Nonprofit Expert Episode 15 – Your Nonprofit’s Narrative

Julia Gackenbach Host 00:14

Welcome to Nonprofit Expert presented by DonorPerfect, here with my good friend Mallory Erickson. Thank you for being here. It’s good to see Read More

Julia Gackenbach Host 00:14

Welcome to Nonprofit Expert presented by DonorPerfect, here with my good friend Mallory Erickson. Thank you for being here. It’s good to see you.

Mallory Erickson Guest 00:23

You too. Thank you for having me again.

Julia Gackenbach Host 00:25

Well, yeah, I was going to say for those who have listened to our podcast, they have heard of you before, but for those who are new, why don’t you share a little bit about yourself and how you’re involved in the nonprofit sector?

Mallory Erickson Guest 00:36

Yeah, so my name is Mallory Erickson. I am a fundraising coach and consultant. I have a signature program called the Power Partners Formula and I host a podcast called what the Fundraising? And I, like many of you, became an accidental fundraiser, first as a managing director and then an executive director, and I really hated fundraising.

00:56

And now you’re teaching people how to do it, I know, but not because I didn’t want to fundraise anymore, because ultimately I ended up having sort of this combination of life experiences I got certified as an executive coach, trained in habit and behavior, design and design thinking and those frameworks while I was frontline fundraising just radically shifted my approach so that I started to love fundraising. So then at that point I had no sort of desire to leave that work. I had no sort of desire to leave that work, but more and more people became interested in sort of the lens through which I was exploring and talking about fundraising. And before I knew it, here I am. So I’m so excited to get to work with you and the Donor Perfect team on so many cool things like this.

Julia Gackenbach Host 01:38

Yes, we’re so grateful for you and I’m just going to say I think that you should have like a I love fundraising shirt, so that people know that it’s possible, Because I don’t know if people know that that’s possible.

01:50

So I’m glad that you’re here to help us get to that point. Those who are listening are just going to be able to walk out tomorrow and say you know, newfound love for fundraising. So thank you for being here, Mallory. We’re really excited. One of the things that I want to talk to you about today has to do with what you shared at the Donor Perfect Conference in 2024. June of 2024, you shared about donor motivation and how to make sure that you’re sparking the right things in your donors and in yourself. So I just want to dig a little deeper in that. Why don’t you share about your conference presentation and about donor motivation?

Mallory Erickson Guest 02:26

Yeah. So you know I talk in my work a lot about habit, habit design and behavior design work, and in that framework, what we understand is that in order for anyone to take an action, three things need to come together in a single moment Motivation, enough motivation to take the action, the ability to take the action. And you need to be prompted to take the action. And so you can think about that framework like both for yourself as a fundraiser, but then also for your donors. And what gets tricky ability is like you know, whether or not we can take the action. Did somebody ask me for a million dollars? Well, no matter how motivated I am, I cannot give them a million dollars right or like.

03:08

A lot of times we don’t actually prompt donors. We’re like, oh, they would give if they really wanted to. No, we have to prompt donors. But where things get really a lot more nuanced and where there are a lot more options around how we increase people’s likelihood that they’re going to take an action or be involved in our organization is around motivation, because there are a lot of different types of motivation and there are a lot of different. Our motivation ebbs and flows.

03:34

It’s not always one single thing and there are times where we are the tortoise, there are times when we are the hare we’re not always supposed to be the hare and so there are when we think about whether it’s our fundraising campaigns or we’re thinking about, you know, long term donor stewardship, or we’re thinking about a first time invitation for somebody to be involved in our organization.

03:57

All of those moments and all of those things require enough donor motivation for the donor to get over the action line. But that looks different depending on the different types of activities that we’re involved in, and there are sort of like four broad stroke types of motivation emotional motivation, social motivation, psychological motivation and rational motivation. And, if people want to learn more about that and the science and the parts of our brains that light up. You can go watch the recording of my spark session, um. But just to recognize that, like I think a lot of times we’re like, oh, they’re motivated or they’re not, and that is really a way over simplification of this really sort of important opportunity and awesome opportunity that we have, because I think about motivation as inspiring people to take an action that they want to take. Motivation is about helping people do something they want to do deep down, and so we have a lot of different sort of ways that we can do that, depending on the circumstance and the context and the donor.

