Inviting donors to meetings you look forward to

What Hillary loves about this episode: It captures my clearest thinking on how to make donor meetings worth showing up for — and tests it alongside a young Indigenous woman fundraiser who’s done code-switching to fit white norms and is building donor relationships rooted in curiosity, respect, and shared work.

Description: Many fundraisers dread donor meetings — and, truth be told, many donors do too. In this episode, Hillary Frances reframes the purpose of donor conversations and explains how to design meetings that both you and your donors genuinely look forward to. She breaks down why most meetings fall flat, the psychology behind “information-exchange fatigue,” and how centering a donor’s expertise can transform the entire dynamic.

Hillary shares practical tools for crafting donor-centric agendas, choosing questions that invite real problem-solving, and matching meeting topics to different donor profiles — from family foundation leaders to venture capitalists. She’s joined by Wiliwili Foundation Founder & CEO, Koana Laimana, who reflects on her experience as a native Hawaiian woman in the fundraising field and how she facilitates donor conversations that are energizing, focused, and deeply relationship-building.

Mentioned: Astro Teller, CEO of X, The Wiliwili Foundation

Guest: Koana Laimana is the Founder and CEO of the Wiliwili Foundation, whose mission is to support community-led initiatives in Hawaiʻi by providing grants and resources to non-profits focused on culture, land, education, and the arts.

Koana is a master resource mobilizer—she doesn't just manage donors, she is thrives in creating philanthropic pipelines that intentionally funnel much-needed wealth from the mainland directly to local changemakers on the islands. When she’s not connecting resources to the causes that need them most, you can probably find her chasing her two keiki, on the beach or in hula. 

Transcript

My name is Hillary Frances, and one of the things I've been thinking about is how often we dread meetings with donors and how often the donors likely dread those meetings too. In fact, I think many of us have too many meetings on our calendar that we are not looking forward to at all. We continue to invite other people to meetings we are not excited about. We keep doing this as if it's the only way to conduct business. 

You are listening to tailwinds ideas, fueling nonprofit innovators and social entrepreneurs. Tailwinds is a project that brings momentum to the leaders tackling the world's most impossible problems. Today's episode, how to invite Donors to Meetings. You will both look forward to. I'm going to argue that there is a way. This episode has two parts. Part one, I share what I'm learning about agendas that entice donors to meet with us and give us something to look forward to. Part two, we're going to hear from a fundraising professional based in Maui who looks forward to her meetings with donors. And just in case you're skeptical, no it's not because they're in Maui. The donors she's meeting with are actually not in Hawaii at all. 

To start out, let's just admit that most of the meetings we attend do not add value to our day unless we do some sort of psychological gymnastics and reframe to make them. So instead, we often meet with people to exchange information. This requires very little critical thinking and we leave with more work to do later. We do this with our donors as well. We set up a meeting to exchange information with them to get to know the donor and to tell them more about our work. We say, I'd like to get to know you a bit better and to share an update on our programs you've been so generous to support. I actually received an email like that not too long ago, and my first thought was. I've been reading your emails, so I already know what's up with the programs and I also don't really care to be known better. Now, I understand that I'm a tough crowd, but maybe we all feel that way to different degrees and just need to say it. We don't need to meet to exchange information. We meet to solve problems together. I hear some of you saying one more reason to meet is to build relationships with people, and my opinion is that we can build relationships with people more quickly by solving problems together rather than telling our life story to one another. 

There are a couple other characteristics of meetings that add value to someone's calendar. One, they are specific in scope. 

Two, there is a high potential to learn something that we can apply elsewhere. 

Three, there is a high potential to exercise critical thinking. 

Four There is a high potential to solve a mini problem. 

So the best way to pull all these characteristics together is to create an agenda that poses a challenge that relates to your organization's work, which you think the donor has insight on. The agenda, which you outline in your email to request the meeting poses a specific question you'd like to ask the donor. 

Here's what the question should do. 

