In any campaign or significant fundraising initiative, there is wisdom in practicing the maxim of engaging your potential donor segments in a “top down, inside out” order.
This phrase, of course, refers to inviting both your highest financial capacity donors (i.e, the “top” in “top down”), and those donors closest to your institution (i.e., the “insiders” in “inside out”) to give early in your fundraising.
The benefits of institutional planning, fundraising momentum-building, and many others are clear with this approach.
But, for many advancement leaders, it’s the “top down” portion of this phrase that captures their imagination and focuses their work the most. Looking to confirm a lead gift and wanting to show early fundraising success are two reasons why advancement folk typically home-in on the “top down” aspect of this saying.
But, that’s a mistake. It’s actually the “inside out” aspect of this old saw that is more important to your longer-term fundraising success.
The “insiders” could be your current Board members, Advisory Council members, administrative leadership team members, faculty, staff, doctors, and other team members at your institution.
When we take the time to cultivate, engage, and invite our inside folk to give we create two positive processes:
- These insiders, even if they give more modestly-sized gifts than your “top” donors, now will say positive things about the fundraising effort and more, broadly, about the institution’s plans for the future. Giving of any amount causes people to think more positively about the institution and/or the initiative they just supported. Giving creates advocates (or, at least muffles feelings of negativity) which helps in subtle, informal, but important ways, to support the overall effort.
- Your “top” donors will be encouraged to learn that some significant percentage of your “insiders” have already given. Principal and lead givers sometimes feel as if they are the only ones being invited to give. To proactively counteract this assumption, you can share that others who are close to your institution have already been invited to give and have responded enthusiastically.
Of course, campaigns and significant fundraising efforts need major gifts to be successful. But how we get to those major gifts matters. It may be that inviting gifts from our wealthiest donors and prospects first isn’t the most effective approach.
Perhaps a more helpful way of thinking about the time-tested maxim is not, “top down, inside out,” but rather, “inside out, top down.”
