360° Wins: How Nonprofits Build Donor & Board Relationships that Last (with Patricia Schwartz)

Leaders don’t just raise money—they build partnerships. In this episode, Master Certified Coach and longtime executive coach Patricia Rachel Schwartz shares her strengths-based, story-driven approach to building relationships that “pay off for everyone”—your team, donors, board, and the people you serve. We unpack her “360 Win” mindset, appreciative inquiry (AI), and the RBP spiral (Identify → Inform → Interest → Invite → Invest) so you can move from one-off asks to lasting alliances.

What you’ll learn

·       What a 360° Win is—and how to map wins for every stakeholder

·       The single peak experience question that deepens trust fast

·       How to run strategy sessions that turn stories into next steps

·       The RBP spiral: Identify, Inform, Interest, Invite, Invest (and the common mistakes at each stage)

·       When to make the ask—and why “If you want money, ask for advice” works

·       Why story culture beats slide decks for board, team, and donor engagement

Who this is for

Nonprofit executives, development leaders, board members, founders, and any leader who wants to turn fundraising and stakeholder engagement into durable partnerships.

Leadership Fundamentals Covered

Communicate with Clarity • Build Strong Relationships • Empower & Develop Others • Drive Change & Deliver Results

▶️  Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/x3XsaM8mdGc

▶️ Schedule a free discovery call: https://jonathanhankin.com/contact 

▶️ Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Change Agent Leadership
00:09 Meet Patricia Rachel Schwartz
03:40 The Concept of 360 Win
04:57 Understanding Stakeholders and Their Wins
10:30 Appreciative Inquiry in Leadership
21:26 The Five Eyes of Relationship Building
29:13 Starting with Appreciative Inquiry
29:28 Interview Techniques for Donors and Board Members
30:42 Legacy Investments and Planned Giving
31:37 Appreciative Inquiry in Board and Employee Onboarding
32:28 Creating a Story Culture
35:58 Implementing Strategy Sessions
38:31 Inspired Action and Evaluation
41:38 The Importance of Planned Giving
46:38 Practical Steps for Immediate Action
49:17 Final Thoughts and Advice

Resources & Links

• Patricia’s book: Your Nonprofits 360 Win: How to Build Relationships That Pay Off for Everyone 

• Connect with Patricia — https://www.patriciaschwartz.com

About today’s guest

Patricia Rachel Schwartz has coached 350+ senior leaders across sectors (DreamWorks, Google/YouTube, Mayo Clinic, Circle K, U.S. Navy, and more). Her approach blends appreciative inquiry with strengths-based, story-driven change to help organizations grow through relationships.

About the host

I’m Jonathan Hankin, your Change Agent Coach. I help leaders communicate clearly, build healthy teams, and drive change that sticks. Subscribe for practical, no-fluff leadership tools you can use this week.

Call to Action

If this episode added value to your day, hit like and subscribe, and drop a comment—share your biggest takeaway or the best-experience question you’ll try this week.

Catch full episodes of video versions and other leadership videos on my YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Jonathan-Hankin

Download Free Leadership Toolkits → https://www.jonathanhankin.com/leadership-toolkit-library

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Transcript

Jonathan Hankin 0:00

Well, welcome back to Change Agent Leadership. Today we're talking about how to build relationships that pay off for everyone, your team, donors, your board, and the people you serve. My guest today is Patricia Rachel Schwartz, who is a master certified coach and longtime executive coach. I mean, she's coached over 350 senior leaders across different SEC sectors for decades and trained many teams around the world. She's also worked with organizations from. Dreamworks to Google, YouTube, Mayo Clinic, circle K, US Navy, and many more using her strengths-based story-driven change. Her new book, which is coming out early in October, is Your profits, your Nonprofits 360 Wind, how to build that pay payoff for everyone. And so. Keep this in mind as we go through the podcast today. Even though her book is focused on nonprofits, the concepts and tools are applicable and currently being used across different businesses and industries. So that's why I'm excited to have Patricia on today talking about this book. So Patricia, welcome. Thank you for joining me today.

Patricia Schwartz 1:08

Thank you for having me.

Jonathan Hankin 1:10

Yeah. Well, welcome to the show and to just set the stage for us, um, who did you write this book for and, and what are the problems that you're helping leaders solve right now?

Patricia Schwartz 1:21

Well, I wrote this book for, you know, leaders and managers, primarily leaders and managers who work in nonprofits. But as you said, the information, I mean, I use all of these processes for all leaders in all kinds of industries, but the context of this book is nonprofit leaders. You know, because it is a little more challenging, uh, and specific, and it's kind of specific in the world of nonprofits, some of the things you need to do. But I, I do wanna say that, you know, what was really behind it is that it is very challenging to be a leader or a manager to have a team, to have people who are you're responsible for, to have goals. You're responsible for. It just, it takes a lot and I, I have been there, um, and I know that I was always grateful for any kind of guidance I got. Um, and I just want to support you in your roles as leaders to be able to really create a thriving business, a thriving nonprofit organization, you know, for yourself, for your products, for your. Clients for your beneficiaries, you know, and essentially for the community. So that's, and the, it isn't that there's a problem exactly. Um, that I'm trying to solve. It's a little more that I'm attempting to help, um, nonprofit and business leaders think a little bit differently. Kind of think about who are we. What do we do well and what challenges? Given all of that, can we turn into opportunities? So that's different than a problem solution approach, and it honestly goes far beyond solutions to problems because it a kind of a mindset and perspective creates new things that didn't even exist before.