It should either ask for advice on a topic that centers their expertise for your own personal growth, like you wanna learn about leadership from them or fundraising because they're a fundraiser or you're interested in being mentored or something you want to build a skill in. Second, you could ask the donor to brainstorm a future decision your organization is facing based on their expertise. Or you could have a philosophical conversation that deepens your collective understanding of your work. So you ask the donor to meet with you for this discussion and to also understand their giving priorities for the coming year. That way they understand that they are both a thought partner and a donor in your eyes. 

Let me give you some examples of topics that you might pose to gain the donor's insight on. So if you're a human service organization, here are some ideas, the relationship between physical health and employment outcomes, the role of community on whole person wellbeing, how our education system impacts trends in incarceration. Now remember, you choose topics that are really central to what you all are thinking about and doing at your organization. If you're an environmental organization, you could pose the latest climate summit and what we learned how today's educators are preparing youth to inherit the climate crisis. Should we work on policy or behavior change? It helps to create a list or repository of donor-centric challenges so that you don't have to invent them every time you have an upcoming donor meeting. 

Where do you get these ideas? They can come from books, you're reading podcasts, you're listening to articles, you're thinking about the problem statement you wrote about in a grant application, a challenge you're discussing with colleagues. A thought you had in the middle of the night. It's important to match the topic with the donor's interest and expertise. You can imagine it would feel contrived to ask every donor how they think today's educators are preparing youth to inherit the climate crisis. Some donors will have no interest in that topic. Nor any experience with today's educators. So we start by researching the donor's priorities and areas of expertise. 

Here's a donor profile you might have experience with. Let's talk about what you would discuss with this donor. So let's say you have the head of a family foundation. This person may be 50 or more years old, have obtained their wealth from inheritance and investments, have a broad philanthropic portfolio, and personally identify with being a philanthropist. Upon further research, we discover a few of their priorities, managing their investments wisely. Security, making safe bets, consolidating their efforts, like choosing one organization that's best at what they do, rather than funding several medium-sized organizations in the same cause category. These are all examples of things they care about. I'm going to offer a few topics to discuss during a meeting with this donor profile, regardless of the type of work you do. You could discuss with a donor like this, any of the following, the characteristics of an organization worth investing in. The characteristics of a leader that can build a maturing organization. Their advice on what type of program models are most effective in our sector, the qualities of organizations that become beacons, that others look to in your invite email to this donor, you could say that you'd like to specifically ask them. Put these in bullet points. One, what changes have you seen in how we insert the focus of your work, like and how we steward the environment now versus in the seventies or nineties? What have you seen in the insert your sector? Sector that requires new models? What are the qualities of an organization that becomes a beacon that others look to for their model? What are the factors that put an organization at the top of your philanthropic priority list? These are good questions for this donor profile because you know that they are concerned about making safe bets. The mini problem to solve or critical thinking to do in your meeting has to match their interests and expertise. 

Let me give you one more donor profile and then we'll hear from our Hawaiian fundraiser. Let's say you're planning to meet with a venture capitalist. They're somewhere between 20 and 50. They obtained wealth from venture capital, banking, startup, or the technology sector. They may or may not care about outdoor activities, and they are driven by achievements, productivity, and becoming famous or well known. You discover or intuit a few of their priorities? One, solving previously unsolvable problems at scale, innovation, and the sense of discovering something, being a part of something at ground zero. Asking why not When creating new products, wanting to offer something other than capital, like expertise and connections. Here are a few examples of topics I'd match with this donor. One. The 10 X model. Astro teller, the CEO of X argues that making something 10 times better is easier than making it 10% better. Two. Strategic planning for organizations that are solving unsolved problems. Three, managing a rapidly growing team. Four, growing from the startup phase to a more mature phase of development. And so how do we convert those to questions? Question one, what have we seen in the social sector that is making a 10 x solution rather than a 10% solution? Two, what's it going to take for the social sector to move in that direction? Three, what type of social sector organizations are you watching? Four. What are the leadership qualities you most admire that exist within the organizations you invest in? Or how would moving the needle on insert the focus of your work, support your goals? Or what type of big investment would you like to make next that would fulfill a desire to see a particular problem solved once and for all? Finally, what are the guiding questions that focus your philanthropic priorities or investments? Preview these questions in your intro email and you are likely to get their attention. In fact, we've been testing this approach to cold outreach we do to people who work at foundations that we're trying to get a meeting with, and we've seen about a 48% response rate to this type of email. 26% of our cold outreach that featured this type of meeting invite converted to a meeting. 

