Welcome, everyone. The Council for Advancement and Support of Education is pleased to present this online webinar. Fundraising measures that are right for right now. My name is Ann Weller and it's my pleasure to introduce our speakers today. Romayne Levee is in her element when she's building something from the ground up. In her 16 years serving the boards of this tomorrow school as founding board chair and Lewis and Clark College as trustee and committee chair, Romayne has led and supported teens in raising capital and establishing transformational endowments. She's now the director of education strategy at Mission Mind and Building our Education Practice and raising the profiles of educational institutions we serve from coast to coast. For her pursuit of serving educational institutions, Romaine was a partner at several blue chip advertising agencies in Los Angeles, including BBDO and Charlotte de. Jennie Winton is one of the nation's leading experts on nonprofit and independent school branding. As a founding partner of mission minded and nationally sought lecturer, Jenny has served as a strategic advisor for over 250 nonprofit organizations with gifts in the areas of branding, admissions and communicating the urgency of a capital campaign. Jenny excels at inspiring heads of independent schools to clearly communicate and draw attention to their own unique strengths and stand out in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Welcome, Romaine and Jenny. Thank you. Great. So we're glad to have you here. This interactive workshop will teach a new fundraising messaging framework to you that you can use if you're a development and advancement professional. And we really want you to be able to employ it immediately to create more compelling appeals. So whether you're working on a capital campaign, an annual fund, or some other fundraising effort, the fundamentals of developing powerful messages have one thing in common, and that is that they begin with powerful strategies. So today, using case studies from two capital campaigns that we worked on. One for an independent high school and one for a major research university. This session is designed to help you up your communications game, so we'll end by encouraging you to practice the messaging framework during the session, and you'll live with the knowledge and the confidence to apply what you learn to develop messages that are right for this extraordinary time. So let's get started. I'm Jenny Whitten, and as an said, I'm one of the two co-founders of Mission Minded, and I'm going to turn it over to Hiromi. Yeah. Thank you. Great to see you all. Thanks for joining us. And I'm Romain Levi, director of education strategy at Mission Minded. And just very pleased to be with you all today. Great. All right. So mission Minded is a branding firm that works exclusively with nonprofit organizations, colleges and independent schools. And we believe that a brand that sets you apart is essential to any organization's success and to the success of every fundraising campaign. So every dot, every day, we guide our clients to uncover that big, bold idea that will attract more people to their work. Because in today's world, a worthy mission is no longer enough. We probably don't have to tell you that You've got to communicate what makes you unique at every opportunity. And that is true for a campaign as it is institution wide. So the images that you've been seeing on the screen are just some of the school clients We've we've had the pleasure of serving in recent years. And let's see here in L.A. right here today, we're excited to share case studies for San Francisco University High School, which is a private preparatory high school in San Francisco and Stanford Humanities Center in Palo Alto, California. And through these case studies, you'll see the best practices in capital and endowment campaign communications and learn how to set your next campaign up for success. So many of you listening in today are probably either planning a campaign or you're in a campaign, you know, somehow thinking about your next campaign. We're in education. We're always in some phase of a campaign. And if you are planning a campaign, you have probably already identified the need, meaning that you know what you need the money for, because that's sort of what what generally is the impetus for campaigns. You may have set the campaign's financial goals because, again, you know, how much is needed to fill the need that you have and you've probably therefore created the rationale for why you need to raise the money. You know, we need the thing, we need a building, and that's why we're going to raise this amount, because we need we need this building. So most campaigns that we've seen kind of stop there, the need and the financial goals and then folks begin to try to write a case for support and start donor communications. But let's talk about some other things you may have already done. You may have gotten artist renderings if you're building a new facility. You might have received some of your major gifts already. If you're already in a quiet phase, for example, or if you just have super close relationships with some of your donors and you kind of get to just go straight to them without any formal I.D. and therefore, you may have already created some of your campaign communications, which is great. If you've done this much, you're obviously in a great position, but you're probably still missing a critical ingredient to fundraising success, and that is the persuasion, emotion and story. Welcome, everyone. The Council for Advancement and Support of Education is pleased to present this online webinar. Fundraising measures that are right for right now. My name is Anne Weller and it's my pleasure to introduce our speakers today. Romain Levy is in her element when she's building something from the ground up in her 16 years serving the boards of Vista, our school as founding board chair, and Lewis and Clark College as trustee and committee chair. Romain has led and supported teams in raising capital and establishing transformational endowments. She's now the director of Education Strategy at Mission Mind and building our Education Practice and raising the profiles of educational institutions we serve from coast to coast. Before her pursuit of serving educational institutions, Romain was a partner at several blue chip advertising agencies in Los Angeles, including BBDO and Charlotte de. Jenny Winton is one of the nation's leading experts on nonprofit and independent school branding. As a founding partner of mission minded and nationally sought lecturer. Jenny has served as a strategic advisor for over 250 nonprofit organizations with gifts in the areas of branding, admissions and communicating the urgency of a capital campaign. Jenny excels at inspiring heads of independent schools to clearly communicate and draw attention to their own unique strengths and stand out in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Welcome, Ramanan Jenny. Thank you. Great. So we're glad to have you here. This interactive workshop will teach a new fundraising messaging framework to you that you can use if you're a development and advancement professional. And we really want you to be able to employ it immediately to create more compelling appeals. So whether you're working on a capital campaign, an annual fund, or some other fundraising effort, the fundamentals of developing powerful messages have one thing in common, and that is that they begin with powerful