Jonathan Hankin 3:24

Yeah, no, thank you for sharing. That's great. And there's not a lot of books out there. You know, a lot of them tell people how to, um, maybe run a nonprofit or how to run a board meeting and that's what, not what this is about. This is about growth and development and, and growing. To the next level. We'll get into that soon. But you used the phrase 360 win, which I love. Can you give us like a one minute, a short definition? How does a 360 win change the way leaders approach, um, relationships.

Patricia Schwartz 3:52

Okay, so short definition, a 360 win is a win for all parties involved from their perspectives.

Jonathan Hankin 4:02

Okay.

Patricia Schwartz 4:03

So all parties involved would be called stakeholders. All the people who have a stake in the success of a nonprofit or a business or any kind of a project. So if you think of a circle, um, 360 degrees is the, um, degrees of a circle. And on that circle are these spots, and let's say there's a person on those spots. Those are the different perspectives on what a win is because you've got all these different people involved. You could have tons of different kinds of people involved in the success of something, right. So that's, that's what a 360 win is, and you know, how does it build a relationship or any relationships with funders? How does it support your organization to grow and develop and thrive? Really, that's the question. So if you're a nonprofit for, let's just do an example. Let's say you're a nonprofit, um, and this is actually a place where nonprofits and businesses intersect. Okay. If your nonprofit offers business courses to women and men who wanna start their own businesses, you've got certain stakeholders. So what are their wins? So let's first look at that before we talk about building the actual relationships, because you always, I mean, a big part of this book is about. Not just us and how we are thinking and everything, but how we are interacting with our stakeholders. So first we have to understand them. So let's say you've got some of the stakeholders are women and men in the course. Well, what would their wins be? And let's pretend like we're them. Hmm. Well, if you were in a course like this, what would your win be? Maybe you would gain skills, independence. Knowledge to better support yourself. And if you have a family, support your family. Maybe it'd be a way to express your creativity or passion, and that would be a big win for you if, if you got to support your family while you were expressing your greatest passion, wouldn't that be an awesome win? Right. Okay. But you have other stakeholders. You have the staff who work for the organization. You have the board who oversees the organization. For them, they probably have similar, you know, wins. They want success for the people in it, right? They wanna be able to measure the success. They want data about outcomes because they all need that to make sure that they get funding, that their organization succeeds. The funders who are funding the program, especially, let's just talk about banks. Banks fund a lot of programs like this because they care about economic, they care about more customers visibility, but also economic liability in their communities. So the banks want to provide business loans. They want to gain customers, they want visibility. So you can see how this works, right? And then you have the entire community. The entire community is a stakeholder. So because they get, you know, new products and services, they get more money in the economy. Um, and then you've got your general donors, right? Your individuals, not, not just your big funders, but your individuals. You know, they have the knowledge that they're supporting the economic viability. And perhaps they have an experience, and I have had this, I have had this happen many times where a donor has had an experience when they're younger that helped them get certain skills, like business skills and they wanna give back. They often also want recognition. They might want, you know, to express their values. They might, you know, wanna have more meaning in their life. They wanna have maybe personal connections, maybe it's lonely at the top for some, you know, very wealthy donors who have kind of done everything can do everything. So these are things to think about and it builds relationships. This 360 win, because you get to find out this information by asking certain kinds of questions to them. And these questions we'll talk about maybe during this call, but. These are the results. These are all these people. They want, they want something. Okay? I'm gonna tell you just a brief story about one donor that was very impactful for me and many people. So this was somebody I worked with. He supported women starting their own businesses. Because he had had that experience when he was younger of a mentor and getting a lot of help, and his business was insanely successful. It became a household name in the snack industry, his particular product. He was able to sell that business for many, many, many millions of dollars when he was not very old. And so he had like all this time and money and could do anything he wanted. And what did he wanna do? He became a philanthropist and he wanted to help other people start their businesses. His advice was amazing because he was so, you know, successful. So that's just one example where, you know, you see business and nonprofit intersect. You see. Somebody who knows what their win is and they participate. So when you interact with somebody like knowing all of this, let's say you're a, a manager or a leader in a, in a nonprofit or in a business, you wanna approach the interaction from the perspective of not from what do I need or what does my business need? How could this relationship end up being a win for a lot of different sectors and parties? How could it be a win for everybody? And in that way you can collaborate and you can create very exciting things that have never existed before.