Now I want you to hear from a fundraiser who has experience with donor meetings she has dreaded and meetings she's looked forward to. You're going to meet Koana Lamana, the founder and CEO of the Wili Wili Foundation. Koana and I worked together between 2018 and 2024 when I was consulting with the organization she worked for at the time. You'll hear us talk about her approach to donor meetings, but about half our conversation features her experience as a woman of color in the fundraising profession. I saved those sections for you because I think it's a really important element of looking forward to donor meetings. We might look forward to them or dread them because of unspoken power dynamics at play between us. I wanted you to hear a firsthand account of how code switching works, and I really like how Koana anchors herself in her lineage in order to keep pursuing this often heartbreaking work. Koana Laimana is the founder and CEO of the Wiliwili Foundation, an organization she created to strengthen Hawaii's nonprofit ecosystem by connecting local change makers with the support, resources and visibility they deserve before launching Wiliwili Koana spent more than a decade in nonprofit work, which is where I met her. We began working together when she was an office manager at Sharefest Community Development in LA. I was working with our development team and would occasionally hear her name mentioned as someone who could help with that before we knew it. Koana helping with that turned into Koana, leading that as she was promoted into major donor and corporate sponsorship portfolio management. I loved meetings where Koana was there. She always had this, "you have no idea what I can do," secret, but she never led with it, and now we're seeing her leading a much needed organization in Hawaii. She didn't just start another nonprofit. She started an organization that is bringing wealth from the mainland to the islands. That means she has the unique skillset to work with major donors who care about the islands, maybe they vacation there or have a home there, or do business there to actually funnel their philanthropy in the islands. Okay, Koana. So if we could do this interview in a location that would represent your work. Where would we be? What would be going on in the background?


Have to say it would be, um, on a farm in Hawaii. Um, the word in Hawaiian is mahi and we'd be micd up so that our hands be free to actually work. So we're contributing to the ina or the land while we're able to have a conversation, um, surrounded by community workers as well and people that are trying to also give back. And from there you could not only just, you know, speak to me, but also see the work and why it's so important. It's, it's really, transformative and, transcending in a way to be able to take, be taken back, um, you know, to our indigenous roots in, Kanaka culture. and so I think it's the best way to kind of represent why I care so much about the work I'm doing.


What would be growing on the farm?


Uh, kalo. So tarot plants, um, there would be ulu trees. there would be, sweet potato plants, like all the indigenous plants. But there's also a lot of, um, farms out here now that are growing, you know, other plants that aren't indigenous to Hawaii, but trying to reestablish, Agriculture here, uh, to help with our food insecurities.


Hmm. Thank you. So today we're talking about major donor meetings in particular, and I thought of a lot of different topics that I would want to talk to you about, but this one in particular had your name on it because we have really worked on you being able to bring your full self to major donor meetings. So I wanna first start by thinking about you as a major gift officer and the various titles you've had related to major gift fundraising. Um, I know that you have a unique approach to it. But I'm wondering how your approach has changed lately as you felt more free to maybe fully embrace your indigenous heritage. Yeah.


I think in my previous role and the donors we, we served in that role, I had to water down myself in ways. Um, I grew up in a marginalized community. I grew up similar to the students we served in that organization there was a, there's a lot of misunderstanding of people who grew up in those areas. And at first I stepped into this role, and I think I've had this conversation with you, is I felt like I was not allowed to have these conversations with donors because of how I grew up. You encouraged me to still have those conversations because the trust I had built with these individuals over time and now being the fact, being in this position where I'm talking about things, I'm talking about, I have to be authentically myself. I, you know, I have a, I have a tribal tattoo in my arm. There are certain donors where I knew I could not, I needed to wear a blazer. Um, like right now I'm wearing hoop earrings, which people don't always look at as the positive, accessory. And now I do things in the fact of like a protest. Like I wear hoop earrings to big meetings because want people to look at me and say, I'm a brown woman. Hoop earrings and it changes the perspective when they see another brown with hoops. When the meetings over, come into meetings tattoo is showing with those same donors or, or different donors from, you know, continent who, uh, who I might have reconsidered showing my tattoo to, because it's a part of my identity, it's a part of the people I'm serving, I step, I'm stepping more into my or my nativeness, and it's healing a deep part of me too, because I don't feel like I'm trying to fit in. I'm just trying to be me now. And within all of that, like it's, again, it's healing, but it's also empowering other generations, hopefully younger generations so that being said, it's, reestablished with bravery in myself. My approach to nonprofit, major gift in particular, um, meetings or fundraising has changed because I'm not as afraid to american corporate verbiage, words and phrases in order to talk about, talk to people and then bring them into meetings.


