Missions to Movements

Start with Heart: Why Emotional Intelligence Is Every Fundraiser's Superpower with Bill Crouch

• Dana Snyder • Episode 209

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Would you believe me if I told you that emotional intelligence can transform donor relationships and drive sustainable fundraising growth? Bill Crouch is the visionary leader of BrightDot and the author of Start with Heart: The Secret Power of Emotions to Catalyze Fundraising Results. And according to Bill, there is REAL data to prove why resilience and empathy consistently outperform traditional metrics.

Bill walks us through BrightDot’s “Teach, Train, Transform” methodology and how one community college in Florida raised significant gifts by rethinking their team structure, board accountability, and donor strategy.

He explains how handwritten notes, emotionally intelligent hiring practices, and even a 2 hour “Fundraising Focus” window each week can wildly change donor engagement outcomes. You’ll leave this conversation with so many practical takeaways to catalyze your results and bring more meaning into your fundraising culture.

Resources & Links

Connect with Bill at bill@thebrightdot.com and learn more about BrightDot on their website. 

Check out Bill’s book: Start with Heart: The Secret Power of Emotions to Catalyze Fundraising Results.

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SPEAKER_02:

I wake up every day thinking of how I can make a difference in the life of another person. That quote perfectly sums up today's guest, Bill Crouch, a visionary leader who has spent over four decades helping nonprofits reimagine what fundraising can be. He is the CEO of Bright Dot, where he leads organizations through a really transformative approach he calls the art of fundraising. It's a blend of storytelling, emotional intelligence, which we're going to talk a lot about, and data-driven strategy. So from his early days as a college development director to serving as president of Georgetown College for 22 years, he has definitely lived and breathed nonprofit leadership. So in 2015, he founded Bright Dot with this really bold mission to teach, to train, and transform fundraising teams to really move beyond transactional ask to creating this long-lasting impact, really rooted in human connection. He's also the author of Start with Heart, The Secret Power of Emotions to Catalyze Fundraising Results. And it's a guide that's changing the way that teams approach donor relationships from the inside out. So in today's conversation, we explore how really how to lead with purpose, how to apply that emotional intelligence to donor engagement, and build a fundraising culture that's not only effective, but really, really meaningful. So let's go ahead and eat down.

SPEAKER_00:

One of the things that the Educational Advisory Board said in their study that they did called Gifted and Talented, where they tried to measure what makes great top-performing fundraisers, they discovered pretty simply it's emotional intelligence. It's not your experience, it's not how much money you've raised to back, it's how resilient you are. So we created a development star assessment tool that can measure the emotional intelligence of development people compared to other major gift officers in the country. And we do that. We know you've got to have a good emotional intelligence staff. All right, then we get to how do you identify donors, how do you research the donors, how do you connect the donors, you know, the asking. And then we've created this concept called mattership.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, well, I am definitely a fan of frameworks and methodologies and things that we can learn from that have kind of been tried and true and practiced. And I know Bright Dot has a teach, train, transform methodology that you work with at many different organizations. Can you really explain, really kick off the conversation by explaining what do each of those pillars look like in action when you're working with a client? Because I think it's one thing to see words in a book or on a screen, and it's a whole other to apply them. Yes. How does that work when you're working with fundraising teams?

SPEAKER_00:

We know that there's a difference between knowledge and wisdom. And teaching is knowledge. Knowledge is anything that you can purchase. You can purchase a book, you can purchase a class, you can go to a college, you can do all of those type things. And we call that knowledge or science. The training part comes when we start adding the art to the science, where we start delivering wisdom. And so we we did a lot of research. When I started the company 10 years ago, I hired two developmental psychologists and I asked them to help me figure out what it is that nonprofits needed more than anything else so that they could impact more lives. Because our why was to impact 100 million lives over a 15-year period of time.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow. Where are we on that marker?