strategies. So today, using case studies from two capital campaigns that we worked on. One for an independent high school and one for a major research university. This session is designed to help you up your communications game, so we'll end by encouraging you to practice the messaging framework during the session, and you'll live with the knowledge and the confidence to apply what you learn to develop messages that are right for this extraordinary time. So let's get started. I'm Jenny Whitten, and as an said, I'm one of the two co-founders of Mission Minded, and I'm going to turn it over to Ramy. Yeah, Thank you. Great to see you all. Thanks for joining us. I'm Romain Levy, director of education strategy at Mission Minded and just very pleased to be with you all today. Great. All right. So mission Minded is a branding firm that works exclusively with nonprofit organizations, colleges and independent schools. And we believe that a brand that sets you apart is essential to any organization's success and to the success of every fundraising campaign. So every dot, every day, we guide our clients to uncover that big, bold idea that will attract more people to their work. Because in today's world, a worthy mission is no longer enough. We probably don't have to tell you that You've got to communicate what makes you unique at every opportunity. And that is true for a campaign as it is institution wide. So the images that you've been seeing on the screen are just some of the school clients We've we've had the pleasure of serving in recent years. And let's see here, I'm going to land right here today. We're excited to share case studies for San Francisco University High School, which is a private preparatory high school in San Francisco and Stanford Humanities Center in Palo Alto, California. And through these case studies, you'll see the best practices in capital and endowment campaign communications and learn how to set your next campaign up for success. So many of you listening in today are probably either planning a campaign or you're in a campaign somehow thinking about your next campaign when we're in education, we're always in some phase of a campaign, and if you are planning a campaign, you have probably already identified the need, meaning that you know what you need the money for, because that's sort of what what generally is the impetus for campaigns. You may have set the campaign's financial goals because, again, you know how much is needed to fill the need that you have and you've probably therefore created the rationale for why you need to raise the money. You know, we need the thing, we need a building, and that's why we're going to raise this amount, because we need we need this building. So most campaigns that we've seen kind of stop there, the need and the financial goals and then folks begin to try to write a case for support and start donor communications. But let's talk about some other things you may have already done. You may have gotten artist renderings. If you're building a new facility, you might have received some of your major gifts already. If you're already in a quiet phase, for example, or if you just have super close relationships with some of your donors and you kind of get to just go straight to them without any formal party and therefore, you may have already created some of your campaign communications, which is great. If you've done this much, you're obviously in a great position, but you're probably still missing a critical ingredient to fundraising success, and that is the persuasion, emotion and storytelling. That's really going to inspire your donors to give. So the rest of today is really going to be, you know, talking about about how to do that. So now what if you've done those things that we just discussed, what, you know, what should you do now? And that's that's what we're going to tell you today. So we have a four part agenda. We're going to share case studies, as I said, from San Francisco University High School and Stanford Humanities Center. We hope you'll be inspired by those, which is why we picked them for you. We are going to see what you can learn from those. We're going to share the way to create the right communication strategy. We'll be talking about your target audiences and how to really think deeply about who these folks are. And then we'll show you our formula for a great campaign case, which sneak peek at that is having the right balance of urgency, emotion and rationale. We're going to spend some time then talking about what makes for good fundraising messages. And that really was the title of this talk. And so we're going to be focusing in on exactly what can you be saying to donors and then specifically factoring in what are the messages that are right for right now? So we'll elaborate on that. So we're really excited to go over this with you today. And really, we want you to leave this session with new tools that you can apply right now. This is not going to be in the abstract, so we want you to really dig in and pay attention and think about how everything you're going to learn today can help you become a stronger fundraising communicator right away. All right. I'm going to turn it over to Romain to share our first case study. Thank you. I have the pleasure of sharing some very late breaking work that we have been doing in partnership with San Francisco University High School. And so late breaking, in fact, that I'm going to ask all of you to hold this in confidence on behalf of San Francisco University High School. They've given us permission to share this, but they have not gone broadly with their community yet. So we're sharing this as peers and colleagues and professionals with that understanding. San Francisco University High School. For those of you who don't know, the school is a premier independent high school located in San Francisco. Ironically, given the name and the school has is known for its academic excellence, it serves a very motivated student who sees themselves going on to institutions of higher learning after they leave University high school and really making an impact in the world. The school has really been thinking in a transformational way about what the next chapter of their school looks like and taking into account a lot of learnings and a lot of things that have been factored into their strategic design over the past few years and reached out to mission management, we're ready to get their capital campaign communications in order. So the challenge for their campaign is to raise about $60 million. That's their their goal that they've set with their fundraising consultant. And included in that are going to be things like campus and campus renovations and optimizations and as well as some expansion. There is some program work that is going to be invested in with faculty, faculty, professional development and sabbaticals, and just some really wonderful ways that they're going to enrich the faculty. And then an endowment which is really going to be sort of setting the school at a new level and making it able to provide a university high school education to students who previously would not have been able to attend the school. So it is fairly transformational they're hoping to do through this campaign and one of the largest in the school's history. This may sound familiar to all of you who are probably entertaining and circling around really similar concepts and ideas and priorities. So the campaign tools that they would like to develop and that we've partnered with them in determining