So how did you persist when you felt like you needed to compartmentalize your identity?


As a as, I dunno, I know how this is gonna sound, but as a brown woman growing up in the United States, we are kind of taught, we have to, so it's just kind of a commonality of if you wanna be taken seriously, you have to act a certain way. I think that's wrong, but we're taught that at a very young age. you have an accent, if you speak, you know, certain slang type you aren't educated, you know, those are kind of things that get pushed on us At a young age. We see those characters at least, you know, the nineties we saw those characters growing up. In, in movies, you don't see, people who look like us as. know, running the businesses and all the things, more so now, but at the time when growing up, it was just kind of, it was kind of pushed on so for me, I wanted to taking be taken seriously as a professional. So I knew I had to kind of code switch to get there. It is draining. It is so draining to be authentically yourself to where you're digestible and not just be authentically yourself. 


I'll say being here, being in Hawaii, the focus is more family. I had to go to Kauai for a few meetings. I brought my kids with me. They're working on the farm. Um, they have been a part of this entire journey from me starting this new company. I have sat down with them and acted as they were my board members and said. You know, how do you feel about this? What does this feel like? Look at my website. How does, how do you respond to it? And they're eight and six. So I didn't expect, you know, a big, uh, exchange. But my 6-year-old who loves fashion, she was like, oh mom, this needs to change. I can't read this. And I was like, oh, wait, you're right. And she can, she can't read anyways. Like she can barely read, but it was, she was right. It was the, the contrast was a little hard on your eyes. Um, it's, it's changed my dynamic of how I am and leading and it's combined more, but it's less overwhelming too, where I'm not having to code switch even in that aspect. it's been really healing in that way too.


That is adorable. You sat them down as board members.


I know. That's so cute.


So that leads me to ask you what is it like to be a young indigenous fundraising professional in the United States right now?


It's, I think right now it's a delicate time for all, fundraising professionals. I think we're all, um, we're all a little nervous. Then for me being a Kaka ine, so a native Hawaiian woman, fundraiser, small business founder and single mom, I realized that's a privilege to be able to say all those things in that order. To be able to say that I come from this of women who did not give up, who told me to keep fighting to where I'm here now, feeling confident enough to step on the shoulders or, or stand on the shoulders of the people that came before me.


Is the work of fundraising, a vocational role that has ever existed in your family, or would you be the first person in your lineage to do work anything like this?


With the actual title of nonprofit leader, yes, but with the fact of, I think most indigenous people, the common understanding is you take care of everybody and everyone has a purpose. It's always been like this. I grew up in that kind of family and home. It's, you know, my aunts had a role, my, my dad had a role. My grandfather was very radical in the sense of he cared about people wanting to help people. He would do, you know, whatever he could out of his own pocket, even if it wasn't through a nonprofit organization. If he had the means, he would help somebody. how it is here too. I have family on Oahu. I have family here in Maui that do a lot for advocacy, that stand up, that protests. It's been generational. Like we knew we had this ability to peacefully protest and to bring awareness to things. And they've always been that they've given back to the ina they've, um, I have family in Oahu that really helped revitalize and keep revitalizing Hawaiian language. bring it into the schools So, I just always grown up knowing that that's a kuana responsibility to step into.