Jonathan Hankin 10:07

No, you touched on quite a bit there. I'm not gonna debrief all of that, but one of the key things I heard was getting, uh, many people's perspective, and that's the key here. Everybody, the 360 circle you talked about is there's a lot of people on that circle. It's not just me standing by myself. There's a group and they, everybody has their own interests. Um, and so kind of tied to that. Diving into my next question. You know, one reason I wanted to have you on is I believe you're one of the experts in appreciative inquiry. You use that a lot in your coaching and what you've talked and written about, uh, not as a buzzword, but kind of as a set of questions and behaviors. Um, a lot of people may be new to appreciative inquiry, so. Why is it so powerful in building relationship, especially in fundraising, like board man, uh, engagement and team culture, and I know you use it a lot throughout your book, so just help unpack that for our listeners, the appreciative inquiry and how does that tie into the 360, uh, win? That

Patricia Schwartz 11:04

Okay, so maybe I should define it first just to be, um, you know, yeah, I'll define it. Okay. So appreciative inquiry itself is a way of looking at people or systems or organizations. It asks the big picture question, what's working here and how can we build on it? It comes from the words appreciate and inquire. So if you think about appreciate, that means to value something or esteem or honor, but it also means to grow in value. You know, like stocks appreciate, we hope. Um, inquiry connotes. Curiosity or discovery and you know, probably questions. You put it together, you get curiosity about what's valued. Curiosity about what's growing here, like kind of like, you know, what's working now, ques we need questions for curiosity. So to express our curiosity, we, we ask questions. The key question in appreciative inquiry is called the peak experience question, and it has to do with a person's best experience with anything really, with anything. But in this case of organizations, it has to do with the person's best experience in your company, your organization, your nonprofit, your project. That's what it has to do with, so. It builds relationships because when you ask somebody a question like, you know, tell me about the best experience you've had, um, you know, with our organization as a donor. Knowing, of course, knowing that yourself, you would wanna know that this donor's gone to a few things and had some experiences before you ask that question. But as a caveat, if you don't, if that donor is new and they have not gone to a lot of things, you can ask'em the same question, but you can ask it about the cause of your organization. Like if you are, I don't know, youth oriented organization, you can ask, tell me about your best experience, um, with, with working with youth or yourself as a child. So you ask this kind of a question. In that process of asking a question and listening to the answer, a natural trust based bond is created. It's a very engaging the process. It creates positive emotions for somebody to think about, a best experience. People love thinking about their best experience.

Jonathan Hankin 13:45

Hmm.

Patricia Schwartz 13:46

Now we are wired. Exactly the opposite way. We're wired for noticing threats. We're wired for negativity, so that's kind of tiring for most people and it's very unusual to be asked. Tell me about your best experience in X. I mean, it just, it's like a big relief for people to, to get a chance to talk about it. So in that way of engaging on a question that somebody feels really good about. It just creates a natural bond. And interestingly, I already knew this was happening, but this was studied and it was studied to the point where research shows that when you engage in these questions and answers, you and the person you're listening to are creating greater wellbeing for both of you in terms of. More positive emotions, more engagement, greater sense of meaning, and a sense of accomplishment. So talk about a powerful process that's really simple and can take a whole 10 minutes to increase your health and wellbeing. This is it.

Jonathan Hankin 14:56

No, that's great. And I like what you said there at the end. Well, I like all of it, but I like what you said at the end, which is, you know, it's, it's a win for everybody. a lot of times we are wired to go, how do I fix this? So in other words, if I'm working with somebody, how do I, you know, how do I fix you? We don't say that, but that's kind of, someone gives us a problem. We're always like, well, how do I fix this? And I like the appreciative inquiry approach, where it is, well, what's go, what's your best experience you've had, what's working well? So. Not to put you on the spot, but if, could you, you know, just as a takeaway in this area, could you give us one, say, best, best experience question that any leader could use this week with a board member or a donor, or even a team member or a team lead? What's just a question they could use, people could practice.

Patricia Schwartz 15:43

Absolutely. Before I do that, I'm just gonna mention that the peak experience question. Is what gives you the data to create the 360 win, the win for each party. Because once you find out what their values are and what they think is important, it's pretty easy to understand what a win would be for them.

Jonathan Hankin 16:03

that makes sense.

Patricia Schwartz 16:04

just, it just leads right to it. So, um, yeah. So first, how about before I give you all. A question to use this week. How about we just do it right now and try it for yourself?'cause it always helps to do it on yourself. Always do it on yourself first. So hopefully that's okay. So just take a breath, just relax and think about this for a moment. What has been your best experience being involved in your organization or your company? You may have had lots of experiences, a po, some positive, some not so positive. Thinking about those choose a best experience, maybe a time you felt really engaged, really excited about something you were involved in. Maybe you were on top of your game, you were learning new things. Think about that for a moment. How did you feel? Who was involved? Take a moment, and even if you have, if you have a moment and you have some paper or a computer, just that jot down like three or four points about this best experience, like what was going on, how did you feel? That is probably the most important question. How did you feel while this best experience was going on? I mean, maybe you felt confident, engaged. Joyful, excited, peaceful, confident. As I think I said, confident, you know, trusting like what are safe? What are some of the feelings that you had? Jot those down because those are a great source for resourcing yourself. I would love to hear about people's feelings, so when you have the chance to comment. You know, on this, um, podcast, please share some of the feelings that you had. Now, there's a second part to this. Let's imagine that it's the end of the day and you're feeling those same feelings, and how are you gonna feel those feelings at the end of the day? First, you can simply just think about this same thing you just thought about. So right now, just think about it again. Pretend like it's the end of the day and you're just feeling those same wonderful feelings. Okay, now we're back here. It's not the end of the day anymore. Jot down what you did during the day to get to those feelings. There might have been two or three things you did. Maybe you asked somebody else this question. Maybe you notice something positive that somebody did. Just jot down two or three things, and those could be all things you do today, including asking somebody about their best experience in your company or your organization, a time they felt very engaged, very excited about what was happening and what feelings did they have, and then ask to tell you the story and then your job is to listen and enjoy it. It's kinda like milk and cookies time. You get to hear a story in the middle of the day.