where the big priorities for a visual identity and a name for the campaign, some key messages that would really set it up for success at a high level, and then the case for support, all of the language and the arguments for why donors would consider and deeply invest in this. So that would be brought to life through a printed brochure and then finally a video which they can use broadly with the community, but they can also use in one on one situations with donors that campaign video is not part of our case study today because it's actually in production. But some of the other pieces we'll be able to share with you. So in developing the communication and strategy for San Francisco University High School, we have a very in-depth way of developing stakeholders with our clients. It's not simply a demographic look at who the donors are going to be. It's it's psychographic. It's very in-depth in terms of thinking about what's inside the heads of our prospective donors. So we develop a strategy that is comprised of several really important steps. And the first one is naming your prospective donors and not just naming them alumni as one group or parents as one group or past parents as one group. But really giving the groups and individuals within the groups names, thinking about their backgrounds, thinking about their stories and their thoughts and their values. So here's an example of just a high level visual of the audiences that were determined for San Francisco University High School. You can see here that they've got names, the visionary veterans or a couple family, The Honeymooners or a new family to the school. They've just said yes to University high school on behalf of their student. There is a trustee family and then there's a very proud young alum, member of the audience as well. And in doing this exercise, we identified not only that these people are crucial to University high school, but we made a point of thinking about them as living and breathing personas, not just demographic summaries. So underneath each of these pictures and titles is a very deep and rich description of who each of these families are or these individuals are and what their values are, what their dreams are, what their relationship is with the school, and so that we can really think about how university high school is going to fit into that story or into their values. We love this quote that says, You want personas to be naturally and organically referenced in every discussion and decision that is made. And we do this because continually thinking about your stakeholders in this way is going to ensure that your campaign is really magnetic to them. It's going to ensure that you build the communications for them and not for you. Many times we as professionals in our in our roles tend to assert our own points of view about whether we like something or not. And this really ensures that when you bring those personas back into the room and think about the campaign communications through their eyes, this is going to resonate with them as it's going to motivate them and not us. So think of them as real people and imagine sort of face to face dialogs with them. And in that way it helps you figure out what would you say and how would your campaign really inspire them. So that's a really important step. When Jenny shares the next case study, she'll share that a similar process we went through with that with the second institution. But it's a it's a fundamental step. We hope you won't skip and you'll think really deeply about all of your donor groups as individual personas. So I'm going to share. Jenny said a few minutes ago, a little spoiler alert about a formula that we know is is incredibly important and effective for capital campaign communications, annual fund communications. Really, any fundraising campaign or effort needs to have an equal balance of urgency, emotion and rationale. So for University high School, this is a statement, the single statement that we crafted together with them that expresses what we urgency is. Why is it important for a donor to to to move to make this investment in this campaign and for university high school, the urgency is stated as without our immediate, bold investment in new models and standards for education, we risk spaces and calcification, resulting in a loss of the school's position of leadership and education. As I mentioned a minute ago, San Francisco University High School is perceived and has a reputation for being a leader in education in San Francisco and actually in the West Coast. Even nationally, the school is known. And so not doing this, the school risks and a donor not understanding the urgency behind this. This is really essential. So that's how we stated the urgency for this effort in this campaign. Emotion is another important piece of the equation. And so to be clear, emotion, taps, taps right into the sense of connection that a donor is going to have, also is going to tap into some pride. The way that it's stated for University high school is we feel deeply connected to the caring community of University High School, one of San Francisco's premier institutions, and welcomed as partners in and contributors to the transformative educational advances we make possible. We want to make sure this idea of connection and pride comes across in all of our communications. And so when donors are being asked to invest in this effort, they're doing so because they are recognizing their calling to attention how important the connection and pride is that they feel for university high school. And then finally, rationale. And Jenny mentioned before, this may be the part you already have figured out and articulated very well. The rationale for this campaign was stated is this campaign can be trusted to succeed because we have a clear strategic design. That's the strategic plan that I mentioned a minute ago, a shared vision and strong leadership and a history of success. So prior to this effort, the school had undergone this fantastic effort. The community was broadly participating in it. They're exceptionally proud of it. And so this is really the rationale. We've done that work. This is the campaign that's going to make that plan possible, end of story. So that's the way that rationale, urgency and emotion are going to be communicated and sort of tapped into Those may not be the exact words that we use, but those are the important sort of underpinnings or cornerstones of the strategy for the campaign. I'm going to show you a couple of pieces that are in the works. The first is to share with you that an important step in capital campaign annual fund work is to give your campaign or your fund a name so that people can label it. And have you contributed to the X Fund or the X campaign. It's it's really essential because it makes it it makes it approachable. It makes it something that feels like it has a specialness to it. And for University high School we developed with their partnership the campaign name next level. It's so exciting because as I mentioned, the school has really been operating at a very, very high level, and yet they aspire to do even more, to be even more, to be more inclusive, to be more excellence, all of the things that they want to do. And so all of those things are about bringing the school and what they offer as an experience for high schoolers to the next level. So it's called next level the Campaign for University High School. I can't tell you how thrilled the client was when we came up with and shared and they approved