but the mood on the plane was palpably different and positive.  She had changed the whole feel of the evening.

Today you have the opportunity to change the responses of those in your shop.  You can be the customer service representative I saw in the airport who matched the passengers’ grumpiness with her own.  Or, you can be a climate changer and act like the stewardess on my flight.  Each of us has the capacity and the opportunities to influence the behavior of others.  If you decide to influence others positively, I guarantee you’ll have more success in your work as a development professional and you’ll have more fun!

The hard answer is this – you can’t and you shouldn’t try.  People – high quality professionals – don’t want to be managed.  Your role as a an advancement leader is not to manage people.

Instead, your role is to help create an institution they care about so much they don’t require management.  Your role is to help create an advancement team culture so inspiring and valuable that motivational speeches are not needed.  Your role is to help establish goals so compelling that staff members don’t need reminders or instructions.

Truly inspirational leaders don’t focus on persuading or managing people.  Instead, they create movements the attract the very best from others.

As humans, we seem incredibly poor at keeping them.  And, in the instances where we do keep them, they don’t seem to make much of a difference.  One year rolls into another and we find that we still want to get better at our work, we want to be a better spouse and parent, and we still need to stop procrastinating.  Those resolutions don’t seem to do us much good.

As to why our typical resolutions either don’t stick or don’t make much of a difference, there are many reasons.  We lose interest.  We get sidetracked.  We set goals too ambitiously or not ambitiously enough.  Our resolutions are too vague or too specific.  Life happens, etc.

But the biggest reason why our normal resolutions fail, I think, is because we aim to fix something that is broken.  We work on making stronger something that is a weakness.  And, for most of us, that is demoralizing.  There is a reason the area we have identified is a problem area for us.  It’s difficult.  It’s not fun.  And, in many instances, we just aren’t very good at whatever it is.  So, we quit doing it.  Its pretty simple.

And then we feel poorly about ourselves because our resolution didn’t quite work out.  And isn’t the whole resolution idea to improve and feel better in some area of your life?

So, this year, don’t resolve to do anything earth-changing or grandiose.  Do something that everyone can do.  Do something very simple.  And do something that will have a huge impact on your life and your work.

Just break something.

But don’t break something that is useless or insignificant.  Break something that matters.

Here is what I mean.

We make our most important progress when we build on our strengths – not when we attempt to strengthen an area of weakness.  Most are familiar with the old saying, “work to your strengths.”

But, just like our resolutions – when we aim to improve some aspect of our work or our lives, we typically look for the areas of weakness.  We seek out the gaps in performance.  We do well on this and that.  But over here, we struggle.  So, we plan strategies to enhance these areas of weakness.  Meanwhile, our strengths and areas that achieve high results go untouched.

If we are truly building on our strengths, we are going about this all wrong.  We should constantly work to assess and improve our areas of strength.  That’s how we’ll make our biggest impact as professionals and people.

So, in 2012, break something important!  In your development shop, do you have a special event or a direct response piece that historically has been a large part of your gift income?  Break it.  Plan for it as if you never did it before.  Don’t start from what you did last year.  Start from scratch.  Deconstruct it.  Rework it.  Scrutinize it.  Make it better.  Better than its ever been.  Birth it again.

Major progress happens when we take something that is a strength and we make it stronger.

Here’s to a Happy and Productive New Year!

Not enough budget?  Not the right people on the team?  Not enough people on the team? Too much bureaucracy?   A micro-managing boss?  Support staff that doesn’t take initiative?  What else?

As we get older, we tend to view hurdles not as speed bumps to jump over or get around, but as barriers that are almost impossible to overcome.  But each of us has always faced and conquered hurdles.  Think back to when you were a kid on a playground.  Nothing was impossible.  ”Tomorrow,” you would tell yourself, “I’m going further on the monkey bars!”  And you would.  If you fell and skinned a knee and your hands, guess what?  They healed and you came right back for more.

You see, the real problem isn’t the hurdles we face, it’s our response.  We freeze.  Or we cower.  Or we retreat before even trying a solution.  Or we accept the status quo. Or we do all of these and more.

I think we respond so feebly to our hurdles today because we think we know the outcome before we even try.  We have the experience of falling off the monkey bars and skinning our knee.  And it hurt.  To protect ourselves from future harm, our brains recall the pain of the skinned knee far more vividly than it remembers the joy of finally conquering the monkey bars.