Jonathan Hankin 19:48

No, that's great. I think that's, uh, I sound like, I feel like I'm back in Santa Barbara with you in a class, but that's, good. Uh, going through that. I've u I've done that myself. I've used it with others. I actually feel relaxed. I was, I was going through this as you were talking, I was thinking back to. My situation and my example and I was like, yeah. It just, I naturally felt, I'll be honest, I just felt relaxed. I actually do still feel relaxed. Not that I was stressed, but it just lowers you because in that time you asked me to think about, and hopefully our listeners are thinking about. It gave us a, a real context, right? It's not hypothetical it actually happened. I think that's one of the keys here is it actually happened and then it's helping other people experience that and then moving on to the next. So that's great. I, and you do that with board members as well, right? It's important for everybody to, to come to that conclusion. So how we move forward? Again, the idea is the 360. It's not just how does Patricia feel or how does Jonathan feel? It's how to. All of the board members or how do all of the team feel? So yeah. Very powerful. Well, thank you very much and I do hope people will comment and we can follow up. Again. I will have Patricia's contact information in the show notes. Um, so feel free to reach out to her. You'll be able to get directly in contact with her if you'd like to have coaching with her or other resources or have her help you with your board, she can do that. So let's move on to you talk about. Um, let me get this right. Relationship building for prosperity. The RBP model puts stories at the center and maps of how projects move from identity to legacy. You talk about moving from identity to legacy and you talk about in your book the, the Five Eyes and one Mistake Leaders make it each step. So, um, I'm gonna just quickly say the five Eyes, which is identity inform interest invite. Invest. So you talk about those five is as being really critical, um, and kind of what mistakes that leaders make. Could you walk us through each one starting with identity? Like what is the concept here for leaders?

Patricia Schwartz 21:59

Thanks for asking. Um, so it's identify, so you're identifying. Um, the stakeholders, like who are the people? It's not just anybody. You know, some nonprofit organizations, for example, are like, we need some warm bodies on this board. No, that is not what you wanna do. Or, we need some warm bodies to come here and give us money.

Jonathan Hankin 22:20

that doesn't go well.

Patricia Schwartz 22:22

Yeah, we don't wanna do that. No. We wanna have some criteria and then determine. Who are some stakeholders who have potential, right? Who are some people that have kind of been around our organization that we'd like to consider that they might be potential donors, prospects, they might be prospects for board prospects for donors or prospects for some other role that we have in the organization now. You don't wanna chase warm bodies, you don't wanna try to get lots of people. You wanna try to get the right people. So that would be a mistake to avoid. And that relates to scarcity, scarcity and abundance. And that relates to the peak experience question. So when you have a story of your own best experience. The best thing you can use it for is before you do an identify process. Remember your peak experience so that you calm yourself down. You get out of the fight or flight and threat mode and into this wonderful creative place because you need to be creative to do major donor fundraising, to bring in prospects, to do customer prospecting. Anything you're doing where you're reaching out, you need to be in a creative place. So you use your peak experience story, you feel those feelings, and then you won't get into, oh my God, you know, chasing you won't do it. You'll instead say, oh yeah, you know, I remember I had this great interaction and that person asked me, what are some of the things that we need? I forgot about that. And you remember things when you're in that great space, right? Okay, inform is the next level, and my relationship building for prosperity model is an upward spiral, and it shows people moving around and moving up around the center of the organization and moving closer and closer as they go from identify to invest, which is a legacy level. So in the informed phase, you're giving information, but you wanna be careful about just giving the right amount, not a lot, just the right amount. The kind of things that they care about, right?'cause in the identify process you did, you have hopefully started to ask them some questions and so you know what kind of information to share with them. So you go identify, inform. The next level is interest. You look for curiosity signals that you continue to ask questions. This is where you might ask the peak experience question, or you might have already asked it in the identify phase, but. As in every phase, if you are calm and focused and abundance oriented versus scarcity oriented, which you will be, if you're remembering your peak experience, you'll not make the mistake of pushing or trying to make something happen before the right time. So much of as you, many of you probably know so much of. Kind of influencing or persuading people has to do with noticing the timing. Is this the right time? And you get signals, you know, are they asking you questions? Are they, you know, what do they look like? Are they walking away? Are they walking towards you? The invite phase is the, is the second highest level. Yeah. This is where after you learn all these other things, you. Possibly get involved with other people in your organization to design a customized next step. And that process is part of my book and it's called a strategy session. So you would come up with something based on the information you have, but you get help from other people who have like a little bit of an outside perspective or might have more knowledge about that person. And so you specifically invite them to something that would be the right thing for them based on the data that you have. You wanna avoid a generic invitation at this stage. I mean, later when you have a group of people who all give$5,000 or all the people who are customers for 10 years, that's different. You can generically invite all of'em to something,

Jonathan Hankin 26:48

Sure.

Patricia Schwartz 26:48

this case, you're, you're being careful. The last phase has two parts to it, the invest phase. So that's where you make a specific ask. Um, and that ask has to be made, and it could be an ask for their time for access to people. It could be an ask for funds for involvement. Um, you have to make it at the right time. So again, timing is a big issue, but you also need to ask for the right thing and make sure that you're asking the right person that it's well matched, right.