this this campaign. It's really been transformative with the way that they think about the potential of this campaign for the school remain. Can I just insert an idea here about when Romaine says that, you know, the client was thrilled about this? It's really interesting because most of our clients come to us after they've already done a lot of deep thinking about their communications. It's not as if they've thought zero about it, and then they think, Oh, we need some consultants to help us. They've already sorted through the ideas as remains that they'd already done strategic planning work. That really was the framework for the case for the campaign and they had a lot of writing and thinking and talking and the benefit that we're able to bring is not that they don't know what they're doing, it's just that we have a new frame. We're able to sift through and synthesize and distill the thinking at work that they've done. So, yes, we do our own research. We bring some new insights, but we're really working with the client to just really simplify things so that the campaign is remains said does become accessible, friendly, warm, welcoming and approachable for folks. And that's really the the magic of having someone outside help you, whether it's a paid consultant or a volunteer group that comes in to to help the professionals who are on campus. Thanks, Jenny. Now, I promised a sneak peek at a case for support brochure that we're developing for University High School. The first thing I just want to share with you is this is the cover of it. And you can see that it's bound spiral bound on the left side, but it has different sections to the book and they get bigger and wider, taller and wider as each as you move through each section. And so just sort of metaphorically or symbolically, this idea of next level, you can see has been represented not only in name but in the actual look and feel and experience of the brochure. So I wanted to point that out in case it wasn't completely clear on this slide. But this has also been transformative for them just in thinking about their visual identity. Only a couple of these colors were part of their primary visual identity system. They had some tertiary colors that we suggested they bring to the forefront and really bring out. And it's very exciting how it's sort of transformed just the look and feel of the communication compared to some of the other materials that they've been developing over the past few years. So here's a slide where it's open. You can see a campaign message very prominently displayed here on the inside color cover. And I'm just going to flip through a couple of pages, a couple of things. I just want you to note that the theme or the name of the campaign is next level, and you'll see that is carried through a couple of these pages with next level inspiration on one page in a couple of pages, next level connection, things like that. So that idea is applied specifically to the ways that they want to bring teaching and learning to a next level or inclusivity to a next level. We carry that idea through a couple of other beautifully designed inside pages about why high school matters and really something that University high school is trying to emphasize in their in their messaging for the campaign and for their brand next level leadership. And it leaves you with a next level opportunity and why we need you. Now. One other thing I'm going to touch on and you'll see a model for how to develop something like this for your campaign in the future is a belief message. This is a belief message that we developed for university high school. And as I mentioned, you will learn how to do something like this for your school in a few minutes. But here's the belief message for this campaign. At University High School, we prove the transport transformative power of education, and our vision is audacious to continually advance what the high school experience makes possible. Our next level campaign brings this bold vision to fruition keeping San Francisco and University High School at the fore of secondary education. We're transforming our program, the spaces that unite us and our ability to inspire a more inclusive, more diverse community. Because being a leader means being continuously willing and able to reimagine and advance what's possible. We're not just enhancing our school to the next level campaign. We're transforming our high school. So we're going to hand it over to Jenny, who's going to share another case study with you, and then we will circle back and teach how to do all of these things for your institution. Great. Okay. Stanford Humanities Center, kind of their name says it all. Stanford University and the Humanities Center is is a well-respected institution. The challenge they had was they really needed to revitalize and reinforce the importance of the center as a means of preserving culture and society. I mean, that's a you know, it's a big challenge and they take that seriously. So our our charge was to help them engage donors in the long game of sustainability. So this was a 40th anniversary campaign for them, and I'm proud to say it resulted in the largest gift in the center's history. We developed a campaign strategy for them key messages, a visual identity, a brochure, a microsite and also a video. And those tools were really helpful for their very small staff to go out and do the fundraising that they needed for their anniversary campaign. That work would not have been so successful had we not slowed down and thought deeply about who the target donors really were and what really matters to them, and remain elaborated on this. In the other case study, you've got to take the time to get to know what's in people's hearts and minds, what makes them tick, you know, what keeps them up at night, and how relevant is your organization to them and what already matters to them. So we have this successful alarm couple who are target audiences. And again, a big deep back story on them. This Philip paternal, this legacy donor he wants to make a big difference with his giving. He wants to know that something he does is transformative and forever. And then Francis feels closeted. Humanist is someone who just loves the humanities and really appreciates and understands their importance. So with those three donors in mind, we were able to develop the campaigns strategy. The urgency for this campaign is, again, pretty bold in this era of rapid change and technological innovations making the time and space to probe who and why we are as human beings isn't negotiable. So that's urgent, right? I mean, we're not pussyfooting around on that. We're really saying this is this is something that that has to happen. The world is moving so fast and it needs the humanities to ensure our preservation as humans in a human world. So they were they were really bold there. The emotion, how we want the donors to feel as a result of being part of this campaign is is reawakened. So when I give to the Stanford Humanities Center, I feel reawakened by our power to understand and I feel reinvigorated by our ability to connect. And you can probably see by looking at this ad, this this emotion statement is not external messaging. You don't put this on a brochure or on your your website. This is the internal strategy focus for you to know, how do I write all of my communications? How do I create the video that helps my donor feel reawakened? And then the last piece of their strategy, the rationale why? Why should I trust that you'll do what you say