BREAKOUT REPORT

Second Session: March 2, 2010

• Facilitator: Dirk Beveridge, president, 4thGeneration Systems
• Scribe: Larry Meyer, Meyer Communications

This session incorporates sales strategy in how community foundations (CFs) can build their donor bases, especially in attracting funders interested in helping to meet information needs in their community.

Dirk read three statements gleaned from community foundations’ web sites describing the customized, tailored work they do.

As he read them, he asked if they reflected participants’ own definitions. In a prescient comment, Peg Sikjeskog of South Dakota said: “You just listen, and you ask: What are your passions?”

Dirk also said he noted the presence of industry standards on many CF web sites.

Those customer-focused statements, and the attention to industry standards, combine to tell Dirk that CF’s are saying, in effect: We sell.

Dirk again introduced three principles of sales and began to apply them to building donor bases: 1) Proactivity and focus; 2) Customer focus; 3) Added value.

Principle #1: Proactivity and focus

More foundations, Aspen Institute research says, are reactive rather than proactive. Only 27 percent say they develop funds using an intentional program rather than waiting for funds to come their way. Put another way, instead of beating the bushes for prospects, they wait for prospects to come their way via referrals from professional advisers.

He got nods of agreement.

To be proactive, Dirk said, CFs need to ask the first of two key questions: What is my world of opportunity?

Most participants agreed their world of possible donors is mainly current donors.

The problem, said Dirk: That’s too narrow.

But once you start growing your world of opportunity, it raises another challenge: Your list becomes too long. You need to narrow it down.

The second key question thus becomes: Which of these prospects are the best for me?

Dirk reminded his group of Alberto Ibargüen’s opening remark: Information is a core community need in a democracy.

He asked: Are there individuals within your community who would also agree with that statement?

To reach them, to discover who can potentially join the effort, CFs need to develop an ideal customer profile.

Dirk divided his session into three groups to develop ideal customer profiles for funding information needs projects. One focused on individuals; one on organizations, and the third on professional advisers.

The individual group suggested these ideal customers:

• The owner who just sold his or her business
• A CEO who’s a former journalist
• An active donor in a community-based organization
• A 60+ citizen whose kids are launched in life
• A civic leader

Halfway through, Carleen Rhodes said the group asked themselves if these looked any different than the usual suspects. And several key new groups emerged:

• A tech company/telecomm owner (or a related business)
• Board members with connections to all of the above
• Entertainers and golfers
• Donors to local journalism schools
• The professional advisers group came up with:
• Attorneys
• Trust and estate
• Tax
• Private client
• Wealth
• Single/family
• Corp
• Accounts and CPAs
• High end/life insurance providers

The group had discussed what kind of filters or lenses they’d use to identify the ideal professional adviser customer. They arrived at the importance of getting to know them well enough to have a meaningful conversation, one intent on getting access to donors.

The group discussed ways to convene the advisers to – this is important – listen for ways to draw out the right potential donor.

“I sell this idea all the time,” said Alberto Ibargüen, listening in. I’d go talk up information needs to other foundation presidents and try to sell them: What’s more important than democracy? But it didn’t connect until we started talking about the things funders make as part of their mission. For Ford, it was equality of access. Rockefeller wasn’t interested until they heard a conversation that couched information needs in terms of infrastructure – something they care about. You have to focus on the donor.

The organization group discussed qualities. Look for an organization:

• With a shared mission
• One civically involved
• With a reputation in the community
• The capacity, credibility, presence, leadership

They discussed:

• Local think tanks (from both sides of the political spectrum)
• Junior leagues
• Chambers of commerce
• Universities
• Media companies

Principle #2: Customer focus

This brought Dirk to the mantra of customer focus.

What’s important to the customer? Most CFs talk all day long about focusing in on the needs of the customer. But there’s a huge gap between talking and doing!

Dirk brought the group around to thinking about who does the talking and the listening when a CF is making a donor pitch.

Do a customer leads analysis. Understand that each potential donor has different interests, different internal motivators. The trick: Discovering what they are. “I need to have a different conversation with that 60+ parent and the attorney who’s a professional adviser,” he said.

The next group exercise had the same three groups developing a suspected needs analysis.

The readout of suspected needs for individuals focused on one group: Board members of tech companies. Their suspected needs: Impact on community; the ability to share personal stories; the opportunity to determine affinities; the need to give back; to establish a legacy; to improve the community’s health; to honor a referral request.

For the organization group, it boiled down to identifying the needs of the organization’s individual contact person.

For professional advisers, Clothilde Dedecker jumped to the session’s ultimate point: CFs add value. We’re another arrow in the quiver, she said; we add bench strength; we do it as a nonprofit; we’re a one-stop charitable shopping cart for all your philanthropic needs.

Dirk asked the group to separate product from the things that add value. He left the group with this key statistic: We find that 40 percent of a customer’s buying decision is based on the tangible product, but 60 percent of their decision is based on the intangible, value-added benefits.

The key question to leave Miami with is: What do you do for the donor beyond the product? Pick three things from your list of value-added offerings, and use them to kick-start the next conversation about your prospective donor’s needs.

“This is the exact information I need as a first-year person,” said departing participant.