Michael VanDerhoef, president of the Virginia Mason Foundation, a Seattle hospital’s fundraising arm, doesn’t want his fundraisers to waste time doing what they’re not good at—and what they hate doing.
Applying that simple concept to fundraising and making some other changes are key reasons Mr. VanDerhoef’s organization has greatly increased donations.
And after meeting him at a conference, Penelope Burk, a veteran fundraising consultant and researcher, was inspired to recommend Mr. VanDerhoef’s approach in her new book, Donor-Centered Leadership.
Rapid Improvements
Mr. VanDerhoef made big changes three years ago when he and other Virginia Mason leaders adopted a management technique used by Toyota Motor Corporation that emphasizes continuous, rapid improvements.
“Major-gift officers are a highly paid, precious resource,” Mr. VanDerhoef got to thinking, so he wondered: “How do we align so they are doing the most valuable work: cultivating and soliciting donors?”
When he asked his staff members that question, he says, they told him they hated trying to get a first meeting with potential donors they hadn’t met before.
“It is the toughest step to get someone to say Yes to an appointment, and it is something they dread,” he says. “It is not satisfying work.”
To ease the burden, Mr. VanDerhoef turned to a consulting firm that was starting a program to help companies get first-time appointments with potential customers.
The firm now sets up first-time meetings for all of his fundraisers, freeing them to concentrate on deepening relationships with donors and asking for money.
‘Aha’ Moment
Another change Mr. VanDerhoef made was to stop planning donor meetings and events and then inviting as many people as possible to fill the room. Now he and his colleagues look at all of the donors they are wooing and plan events only for supporters who’ve expressed interest in that type of interaction.
“It was a big aha moment when I got past the idea of pushing information at donors and instead adopted the notion that donors should be able to pull information from me,” he says. “If I do that, things move a lot quicker.”
The new approach has worked extremely well, Mr. VanDerhoef says. Not only are his fundraisers bringing in two to three times what they once raised annually but they have also shortened the amount of time it takes to secure a large gift. Now instead of 15 to 18 months, it takes four or five months.
He says those results are due to a combination of the change in setting up meetings and how people are invited to events, plus research his group conducted to figure out which supporters were unlikely to give.
With that knowledge, fundraisers could stop wasting time with them and move on to other potential donors of big gifts.
Mr. VanDerhoef is, as Ms. Burk says, “an innovator looking outside the existing fundraising system for ideas.”
More people with responsibility for increasing contributions to their organizations should do the same, she says, but they seldom get much exposure to outside ideas.
After all, most conferences and other learning opportunities for development officers feature experts in the fundraising profession.
“They seldom bring in speakers with other areas of expertise, Ms. Burk says. “If the only people at the front of the room are fundraisers, we don’t learn.”
