false
en,es
Catalog
Navigating Difficult Donor Situations
Webinar Recording
Webinar Recording
Back to course
[Please upgrade your browser to play this video content]
Video Transcription
Hi everyone, welcome to Navigating Difficult Donor Situations. I'm so happy you all could join us today. Before we get started, I just have a very couple of very brief housekeeping notes. This webinar is being recorded and all registrants will have access to the recording within 48 hours. We'll send an email once that's online. The slides for today's session are also available for download already in the same location you received your link to join. I'll pop that link and instructions into the chat in just a moment. For those of you who are going for CFRE, this is also approved for one CFRE point. And with that, I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to our presenters today, Laurel McCombs and Bob Osborne from the Osborne Group. Thanks so much, Christy. Hello, everyone. Thank you. Welcome to Navigating Difficult Donor Situations. My name is Robert Osborne, and I'm joined by my colleague, Laurel McCombs. I'm principal of the Osborne Group. And we're really excited to be here and really happy to be doing this training with CASE. And before this webinar started, I did a quick search just to see how many other webinars and trainings there are out there like this. And I was really happy to see that there are increasingly large numbers of them. And because I think this kind of training is really, really important. Both Laurel and I entered this business in the sector at a time when you just had to kind of just put up with donors no matter what they did, right? Like we just kind of put up with it. And I'm really glad that we're kind of reaching a point in our sector where that's no longer the case. So really happy to be doing this training. I'm really happy to be talking about this topic. Please feel free to put any questions you have in the chat. We'll try to get to all them by the end of the webinar. We have some block of time saved at the end. But if there's a burning question, Christy is going to surface it, you know, during the webinar itself. And we'll try to answer as many of them as we can. It's important, I think, to remember that this is a training and has all the limitations of a training. So it's really the beginning of a journey and not the end. You're not going to walk out of here today, you know, saying now I know exactly how to deal with every situation that I might deal with or run across in my development life. But we do hope that this is the beginning of you having discussions within your own spaces or at least continuing discussions that you may have already had. I wanted to quickly run through some of the community norms. And so, again, this is, you know, some of these may not apply too much for today. But if we get a good conversation going, I think it's probably worth talking about them at least a little bit. I think I want to call attention to a few. So, again, one is like really to expect no closure. Again, you're not going to walk out of here having everything figured out. We really hope this will be the start of something for you and the start of a conversation that you can have with the sector, within your organization, within your department, within your team. I think also, you know, I think these are this conversation is best had almost as a conversation. And so we hope that you'll during the Q&A will be willing to share, ask questions, be courageous, and really embrace coverage over comfort, and even expect discomfort. It's a difficult conversation to have. And we recognize that. And I think all of us probably have stories, unfortunately, that we can point to where we've had, you know, really challenging conversations or situations with donors. And so, Laurel and I will share a few as we go through. But if you want to share, again, we encourage that and hope that we can have a good Q&A session and good, honest conversation about, you know, what it's like sometimes to be out there. That said, take care of yourself. You know, again, if the conversation gets difficult in some way, you know, we encourage people to take a step back and do whatever you need to do to, you know, to really, you know, take care of yourself and make sure that you're okay. Right, Laurel, let's go. So we're hoping today to accomplish a few things. So one is to gain a greater understanding of power dynamics within the development profession and how they impact fundraisers. We want to talk about hoping you'll feel better equipped to deal with challenging situations with donors and empowered to create more transparent and equitable relationships with your donors and discover how to create spaces to discuss this important topic and adopt policies and practices to mitigate difficult donor situations from occurring. So we're going to talk about how to deal with things in the moment, but also how to follow up and also what kind of policies, business practices can you have to really avoid these difficult conversations or at least mitigate them? I don't know that we can fully avoid them, but thinking about like, how can we mitigate these situations before they occur? Because a lot of this stuff is predictable, right? Like we all can predict to some extent when we might face a difficult situation with a donor, you know, if we're alone with a donor, if we're in an event with a donor, if we're getting a ride with a donor, you know, all these are times when these kind of situations can present themselves. And so we'll talk a little bit about, you know, how do we from a policy standpoint, from a business practice standpoint, how do we avoid those or at least again, mitigate them? I don't know that we can fully avoid them, but we'll try to at least mitigate them. So we're going to cover a lot today, but we won't cover everything. So we're going to talk about power dynamics and just how they impact fundraisers, how to navigate those difficult situations when they come up with donors. And then as I was just mentioning, talking about policies, guidelines, and procedures and strategies to support yourselves and your teams and other fundraisers. We may cover, depending on how the conversation goes, dynamics within your teams and between colleagues. I think particularly when it comes to the board, I think that's always an interesting topic. I certainly