This is such a good reminder to identify the lineage that we're working in. I think that, um, most white people do not have a great connection to a lineage, their ancestors. It's something that you do if you're at some kind of a spiritual retreat. But other than that, we don't think of, um, our work in terms of being in a, in a lineage of healers or a lineage of activists or a lineage of protectors of a certain thing. And, um, you're reminding me that I want to identify the lineage that I'm working from. And so it maybe it helps to pick a per, a particular ancestor that we're standing on the shoulders of. So you said we're, you are thinking of yourself as standing on the shoulders of women who came before you. Who comes to mind when you think about those women?

So I'm hapa, I'm mixed. Um, my, my mother is European and Native American. A lot of other things, and my dad is Hawaiian Filipino. My grandmother was born and raised in Hawaii, so she doesn't really know much about her Filipino roots because she was, you know, born and raised here. but I, she respects the culture so much because she grew up here and because of that, I, I see the work she has put in to. me to be able to be here and have the bravery to be a woman who's leading this as a single parent, she never made me feel less than and always told me I could do more. My mom she was also a single mother as well and she showed me that. you wanna do something, you will go do it. Her and I went to college the exact same time we graduated a year apart. We did all these these things together and it showed me that whatever you put your mind to, you can achieve. To the point where my mom started at the very of Toyota, worked her way up to where she was an HR manager at Toyota Racing Division. And to the point where she retired this year and she is doing well. For her to be from where she's from, to be here now, I can't be anything but proud and know that she made all those strides. So I can continue to go from there and then my kids can go from there and hopefully the generations that come can continue to go from there. And also while they're going up, bring up the people with us.


I still remember the moment that we were on the phone together. I remember where I was when you told me you were moving to Hawaii. I was driving on I 25 South toward Denver, and I got you on the phone and you said you had news. And I thought this could just be one thing that she's about to tell me, but it was in my mind it was gonna be about a job, but not that you were moving to Hawaii for a startup that you were launching. And so you have, Proven that you're as young as you are, you're already following in these strong women's footsteps.


Thank you.


Yeah. Yeah. So bravery has been the theme of our conversation so far. And now as we think about donor meetings, I want to ask you about donor meetings. Um, you have evolved your approach to donor meetings, and right now you're, you're doing them even. Differently than when I was working with you years ago in California. So let's start by, uh, donor meetings that we don't like. Um, our goal is to help people learn how to plan donor meetings that they look forward to. So let's start with what happens when we have a donor meeting coming up that we're dreading.


So thanks to your coaching, I have to add that because you working with me has always expanded my of different approaches, but also. The fact that you, you taught me this from the very beginning, is we get to invite donors to join us. That always kind of helped me refocus the energy of when I was trying to meet with somebody. So when I would, you know, reach out and do cold emails and, you know, follow ups, it was always not just begging for their attention, it was, Hey, let's have a, let's have a conversation about something we both enjoy. So when I had to go into meetings where I dreaded. Um, it was usually 'cause I couldn't find a common interest with a donor prior to the meeting. And I felt less confident. I always when attending meetings where I'm able to find a way to connect with a donor. So going into those meetings where you don't have a common interest more, it like a, what's the word I'm looking for? Pity meeting, I guess.


Yeah. Like they're pitying you, so they're saying yes to a meeting. Yeah.


And that just sets the tone in such a, such a kind of distraught way. I'm not sure how to explain it, but it just, it sets a tone when you go into that kind of meeting.


Yep. And you've done your research on a topic that you think they would wanna talk about, but there's very little that you find. And so. The agenda's thin.


Yes, exactly.


Okay. How do you set up a meeting that you look forward to?


I really pride myself on, genuinely caring for donors. I work alongside . I have been able to deepen relationships with them. We both would look forward to meetings knowing that was a friendship we had built. Um, we'd exchange stories about our families. Sometimes, uh, frustrations with our families or, you know, with common things we're having to deal with. They were both mothers, you know, the common things that we're dealing with is being mothers and people in, um, you know, corporate America. sometimes it would be, you know, talking about sports teams, things would just help us build this really strong foundation to where it would. Our meetings would be a catch up as friends, which would build a, a really strong foundation to where I could organically bring up the organization I was working with even more so to the point where I got to know them well enough where I would hear a student story and I would text them I right away because I knew they would want to hear it and they would feel. I cared about them so much, which I do, to share that because I thought about them.