Julia Gackenbach Host 05:04

Yeah, I understand what you’re saying. I think in the time that you just explained that, I realized that when I was a fundraiser I merged prompt and motivation in the sense of like, oh, I told them they could give, such is the motivation. So how would you differentiate? Or what are some examples, maybe, of a donor motivation?

Mallory Erickson Guest 05:30

yeah, okay, so such a good question and a really good realization, and I think that there are probably a lot of people who are listening to this, who are nodding to that too, and I think sometimes that also I just to name like can come from our discomfort with fundraising, because we are so nervous that we just don’t all heart fundraising.

05:50

Correct Right and so we just want to like, get it out, right, we’re just like, and so we like get out the prompt, but we didn’t do. You know when people talk about nurture emails, right? So nurture emails are emails that involve storytelling or maybe introductions to people inside your organization. They’re building a relationship between your organization and a donor and they don’t include a call to action or an ask in any way. But those nurture emails are highly motivating emails because they’re building an emotional connection between the donor and the organization or maybe the fundraiser or maybe the beneficiary, if there was a story that highlighted that.

06:34

You know, even when we do something, this is not how I sort of what I prioritize in my fundraising, but one of the reasons why it can be helpful at the end of the year to say something about tax incentives is that that’s a rational motivator, right? And so it’s just reminding people of one other reason that motivation needs to answer why you, why should they give to you? And it also needs to answer why now? Right, like what, and how do we create that urgency over relevance? And so a lot of times, motivators are the things that answer those questions why you, why now, and then also the ways in which you use motivation don’t just have an impact on that moment when you’re motivating people next to that prompt, but they also can impact how you sustain a relationship long term. We can be motivated to take an action through guilt and shame and discomfort, and we know and all have seen fundraising that has done that. Right, that is also a type of motivation.

07:39

But does that lead to you know deeply, like engaged and connected supporters of your organization over the long term? Does that lead to great retention numbers, right? So part of it is about understanding like how do you really want to drive motivation that both helps you, you know, achieve and address your short term goals but also build like the long term community that you’re looking for.

Julia Gackenbach Host 08:03

That. I think that’s something that feels a little bit like a tug of war for fundraisers, especially if you’re trying to hit a certain budget and you get a gift and you just move on because you’re trying to get another gift and you have to hit a certain goal. How would you help our listeners when it comes to storytelling, motivation, engagement what might that look like as a next step?

Mallory Erickson Guest 08:26

Yeah, I mean, I think it’s really important. I know the pressure to hit numbers and hit goals and I know the pressure that’s on fundraisers to. You know, pay themselves and all of their friends in their organization and make sure all the services like it’s a, it’s a lot, and it is really stressful to be in that position. It’s very easy when we’re in that position to focus more on more transactional ways of fundraising that over prioritize the short-term win.

09:01

I don’t actually believe deep down that they’re in that much conflict. Like I think that the transactional ways that we fundraise might bring in a little bit more money in the short term, but the damage they do in the long term takes that away pretty fast. And I actually think that if, when we fundraise with more sort of like relationships in more relationship centered ways and more human centered ways, we actually do better on the short term pieces too. And so I think it’s about sort of shifting our mindset and having that moment with ourselves of being like okay, how do I want our donors to feel, like, how do I want people in our organization to feel when they interact with us, and does this email make them feel that way? And storytelling is one way that we, that we motivate donors and build and build connection, because people see themselves in stories or they see someone they know. Storytelling releases releases cortisol, which, like as storytelling arcs increase, right, usually stories involve some moment of tension. Cortisol helps us like focus our attention on the story.

10:17

We’re like in it, we’re like okay like I gotta know, like you know what happens and then you know when, as that story is resolved or you hit that peak moment, oxytocin comes into the picture.