Jonathan Hankin 27:21

Hmm.

Patricia Schwartz 27:22

So again, you don't wanna rush. You have to wait for signals that it's the right time that they're interested. And donors and prospects do give signals. They'll say, I wonder how I can help. That's pretty big signal. Um, so you wanna wait for some signals. And in fundraising, we call those gift noises. You wanna wait for gift noises, and that is totally applicable for working with customers. Absolutely. I have also run businesses and it is totally applicable for customers too, and I, well, I currently run my coaching practice as well, but I haven't run commercial businesses. So yeah, those are some thoughts.

Jonathan Hankin 28:05

Yeah. No, those are Great. I love, I love you started with, it's an upward spiral. Um, PO positive movement upwards, and I like the steps. Yeah. The one that stood out to me was the interest and invite. I know their whole process, but in a lot of people miss that they jump from identify to invest. Like, Hey, I've identified Patricia is either has money, time, or resources or connections. So let me invite her to join. we, when they didn't actually get to know you, you know, and they didn't actually understand, is there a connection, is there actual interest? Um, and, and that doesn't come out. And appreciative inquiry can really help with that. So I, I really appreciate that. Personally, I've seen it go well and I've seen it never happen, and so I can really appreciate that and I appreciate that you covered in your book. What would you say is like the right sized invitation that you like, you know, um, to have, you invite somebody to join? Is it that first introduction to get that, to draft a review or where they are? How do you, how do. Um, do you use appreciative inquiry to, to find the interest or the ownership or if they're interested? So just briefly, how would somebody start, what's the starting point? I know you covered in your book, but just for us, what's the starting

Patricia Schwartz 29:26

Great. That's a great question. I actually, in my book, have two interview scripts. One is an interview for a donor and one is an interview for a board or committee member, and these are ways to approach them that will give you all the information you need to figure out. What should I invite'em to? And you know, interestingly, I don't know, this is funny, but in the interview for a donor, I mean, I created this over time, asking donors this question, but basically I would ask them best experience. I would talk to'em about projects. I would tell'em what we're doing. I would tell'em about the vision, and this was when I was an employee. Um, and then I would ask'em what strengths they think they have and then I would ask them. Given what I've told you, how do you think your, you might apply your strengths in our, into some of our projects. And they'll always choose something that they like, well, I really liked this project and, you know, I think I could do da da da. I'm like, so I would let them tell me, you know, how, how can we recruit you basically? Um, but that reminds me that I forgot to say the second part of invest. Um. Which is the legacy investment, and that is the planned gift. The legacy investment is after. Oh, it depends, but it's after somebody's been involved for a long time, they may have made large gifts or they may have made small gifts. They may have made small gifts over 20 years or 10 years. It could have been$25 gifts, but they've been making gifts for a long time, or they've made a couple of large gifts. You kind of know because of interacting with'em, that they probably have at this point, some intentions for how they wanna use their money, how they want, where they want their money to go after they pass away. And that's when you can ask'em, you know, if they have any, um, if they'd like to read about your legacy giving program.

Jonathan Hankin 31:29

That's good. again, just touching on, I comment. Um. You're really asking them to join you at their strength. You may use the word strength at their entry point, I think a lot of times we. Board. Um, people want people on boards or in organizations out of panic. I need a warm body. Ties, ties to where you started the this. We're not looking for warm bodies on boards or in organizational leadership, or as employees really want people to have passion and are on. same page with us. And so a lot of it can be that appreciative inquiry even in the interview process, not just for boards, but for onboarding employees. Right. It is what are your strengths, but then great. Well, how do you see that lived out? I know a lot of people ask interview questions, tell me your strengths, tell me your weaknesses, which that's great, but again, how do you. See it played out will tell you a lot if they've done any investigative work or they have questions. So, um, kind of ties to the next question I have, which is stories. You talk about stories in your book, um, leading, you know, how to talk about stories, how to use them from studying a story about culture to evaluation and stewardship. You talk different ways about that. So. What does, you used the word set the stage for a story culture look like in real life. So what does that, what does that mean, set the stage for a story culture, and how does that, how do you live that out?

Patricia Schwartz 32:56

Thank you. That's a good question. Um, well. I coined the phrase story culture after working with lots of organizations.

Jonathan Hankin 33:05

Hmm.

Patricia Schwartz 33:06

Um, because what happened was, as a result of using the peak experience question in all ways, in a 360 degree, you know, rotation with everybody, the culture changed and it became, in many organizations, became a culture that communicated. Communicated meaning, you know, through stories, through narrative, so that everything was infused with stories, which is so powerful. This is how we are wired. We are wired for stories. We can understand something very quickly through a story. So the idea is, you know, basically to start. With your own story, share that. Ask other people, um, their story. Get, you know, if you ask your, um, the highest people in the organization and the highest people on the board, they'll be so excited after they share their peak experience that they'll want to do this more. I mean, that's why and how a story culture naturally evolves is that people like it, they like, they like hearing stories, they like telling stories. In the story, what they get is the, the real kind of what you harvest in a story are the strengths of the organization, the potential for the organization, the potential for the people in the organization. So it just, it's so rich what you can get out of these peak experience, best experience stories. You can use all of that data that you harvest to create your future. To create, who are we? What can we do with it? Again, what challenges can we, um, you know, what, what opportunities do we have? What challenges can we turn into? Opportunities? What are aspirations? All of that starts with allowing stories to come forth in the culture and valuing it. Even, let's say, being overt about it,

Jonathan Hankin 35:03

Hmm.

