You’ve just left your first meeting with a big potential donor.
Now what?
1. Thank the prospect immediately. Thanking the potential donor may seem obvious, but it needs to be part of your routine.
Margaret Turner, a senior major gifts officer for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, prepares her thank-you note as soon as she gets back to the office. She includes information the donor requested and tries to send the thank-you message—whether it’s by phone, mail, or e-mail—within the day.
If the donor requested information that will take longer to collect, Ms. Turner suggests confirming that the material is coming soon.
“Timing is everything,” she says. “You don’t keep people waiting.”
2. Respond using the donor’s preferred form of communication. Consider how each person you meet likes to communicate with the organization, says Peter Drury, director of development at Splash, a water-relief charity in Seattle.
Begin with the donor’s preferred form of communication, he says, and integrate other ways to connect as your relationship progresses.
Donors are more likely to stay engaged if you keep their preferences in mind, says Ms. Turner. “I treat every one of my prospects and every one of my donors like they’re the only one,” she says. “People pay attention to that.”
Some donors are upfront about their preferences. If they don’t provide that information, ask at a future meeting.
But take what donors say with a grain of salt, says Karen Gallardo, a fundraiser who spent more than five years as director of gift planning and major gifts at AARP and the AARP Foundation.
Sometimes people will say they never respond to mailings, yet when you look at their history, somebody in their household actually does respond in that way, she says. Always rely on the data first.
3. Update your database with a report on the meeting. Enter a detailed report of your meeting, including information about where you met, when, what was discussed, and any next steps.
Meticulous record-keeping is key, says Ms. Turner.
“That’s your road map,” she says. “When somebody asks for information and you forget to pass it along, that’s so embarrassing, and it’s just not good work.”
Entering notes into the database is also vital to your organization’s institutional knowledge, says Sunil Oommen, deputy director of major gifts at Amnesty International USA.
“When fundraisers move on, they take their brains and memories of these donor relationships with them,” he says. “And if there’s no recording of those relationships in the system, then I don’t think that they’ve really done their job.”
Careful maintenance of information in the database allows new fundraisers to acknowledge donors’ relationships with other people at the nonprofit and helps assure supporters that their relationship is valued by the organization, not just an individual fundraiser, says Mr. Oommen.
4. Debrief relevant colleagues. If two people attended the meeting, they should compare notes shortly after, Ms. Gallardo says.
Some questions to answer:
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What kinds of questions did the donor ask?
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What really resonated with the donor?
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Did the potential donor dismiss anything that fundraisers should avoid suggesting again?
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If you met in the donor’s office or home, what did you observe?
But don’t just have a conversation with your colleague; make sure to record the information in the donor database.
Also, if you’re not having the next meeting with the donor yourself, you need to prepare the person who is, Ms. Gallardo says.
5. Prepare for next steps. Plot your strategy to determine what you need to do to move the relationship forward.
Consider steps like these:
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Set up another meeting or arrange a behind-the-scenes tour to give the donor a better understanding of a project.
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Plan to call the potential donor in a month.
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Send the donor articles related to your conversation.
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Invite the donor to an upcoming event.
Be a good listener and you’ll know what to do next, says Amy Eisenstein, a fundraising consultant and the author of Major Gift Fundraising for Small Shops.
“If a person feels that they’re giving you value—that they’ve been heard and that they can help you go to the next step—they’re more likely to see you again,” she says.
Read the Before the First Meeting checklist to prepare for the meeting.