10:27

And so it’s this it activates these brain chemicals that naturally, like, bond us to the organization, and so that’s an example of something where, like it’s interesting, as I was preparing for my spark presentation, I was having an in-depth conversation with chat GPT and I was like pushing it back around all these things and it kept producing, over and over again, storytelling in a short term motivation strategy and a long term motivation strategy. And so I think this is and it’s not the only one like that, but I think this is a great example of, like, good storytelling helps you achieve that goal, that you’re feeling that urgency around, but doing it right and doing it in a way that really you know meets your donors where they’re at, helps them see themselves inside your organization, builds that emotional connection with your organization. Then you’ve done two things at the same time You’ve built connection with them, memory that’s going to go well beyond that, and you’ve answered that. Why us? And why now for that immediate call to action too?

Julia Gackenbach Host 11:32

That’s really helpful. I think what you just explained seems really like common sense. As we’re sitting here chatting, I think when I was the one writing the emails and making the asks and sending out the campaigns, it was important to say how many people maybe interacted with the email, or how many?

11:54

gifts came from that email. Very transactional points of conversion. But the things that you’re talking about is a lot harder to measure. You can’t really see someone identify themselves in a story. How could we dig deeper on this connection thread, as opposed to maybe the engagement thread that shows number of clicks or number of GIFs based on an email things?

Mallory Erickson Guest 12:22

like that.

12:23

Yeah Well look, I mean, I think engagement metrics are important because, holistically, they tell us a story, a certain story and a certain lens around what we’re doing and how it’s going Right. And I think, like particularly, but I would try to think about those, even those metrics, and I’ll give you some other ideas for metrics, but I would even try to think about those metrics a little bit more holistically. Right, I think sometimes, because of scarcity mindset and the pressure and the overwork, we just start creating these spreadsheets of like open rates and click rates and da, da, da, and we don’t even take those moments to be like, okay, like what does it mean that our open rate grew throughout this campaign? That like people that it didn’t actually actually people didn’t read the first email and then say, oh, I don’t want to be a part of this. People have stayed with you. And is there any way that you can look at that data and compare, like retention of certain donors throughout and their open rate throughout the entire campaign? Right, like something like that. It’s still open rate, but it’s through the lens of like trying to think deeper about what story is it telling us?

13:29

Okay, you put call to action links a few places in your email. Can you measure those separately and does that tell you anything about where in the email they felt the most motivated? Did you include a video in your email? That was the beginning of a story and to hear the rest of the story they had to click in to the rest of the email. Like, these things start to give us deeper insight. There’s still some of the same like metrics, but they give us deeper insight into that question around, like do they feel connected to us? And then we can give them opportunities for dialogue. So you know, I think a lot of times when we think about and talk about donor journeys I was just writing about this in my book the other day we think about it as like a stream and I get it Like we just want the like linear, predictable progression. But like relationships are not like that and I think sometimes when we get too in our like operationalizing relationships, we lose the back and forth, we lose the web of connection and we start to only look at things around like you know how people responded to this prompt, like, okay, they opened it, they clicked on it, but would they reply to a feedback survey? Would they come to a virtual happy hour with other people in your monthly giving group. Did they come to this other community gathering that you had? Were they open to making a referral for your walk campaign? Like, looking at where their opportunities?

15:00

I just interviewed somebody on my podcast who talked about people replying to emails. Just inviting people to hit reply and like if people are replying to your emails, it’s to hit reply and like if people are replying to your emails, it’s such a good sign that you’ve created dialogue, you’ve created an actual conversation, which you can do in one to many communication channels, being prepared to look for things like that. Like, are people chatting showing up in your comments? Some people are really good at getting people in their comments on Instagram.

15:29

I have never been good at it. I’ve never been that good at it. But LinkedIn, for some reason, my community there always shows up in the comments. I don’t know exactly why that is, but it’s like when I think about okay, where do I want to bring people into discussion? I’m going to post that on LinkedIn. Where do I want to make content really easy for people to share and revisit? I’m going to do that on Instagram. And so I just think about like, what is what? What’s the point of engagement for me in the first place. And then, with that frame of mind, how does that help us think different about how we measure it?