Our real problem is that we let our instinct to protect ourselves from authentic life-and-death problems intervene inappropriately.   Yes, you should freeze, retreat, and do whatever else you need to do to survive when you come across a bear in the woods, but our work isn’t quite so dramatic or life-threatening.  We’re talking about finding creative solutions for workplace problems, not protecting ourselves from physical harm.

When we let our protective instinct intervene and walk away from our hurdles, we don’t explore new options.  We don’t think.  We don’t create.  We don’t stretch ourselves and inspire others.  We don’t encourage.  We don’t make things better.  And that makes our world grow ever smaller and our work less significant.   It makes us obsolete.

So as you end 2011 and prepare for 2012, go ahead and jump a few hurdles.  Fight your instinct which is your real hurdle.  Yes, you’ll fall and skin a knee or two in the process.  But you’ll also grow as a professional, gain more meaning from your work, get better outcomes, and have more fun.  And, your scars will make for a fantastic story.

Just remember:  It can’t be that hard – kids do it every day.

They surveyed 1,400 married couples and found that the level of generosity – or the amount of give and take that goes on in the relationship – is a key predictor of marital happiness.  Fifty percent of women and 46% of men who reported “above average generosity” in their marriages also described their relationships as “very happy.”

Ok, that’s pretty easy to understand.  My wife is happier with our union if I give to her.  Got it.

But there is more to the story.  Couples who reported “above average generosity” also reported high levels of sexual satisfaction.  And wives were more likely to report higher levels of sexual satisfaction if their husbands pitched in and were generous in doing household chores.  All husbands should take note – if you want a sexually satisfying marriage, start with emptying the dishwasher every now and then!

Granted, this research doesn’t answer the question of causation.  So, generosity may lead to better sex.  Or, better sex may lead to more generosity.  But that’s not the point.

Here’s the point – generosity is a powerful motivator.  In marriages and in any relationship.  Generosity is powerful because it is evidence to another person that we value them.  That we care.  That the other person is important.

And generosity begets more generosity, especially if we are generous in ways that others value.  The results of research completed at Stanford and Harvard confirm that people actually think of you more positively when you give them what they have asked for instead of what you think they will want.   So, the next time your mother-in-law puts “slippers” on her Christmas list, don’t get her a lovely necklace.  If it ain’t what she asked for, she probably won’t think you (or the gift) are all that special.

Why?  Because when we give something that someone has asked for it shows we listened to them and we cared enough to give something that they value.  They appreciate the giver of those gifts more than when they receive something unexpected.

Remember both of these research findings the next time you are generating major donor strategies.  If you want their gift, the first step is to extend generosity toward them in ways that they find meaningful.

If you’ve been around the development field long you know that there is a fear that cripples people’s capacity to do good much stronger than simple stage fright.

I’m talking about “ask fright” – or the exceedingly negative and visceral response that many volunteers have to a request to assist in any meaningful way with the development program.

“Ask fright” takes a variety of forms.  From complete paralysis (“no, I don’t talk to people about money”).  To flu-like symptoms in which the volunteer coughs, begins to sweat, and shows increased lethargy, especially as it pertains to returning your phone calls!

Regardless of the excuses given (and there are many), many volunteers struggle with asking for a gift.  They may care deeply about your institution.  They may give of their time, talent, and treasure in model-esque fashion.  But many express an intense dislike for being with you when another person is asked to make a financial commitment.

It turns that the cure for “ask fright,” is similar to the cure for stage fright.  Namely, to get the focus off of oneself and onto others.   Now, I wouldn’t suggest you tell your volunteers to imagine the prospect in their underwear.  But, one way I attempt to re-focus volunteers who struggle with “ask fright” is by asking – and help them answer – a simple question:

For whom are you asking?

As a volunteer, you are not asking the prospect to support you.  Therefore, you should not take their response personally.

You are not even asking the prospect to support this institution.  Our institution is simply a vehicle to serve.

Instead, you are asking the prospect to support those we serve – our students, patients, clients, etc.   You asking the prospect to help transform individual lives and make a difference in our community, our country, and our world.

The prospect may say, “yes”.  The prospect may also say, “no.”  Or, the prospect may say, “I’ll get back to you.”  Whatever the response, just know that it isn’t about you.  Fundamentally, they are responding to an opportunity to support those we serve.  When we re-focus the attention of our volunteers away from their role in the work and onto the lives we will impact through philanthropy, we have a chance to cure “ask fright.”

But it is wrong.

