12 Days of Major Gift Fundraising - Day 9: Mindset

On Day 9 of the 12 Days of Major Gift Fundraising, Nathan unravels the mysteries of how our subconscious mind shapes our thoughts, emotions, and actions, often without us even realizing it. Discover how deeply rooted beliefs formed in our early years can influence our approach to fundraising and learn practical strategies to overcome these invisible barriers.

If the thought of fundraising fills you with anxiety, you're not alone. Nathan shares insights drawn from his experiences with nonprofit leaders, highlighting common fears and providing actionable advice. Navigate the complexities of major gifts with confidence and transform your personal and organizational approach to fundraising.

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Transcript

Nathan Ruby: 0:09

Welcome to the Practice of Nonprofit Leadership. I'm Nathan Ruby. Day nine of the 12 days of major gifts is here. Well, how are you feeling? We've spent the last few days identifying and qualifying and cultivating, and yesterday was the big day we made the ask. How exciting is that? Now, remember, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me at info at practiceNPleadercom that's also in the show notes. I am happy to connect with you. Just send me an email, give me what you're struggling with and I will, as best of my ability, I'll get you pointed in the right direction.

Nathan Ruby: 0:57

Okay, today we are going to be talking about what's going on in your head. Now, I know for some of you that might be a pretty big topic for some of you, but the subconscious mind plays a powerful role in shaping our mindset, often operating beneath our conscious awareness. So things are going on and we don't even know it's impacting what we do, what we say, how we think, and we don't even know that it's happening. That's why it's called the subconscious. It stores beliefs and memories and past experiences, which then influence our thoughts, our emotions and our actions. When you attempt to do something new, like starting to work with major gifts. Your subconscious often reacts based on negative past patterns, even if those patterns are outdated or limiting. It's interesting Studies show that about 95% of our thoughts and behaviors are governed by the subconscious mind. That's 95%, and many of these beliefs are formed even in early childhood. So experiences that you had even as a child, now as an adult, are still coming back and impacting what you think, what you say and what you do.

Nathan Ruby: 2:24

If a person has internalized negative self-beliefs or fears of failure, these will often surface when faced with a new endeavor preventing them from taking the first step. Let me say that just a little bit differently. If you have internalized negative self-beliefs or fears of failure, these will often surface when you have or start a new endeavor preventing you from taking the first step. And me too. It's not just you, it's me, it's all of us. This impacts everybody.

Nathan Ruby: 3:00

Overcoming these subconscious blocks require consciously reframing these limiting beliefs and taking action despite the initial resistance. So this comes up in our three things that we're going to talk about today in mindset. The first one is going to be I can't do this, and this is something that I hear from executive directors and nonprofit leaders that are starting to get into a major gift or they want to get into a major gift program, and I hear it all the time is I can't do this. And where the subconscious comes in is if you've led an organization, if you've been a leader at an organization for very long at all, and even if your program staff are just working at a nonprofit, you've had interactions with donors at some point at some level, and maybe that interaction has gone good and maybe it's gone not so good. Maybe you didn't have such a great interaction with donors, but most executive directors that I work with, fundraising, especially major gift fundraising, is one of their least favorite things to do. They just they don't know what to do, they don't know when to do it. The whole concept of working one-on-one with donors fills them with anxiety. Well, guess what that may be you, if that's your experience with fundraising, your brain, your subconscious, right now, even as you're listening to me, is screaming at you no, no, no, you don't like this. This is hard, this is uncomfortable, we don't want to do this. If you try to do this, you are going to fail at this and make a fool of yourself. So don't even try it Now. That may not be exactly what your subconscious is saying but it's saying something to that effect. So to get around that, I want you to be aware of two different types of mindsets. This will help you start the process through this.

Nathan Ruby: 5:07

The first one is called a fixed mindset and a fixed mindset. That mindset believes that abilities and intelligence are static. If you struggle, you might think well, I'm just not good at this, and so you stop doing this. So a fixed mindset says I am who I am, I know what I know and that's all it's going to be, and I can't learn new things. I can't do new things because, well, because this is who I am and this is how I'm going to stay. That's a fixed mindset. As compared to a growth mindset that says the belief that abilities can be developed through effort, learning and persistence. A person with a growth mindset views challenges as opportunities to improve.

Nathan Ruby: 5:54

So a growth mindset says okay, I got to learn these major gifts because it is a good thing for my organization and I don't know how to do it, so I'm going to learn. I'm going to listen to the practice of nonprofit leaderships. 12 days of major gift fundraising. I'm going to learn there and maybe I'm going to reach to the practice of nonprofit leaderships. 12 days of major gift fundraising. I'm going to learn there and maybe I'm going to reach out to Nathan and get some help with some areas that I'm weak in. I'm going to do some other studying, I'm going to practice and I'm going to bump my toe a few times, but I think I could do this and I'm going to learn how to do this. That is a growth mindset, and in order to get to a thriving major gifts program, you are going to have to fight through this internal voice inside of you that's screaming at you not to do this, because if you don't get over that hurdle, if you don't get over that hump, you're never going to get your major gift program started. You can do this.