Julia Gackenbach Host 16:03

So do you feel like engagement leads to deeper connection? Do you feel like they kind of go back and forth? And where does motivation play into engagement and connection?

Mallory Erickson Guest 16:17

Yeah, ooh, okay, it’s easy. I feel like I need like a lucid chart or like a whiteboard and we could like map this out a little bit together. I think they’re all deeply related. Like I think I think we can say, ok, this person engaged on something with one snapshot metric. I don’t think we could say they’re connected to us with one snapshot metric. Even giving Right, like you know this, like people so often give a first time gift and like on the non-profit side, we’re like, yeah, like they’re ours we got them and it’s like new bestie and it’s like that’s not their experience right

16:56

and so it’s like okay, like we have to be sort of you know, separate a little bit, like, okay, yes, this showed a moment of engagement, but does you engaging in one thing once mean that you feel connected to that thing? No, then you’d probably look at a pattern of engagement. Yeah, they have this open rate over this amount of time. They seem to be really engaged in our content and I’m noticing they’re particularly engaging around X, y and Z, and so maybe that’s where they feel the deepest connection, you know, and so you sort of like it’s. Yeah, I think it leads to it, but I also think it’s about sort of the like, a more holistic view of it, and then also giving, giving variety and opportunities for people to engage, because I think it’s hard to say people feel connected to you if you’re only looking at open rates, for example.

17:47

Okay, um, yeah, that makes sense.

Julia Gackenbach Host 17:49

What about what if there’s someone that was really really, really connected, that was, you know part of everything and showing up to your office wanting to chat all the time? Um, that has maybe fallen back a little bit or kind of disappeared. Maybe there’s been a switch in your staff, something like that, and some really engaged donor is no longer super engaged. Is there a way that we can help relight the fire for that donor?

Mallory Erickson Guest 18:19

when it comes to all three motivation, engagement and connection- yes, so I mean there’s a topic here that we haven’t talked about, and I feel very nervous to open this can of worms. But we haven’t really talked about trust, right and so, like trust plays an important role in motivation and in connection and in relationship building, and it also plays an important role when we lose that a little bit. When we lose that a little bit. And so I just want to kind of name that, because I think it’s almost this like elephant in the room in this piece. And I don’t mean the trust in, like the way in which it’s often talked about, towards nonprofits, that’s a little bit like patronizing. I mean like trust like in humans, like what makes us trust each other, and like, for example, when somebody, when you’ve worked so hard to get a donation, the person gives and then we disappear, that breaks trust, because that would feel horrible in any human relationship we were in, right and so, or like you know that friend who every time they reach out, we know they’re asking for something Like that doesn’t trust that they are really interested in a mutually beneficial, reciprocal relationship, right, that’s just a human form of trust, right, it’s like personal trust kind of applied to the organization. But so I just sort of want to name that because I think it’s like interwoven into all of this too.

19:41

I think the question you’re asking tell me if I’m like getting this right is that there was somebody who showed really deep connection to the organization historically but recently hasn’t sort of scored well on engagement metrics, and the question is like have we lost their connection and how do we re-engage them Right? So I think this is a really good question, and I bet there are a lot of different perspectives on this, and so I’m going to tease apart maybe a few things. One is that I think we have to acknowledge that like engagement looks and feels different for everyone. So like I do not ever open emails or click them ever. But if I, but if my friends who work in those organizations needed something, needed me to host something at one of their events, needed me to jump on the phone, make a connection to a sponsor, I, they, they know in an instant like I’m their girl, but I am not, I don’t do those other things, I know I don’t, and so it would be so easy to be like, oh, she’s not engaged in what I do, and so I think this is the other reason for really having other ways of thinking about and measuring engagement right is, like, beyond just those, you know, simplified things.