Read this from Simone Joyaux, ACFRE, and web contributor to “Nonprofit Quarterly“:

“Sadly most organizations focus on their own needs and why their good work requires donations.  Instead, the donor-centered organization puts the donor at the center.  ’Because of your gifts, we do this vital work.’”

You may be wondering why I would suggest this to be a wrong-headed approach.  At first blush, it sounds like a philosophy I would espouse.  But, I believe this is more than wrong-headed, I believe it is dangerous!

Here is what I mean.

The ‘center’ of our work, of our institutions, should never be our donors.  When we put our donors at the ‘center’ of our organizational focus and energy, we can quickly get our institutions into some curious situations.  For instance, if your institution practices a “donor-centric” approach, how might you respond if your largest donor asks you to give her son a job?  If the donor is at the center of your institution, your decision-making may get confused.

Now, some might say that I don’t understand the real meaning of being “donor-centered.”  In fact, Ms. Joyaux has written in other places that institutions should be both “donor-centered” as well as “mission-centered.”  The problem I have with this “dual-centered” approach is that I’m not sure what an institution leader does when those two “centers” come into conflict with each other.

And believe me – they can come into conflict.  Sometimes in ways that are much more devastating than giving someone a job.  Sometimes a “donor-centered” approach and a “mission-centered” approach can clash in catastrophic ways.

Here is an example of a real-life mission statement of a well-known institution:

“(The institution) educates students. . . and improves the well being and health of individuals and communities through integrated programs of teaching, research, and service.”

Do you know whose Mission Statement this is?  It’s Penn State University’s.

I wonder if leaders at Penn State University would have reacted differently to protect little boys from alleged sexual predator, Jerry Sandusky, if they had been “mission-centered,” instead of embracing some other “donor/money/winning/and/or reputation-based center.”

Our institutions should never be anything other than “mission-centered.”  Our focus, energy, decision-making process, and donor-relations should sit on a foundation of mission.  Why are we here?  Why do we do what we do?  Our mission-based center should evidence our values and our purpose.  If we truly live out our mission, we will put appropriate focus, recognition, and stewardship on our donors.

But, when we put the wrong concept, the wrong people, the wrong idea at our center – at our very core – we run a huge risk.  Even if that “something” is as important as donors, we run a risk.   And sometimes, when we allow our institutions to become something other than “mission-centered,” we put the very people we aim to serve in harm’s way.

What we are working on could be a mailing, setting up visits, getting prepared for Board meetings, etc.

On the other hand, what we are working for are the big outcomes we are aiming to achieve.  Strengthening our institutions through endowment growth, assisting tomorrow’s students through increased scholarship aid, or building the day-to-day foundation of our institutions through a more robust annual fund.

When we focus on what we are working on, we tend to concentrate on our to-do list and our calendars.  If we aren’t careful, what we are working on can become all-consuming, squeezing out a focus on what we are working for.

But, when we focus on what we are working for, we tap into our highest values and ideals, and the reasons why we chose to work in the philanthropy vineyard to begin with.  What we are working for gives us a reason to get out of bed each day and approach our work with the enthusiasm and effort it deserves.

According to research conducted by U.S. Department of Education and Virginia Tech, women now are the recipients of 60% of all earned Master’s degrees.  And currently, they control nearly 60% of the wealth in the U.S.   The number of wealthy women in the U.S. is growing at twice the rate of wealthy men.

The Women’s Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University has published research suggesting that single women are twice as likely as single men to make a philanthropic gift.  Further, married men and married women are twice as likely than single men to make a gift, leading some to suggest that women’s philanthropic tendencies rub off on their husbands.

So, what does all this mean for you as you plan and implement advancement strategies?  From a strategic standpoint two ideas immediately come to mind.  First, if you read further into the research on women donors, as compared to men, women are less likely to respond positively to “challenge gift” scenarios. The research suggests women are encouraged to give more when there is a collaborative strategy in place.  Second, women respond positively to donor education initiatives, including estate planning seminars.  They have questions and they are willing to seek the answers.

Often during Prospect Management meetings, the strategies discussed for major donor prospects center on men.  In some instances, to the exclusion of the women in their lives.  The research on women in philanthropy – both their influence on men and how they respond to our strategies – strongly suggests such a male-dominated approach is a mistake.

The old saying of philanthropy is, “If you want money, ask for advice.”  Perhaps we should re-state and update this. . . “If you want money, ask for advice. . . from a woman.”