this campaign has to do? And they mostly had this, as many of you probably do, because you have a rationale when you start. And here's where their rationale landed every day. The Stanford Humanities Center uncovers truths about our perceptions that often change how we see the world. We need that level of understanding to change perspectives. So basically the humanities matter. And that's that's why you can and should trust us. We do this every day. We're in the humanities every day we're the experts. So with that strategy in mind, we were able to develop the name of the campaign. Think of it this way Stanford, Stanford Humanities Center's major donor campaign. So think of it this way brought it all together, and we developed a visual identity to put that forward. And if you see in the top the Stanford Humanities Center, that's a visual identity logo for the center that we had developed some years ago. They brought us back in to do this work and we developed the think of it this way, visual simply for the campaign. And you can probably see that what's suggested in this design is that the humanities look at issues from every angle and reinforcing the modernity. And the surprise of the logo really reinforces the relevance of the humanities. Today, which really matters because at a place like Stanford, you know, the STEM programs get a lot of attention. And so this campaign is really reminding people why it matters so much that the humanities be funded for the benefit of all of us and for society. So that was translated then this beautiful visual identity into a case for support brochure. We do still believe in the printed case, by the way, even even now, even in these times, for most of your major donors, they're going to want to hold something. You might send it to them in advance of a meeting. You might use it as a leave behind. But whatever it is you want, a brochure that inspires, not you don't want it to go into a million different details. You see all the white space in this, for example. These are big, exciting ideas that you want your brochure to portray and again, you'll use it in different ways. We're also more and more developing tools for our clients right now for doing donor asks in this format, you know, in Zoom, and in that case the brochure becomes a digital tool. So it's a it's a slide deck almost like what you're watching along with talking points for the the person who's going to make the ask to use. So we also were able to develop a video for them and we're pleased to be able to that to you today. We live in such extraordinary times of accelerating change of interdependence, of racing technology, of estrangement from ourselves and each other, and the study of fields that tell us who we are and where we've been and what we've cared about and why. In all our diversity, those questions have a greater importance because all the technology in the world can't give you meaning. The humanities are the study of what matters to us, how we express ourselves, and how things change over time. In the humanities, we put out the ideas that become part of the common discourse of the society. It's really exciting because it's so relevant for some of the biggest questions we have today, such as How is climate change going to affect vulnerable communities all over the world? Political upsets or issues around identity, things like this are ultimately human problems with human histories and will take human imagination to figure out how to deal with it in the ways that philosophers think about otherness, in the ways that historians relate to vanished cultures and try to reconstruct them. Being able to live in somebody else's experience for a time. It's a crucial connection between past and present, between scholarship and everyday life. It's the idea of how can we think historically to understand present and future challenges. And I think that really doesn't get more relevant than that. We all have a very distinct point of view, but the humanities allow us to step outside of that for a moment. They teach us how to do this and how to consider other perspectives and other ways of living and being. That curiosity drives you to ask questions about other people, which opens up all these windows onto everyday topics like politics. Like why does my neighbor vote the way they do? They go from being a caricature to being a person that we're curious about and have new tools for interacting with and understanding better. If places like the Humanities Center don't exist, we're going to lose the ability to really talk about these issues in order to stay ahead of the curve In everything we do, We need continued support. We can do more at Stanford to represent the humanities on a campus where the conversation about research can often be dominated by the sciences and the tech fields. We need to represent the importance of humanities scholarship in that environment, especially in Silicon Valley. My job as a historian, as a philosopher, as a social critic, is to point out the dangers. We're doing things at the frontier between computer science and the humanities, tons of digital humanities work. We're making connections with people in medicine, in the hard sciences, and coupled with the spirit of inquiry that characterizes the humanities itself, makes it an incredibly open and exciting time. We hope that today we surface some new productive collaborations between humanist arts and technologists in ways that really harness the power of AI to enhance the better parts of humanity, to have a dedicated space, bringing leading thinkers from all sorts of different subjects, providing a forum to have workshops, conferences, all sorts of events and the sense of community are also really invaluable and making it a special place to to be a fellow. These sorts of programs could end up, you know, raising ideas that affect the nation and even the world. What the Humanities Center is dealing with are the deepest questions. We are nowhere without that. When people look back on a life well lived, the things that they remember are most often, I think, things that can be traced back to fundamental matters of human connection. And as we grow apart, what's going to put us back together again? It's going to be reflection, it's going to be knowledge, it's going to be context. And all of those kinds of things. An institution like the Stanford Humanities Center brings. Great. All right. So within the campaign communications is this campaign belief message that I'll just read to you here, and you might want to take a screenshot of it if you want to refer to it later. At the Stanford Humanities Center, we believe that the direction humanity takes depends wholly on which question ones we choose to ask. And the humanities scholars are uniquely equipped to frame these fundamental questions. Every day we give preeminent and budding experts the time and the place required to delve into the questions that drive and define us. Because with this work and your support of the Stanford Humanities Center on its 40th anniversary, the world won't just be ready for needed change. We'll be ready to lead humanity into its best future. So you can see that this belief message really packs a lot in. It does not go into a lot of detail about exactly what they're going to spend the money on. It's a much higher level emotional appeal to capture people's hearts right away. It's an invitation really to learn more about the campaign. So good believe message does not try to say at all. And hopefully you can see the power in this