SPEAKER_00:

We are about 150 million. We've blown with blown by it. Amazing. Because we believe in the ripple effect, and that's where you take knowledge, the teaching, you know, the five eyes of fundraising, and you bring in the wisdom on top of it, which is what we call the art of doing that. So we have a we have a performance psychologist on our team. She trained the special forces at Fort Bragg on how to jump out of the airplanes at 2,000 feet in Afghanistan, knowing when they hit the ground, they're going to have machine guns shooting at them. How do you hold your control your emotions? So teaching is saying to people there are 37 different emotions. Art or training is showing them how to control their emotions when they need to in order to be able to go. And if we can break through on that piece, then transformation happens.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, I love that. That's so crucial because I think so many times, and I'm sure listeners, I know myself, I've attended a million webinars. I have read a ton of books. The true transformation that you're talking about has come when I have then reached out to that expert and I have asked for them for consulting or for them to apply specifically what they're talking about to the work that I do. And so I think that breakdown is really, really important is how do you take it to the next step?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And you know, we have to be measurable. So we think it takes 63 days to go from teaching to training. And we use this as a part of we're we do all types of creative stuff to try to get people's attention. But we say, go home tonight, and if you're right-handed, for the next 63 days, brush your teeth with your left hand. And what you're going to discover is that the first week or two, you're going to be messing up your blouse or your shirt or whatever your pajamas because it's going to be dripping all over the place. But the further you get in this process, the more it becomes second nature to you. So in 63 days, you can do it just as well with your left hand as your right hand.

SPEAKER_02:

Maybe I'll have to try that experiment because I cannot write or anything with my left hand. Try it.

SPEAKER_00:

Wear bib. Wear bib.

SPEAKER_02:

Give it a shot. So where do most organizations, when is the teach train transform? Is that methodology within all clients that you work through? It's part of every consulting engagement, every teaching?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. You know, and it's interesting. We're not really hired for that purpose. We discovered early on that even though people needed it, a lot of times the executive director or CO would see it as fluff or would say, Hey, I can send somebody to a conference and do this. We figured out that we needed to say, well, let us, we want to come in and do an assessment of your organization. And we've developed nine puzzle pieces that every nonprofit has to have in order to be successful in fundraising. Well, they'll pay for that. And so what we do is say, okay, but as part of that, we're going to do this teaching training piece. And it's really, really worked really well for us.

SPEAKER_02:

I love tactical examples. Can you talk through a specific organization and maybe how it's gone from that puzzle approach to identifying through to the transformation?

SPEAKER_00:

We work with a lot of community colleges across the country, 40 or so in the last couple of years. And we were working with a community college down in Tampa. Okay. Not far from Pasco Hernando State College. Yeah. And they brought us in to restructure or teach them how to go from a small foundation to one that could raise significant amounts of dollars. So we started with our nine puzzle pieces. The first is you got to have a CEO vision. And I'm not talking about an institutional vision that you have to have for the accrediting agency. I'm talking about a vision that's exciting, that'll get people turned on, and the CO has to create it. Then you got to have an accountability board. So as a former college president, I spend a good deal of time when we first get there just working with the president or executive director in helping to create this vision. Then we say, okay, let's start working with your board, because your board is critical to deliver your vision. So we've created an accountability board process. What drives more performance is not the mission. What drives more performance is keeping up with each other, wanting to be excited, seeing each other excited and engaged, that drives performance. So we've created seven performance measures that every accountability board should behold themselves to in order to drive the institution further. But then we get to the hiring process of who's on your team. And one of the things that the educational advisory board said in their study that they did called Gifted and Talented, where they tried to measure what makes great top-performing fundraisers, they discovered pretty simply it's emotional intelligence. It's not your experience, it's not how much money you've raised in the past, it's how resilient you are. All those type things. Totally true. So we created a development star assessment tool that can measure the emotional intelligence of development people compared to other major gift officers in the country. And we do that. And we know you've got to have a good emotional intelligence staff. All right. Then we get to how do you identify donors? How do you research the donors? How do you connect the donors? You know, the asking. And then we've created this concept called mattership. We say, throw away your stewardship programs. They're all transactional. Move to mattership. And mattership is different. And that's where we really begin to see the transformation take place.