21:04

I think this is where it really requires us to have conversations with our donors to say like, hey, here’s what I’ve noticed. Like you know, things changed a lot over the past years. We didn’t have as many connection opportunities that it’s that I think in the past you really loved, and I’m worried that in not having those, we haven’t found a replacement that has sort of like kept the dialogue going between us. Like, can we have a conversation about what would be meaningful for you? Like I know you’re getting our newsletters and our emails, but I’m not sure that’s what feels great and like, let’s figure this out, you know, together and you can’t do that with every person, but you can do surveys around things. Like that you can test different things. Like you can throw you know, throw up there like a virtual gathering, see what happens. Like, does anyone sign up? Do three people show up to 50 people show up? I mean, like my first webinar, I threw a Google form in a free Facebook group and 180 people signed up. Like I had no idea, you know. And so I think you just gotta like try and test things and ask questions and and to know that and to not assume like maybe I’d even correct myself on how I started that like to say that your measurement of engagement has changed. We don’t know that that donor’s feeling of connection to your organization is different.

22:35

Cherry Nkoshi, who another speaker at Spark, recently taught me something that’s so interesting, which is that you know, when people are sort of in their 60s and are working on their wills, they often put the organizations that they’re giving to at that time in their bequests, in their will. But then, once they go into retirement and they have less cash on hand, they stop giving a lot of cash gifts throughout the year to nonprofits and so they start to get marked as lapsed in a lot of donor databases and then people take them off their lists and they stop inviting them to things and they stop like treating them like they’re part of the community and then in their 70s, 80s, when they go back to refine their will, they don’t even remember who those organizations are anymore. They don’t even remember who those organizations are anymore and like that’s just such an important, I think, example of like how we project on to people, like our metrics, we project on to people what that means about them, without just like talking to them yeah, that is a great point.

Julia Gackenbach Host 23:38

I think sometimes it’s easy to feel like donor relationships are a little bit one way you give to our organization period. But what you’re talking about goes into this relationship where there’s conversation and connection beyond engagement and the ability to have more vulnerable conversations, which is incredibly important when it comes to connection.

Mallory Erickson Guest 24:03

Yeah, I mean your donors do not want to just give to you. They like that is. I mean, maybe there are a few like they’re going to be, those few donors who are going to be like don’t talk to me, like let me send my thousand dollar check every year and we’re like OK, great Patty.

Julia Gackenbach Host 24:18

Like we got you, you know, like no problem.

Mallory Erickson Guest 24:21

But more and more people want to feel a part of something. They want to they. They want to see their identity validated in their engagement with an organization. They want reinforcement that they made the right decision in giving to an organization. They want to know that they are part of a community, that they belong somewhere that I think, as the world gets more and more polarizing and divided, they want to know that there are like-minded people like them out there. And where are they? Are people working towards shared goals? I think very few people like, just want to feel like an ATM.

Julia Gackenbach Host 25:00

Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything that you can think of that maybe would hurt connection, like something that would make someone draw back their connection, that we could try and avoid?

Mallory Erickson Guest 25:14

Yeah, I mean, I think there’s a few things and I wish I had my book in front of me because I go through a number of them.

Julia Gackenbach Host 25:19

I wish I had your book in front of me, because I would.

Mallory Erickson Guest 25:23

I’m not going to remember everything off the top of my head, but I think you know one of the one of the things I’ll say, one thing that I think is going to maybe be a little bit unexpected, which is perfectionism.

25:35

So really, we believe that, like we have to be perfect for our donors or we’re going to get like under their microscope and we’re going to get our feedback about the one thing that we did wrong and sure, like patty maybe it’s patty again, you know or like it’s that one donor but but actually for most people, things like perfectionism really break trust. They remove feelings of like honesty and transparency. People feel like there’s something going on that they don’t really have a sense about. Like you know, they start to question things because they’re like there’s no way this can be the whole picture Right, like we know those things Right. So I think like that’s one type of thing that can break connection. I think getting getting like ambiguous types of communication that feel like they’re baiting a little bit or like using, you know, being too like click baity in sort of how we communicate with our donors and when we do those really transactional things, I think our donors start to be like wow, like you know what?