I think a lot of people resonate with that. I think there would be a lot of fundraising professionals that would say, yeah, I look forward to meetings once I know the donor. Um, have you ever looked forward to a meeting with a brand new person you've never met?


Yeah.


Um, maybe because you set the agenda up really well.


Yes. So there is a particular donor who I did my research on. Uh, she was also a mother, uh, leader in her organization, I looked forward to a meeting because she had a lot of excitement towards women helping women, and that was a way for me to talk about me being a younger professional mother, trying to grow in the industry. Which led to her wanting to just learn about me. And we really bonded over the fact of being women in leadership positions while also mothering at the same time.


So do you remember what your initial outreach, your cold outreach to her entailed? Because you said you did your research and you knew that she liked women supporting women. And so how did you pitch the first meeting?


So I found a she was on and it was purely about women supporting women. So it talked about her backstory a little bit, why she cared so much about this topic. I ended up reaching out to her. The subject line of the podcast she was on talking about how incredible the podcast was linking the actual podcast too, because she was a very speaker. And so, um, she had lots of podcast on, understand the exact one I was referencing, and, uh, led me into introducing myself and asking for a meeting. And she responded within, and she's a very busy woman. She responded within a week and I was really thrilled and she was working really hard to fit me into her schedule, led to, a lot of amazing relationships and advocacy and even, sponsorship gift.


So if someone was trying to set up a meeting with a brand new donor they've never met and they want to look forward to the meeting, and so they're trying to choose a topic to discuss that would be interesting to both of them. What insight do you have on how to choose a problem to solve or a question to work on with a brand new donor?


So what I would always do is I would Google search people, which seems a little strange, but I really wanted to get to know the person I was reaching out to. I wanted to send an email from a place of an email that they wouldn't have received something that would gain their attention right away. And through the Google searches, I would, you know, find out about either their life where they went to school. Sometimes we would share about they were working on that would inspire me, myself, um, and I'd pick that topic to be able to bring into the email, I would be very strategic on the topics as well, because I always wanted it to be something I was equally as interested in, to know that I could hold a one hour conversation with this one topic, um, to the point where it could also organically lead into what the mission of the organization was. For example, when I was talking to the, um, the particular donor who is very, about women supporting women, I knew that I could talk about that subject for an hour, but I also knew I could talk about our students who I had been working with as well, and bring up their stories to where they, there would be a organic connection.


Yep. So we have to choose a topic that makes sense as to why we're asking it. 'cause it has something to do with our organization and also one that we are genuinely interested in. Um, did you ever have a topic that kind of flopped?


I'm sure I did.


Or that they didn't even respond to your email. You put a lot of thought into inviting them to a meeting.


Yeah. And, and the, the weird thing was, was this person was already a donor for many, many years and I was just trying to get a one-on-one with them to be able to deepen their relationship. My ED knew them well and I reached out with very specific things that I knew because of the relationship they had with the ed. But they would not respond to me to the point where I was like, Hey, to my ed, maybe you should reach out. 'cause maybe it's we coming from me. And they didn't respond to him either. So it, uh, there was, there's always those like


II think I remember nobody, yeah, I, and they were, you were all looking at me like, Hillary, this was your idea to come up with a specific talk. Nobody wants to talk about this.


But you know, you have to take those opportunities to realize some people. Again, not everyone is a doer. Some people just want to give and be left alone, and that's fine too.


So have you tried this same technique more recently in your current work of identifying a puzzle to solve with a donor or a theoretical discussion to have? And how is it working? 


Yeah. So with the work I'm currently doing, I initially reached out to donors and find theoretical topics of discussion. I strategically choose discussion topics that I can circle back to towards the mission of the organization. for example, recently had the opportunity to meet with the co-op that focuses on farming in Hawaii and restoring agroforestry. agriculture in Hawaii is so important for three reasons. One, Hawaii lives off of 90% of food imports, meaning if there is a disaster, we only have a few days of food and then we run out, uh, two Agroforestry and that I guess since COVID because of what had happened and all the shipping stuck, that's when it kind of became more of a forefront problem because we were realizing if there's natural disaster, if there's another pandemic, we are screwed. In a sense.


Yep. Okay.