SPEAKER_02:

Amazing. If someone's listening, they're like, ooh, I would love to know what my like EQ is of staff members. Are there some tips that you can share? Or how do you also is there a way to improve that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. First of all, it comes to asking different questions when you're hiring. And we've created a list of questions that should be hired, that should be done. We don't care if you've got five years of experience. You know, when people say I have five years of experience and I've raised$200 million in that five years, that puts a big question mark in their mind. If they had said, I was able to be on a team that raised$200 million, that's telling us something about their emotional intelligence. They're humble, they're willing to work as a team, they're willing to create great things. We also know that a person who's been through a childhood trauma is more resistant and a better fundraiser. And so we want to know tell us about your childhood. Tell us the happiest moment you had in your childhood. Tell us your favorite childhood toy. Tell us your things you that we we want to know about their childhood. Then we, of course, we want to ask them about when your team had a became very upset because the donor didn't do something. How did you lead your team out of that? You know, so there's just a lot of those type questions that typically don't get asked. Interesting process.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I would say definitely not.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and we have a list of those. If anybody like them, we'd be glad to send them lists because I think that really makes a big difference.

SPEAKER_02:

I would wonder, I wonder how many, listener, I wonder how many of you use Chat GPT nowadays to come up with the questions for interviews, or if they've always been the same for the last decade and they never really get evaluated and changed, even though times are significantly changing or the roles should be changing? I think hiring is going to be an incredibly important thing to consider. I mean, it always has been, but especially moving into the end of 2025, 2026. Speaking of hiring and teams, many organizations are stretched thin, boards are stretched thin with time. What advice do you give to leaders that really want to build these strong donor relationships, but they feel really overwhelmed by all of the competing priorities that they're dealing with?

SPEAKER_00:

So we we call it the power of compartmentalization. And we believe that you've got to compartmentalize your time. And the reason that we get so bogged down, and unfortunately for us in this fundraising business, if you're an administrator, fundraising usually is the last thing you go to. You got to do your all the administration, you got to sign paywall, you got to do all those type things. But we believe with two hours a week, totally locked in a room with no distractions, where you are intentionally focused on fundraising, you can blow the top off of your results. You got to have your priorities, and we call it the upside down pyramid. Okay. You gotta have the upside down pyramid, right? So all of us know what a pyramid of giving looks like. Where you have your multi-donors, you have the your monthly donors, etc. And you go up to your high wealth donors, right? And typically we spend most of our time on our lower donors because we do golf tournaments and we do events and we do things that suck up staff's time. But if they would begin every day, focus on that 5% at the top of their pyramid and spend two hours a week just writing a letter, picking up a call, making an email, doing a text, sending them something that could be meaningful to them. Right. They'll have more fundraising results than they will in any other way. That takes emotional intelligence. You gotta bid hold out distractions.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. What's really interesting about this is I've been listening to a podcast from a fellow female entrepreneur, and she talks about this concept of making sure you set yourself a CEO day. Now, in her context, it's setting up a day, a month. However, you could definitely iterate this into whatever you need it to be for a weekly basis. But at that CEO day, she goes, I go out of the office. I am not in my normal space. I go somewhere new, so different area. And half of my time is just focused on sending emails or text messages, either thanking somebody for something or making an introduction of someone to somebody else as the only block. Half of that block is meant on just that time. And the other time is spent on vision planning and mission and bigger ideas. And so I've really taken this idea to heart in setting up my own CEO days and to specifically be able to focus on just saying thanks or thinking about who really needs to meet who. And you always remember, oh yeah, who was it that introduced me to Bill? Who was it that introduced me? And that's such a meaningful connection when people are able to build that relationship. And then, secondly, to your point about really personalizing the fundraising, I have been receiving a ton right now of direct mail pieces, of direct mail fundraising pieces. These are from organizations that I have given to only online, Bill. I have only ever given online. I have never, I'm trying to actually think if I I think I literally have never given through direct mail. That could be generationally now. You would hope on their end, they are like, we've sent Dana direct mail pieces every year, however many times a year. She's never responding to these. However, oh, she gives online when we send this email. Maybe instead of an envelope, direct mail with the check option, all these things, I should send her a handwritten postcard or a text message or some other way of communication to your point of these like thoughtful, fundraising moments. So, listener, for you, this is something that I've wanted to do, and I will do like a LinkedIn post about, but is really thinking about how that person use the data that is being presented to you to really think about creating that truly not transactional ask through like that direct mail piece, but really thinking about what's going to be the thoughtful approach that's really gonna touch Dana or Bill and how they are going to give to us. I love your thoughts.