kind of an approach. Notice to in the video just one last comment on that. They make clear we need your help to do this. It wasn't just an informational video about it. They're really talking about why the humanities matter and that we need your help and how important it is. Okay, so we would like to now teach you the campaign formula we've referenced did a couple of times here very briefly, urgency plus emotion plus rationale equals a great case. And we don't mean case for case brochure or case video. We mean the overarching narrative of why someone should give to your campaign. So let's break these down for your own campaign. Let's again, don't don't do this in a theoretical way. Think about your own institution, your own campaign, and ask yourself the question, why is this urgent? You've got it. Make people want to give. If it doesn't feel urgent, people can say, yeah, that that is an important campaign. I see why I should give and then still not give. So you've got to be really direct on that and a good way to get at the heart of why this is urgent is to do these two exercises that we have for you here. Now, we're not going to pause in this moment. We want you to actually hit pause on this recording and do this exercise. Now, don't move ahead until you do, because it's going to be very illuminating and it will build on what comes later on. But you want to ask yourself, if we don't meet this campaign goal, blank will happen. What will happen? And just get out a piece of paper or on your laptop, however it works for you. And just like, you know, brainstorm, answer it ten times. Keep going. Don't stop until you get to ten. If we don't meet our campaign goal, X will happen. And then what? Well, then this will happen. Well, what will that cause? Well, then this will happen. And just work it all the way to its end. And if you can get to ten, you'll notice what happens. The quality difference between your first answer and your 10th answer will give you some new insights on why your campaign really matters and what you could potentially say to donors about the urgency. So go ahead and do that. And then once you have move on to this next one, which is very similar question But in more positively, if we do meet our campaign goals, what will happen? Something great will happen. Well, what does that great thing cause? Well, what does that great thing? Cause keep asking yourself that free association. Don't edit yourself. Just jot it all down. No one's going to see what you write and you'll see how your answers get stronger and stronger. And once you've done these exercises, you'll have some new ideas about what the big, urgent idea ought to be before you settle on it. Think back to your donors. What is going to matter to them? There is a real urgency. Here is what you've landed on going to sync with with them. So don't forget those donors. Keep them front and center. Okay. So you'll have your urgency after you complete those exercises. Then you want to move on to what's the emotional reason to give and remain. If you could just advance the slide. Sorry about that. Oh, that's okay. The emotional reason to give. So we're going to talk about that. And here's here's why. Emotion matters. And sometimes in academia, we we overlook it because there's always a good intellectual reason. But think of it this way. The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action, while reason leads to conclusion. And once again, if someone is rationally engaged in why you need the money, but they're not actually feeling anything in their heart, they're probably not going to give. And, you know, donors are people to even even the most conservative donor you might be thinking of. Everyone has a heart. Everyone has values that matter to them. And so your campaign does have to use just the right amount of emotion to make sure that you hook them and emotion doesn't have to mean, you know, sad puppies and making people cry. It's really tapping into their values. So think about those donors that you have that you have taken the time to personify. You've gotten to know them. You're referring to them by name. You know what matters to them. You know why your school or your department is important to them. And then ask yourself why? What do they want to feel about themselves as a result of being part of your campaign? And what we do at mission minded is we find that answer for each of the donors. It's usually 3 to 5 profiles of donors, and at first it might seem like, well, these donors are so different, we're going to have to have a different emotion for each one. But in fact, if you do this exercise, you'll find that there is a through line, there is something that applies to all three donors, and that's what you want to settle on. So the emotional reasons why your stakeholders should give to the campaign get that narrowed down into a word or a short phrase and elaborate on why. Why will they feel that thing? So that'll help you. Again, this is not external messaging. It will help you create external messaging that really that really hits. Just want to reiterate are asked to you to push pause. If you want to think about this question right now and see if you can land on that emotion for your your donors. Thank you. All right. You're back. And the last piece then is what is the rational reason to give? And this is, you know, beyond the need, the rationale is, you know, you need the building or you need the gym or you the new fields, or you need the endowment to support your faculty. Those are rational reasons. But what we're really talking about for this one is why should your donor or your stakeholder trust that you're going to actually get it done? So there are lots of ways that your donors can give. You're competing all the time with all of the other institutions asking for their money. So if they feel something, they trust you and they want to do it. You know, what's this last piece that makes them say, Yeah, I'm definitely going to do this? Because there's there's a reason for me to believe that they can do it. And it may be that the humanities matter. It may be we have this amazing strategic plan that you all contributed to it. Maybe we ran a successful campaign five years ago and you know, you can trust us to succeed again. But whatever it is, get really clear on that rationale because you do want to include it in your communications. All right. So, again, do this exercise. Don't skip it. And here's a summary again of the communications strategy framework for a good campaign. And again, this is whether it's an endowment campaign, a combined capital campaign, or even your annual fund, You want to employ this strategy before you ever start to write a single message or think the website or your brochure. All right. I'm going to turn it over to Romain to talk about what makes great segway to messaging. So you've done all of this strategic thinking and you landed on your donor profiles and what they care about deeply. You've done the exercise of thinking about what's urgent, what's emotional, and what's rationally resonant for those donors. And now you're ready to develop the actual words that you're going to say to them. So the belief message that we shared for University High School in Stanford University for Humanity Center, you're ready to start writing and drafting what we call a belief message. So belief message is a very high level message. It is used to define the vision of the campaign or the fund or whatever the fundraising initiative is. That you're developing. It gives high