During visits with donors, if you find yourself regularly sharing a personal experience or anecdote because the donor brought up a similar topic, you might be story-swapping.
Story-swapping during conversations is a natural way for humans to build rapport and isn’t necessarily a poor practice for a gift officer to use. But, it also may not be the most effective conversational strategy.
For example, let’s say a gift officer is visiting with a major gift donor and the donor says, “wow, hearing from Bridget – the student who shared her story at the recent donor event – was really moving. We thought she was great!”
A story-swapping gift officer might respond, “Yes, she is incredible. I hadn’t heard her story myself until that day and I thought it was compelling, too! Thank you, again, for your scholarship support. You are the reason students like Bridget can have those stories to share!”
So, in this example, the gift officer briefly story-swaps and, then, turns the attention back to the donor with words of gratitude. We might say that the gift officer did a nice job of working in a “thank you” moment during that story-swapping exchange.
However, story-swapping can become problematic if it happens consistently or if it happens because the gift officer is anxious, wants to feel more relevant to the donor, or doesn’t have a good understanding of the purpose of the donor visit to begin with. If we are story-swapping too often with donors, we probably are missing opportunities.
There is another conversational practice that can be helpful if a gift officer finds themselves story-swapping too often. While, the concept of looping is focused mostly on conflict resolution, it is worth exploring for gift officers to use in all types of conversations with donors and others.
When we loop with others during conversations, we, first, truly work to understand their experience and perspective. So, in the example above, after the donor expressed that Bridget’s story really moved them, a looping follow-up response from the gift officer could have been: “I’m interested to know what specific aspects of Bridget’s story were most moving to you. . .”
In this way, the gift officer would keep the focus on the donor’s experiences and on understanding the donor’s perspective better.
Then, when the donor responds, the gift officer listens to understand and “loops back” to the donor what they have heard in their own words. For example, perhaps the donor said, “We were moved because Bridget’s upbringing was so difficult – more so than most everyone in that room – and yet, look at what she’s accomplished in her young life. It was inspiring.” The gift officer would say, “Ok, so seeing how far Bridget had come from her childhood to now – her journey, so to speak- was inspiring for you. Is that right?”
At that point, the donor might further clarify or offer additional information that explains their perspective.
When a gift officer loops during donor conversations, we can see how they gain far more insight and nuance into the donor’s interests, values, and giving motivations.
But, when a gift officer story-swaps, they can miss all that deeper understanding.
While story-swapping can make us feel like we are behaving with empathy or like we are connecting with the donor, the reality is that we may be neglecting the use of a better conversational strategy — one that evokes and reveals a more rich and deeper understanding of our donors and why they give.
Especially early in donor relationships, we can know we are doing donor engagement well when we are the ones doing the learning.