SPEAKER_00:

That's what we call mattership, right? Mattership is understanding. You know, we've always, as nonprofits, said that the people we serve matter. You know, they're unseen, they're unheard, they're unvalued, they're forgotten, and that's who we focused on. But I think we've made a mistake in this new world we're living in, this online world we're living in, right? I think that what we've got to do first is say to our donors, you matter. And because you matter, we have the opportunity to make sure that this child matters or whatever. I'll just read you an example of this. Is one of the things we teach and train people. Here is a handwritten note sent to a person using mattership, right? Okay. Dear Mrs. Smith, I hope you will take a minute to raise a toast to yourself for your generosity. You matter to so many people, even some you'll never know. Let me tell you how you matter. Stephanie J just became the first in her family to go to college. You made that happen. Wow. Thank you for paving a new pathway, for providing a blessing to a deserving family, and for being an example. You are a special person. Now, what if you got that letter?

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Henry. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. Wouldn't it make a difference? And that's what we really are trying to train folks to take the time to let the donor know that they are seen, that they are heard, that they matter.

SPEAKER_02:

It is wild to me not to like harp on this point, but I was talking to an organization that sends out like 50,000 of these direct mailpieces, and they get very little response, but yet it's what we always do. Yeah. Yeah. So let's send out the 50,000 mailpieces.

SPEAKER_00:

And in that 50,000 are 10 people. There's a better way. In that 50,000, there are 10 people who can write million dollar checks. Right? Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

However, what could you do that's bigger and better and amazing, knowing that those people will probably give that through there? You could send them right the handwritten piece, you could do a phone call, you could take them out to a lovely event together. You could, yeah, all the things. You've had a lot of experience with your career in higher education and obviously now consulting with organizations. What is the biggest shift you've seen in overall donor experience? And we've talked about mattership. Is there other ways that you're seeing really working with fundraisers evolving to really meet them where they're at?

SPEAKER_00:

So we've done a lot of research on the brain science of high wealth individuals. I go around the country interviewing high wealth people, and when I'm there, I only ask them one question. And sometimes it's different questions. But I went to visit the wealthiest man in North Carolina not too long ago. And I said, Well, I'll ask you one question. It's not to ask, I'm not asking you for money. And so he said, What's the question? I said, Would you teach me to think like a wealthy person? Hmm. He said, Nobody's ever asked me that before. I said, Well, I'm asking you. Right. So for the next hour and a half, I took notes. But the first thing he said to me is, Let me tell you, I have about 10 people like you coming to see me every month. And it doesn't matter what institution, how much experience they have, how old they are, I'm always thinking the same thing as they're presenting their proposal to me. And I said, Well, what is it? And he said, How stupid they are. Oh no. And I said, Why would you say that? He said, Because it's always about them and never about me. He said, You know, every wealthy person loves art and music. A development person should never go call on any donor unless they know what art and music they love. And he said, For instance, I love contemporary art. His room was full of it. And I love classical music. And he said, Someday somebody's going to come to me with a proposal. And on the cover of the proposal, instead of it being their institution's name and a picture of a building, it's going to be a m. And on the second sheet, it's going to be the words from a Mozart symphony orchestra.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh my gosh, I love this so much. Yeah. Oh, listeners, this is so good.

SPEAKER_00:

And on the third page, you can start telling me about that. But what you've communicated to me is you know me. You know who I am. You know what my passion is. And that's what they don't do.

SPEAKER_02:

This is so interesting. I used to do social media audits for clients, and I didn't even know this. I think I just, it was always their information on the front. I always pulled a quote from their website as like the second page. I always had their mission at the front. And now I'm like, oh, yeah. That was good to know. But that is so true.