A lot of nonprofits have also been going back to the fact that agri forestry is reclaiming the claiming oppression that, you know, we lost land. How farming was taken away. Because one, they didn't want us to use language, which is how we farmed. We utilized, um, moons to be able to track things. So all of it was very anti-white America. And, um, three for us ina our land is a part of like our genealogy. Lands where we come from. So being able to take care of that land takes care of us. It's, it's reciprocal. without having, without the land we wouldn't be able to live. So having worked with an airline for some time, in previous roles, I knew their philanthropic goals and a recent acquisition of another airline who also has similar focuses of giving. I was able to make the connection of a potential partnership based off of these organizations' alignments, uh, within food sustainability and revitalization of the land.


Okay. This is so great. So do you remember. How you posed the initial discussion that led to good meetings, that led to more meetings. Break it down for us, how you connected the two and what you posed that they initially said "Yes, let's talk."

So one of my major donors introduced me to this co-op and someone from the co-op explained to me what they're doing, what they're focused on, I just sat with that information because obviously with land being a part of my, my mission statement, I wanted to kind of absorb that to see how I could help, so that led to a conversation with that airline contact that I had and explaining what this co-op is doing which led to the airline transferring me to another person at the airline. And set up a meeting that way.


What do you think you wrote out in that initial email that made the airline executive forward your email to another colleague?


So the, initial conversation was to be a text. It was just


Okay. What did you text? How did you, how did you get this to work?


it was just a quick hey. I met these people. They're focusing on this. They have a product that I think would go really well on the airlines, and he responded saying, let me connect you to this person. So I said, why don't I send an email with more detail? And that would kind of help you just forward the email over. So then in the email I had laid out, obviously it was more professional than a text, um, but I had laid out the, organization, what they focus on, and then the alignment with the airline and how, and how it aligned and why it would give back to their philanthropics. And that's what got forwarded over.


This is amazing. Um, so you're essentially, you're brokering a business deal, but it's a philanthropic win for them as well.


Mm-hmm.


Um, and I guess I'm figuring out what the takeaway is for anybody else who's trying to get a yes for an initial meeting. And the thing that made this be a yes was that they knew you,


Yeah.


The airline people knew you through your previous work?


Yeah. So there was, again, the whole trust thing. I was because of trust, I could one, text a donor and just say, what do you think about this?


Let's say somebody doesn't know the airline executive and their cell phone number. Is there still a way to get a meeting that has this kind of. Win-win, like, how would you approach it if you, if you knew the co, let's say you knew the co-op but didn't know someone at the airlines, what would be your first move?


I would, would go on LinkedIn and I would look at the airlines and try to see if I could dig into the staff to see who would be either the closest contact person, uh, to the department I'm trying to connect with. and then from there, I would either friend them or try to reach out on Messenger there. If that doesn't work out, I would the internet and look for their email. I would put an email together and at least try like the worst thing my, my old ed used to say, the worst thing you're gonna get is for them to say no to you. And that's true, but it's better than not knowing. It's better than not trying, so why not try?


So we started by saying that we look forward to meetings, especially meetings with donors when they are a few things. One specific in scope. Two, there's a high potential to learn something that we can apply elsewhere. Three, there's a high potential to exercise critical thinking. And four, there's a high potential to solve a mini problem. But I think we have one more quality to add. Now, thanks to Koana. We look forward to meetings when we can be authentically ourselves. Part of that is on us to be courageous and confident, but sometimes we really do need to code switch or compartmentalize or go home and recover from the meeting. And yet my hypothesis is that engaging in many problem solving tasks with the donor will accelerate your relationship in ways that will surprise you. 


Tailwinds is a production of Flying Whale Strategies, a consulting firm that is equipping teams to solve impossible problems. A special thanks to Koana Laimana of the Wiliwili Foundation for sharing what she's learned as an activist and fundraiser Koana. Please let me know next time you're having a board meeting with your two adorable children. I'd like to ask for their advice on my website as well. If you'd like to learn more about Koana's work bringing philanthropy to the Hawaiian Islands, please visit www.wiliwili.org. And if you'd like to learn more about Flying Whale Strategies, please visit our website flyingwhalestrategies.com. Thanks for listening.