Julia Gackenbach Host 26:34

I’m an ATM. Yeah, you know.

Mallory Erickson Guest 26:36

I think when we over like donor fatigue is not about how much we’re communicating with our donors, it’s about what we’re communicating with our donors. Your donors want to hear from you more than you are probably communicating with them, but you should not be asking them every single time. You communicate with them and so like that’s another thing that I think can break trust is just like all the things that you would break trust that you were building a healthy relationship with a human. It’s like very similar. Um, I think another thing that is like interesting on the kind of like trust piece is around honesty, and something I think we do a lot in the non-profit sector is just like take whatever we can get and in doing so and accepting any money or any offer, we actually like aren’t really being honest with our donors. Like we are not having those harder conversations of saying, like I know, like here’s the impact you really want to make and here’s the way that we can make it, and instead we’re like, oh, you want to buy us a truck.

27:35

Like cool you know, we’ll take a truck, yeah, and I like it might seem like okay, just pleasing them in that moment and saying yes is like building trust, but actually over the long term, those are the things that deteriorate trust because we aren’t being forthcoming, we aren’t letting them in and we aren’t trusting them, like we say so often. Like why don’t our donors like, why can’t our donors trust us more? Why don’t our donors trust us more? And then I’m I’m like, okay, well, like, can you talk to them about this? Like, oh, no, I can’t. I’m like, oh, because you don’t trust them to have that conversation with you.

28:11

Like I know, but connection, like we can’t. It’s if we want two-sided, if connection is a two-sided thing, and if we want, if we actually want connection, if we actually community, if we’re moving beyond audiences and just clicks and all those things, if we’re really looking for this two-sided relationship that involves us being open to connection and vulnerable and honest ourselves and I know how scary that is, I know how scary that is, I know how scary that is, but, like, your donors cannot connect with a facade right.

Julia Gackenbach Host 28:50

That’s a terrifying but great point. I think when I was in fundraising, I definitely felt like I had to be perfect, because my performance affected if some gift was given and some child got the benefit. You know, I felt like I was the bridge between the donor and the beneficiary of my organization, which is true, but I probably needed to see it in a more positive light than I must perform a certain way and I must be perfect all the time, because the connection would not make it through the facade of I’m perfect and these kids need you. It’s just these kids need you.

Mallory Erickson Guest 29:31

Yeah, and I just want to like say something without going too down a tangent which is like your, your like default into perfectionism is very normal and like understandable, and I think therapy session with Mallory.

Julia Gackenbach Host 29:49

Here we go. I have to say it.

Mallory Erickson Guest 29:51

I have to say it because because, like that is it, that is an outcome of the system and that’s an outcome of like the intense stress and pressure that gets put on fundraisers and perfectionism is a protection mechanism. It’s not there. There’s no such thing as perfect. When we go into protection, when we go into perfectionism, we are protecting ourselves. It’s a delay tactic, it’s a like you know way to to decrease any potential risk. Like it’s about us, it’s not actually about them. We tell the story, it’s for them, but it’s perfectionism is really for us, and so, and it’s a very normal and natural response when we’re in a chronic stress state, and so anybody who’s listening to this, who’s like yikes, like don’t worry, like I, like I was 100% there too.

30:39

I call myself a recovering perfectionist, all the time, but I think the more we can understand that, like what your donors want is for you to like put that down, like what they really want is realness and letting yourself be seen and giving them opportunities to be seen. Like that’s what builds connection.

Julia Gackenbach Host 30:57

Authenticity, vulnerability, transparency all of those things, and none of those, are part of perfection right, and I think all those qualities are great qualities in a friend and you’re kind of building this friendship with your donors. Uh, one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever been given is that your friends shouldn’t be that impressed with you because they know you too well. They know kind of your cracks, they know where you misstep, and so your friends don’t need to be that impressed with you, and I think that could translate here as well. You know your donors need to be impressed with what’s happening at the organization, not with you directly. They know you well enough, have enough of a relationship and connection with you that they’re not impressed because they know you and they’re connected to you.