SPEAKER_00:

So part of our training is we're teaching our nonprofits how to write proposals differently. So we know high wealth people's most valuable asset they have is their time. So they don't read paragraphs, they read bullet points. We know that visuals work more than words. We know that emotions rule. So I'll show you what during COVID, I decided to become an artist. And what I wanted to do was to draw some paintings to give to children. And so your listeners can't see this, but this was my first one.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh my gosh, you're really good. Wait, is that charcoal or is that I can't pen? Pen and ink. Oh my gosh. Okay, but what he's showing me is this amazing cool frog with huge glasses. This is so good.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. And then what I realized is this is how most nonprofits look in a transactional world. And what we do is this.

SPEAKER_02:

He turned it around and now it's color.

SPEAKER_00:

We bring color to it, we bring imagination, we bring creativity, we bring mattering to the lives of our donors, yeah, who then get excited and give us the resources to do it to provide for the people we care for. So we're putting the focus on the development officer's relationship with the donors, not with the people they serve. And you know, and most, and since you're a you're in this marketing world, you know, most nonprofits, all their collateral is focused using the vocabulary of the people they serve. I go to a lot of sky clubs. Delta Sky Clubs. I always get the magazines because they're focused on high wealth people. And I go through them and tear out the advertisements, and they're only one or two words, but they're big words, excitement, entertaining, unique, powerful. And most nonprofits are not using that vocabulary.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, yes. I always talk about what is the specific language that's expressing the value proposition to the person who is reading that donation page. Now, the language on your about or on your services page could be absolutely different than the language that might be on these other pages that donors might be landing on. I want to flip it for a second to talk about my favorite audience, which is monthly donors. So I'm a big, big, big, big, big believer, supporter in sustainable revenue and having sustainers, recurring donors to do that. Right. When nonprofits are looking to scale monthly giving programs, how can these principles that we've been talking about, how can it work within the landscape of a larger donor base?

SPEAKER_00:

So it's really interesting, Dave. In the last couple of days, I've been spending a lot of time looking at the new tax laws and the changes that are coming. And with the the larger ability to not have to itemize deductions, people are going to need more and more strategies like monthly giving. Right. Because once you can get a person in, and especially if you can get them using that credit card and moving forward, but throughout that process, you've got to add mattership in there. You can't forget about the people who are doing it automatically. And you can't be transactional, just send out a computerized text to everybody. You've got to be very intentional about it. But I think it's the message for the future. Monthly giving is going to be what's going to keep middle class donors in the game. Yes. Right. And I think it's absolutely critical for the future. We have an expert on our team who's doing nothing but working on this monthly giving process. And you know, we should talk. There's the transactional stuff, you know, get them in there. But there's also the wisdom part of how do you keep you don't want to lose them. That's right. Right. That's right. And how do you keep them going? And the most important time is not the day they start, but it's the day that their credit card has to be updated.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. So ideally more so they're in there with a debit or ACH or something that doesn't close. But yes, absolutely. Bill, this has been wonderful. If people want to reach out to you, learn more about getting kind of the resources that you explained, what's the best place for them to get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_00:

Go to our website and they'll get them straight to an opportunity to on a calendar to talk to me. And that's Bill B I L L at thebright.com. Perfect.

SPEAKER_02:

Easy peasy. Bill, thank you so much for all you do and for being here and for sharing this information. I hope, listeners, there's a lot of things to take back. So if you want to look back in the show notes, rewind, pause. I always recommend doing that in these episodes so that you can take notes kind of as you're as you're running or washing dishes or whatever you're doing while you're listening. So thank you for joining us today. And Bill, thanks for your time. Thank you, Dana.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of Missions to Movement. If you enjoyed our conversation and found it helpful, I would love for you to take a moment to leave a review wherever you're listening. Your feedback helps us reach more change makers like you and continue bringing impactful stories and strategies to the show. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button too so you'll never miss an episode. And until next time, keep turning your mission into a movie.

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Dana Snyder

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