Patricia Schwartz 35:04

we have a story, culture, our culture is about stories.

Jonathan Hankin 35:09

That's good. I hear people, uh, they're not talking to me, but if people are watching this video, I could hear if I was telling my management team this, I know they would agree.'cause uh, well, number one, you're right, people like to talk, they like to tell stories. and they like that is the connection. Right? Stories are how we connect. So I think my management team, um, would say that makes sense. Then what do I do with it? So could you, you talk about in your book, could you talk a little bit like what do you do with that? So how do you review, reflect, or initiate inspired action out of that or, um, evaluate? I know you used other words in your book, I'm not getting'em all of them here, but just briefly, I'm, you know, people need to read the book. But briefly, how do you then take it and put it actually into action for the second half?

Patricia Schwartz 35:56

That's great. Great. Um, so you have all this, basically you've spent some time on what's called discovery. You've discovered the strengths, you've discovered all this stuff about your staff, maybe your board, your donors. If your customers, your, you know, whether you're a business or nonprofit, you have data, then what I highly, highly recommend, and I have it in my book and I have the guide for it, is that you have regular strategy sessions with your team. Um, and the team could include people in marketing, people in communications, people in sales, um, in nonprofits, it's people in development, people in marketing, people in communication, executive level. You're all together. You go through this guide that I've created that you coach each other on, essentially, so that you use the peak experience information to kind of think about what would be a good match for this person, people in the group share what else they might know, what might be coming up in the future that could be leveraged as an invitation or the next step with this person so that. Your strategy sessions. You know, usually I recommend that you have about an hour and a half every two weeks, and that during the strategy session, two different people get to be quote unquote coached by the other people. So, you know, a lot of teams are like six or seven people that's kind of a very good size. Even three or four is a good size. And you, there's a guide where you can ask certain questions of the person and it elicits a lot of fabulous information and you can kind of. Figure out where the person is in the upward spiral of the relationship building for Prosperity Spiral, which is a physical thing. And in the book there's a map you can literally, or a diagram of it, I call it the strategy map. And you can say, oh, there, here they're at. They're in between, you know, invite and you know, invest. Like that's where they are. Okay, how are we gonna move them to invest? That's the conversation you have. So it's a very helpful thing. So that's the biggest thing where you can review your donors and you can reflect on'em, and you can decide on action. And there's a whole accountability piece in this group coaching process. I also go into organizations and lead the process because sometimes you know, facilitate because sometimes everybody wants to participate and then there's nobody to facilitate. So then I come in and facilitate and then everybody can participate. So then, and then the other eight, you know, inspired action, evaluate, elevate, and solicitation. Those are the things that happen. The inspired action is the sustainability piece. How do you keep yourself in the right place to keep doing the work? Because in nonprofits, in businesses, in healthcare, in higher ed, in all the places I work, it takes a lot.

Jonathan Hankin 38:56

it does.

Patricia Schwartz 38:56

You've got a lot to deal with. You need to keep yourself resourced. So that's what that section is about, because after you've done all this work, you know, and, and this whole book is a step by step guide. That's the stories steps.

Jonathan Hankin 39:11

Hmm.

Patricia Schwartz 39:11

So it's the steps that you take as you go forward. Um, so you're keeping yourself inspired and then you, you need to evaluate. You need to evaluate everything you've done. You need to move your donors up, your prospects, your customer prospects up. Towards the, you know, top of the spiral. So you're always, you know, taking some time, you know, every few months to evaluate how are we doing, what were our goals, you know, what do we need to adjust, so, and then how can we move people to the next level? So that's evaluate and elevate, and then solicitation, stewardship, and succession. You know, a lot of people think fundraising is asking for money. As you can see, that's only, it's gonna be one eighth of the book. There's eight chapters. That is chapter eight. Okay. It is not, it is a small piece. The biggest piece is the relationship and the smallest piece is the ask, which takes maybe 20 seconds.

Jonathan Hankin 40:09

Mm.

Patricia Schwartz 40:09

I mean, you're doing a lot of prep. You're meeting with them. You're, you know, you're doing a lot of things, but the. Really the question, you know, would you consider a gift of X or would you be willing to consider a gift of X for this project? Or would you be willing to consider a gift of X over X amount of years for this project? That doesn't take very long to say, but you wanna choose the right people. You wanna have a practice session. There's a lot you wanna do. You wanna know that the person's ready. To be asked. They've made gift noises. So that's a solicitation piece. And then after that, you're stewarding their gift. You're making sure their gift is spent in the way they said that they want it to be spent. And succession is both succession for the donors and succession for the staff person. So when a staff person is, has a lot of donors, and then they're promoted, they need to move their donors to somebody else. So the succession is that the, the staff person takes on a higher level of donor a lot of times. Like maybe they go from working with donors a thousand dollars level, and then they move to working with donors from 10,000 to$25,000 level. That's their succession, but the donors get somebody else to work with them, and that has to be a careful process so that the relationships are built and has to be thought through and, you know, done gently over time. So it's transition and transition needs to be handled well. So that's what that is. Um, and the, you know, in the book, there's also the planned giving. I have a whole addendum on planned giving, which is very important because right now, trillions of dollars are passing from one generation to the next. Many people do not have wills or trust, so nonprofits can get to know people and ask'em what they care about and ask the peak experience question. And get to a point where they can have a relationship with people who might want to make a bequest to that organization so that money just doesn't go bye-bye to nowhere. Really, for a lot of people who don't have heirs, who don't, you know, there's a lot of people like that. So that's kind of a big picture.