Mallory Erickson Guest 31:48

I mean think about, like, when we actually feel connected to somebody, how much more um like flexibility and grace we have for our relationship with them. Like when real connection is there, you can deal with conflict productively, you can get, you can become stronger to like navigating conflict together, like there are. There are so many things, but we have to be willing to go deeper.

Julia Gackenbach Host 32:17

Right, and let’s talk about that for a second, because I know from experience I have had a conflict with a donor before and so having a relationship with that donor and being able to sit down and work through that was really important. Do you have any advice for a listener who may be having a conflict with a donor to help keep that connection and keep that relationship long-term? Because we’re not looking for that quick thing, we want to keep it long-term and healthy.

Mallory Erickson Guest 32:44

Yeah, well, one of the things I can’t remember the exact question you asked me, but one of the things I had meant to mention before is that one of the other really important pieces here is like keeping alignment with the donor really centered in all of this. So one of the things that can help have a conversation around conflict or a challenge is to start by sort of acknowledging why you’re having this conversation in the first place. Right, like this relationship is really important to me, like my goal in having this conversation, even though I feel another thing you can do is share like a vulnerability about how you’re feeling. Right, even though I feel really scared to bring this up because I don’t want to jeopardize the relationship we have. I also think we are so aligned around X, y and Z, and I’ve really noticed in you your ability to do blank and blank, and so I think that we can stay in connection while we navigate this situation together. And you know how do you feel about that? Like, do you feel like we can have this conversation too, getting their permission, getting their buy-in right, and then saying like, okay, you know, I’d love to have the opportunity to share a little bit about, you know, some of my, perhaps, interpretations or perceptions of things on my side. I’d also like really love to hear from you around like X, y and Z. Do you want to start there Right around, like X, y and Z, do you want to start there? Right? I think, as much as we can talk about things without becoming defensive or weaponizing a vulnerability against another person, right? So, like that’s something.

34:13

I interviewed Dr Carol Robin, who wrote Connect building exceptional relationships, and one of the pieces of connection that she talks about is like that we won’t use things against, um, the other person and so. But I think, like, setting an intention around, like the purpose of this conflict is, like the purpose of talking about this is because I want to have a wonderful relationship and I think we can. And I think here’s something that hasn’t been working and can we find another way to make it work? Right, um, and here’s the value, I think, to both of us in doing that, um, I think that’s like and then you know this may be too woo woo for the podcast, but I think one of the things to recognize is that, like our energy does transfer, right, there’s like, whether you call it energy or like our nervous systems, you know, calibrate each other.

35:05

Basically, dr lisa feldman barrett talks about this study of people standing next to folks in hospital beds and how, um, people’s breath started to match the breath of the person standing next to them and like we do, we like ryan, my husband rounded the corner the other day and emmy and I were holding hands, standing in corner, just like looking at each other’s eyes, taking some breaths. She had been having a meltdown and I was like, let’s try to like, let’s try to, you know, get in sync here and so we. That actually offers, I think, a lot of opportunity for us to like, come into these conversations vulnerable, open, keeping our own kind of like energy and nervous system and body and mind, and like in our tone, in our voice, in our body language, we tell people the story about what we really hope for. Are we leaning in? Are we talking to them? Are we looking at their eyes like is it clear that I want to leave this more connected to you?

Julia Gackenbach Host 36:05

I love that. I think that this thread of engagement, connection and motivation is such an important combination when it comes to fundraising. I hope that the people listening will be able to reframe a little bit how they look at their relationships with their donors. Based on what you’ve shared, I would definitely recommend for people to go back and listen to your Donor Perfect Community Conference session. I get all of my science talk from Mallory. I literally don’t talk about science any other place except when I’m talking to Mallory about my brain. So highly recommend and yeah, just to continue the conversation about motivation within their organizations. I think is really valuable. So thank you for setting them on the right path for those conversations and hopefully there’s a new wave of motivation leading to engagement and connection. Thank you.

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