Tips to Salvage Solicitations That Go Wrong

Josh Weston sits on 15 charity boards, so he’s used to being asked for big gifts. But often, he says, the fundraisers soliciting him for $1-million or more “are not compelling, they didn’t do enough homework, or they come in with a mushy proposal.”

What annoys him most, says Mr. Weston, chairman emeritus of Automatic Data Processing, a big payroll and human-resource company, is when charity leaders show him a list of the organization’s most generous donors and don’t seem to know that his friends are among them. He says he’d be far more receptive if an appeal came from someone he knows well.

“They should have gone to those other donors and asked, ‘Do you know Josh Weston?’” he says. “If they’re coming to me for a big gift, they should come see me with one of my friends.”

That’s just one of the many missteps that trip up fundraisers, board members, and nonprofit leaders when they seek big money.

Following are some other problems that are common in fundraising and ideas for how to deal with them.

A Trustee Goes Rogue

THE PROBLEM: A meeting with a donor goes so well that a board member goes off script, asking for a bigger-than-planned gift.

Mary Meehan, president of Alverno College, and a trustee carefully rehearsed a solicitation call with a businessman who had not attended the university or served on its board. Because of the donor’s loose connection to the institution, they decided to ask him for $1-million, not the $10-million their colleagues had initially suggested he could afford to give.

But the meeting was going so well that the trustee “with a surge of confidence asked for the $10-million,” recalls Ms. Meehan. “I could have killed him because we had rehearsed this in advance.”

The donor quickly declined to make a gift of any size.

THE SOLUTION: Patience, says Ms. Meehan. Her institution has been working carefully over the past five years to get back in the man’s good graces. She says a group of volunteers will soon ask the businessman for a gift, this time sticking with the original plan to request $1-million.

A Fundraiser Freezes Out Staff

THE PROBLEM: Instead of encouraging donors to meet with others who can talk about the organization’s work—artists, professors, or doctors, for example—the fundraiser insists on dominating all interactions.

THE SOLUTION: Bill Littlejohn, chief executive officer of Sharp HealthCare Foundation, the fundraising arm of a San Diego medical center, says he encourages his staff members to get to know doctors and other medical staff who can speak to potential supporters and get them interested in their work. “When the doctor talks, it really resonates,” Mr. Littlejohn says. “I might get the gift by myself, but it won’t be as big.”

He says he tells fundraising colleagues not to worry that they are wasting time they could spend with donors when they build relationships with doctors and other medical professionals on Sharp’s staff.

“Fundraising is not just developing donor relationships but facilitating other relationships, too,” he says. “Fundraisers are focused on donors when they should spend more time with institutional allies who have greater influence on the gift.”

Good Preparation Backfires

THE PROBLEM: The charity’s research about a donor’s interests is misleading.

Dyan Sublett was thrilled when a wealthy philanthropist agreed to visit the museum where she raised money. Because she knew the woman had given millions of dollars to children’s causes, Ms. Sublett planned to show her children’s programs at the museum.

But the first thing the woman said after arriving, Ms. Sublett recalls, is “she hoped we wouldn’t show her stuff about kids.”

THE SOLUTION: Ms. Sublett asked the philanthropist what she’d like to see. When she said she liked photography, Ms. Sublett sent a colleague scurrying to find the curator in charge of the museum’s historical photography collection.

Because that collection is not open to the public, the curator gave the philanthropist an impromptu private tour “and it was magic,” Ms. Sublett says. Not only did the woman decide to give the museum $1-million on that very first visit, she also joined the board a month later.

Ms. Sublett, who is now chief fundraiser at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Health Foundation, in Los Angeles, says doggedly sticking to a carefully choreographed plan when the donor wants to go in another direction is a mistake.

“We have such need for control because there’s a great deal at stake: our success and the success of our organization,” says Ms. Sublett of herself and other fundraisers. “We falsely believe that control means winning. But when we are too focused on control, our ears close and we stop listening.”

A Donor Makes Huge Demands

THE PROBLEM: A generous supporter wants to make a big gift but only if it makes money for him.

Jill Schubiner, senior director of donor engagement at Detroit Public Television, faced a touchy situation when her station was seeking a large gift from a longtime donor who was a well-known expert and highly respected nationally.

“He said, ‘Here’s what I will do.’ Then he offered us some of the proceeds from the sale of a new product he was developing, and he wanted us to market it for him,” recalls Ms. Schubiner. “It was very uncomfortable, and no one in the room was looking at each other.”

