Major Opportunities for Major Giving
The data that stations share with CDP clearly shows that the biggest revenue opportunity for stations is in major giving. Currently 1.4% of TV/Joint station donors are major givers, and 2.6% of Radio stations are major givers. (For the purpose of this conversation, we define major giving as donors of $1000 or more even though CDP believes the threshold should be much higher.) Those stations in the National Reference File—or NRF, our comprehensive database of donors and giving—can see where they land related to other stations by looking at the % of current members who give $1k+ KPI.
CDP’s mission is to help stations to free up resources so they can focus on major giving, yet we're just not seeing the major donor-giving needle move fast enough.
I sat down with Susanne Salerno, a social impact leader and founder of Salerno Consulting, to discuss this further. Susanne is a trusted advisor, equipping executives with the tools, best practices and insights to drive strategies for corporate social responsibility and philanthropic impact.
Caroline Krantz
Susanne, I really want to pick your brain around why we aren’t seeing that needle move fast enough and what steps you think stations can take.
Is that cool with you?
Susanne Salerno
Yes, thank you.
Caroline Krantz
All right, let me just get right to the point. Why aren't most stations moving the needle fast enough when it comes to major giving? What do you think some of those barriers are?
Susanne Salerno
I think there's such a tremendous opportunity and the best way to start is to have teams reach out to their donors and start to engage them in personal relationships. One barrier may be that stations are making the work too complex and could begin to see some movement just by reaching out to say ‟thank you” and ‟I’d love to meet you.”
So, I encourage station teams to start by reaching out, saying ‟hello” to your donors and thanking your donors because we are talking about people who are likely already giving something to the station. This is just like forming any relationship. I see too much similarity to membership and not enough differentiation for the major giving programs. I’m encouraging teams to step away from the computer and get to know your donors.
Caroline Krantz
Public media has really large donor files, and I can see it being overwhelming to try to sift through that data and understand who to reach out to and when to reach out to certain people. How do stations prioritize that, and how do they get started?
Susanne Salerno
There are so many donors supporting public media, and many have done so for years and years! We not only have large files, but we also have people who are passionate about your mission and want to support your station. But have you communicated the opportunity to your local community of supporters?
In addition to reaching out 1-1 to donors, there are some tools that can help you look at the data to understand who a group might be to cultivate. If you are not sure where to start, reach out to the CDP team, and they will help you interpret the trends and where the opportunities are.
Use a wealth screening tool such as Donor Search and spend a couple minutes looking at the executive summary. That is going to give you the big picture of who on your file has the highest capacity. This does not take a lot of time and is hugely helpful.
Another terrific opportunity, even if you have a team of one, is identifying who are the most recent donors that have just given at a certain level to your station. Send a small handful of those names over to your GM and ask them to reach out. These additional personal connections will lead a donor to say “Wow, Caroline is thinking about me and took the time to say ‘thank you.’”
That's where you want to get started.
Caroline Krantz
So, you know, you talked about how everybody should be fundraising. So a lot of times with these smaller stations and medium sized stations, that falls on the GM. How do they get started doing this?
Susanne Salerno
There are some very cool innovative tools that are out there. In particular, there are tools to support smaller teams with a fundraising resource, even if you don’t have a full-time staff person that is solely focused on major giving yet.
There is an AI tool called Raise that feeds you the right donor to contact, at the right time, with the right message. Raise literally writes a draft email for you, and all you need to do is tweak it to your voice and hit send. Imagine setting aside 20 minutes a day to be able to work through a portfolio of donors and be able to engage with them in a personal way. Raise allows you to be front facing with donors instead of running reports, sorting lists, writing emails and researching which prospects to outreach. And this front-facing effort is what I’m encouraging stations to do more of.
Gratavid is another solution that allows stations to send fully branded, customized videos. These customized messages really set stations apart, and it is simple to use. Stations have used Gratavid to send mid-level thank you’s, match donor thank you’s—even update major donors on station initiatives so they know how their money is being used. There are so many different use cases. It is also a super easy way to get more team members at your station engaged in fundraising and creating that culture of philanthropy.
Caroline Krantz
I love the idea of leveraging these tools that allow stations to work more efficiently and to set their station apart. Stations are so strapped for time, even with these tools, how can we expect stations to focus on mid-level giving and start to steward their future major donors?
Susanne Salerno
I can't stress enough the importance of just saying ‟thank you” and fostering connections. That's your starting point before you're asking for the next dollar—to make sure that your donors feel engaged and a personal connection from you and your team at the station.
And that's where these tools can come into play is making sure you're getting thank-you messaging out so that when the next request goes out and you might be asking for a little bit more, they know that you are important. You know that they're important. They know that they're important to your station.
Caroline Krantz
Are you actually coming across stations that are not finding the time to say ‟thank you” in a personal way outside of a form letter?
Susanne Salerno
Well, I’ve heard some dramatic pauses when I’ve asked stations if they are personalizing thank you’s for their leadership donors.
Caroline Krantz
Wow, I did not know that. OK, switching gears a bit. A term that I've been hearing more and more lately is this term ‟moves management.” Can you please explain it to me?
Susanne Salerno
I can! Moves management, at its core, is a series of action steps that you are taking to engage one on one and build that relationship. So, you're thinking about one donor at a time, and it could be a series of steps including one thank-you call and then an email asking for a meeting. And really, moves management should be about nurturing connections across all your annual donors.
Caroline Krantz
Ok, we've covered a lot of territory. Can you summarize by listing three things that stations can start doing tomorrow?
Susanne Salerno
Number One — Develop an operational plan for your major giving program. In addition to annual fund renewals, what else will you do for this group of donors to develop that community engagement?
What is the theme for your case for support for this year?
What special events will you host to thank your donors and provide opportunities to invite prospective donors to visit?
How will you thank donors throughout the year?
Number Two — Thank your donors. We're heading into the last quarter of the year, and we know that the majority of giving happens around calendar year-end. So right now is the best time to be thinking about your plan for thanking your donors early enough so that when the calendar year giving is happening, you and your station are top of mind for those donors. Here’s our Gratitude Season blog post to revisit for some gratitude ideas.
Number Three — Check in on your team. Even if there isn't a major gift officer or one person responsible for major giving, how are you as leaders of the station thinking about making sure that the team understands that everyone at the station has a role in helping to cultivate and steward donors and prospects? We encourage executives to build a culture of philanthropy across the entire station.
Caroline Krantz
OK, so I know that you recently wrote a blog series on storytelling as it relates to fundraising. So Susanne, tell us a story. Tell us about a station that impacted major giving.
Susanne Salerno
We’ve seen some really big successes on small teams that are embracing some of these tools. I'm thinking specifically of WUCF, where the major gift officer recognized that she had hundreds, if not thousands, of people that they should get to in the file.
They use Gravyty’s artificial intelligence tool called Raise to help prioritize the next person on their file that they should be reaching out to. Raise helped a one-person team engage with a large group of donors, and they were able to increase major giving revenue by $300,000!
Caroline Krantz
Awesome. Susanne, I want to really thank you for your time today, and I hope this helps stations understand how they can get started and the steps that they can take to begin to move that major giving needle up!
If any station would like to speak with us about solutions available to support major giving, please reach out to cdp@cdpcommunity.org