The donor has interests and values she wants to express through her giving. Regardless of how aligned your organization’s mission or fundraising priority is with her interests and values, this donor is only going to giving significantly and with enthusiasm if she trusts the people she is giving to.
Trust is interesting because many advancement professionals act as though it is synonymous with “liking.” In other words, many advancement professionals behave around donors as if their role is to get the donor to like them.
But trusting someone is different than liking them. Trust is built on consistency, competency, professionalism, and expertise.
Here, then, are 3 ways to build more interpersonal trust with donors:
- Be Consistent – We should strive to be more consistent in our behaviors with donors. But, just as importantly, being consistent in our thinking and in our perspective also matter. The gift we are proposing to them should align in some way that is logical with what they want, or what is needed (or both). The donor doesn’t have to agree with us, but showing consistency in our thinking helps to create an environment of trust with the donor.
- Be Curious – Showing an appropriate amount of curiosity about the donor, their family, their story, their history, and giving motivations, etc., helps create a trusting relationship. Most people respond positively and with greater trust when another works to make them feel seen, understood, important, special, and/or valued.
- Be Expert – We don’t have “be the expert,” in philanthropy or in the organization, we need to “be expert.” Being “the expert” means that we have all the answers. But, that doesn’t help us build trust. Instead, there may be times when we respond to a donor’s question with, “I don’t know.” “Being expert” means we return to the donor with a compelling and understandable answer in the near future. Being expert means we are capable. It means we have a perspective. We know why we are proposing that particular gift to the donor. We understand how the gift we are proposing will work. We are fluent in being the facilitator between the donor and our organization so that their gift will have the impact we promised it would.
If our goal is to engage donors deeply so that decide to joyfully invest in our important missions, we should focus less on getting them to like us and focus far more on showing they can trust us.