level information, as Jenny said, and she shared the Stanford Humanities Center. It doesn't say everything that they're trying to raise money for and what it's going to go to, but inspires very high level inspiration or excitement about what it's all about. It shares your vision as an institution and or as a specific department within your college, and it builds comprehension for what this campaign is trying to achieve. Perhaps that even goes so far as to suggest the problem that donors can solve to get into that urgency and emotion both at the same level and when you would use a belief message is any time you are introducing yourself to somebody that we've got in here in an elevator because we think of our a belief that sort of is that idea of an elevator pitch, Hopefully you're all familiar with that phrase. But for those of you who may not be the elevator pitches, you've got something really important to say to somebody and you've only got a short elevator ride to say it. So you're going to really think about those words very carefully and strategically, because we've only got a few floors to get your message across. You would use a belief message at a fundraising event. Absolutely. To introduce or open the evening when introducing yourself as a member of the campaign or a member of the staff or the campaign committee, introducing yourself to individuals or groups? Absolutely. In one on one meetings and solicitations with donors, we also really think it's important to use a belief message on the home page. If your campaign has a microsite or some other communication, like a case brochure, have it right up front and center so that people understand what the big idea is about the campaign and then your later pages of that microsite or that campaign brochure going to more detail about what it is that the campaign's trying to raise money to achieve. So a belief message has is an important application. It can't say at all. It must inspire, it must tap into some of those strategic elements that we went through. To show you an example of a belief message that we actually would put up as an example of sort of what not to do. I'm going to read this one out loud to you and hopefully you'll understand for yourself why it maybe doesn't have all those elements. And as a nonprofit hospital, this marks the first major capital campaign for Saint Joseph Hospital in more than 50 years. Each year we reinvest in people, equipment and program programs to further the hospital's mission healing and health for the community. You can support this $623 million project. To see that sort of void of urgency, it's void of emotion, it's void of rationale. It's really just a very matter of fact statement that doesn't really inspire any of those those strategic elements that we went through. And we made up the name Saint Joseph Hospital. That's not a real hospital, but this is a real message that we saw a different hospital use. Thank you. Names are changed to protect. Here's a recap of university high schools beliefs, which I'm not going to read this for you, but I'm just going to underline a couple key things. You're going to see. We at the University High School approve the transport for excuse me, transformative power of education. There's something that's essential and important about that idea. In the second paragraph, the next Level campaign brings this bold vision to fruition, keeping San Francisco University High School at the fore. So that taps into that that urgency idea. That is that if we don't do this, the school loses that position. And then a little bit farther down, because being a leader means being continually willing and able to reimagine and advance what's possible. So you're starting to see some of those strategic ideas featured in this message that we read to you a little while longer earlier. Here's the one for Stanford Humanities Center again, which Jenny shared with you. Again, underline, you'll see now in the language are some of those ideas about urgency and emotion and rationale. So how do we do this? How do we create a message like this that feels inspiring and emotional, all emotionally resonant and urgent? We develop a a mad love that we teach our school clients to use. If you're not familiar with Madlib, it was a kids game that you fill in some words that are open in a sentence or a paragraph, and what ensues is, is laughter because you don't have context for what words you're putting in. In this case, you are going to have context. So we're going to move away from that for a second. But our Madlib that we want you to think about for your school is the following At your school name here, we believe in a deeply held values. What is that big idea, Whether it's a whether you're in a department or division of a college university or an independent school as a whole, what is it that this institution believes that is deeply, deeply held among you and your stakeholders? And so we've embarked on a campaign to and you can see here you're going to fill in a verb, an object, and for whom? Who is the constituent that you are trying to or who's going to benefit from this this work? And because what's the problem that happens if we don't do this? What's the solution that happens if we do so? This is a simplistic formula. You'll see that the University and Stanford messages don't sound exactly like this. This is a canned way for us to collect the big ideas and then write them into a more artful message. But this is the way to assemble and really make sure that you focus in on what's important. So you want those things to be visual. You want people to be able to see them. When you when you describe what it is that the campaign is embarked on to do. So. Here's the three pieces we believe in this deeply held value. We've embarked on a campaign to. And because if we don't, there's this problem or if we do, something great happens. So, again, we're going to give you a couple of minutes to write a belief message for your campaign or for your fund or whatever the fundraising effort is that you're working on. And again, we'll just ask you to press pause here in the interest of time, because this could be something that you work on for an hour, but take ten, ten, 15 minutes right now, push, pause and give this a try and just keep coming back to it. Share it with others in your in your group or in your department. And just keep keep working on this to get to a point where you where it says all of the things need to say, but not too much. Remember, we don't want to throw in too many details into your message. And by the way, we have a handout that we will give you our email address at the end of that. And for anyone who wants to hand out that elaborates on this belief message and the other components to messaging, we'll be happy to email that to you. And we do recommend sharing it with your colleagues and working together to come up with the great belief message. And there's some other campaign resources we'll share with you, too. So we'll remember to give you that email so you can reach out to us. All right. So everything we've taught you so far, our principles for strong fundraising communications that we know will improve your fundraising outreach immediately. That's great. They're universally strong principles. But what about right now? What's going on in the world? There are some things we want you to be thinking about in your messaging that you know, at least for the foreseeable future, should be top of mind for you. And here's what they are. Inclusivity and anti-racism