Over the last 20 years, our world has seen an incredible transformation in the ways humans interact, including how we make friends.
Not only has technology focused us more on screens than faces, we have experienced a global pandemic which distanced us from one another, and we are in the midst of deep crisis of personal confidence, social anxiety, and loneliness that causes the process of making friends seem even more difficult for many.
Today, especially, when I meet with younger advancement professionals, I recognize that many struggle with implementing the fundamental tenets of how advancement work is done well. For example, if we were to describe our work in the most accessible terms, we might say that one of our core functions is to “make friends on behalf of our organization.”
Effective advancement folks build and strengthen relationships with donors, supporters, and partners. They effectively invite donors, supporters, and partners to learn more, engage more, and give more.
In short, effective advancement folks, “make friends.”
In a world, though, where people are struggling to do this most socially-human work, it may be helpful to remind ourselves about the process of “making friends.”
Here, then, is a 5-step guide:
- Show Up Regularly – go to the community meetings, attend the social events, join clubs. Friendship starts with physical proximity. Even in a screen-heavy world, showing up physically is the most effective and efficient way to make friends.
- Initiate – be warm and engaging first. This doesn’t mean that you must be quick-witted or a great conversationalist (although that certainly helps). But, it does mean that we should be smiling, employ open body language, make eye contact, and initiate conversation with a warm greeting.
- Show Interest – everyone is not born with the confidence or personality to frame relationship-building questions. But, everyone can learn how to ask better questions! Develop good questions and practice posing them. Also remember that showing interest isn’t always about asking good questions. A well-placed statement like, “I did not know that!” or “that is incredible!” will also keep people talking about themselves and their interests.
- Invite Them – whether large or small, invite them to do something next. Invite them to grab coffee. Invite them to attend something with you. Invite them to respond in some way. But, ask them to do something. This helps create the next step in the budding friendship.
- Recall Something – after you meet a potential new friend, remember something that was shared during your visit and text, call, connect back with them and ask about it. “Hey, how did your big conference go last week?” This keeps the relationship top of mind for them and communicates that you were listening to them.
These skills may seem rudimentary and basic – especially for advancement professionals. But, as fundamental as they are, we also know that they need to be taught and modeled.
Unfortunately, the evidence strongly suggests that we’ve not done a good job of teaching and modeling these skills over the last 20 years.
If one simple way to describe our work is that we, “make friends for our organization,” perhaps spending time reviewing the basics of how to actually do that is needed.