Jonathan Hankin 42:19

No, that's great. There are a lot of people that do not have planned giving and, um, you want to help walk through that again. I, I think my biggest takeaway as I was, I'm going through the book, is you're basically given a blueprint to people that maybe entering fundraising for the first time or board, they're helping become a board member, or they want to help the board grow. You're actually providing the blueprint for how do you on ramp. And everything. It's the process, which is great. You mentioned that you have several resources in the book. One of them is you include a donor engagement mindset assessment, I, I believe that that's kind of contrast, short-term problem fixing with long-term strength partnerships. So you kind of have a little bit of both there. does that work and what, how does that, you know, what's, what's a mindset shift that you're hoping leaders can, can embrace from that?

Patricia Schwartz 43:12

I'm gonna tell you one, I had to illustrate this mindset shift. When I was working internally in a nonprofit, I felt frustrated a lot of times. Um, it was just like hard to get things done. I, I was moving faster than the organization, but then I went to this conference. They talked about appreciation. This was way before appreciative inquiry. This was many years ago. It was the beginning of my career. They talked about how important it was to appreciate the people you work with and appreciate, like how, what their life is like. And I mean, it was a big, it was a big empathy learning thing, um, that, you know, people have to do a lot to get to where they are and we need to look at people differently. Appreciate and tell them, and this was like a precursor, probably 20 years before I ever got into this whole realm, but very early in my career. So I went back to work and I absolutely saw people differently. And I remember this moment, I was like, I was thinking, oh, you know, she does a pretty good job at dah, dah, dah. Like, I named all the things this person did and this other person, you know, she's really good. I just started appreciating them and I started telling them. That's really what the donor engagement mindset assessment is about. It's about looking at people as humans. And even though with donors there is a perceived power differential or sometimes a real power differential, um, where they have a lot of money and your organization does not, um, you know, there is that feeling. It just, so it depends how they act. Some people, some donors don't act like that. They just act very accessible and it's very easy. Those are the ones you want to interact with because it's easier, but. Sometimes you will interact with the ones that are a little more challenging. Um, you know, so you have to be prepared. But looking at them as people versus looking at them as people who can fix a problem, or as an ATM, you don't wanna look at them as an ATM. You don't wanna see dollar signs in their eyes. You don't want to look at them as people who have strengths and weaknesses and, you know, areas of interest. You know, you want to find a match for who they are and what they like, and what they value and what they're good at, with what you need. And if you look at them that way, it's gonna be totally different. So, so much of fundraising, so much of sales, same thing. So much of this is about how we look at ourselves and how we look at our prospects. I mean, that's so much what it's about.

Jonathan Hankin 45:57

No, agree with you. Um, nobody wants to be seen as a dollar sign. Um, it's basing, I I did like the assessment part where you just are contrasting, you know, the short-term problems we all have, but how do we move into long-term strength-based partnership is what I hear you saying. it's really a partnership and not just how do you help me solve this problem today, but

Patricia Schwartz 46:19

Right.

Jonathan Hankin 46:19

time move forward together? And that takes time and it takes energy and I appreciate that you kind of lay out the playbook for people so you don't have to reinvent the wheel, which is great. we're kind of running, running low on time here. We can keep, we're gonna keep going a little bit more as we come to the end. What is, let's talk about. this next week, some practical things for people. So your book's gonna come out, um, the day of this comes out on YouTube or in a few weeks. Within a few weeks. People are gonna get the book, hopefully read it, but what can they do Right. now? What's a very practical play for them for the next couple days? What's something they can do?

Patricia Schwartz 46:58

Well, something you can do is identify. One person that you wanna connect with, um, related to your work. So that could be any kind of stakeholder, it could be a colleague because staff are stakeholders of each other. Could be a customer, it could be a client, it could be your boss, it could be a donor, a board member, you know, anybody. So pick one stakeholder and ask them the peak experience or best experience question and get, get a sense from what they tell you, the story that they tell you of their strengths and their values, and share it with them. And just say, you know, I, I really hear that you have a lot of strengths in X, Y, Z, and you think it's really important or you value, you know, this, and just, just do that. Based on what you hear, choose one thing to invite them to one way of engaging them, a really small way. It might be, um, to take a tour. To attend a certain event, um, to look at a plan for something. It depends on their strengths and what you hear, but one small invitation, and then make sure that you follow up, that you know when you're gonna follow up with them, follow up with them, and then you can, after you follow up later down the road. Have that person, be the person that you bring to the strategy session so that you say, okay, I already did this. Ask peak experience. Here's what I found out. I've had one, they've come to this, they've done this. I need to think about the next step. I'd like to talk about this person. So I.