really has to be front and center for you right now, whether you feel like you have any control of that in terms of policies at your institution, your donors and your students care about this. And if you're not out in front of it, talking about it, talking about what your institution is doing to dismantle racism in our society, then you're going to find that you're really behind. So you've got to be thinking about how to be more inclusive, actively inclusive, and talking and naming what's going on with with racism. The next thing is that you don't want to gloss over the pandemic or use trite, overused phrases in referencing it. So there's kind of a balance. You know, things are starting to feel better now. More and more people are vaccinated, and yet we still have a big problem and we have the, you know, the remains of the big problem that are still with us. So it might be tempting to just sort of forge ahead with your fundraising without reference. You do need to reference it respectfully, but it's challenging, too, to find the right phrases. So just, you know, dig deep and try to avoid some of the more hackneyed, overused terms for the impact of the pandemic. So I think, you know, we want you to also be acknowledging to yourselves, especially as you think about your donors and also potentially in your communications, that the pandemic itself had, you know, an effect on what people value and what matters to them. And so once again, just barreling forward with the same kind of language you might have used pre-pandemic is probably not going to hit the mark. People have changed what matters to them. It remains to be seen if those are permanent changes. But for now, people are thinking more deeply about it and you should be thinking more deeply as well. Reframing your urgency relative to social issues is a great way to make your campaign relevant. Again, if you're just talking about yourself and what you need and what your school needs and not putting it into the larger context of society, you're missing a chance to make your campaign be more appealing and a choice for your donors. And finally, just acknowledge that people are tired and they they are feeling this sense of languishing, which is a term the New York Times wrote about recently. And it's been getting into our American parlance here. You know, people are feeling down in and it's manifesting in lots of different ways. And so, you know, for your own staff and colleagues, acknowledging that lifting each other up and for your donors, acknowledging that lifting them up, how can your campaign lift them up? How can your campaign be part of helping them feel better? These are things that we want you to be paying very careful attention to right now. We have a couple of examples here. One nonprofit that we have worked with has is is using this language in terms of being explicit about racism. And here it is. Barriers of oppression continue to surround our communities and systems, creating inequity that has far reaching impact. Racism and socioeconomic inequity directly correlate with a lack of wellness as life expectancy and access to health are frequently limited in areas that have seen historic underinvestment, our campaign, etc., etc.. Make your campaign relevant to this. Notice what this message does. It names racism as the problem. It doesn't talk about people who have been negatively impacted. I mean, it does get to that. But it's not just saying this is a problem and we're trying to fix the problem. They're naming what caused the problem, which is systemic racism. And the more that your language can do that, the more powerful it's going to be. And we'll just say everyone is on a journey in doing this work, every organization and every individual. So, you know, we have to give each other grace as we've learned about these issues and practice making things better. But doing nothing is not okay. You've really got to dig in, do your learning, do your reading and learn how to create these these messages. Another school that we're working with is really focusing on inclusivity, which for all of us should be in our in our institutions. And here's an example of how they're talking about it. We believe that it is never too early to help you discover your unique superpowers and the way you can enrich our dynamic community. We also recognize that not all members of our community have this luxury. That's why our entire culture is built around respecting you for who you are and creating the conditions which empower a diverse community in the 21st century. This is an all girls boarding school and they are not just talking about, Yeah, let's find your superpower. Notice that they've said we know that not everyone has has luxury to think that way or to explore that way. And therefore we are intentionally a community that tries to make that happen. So this being explicit inclusivity is is probably is somehow relevant to your organization as well. Let's see, we have a for profit example that caught our attention because it is doing a nice job of using slightly fresher language to refer the pandemic. As we slowly reemerge from the last year, it will be the place to celebrate fashion's welcome return and to understand more clearly how fashion is transforming to reflect our new and very different world. This really honors what's happened. It's positive. It's moving forward, and it is fresh language. All right. So those are messages for right for right now. And here's a quick summary of what we've we've talked about today. Really important that you get to know your audience really fall in love with them and know what matters to them. Take the time to figure out why your campaign is urgent. Do not mess around in euphemisms with euphemistic language. Be really bold. Find what's going to make people feel something. What? What matters to your donors that you can give them emotionally by being part of your campaign. And remember to be very specific about why they can trust you. What's the rationale for why this campaign matters and why you'll succeed and why you'll get the results that you're saying that you to? And then we talked about messages. We taught you a new model for creating powerful fundraising messages, and we touched on what really matters for your messages now to feel like you're really in touch with how your donors feel. So I mentioned that we have a lot of great tools that we can share with you. There are a lot of things on our website at Mission Dash My that we'd love for you to send us an email and then we'll post some information specific to today and what matters to you, which we know is fundraising and campaign communications. We've got some other videos we can share to inspire you if you're thinking of a video and some other examples and that belief message is part of what we call our minute message models. We have a whole hand out that'll teach you how to do that really well to. So thank you so much. Wonderful to be with you today. We're wishing you all big success with your campaign again, whether you're in one, planning for one or wrapping one up, you know, there's one right around the corner. So we wish for your continued success. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Thank you so much, Romain and Jenny. This concludes the webinar. Today's program is Copyright 2021 by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. With all rights reserved for additional case on demand webinars, please visit w WW that case dot org slash on demand.

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