THE SOLUTION: The solicitors told the donor they would consider his idea and left the meeting on good terms. Later, a trustee who knew the donor well politely declined his offer in a “delicately worded letter,” Ms. Schubiner says. “Fortunately, we had someone close to the donor who could intervene.”

The station then decided to pitch a gift another way: It asked the donor to provide $50,000 to match other donors’ gifts to a capital campaign. Ms. Schubiner says the station appealed to the man’s vanity by telling him that his name would be used and would inspire others to give.

A Supporter Gets Cold Feet

THE PROBLEM: At a crucial meeting to obtain a gift, a donor says she is troubled by a concern she never raised in the past.

Heidi Hansen McCrory, a fundraiser at Sweet Briar College, says in a previous job, she took her college’s president to visit an alumna who seemed ready to make a big gift. During the conversation, the alumna complained for the first time about the graduate-school curriculum. She was worried the courses had become so specialized that students weren’t getting a broad enough education. Ms. McCrory and the president had to decide quickly whether it was a bad move to ask for the gift.

THE SOLUTION: The two college officials had developed some subtle signals they used to communicate privately during donor visits. Both Ms. McCrory and her president wore scarves to such meetings. That way, if either woman thought the solicitation should not be made, she shifted her scarf.

So when the alumna started talking about her reservations, “the president moved her scarf and instead of asking for the donation said ‘I want to hear more about your concerns,’” Ms. McCrory recalls.

After the visit, she and the president returned to campus, developed a plan to show the donor they were dealing with the issues she raised, and obtained a $50,000 gift from the woman a few months later.

A Fundraiser Offends a Donor

THE PROBLEM: A solicitation or other contact with a fundraiser angers a donor.

Offended donors are often mollified by an apology, as long as it’s sincere and comes quickly, says Carol Weisman, a St. Louis consultant who advises nonprofit boards. She says she recently got a call from an organization whose chief fundraiser had angered a wealthy executive from the music industry who offered to organize a big concert to benefit the group.

Instead of hearing the man out or graciously accepting his offer, the fundraiser, a former trial lawyer, “started interrogating him rather than asking him to share his vision for the event, and he was really offended,” Ms. Weisman says.

THE SOLUTION: To defuse the situation, Ms. Weisman called the man, apologized, and offered to introduce him to some of the organization’s trustees. She also told the fundraiser to make amends. “I had her write him a note that we sent him with some mixed nuts,” Ms. Weisman says. The note, she recalls, said, “Sorry I went nuts. It’s people like you who made me want to do this work.”

With the donor’s anger assuaged, plans for the concert are moving forward, Ms. Weisman says. “We all make mistakes. It’s how you manage mistakes, not that you make them.”

A Donor’s Request Is Ignored

THE PROBLEM: A donor makes clear who should get a pitch, but the charity disregards that advice.

Nancy Raybin, a New York fundraising consultant, says she once advised a charity about asking a wealthy couple for a big gift. In previous discussions, the wife had said that she wanted her adult son to be included in the solicitation to get him more engaged in the family’s philanthropy.

But a trustee who knew the mother decided on a different approach, says Ms. Raybin. “She said, ‘I know the mother, I will get the gift.’ The trustee failed to include the son in the solicitation, and no gift was made.”

THE SOLUTION: Fundraisers should make a point of learning donors’ preferences for how they want to be solicited and follow those wishes, says Ms. Raybin.

A Donor Is Bored by a Pitch

THE PROBLEM: A couple is ignored and bored by a lengthy presentation seeking a big gift.

A donor who asked not to be named says she and her husband were recently subjected to an overly long presentation by too many fundraisers, not asked for their thoughts, and given short shrift when they asked for a proposal. “Needless to say,” the donor says, “they did not get our gift.”

THE SOLUTION: If fundraisers want to win big contributions consistently, says Kent Dove, who recently retired from a senior fundraising position at the Indiana University Foundation, in Bloomington, they must keep in mind a simple rule:

“The right person asks the right donor for the right purpose for the right amount at the right time in the right form,” Mr. Dove explains. “That’s the outline any fundraiser worth his salt follows.” Fundraisers need to hold discussions with fellow staff and board members to pin down all six elements before the solicitation takes place.

“That kind of discipline,” he adds, “pays enormous dividends.”