Nathan Ruby: 6:51

Major gifts, like virtually everything else, can be learned by virtually everyone. Are there some people who have an easier time of it? Of course. Are there some people who struggle a little bit, maybe even struggle a lot before they learn how to be effective at it? Of course, and you may be somewhere in between, but I guarantee you you can learn to do this. So don't let yourself get derailed before you even start. So good mindset is crucial when it comes to answering the question.

Nathan Ruby: 7:30

Can I do this? Okay? Number two I don't have any donors who can give at that level. Well, my short answer to that hurdle, to that mindset, is bull. Now, I would have. I do have another phrase that I would use and that I could use, but the practice of nonprofit leadership is a family show and so I can't use that phrase. Uh, but it's the, the. The word first word in that phrase is the same. It starts with bull.

Nathan Ruby: 8:01

Um, how am I 99.67 sure that you do have, in fact, major gift prospects already in your donor file, already given to you? Because if you don't already have major gift prospects that are in your donor file, that are already given to you, then you would be the first organization that I've ever worked with that doesn't have a major donor prospect already given to the organization, a major donor prospect already giving to the organization. Now, could you be the less than 1% what's the math here? The 99.67% sure that you do have major gift prospects? That means 0.33%. Could you be the 0.33% that doesn't have a major gift prospect? I guess possibly that could be you, but I'm pretty sure it's not you. Your major gift prospects are sitting there waiting for you to find them. Use the system, use the process, identify them, qualify them, cultivate, ask them, steward them. You have the prospects right in front of you. Work the process. Okay, here we go.

Nathan Ruby: 9:12

Number three hurdle to mindset is I am too busy doing something else. I hear this all the time from executive directors, especially of smaller and medium sized organizations. Where it's just there, I'm just too busy, I can't do major gifts. And I'll give you this one. Give you this one. If you are leading a small nonprofit, I'm with you. I understand you are. You are too busy to do major gifts. I get it totally, but that is a hurdle that we have to get over. And this is where mindset comes in. And the mindset is that the need for the potential revenue that major gifts will bring to the organization is worth the pain that it's going to take to shift some not all, but some of your responsibilities to someone else, so that you could spend time working major gifts. So that you could spend time working major gifts. And I'm here to tell you the presidents and CEOs of the big organizations, the universities, the hospitals, the national nonprofits, the big organizations in your town, those leaders are spending the vast, vast majority of their time fundraising and that's why they raise tens of millions of dollars every year.

Nathan Ruby: 10:40

So what is the potential of a major gift program for you? Is it worth making the effort to find other people, whether it's staff or volunteers, to take some of your responsibilities, to free up your time? Well, let's look at it this way. So let's say that your major gift for your organization is a hundred dollars. Okay, so that's your average gift. So your major gift then is going to be a thousand dollars. So a hundred dollar major gift, a hundred dollar average gift, thousand000 major gift that's what you've set it at. That means that you have to get one person, one donor, one individual, one couple, to say yes, as opposed to 10 individuals or 10 couples to say yes to $100. And let me tell you, getting one person to say yes to $1,000 is way easier than getting 10 people to say yes to $100. Well, let's take that a little further. Let's say that our $1,000 major gift. Let's say somebody writes a $5,000 check. Getting one person or one couple to say yes to a $5,000 gift is way easier, way easier than getting a whole slew I can't even do the math in my head of $100 donors to equal 5,000.

Nathan Ruby: 12:15

So the value proposition to you as a leader, should I put in the energy and effort to free up my time so that I can work on major gifts, so that the organization will benefit in the long run? And that answer is absolutely. There is no doubt, there's no question that it is worth the time and effort to clear some time in your calendar. So that's the mindset that it is worth the time and energy to do that. Well, how much time do you need?

Nathan Ruby: 12:47

Well, going back to the presidents and CEOs of the big organizations, they're spending 60, 70, 80% of their time doing nothing but fundraising. You don't have to start there. That's not you, I get it. There's no way you could spend 80 of your time doing nothing. But fundraising might be a aspirational goal to get to someday, but not today for you. Let's start with oh, I don't know, um, could you do an hour a week? Could you find an hour a week to devote to major gifts? That would do it. You would be amazed if you had an hour of focused time to do nothing but call donors and schedule times to go do cultivation visits or to write handwritten thank you letters or schedule, you know, schedule a time for them to come to the, to your location, for a tour, whatever, whatever it is. Wherever you are to go, schedule a time to, to go make an ask, uh, whatever it is if you have. If you could just spend an hour a week doing that, you will be shocked at how far you could get and how much work you get done in a fairly short amount of time. Here's the bottom line when it comes to mindset you can do this. Don't let anyone, especially your own head, tell you that you can't, because you can, because you can. Okay, that is our episode on mindset.

Nathan Ruby: 14:24

Tomorrow, it's day 10. We're coming down to the end here. Tomorrow, we're going to be talking about culture of philanthropy, and culture of philanthropy is the definition of that is when the entire organization, from top to bottom, from you as a leader, your board, frontline staff, volunteers, donors everybody's on board and everybody is rowing, rowing the boat in the same direction when it comes to philanthropy. So we're going to talk about that tomorrow. It's going to be exciting, it's going to be awesome. I'm looking forward to it. That's all for today, until next time.