Jonathan Hankin 48:47

That's good. Very practical, very easy to do. And again, I think your key here is the follow up, right? You can have the conversation, but you gotta do the follow up. And then I love your idea to bring them in. So you've already had that first session with them, So to speak, and you know where they are. And you're obviously gonna, not gonna bring them in if they're not interested, but if they're interested, they can be an advocate for you to move forward in the process, which is great. just I'll throw a, just a couple. Well, let me ask you this. I. have a couple questions I could ask. In closing, is there any other thoughts or advice you would give as people go through this book? Um, any, any final thoughts from you on how to implement this or how to use it that would be beneficial?

Patricia Schwartz 49:33

Um, well, I think your mindset is really important. So when you read the book, think about you and resourcing yourself. How you can keep yourself energized for the work that you need to do. Because in the book there's, there's really a lot about that. There's a lot about wellbeing and using appreciative inquiry for wellbeing, remembering your peak experience. So I think reading the book with you and keeping yourself your cup filled as much as possible so that you can do the steps in the book, I think that is a very helpful thing. That's one thing. I think the other thing that has been really helpful for me, I don't know if I have time to tell a story. How, how many minutes do I have?

Jonathan Hankin 50:18

No, go for it.

Patricia Schwartz 50:19

Okay. The other thing is if you want money, ask for advice. If there's one thing you're gonna take away, it's, if you want money, ask for advice. So I just, I just wanna tell this story. That was a knock your socks off experience that I had, where I had, um, I worked, I was an executive director in a nonprofit. We had honored a donor who was a major donor for many, many years at one of our galas, and I was in charge of that, so I got to know him over like six months. He had told me that if there was ever an issue, I could call him and I, I knew back then this was. Kind of early still in my career. And I knew back then that it would be pretty smart for me to stay in touch with this person who was very powerful in the community. So I kept finding reasons to contact him. So I would contact him. I would have in-person meetings with him and I would just ask him for things, his advice. And um, and it was really helpful. I mean, he was. Really smart. He was particularly good at real estate too. And then we were looking, we were, our organization got really full and we needed a much more, like a much bigger facility. So we were looking for a site with the intention of creating a capital campaign to buy property to build on. Well, we weren't really looking yet for a site. We did a whole study in the community. We found out what we need. We found out what people were saying and we realized we needed to have kind of a big campaign because we needed like, I don't know, a certain amount of square footage and we needed to build it'cause it didn't exist anywhere. We knew it didn't exist yet. And then the realtor happened to call us and say, wow, this property just came on the market. You've gotta come look at it. So like our whole leadership team went and looked at it. Wow. It was so impressive. Um, however, the realtor said, there's just one little issue. I think this property's gonna be on the market for a while because. There's a, a stream running through it and there's an environmental issue related to that stream. There needs to be, because there's been endangered species around that stream. So they need to do an environmental impact, uh, report and, you know, people aren't gonna, this property is, has an issue because people aren't necessarily gonna buy it because they'd be worried about, well, what if they can't do anything with it because of the endangered species. So, and it was the perfect property. So I went back to my office and I thought, you know what, this is a case, this is a case for my, you know, that major donor who kind of became my mentor. I called him up, I said, wow, I don't know what to do. This is the perfect site. We haven't even launched our capital campaign. And, um, but it has this environmental issue and, you know, I don't know what to do. So he said, well, um. You know, so they need to do an environmental impact statement, right? I said, yeah. He said, okay, how much is it? And I said, 2.4 million. And this was, this was 20 years ago. Okay. This was not today. This was 2.4 million many, many years ago, like 25 years ago. So he says, oh, well I'll get my two friends, and he names them, I'll get my two friends together, we'll buy the property. We'll do the environmental impact report and we'll get the statement. We'll find out what the issues are. If there are too many issues to build, we'll deal with it. If it's clean and clear, we'll transfer the property to your organization.

Jonathan Hankin 53:55

Wow.

Patricia Schwartz 53:55

Did I nearly fall off my chair?

Jonathan Hankin 53:58

Yeah.

Patricia Schwartz 53:59

was nowhere near asking him. I, I wasn't even thinking of asking him. So this was an offer. So this is what happens when you've asked a lot of questions. You've engaged, you've had them tell you what's important to them. You've done all these processes. Then you have an issue and you ask for advice they offer. I mean, this is not the only time this has happened. It's the largest offer, but it's not the only offer that I've gotten for my organization over the years that I've worked.

Jonathan Hankin 54:31

No. thanks for sharing. I mean, just, but again, there was a long runway that was

Patricia Schwartz 54:35

No.

Jonathan Hankin 54:36

first ask'cause it would've been No, uh, it was many years in building that relationship. And again, I think your story just speaks to your credibility in this book. So thank you for being on. I, I really appreciate you being, I look forward to others reading your book and, uh, being part of what they can do to move their organization. Forward. So thank you so much for the many practical tools for listeners. Um, the book is Your Nonprofits 360 Win, how to Build Relationships That Pay Off for Everyone. I think you've heard that through the podcast today. This is for everyone. I'll link it in the show notes along with ways to connect directly with Patricia and her coaching work. If this episode added value to your day, please hit like and subscribe, drop a comment. Love to hear. How this book has helped you and your nonprofit, and how you're moving forward. If you're looking to grow in leadership, please also leave notes in the comments for what you're looking for. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Hank and your change agent coach. Keep leading, keep growing, and keep changing what matters. I'll see you next time.