know for myself that some of my more challenging donor situations have certainly come from my own board members. And so we may cover that as well. And then, you know, again, we'll see how things go, but we may surface other things that we'll talk about as well. What we won't be talking about is sort of broader diversity, equity, inclusion issues and challenges that impact fundraising. And we're not really going to talk about the origins of philanthropy or tax policy or, you know, systems change, you know. So we acknowledge that some of those outside forces have some impact on what the topic of today, but that's, we're going to have to hold that off for a different webinar. So before we dive in to the specifics, I just want to address, you know, the idea of identity and power, just so that we're all on the same page around how interpersonal power dynamics might be at play and the intersectionality of different identities. So we already know that power dynamics exist in the world today, and they just exist outside of our profession. And today we're going to be talking about how they specifically affect fundraisers because, you know, as people that represent our institutions, as people who are responsible for bringing in money that often, you know, is critical to those institutions in some way, it really does create a very different dynamic, and we're really going to dive into that. We all have different identities at different times, but the reality is that some groups are valued more than others. Some people from those groups are considered better or more close to the norm, and some groups of people are treated better. And within a group and within a single person, that can affect you in different ways on different days. So as you age, it can make a difference, as your own life changes. So it can be along the dimensions of race, it can be on the dimensions of gender, it can be along the dimensions of weight, of class. Laurel and I have even heard hair color sometimes playing into this ability. So we all have different identities, and they can impact us differently at different times. And so that's one of the things I really like about this training is, I really think it's something that is genuinely relevant to everyone. Like we all, no matter what your identity is, no matter what your background is, this is something that will probably come to play in your life in some way, in your professional experience. And so I think that's, you know, why this training is particularly, I think, relevant for all of us. And again, really happy that we're seeing more of this training out there in the world. So without further ado, I'm going to pass it to my colleague, Laurel McCombs, and we're going to get into the specifics of power dynamics with your donors. Great. Thanks, Bob. As Bob mentioned, the realities of identity and power are everywhere in our society. I personally notice it in my professional life, but I notice it when I go to the grocery store. I notice it when I go to the dentist. Like these are just the kind of the realities of living in a society, and living particularly within our society, and kind of feel every day like they're bigger and bigger issues. But there are some reasons why this particularly impacts fundraisers. And, you know, as Bob mentioned, when we first started doing a version of this training in 2018, you know, it was kind of at the height of Me Too, and that was very much the thing that was on folks' minds. And, you know, it occurred to me at the time that a lot of the really big things were being addressed during Me Too. A lot of the kind of overt issues that were happening were very much being brought into the spotlight. But it also occurred to me that there were a lot of things that fundraisers were dealing with that weren't quite as overt and weren't always sexual harassment in nature, right? There were just a lot of dynamics happening in fundraising that I had always experienced in the over 20 years that I've been in this space that either I had tried to talk to folks about and were kind of just, you know, like as Bob said earlier, you know, kind of that attitude of, well, you know, that's just kind of how it is. Or I just didn't feel like there was a space for me to even talk about some of these challenges, which, you know, ultimately exacerbates, I think, what we're dealing with because we don't always get to just have an open conversation. And we certainly never in my career was I ever offered any kind of training or discussion, you know, kind of formalized discussion around this to even make me realize that it wasn't just something I was experiencing, that it was something that was common across the industry and to prepare me for how to handle some of these difficult donor situations. And so I think, you know, part of why we started doing this training and part of why we'd love to continue to do this is to even just, A, make sure that the, I don't know, 200 plus folks that are on this call today all know that you're not alone in this, that this is something that we're here, all here to support one another on, but also to give you some tools and training. I always liken this to being a bartender, right? So if I'm a bartender and I go for my training for my new job, you know, typically part of my training, in addition to learning how to make lots of drinks and where, you know, how to use the cash register and all that kind of stuff, part of my training as a bartender is how to deal with difficult customers, right? There's an expectation that the folks that I'm serving, the customers in my establishment are on their personal time and that, you know, when we're in our personal lives versus our professional lives, we're maybe getting a little looser, we're maybe doing things that are a little inappropriate, maybe we're having a little bit to drink, right? And that can sometimes escalate and bartenders are trained on how to deal with that, how to deal with that appropriately and professionally, how to deal with situations as they escalate, et cetera, et cetera. I think similarly in fundraising, we are professionals who are in a work environment who are, for the most part, often dealing with folks who are interfacing with us within their personal life space, right? So philanthropy often, for a lot of folks, falls within their personal life space, particularly when you think about how folks engage with their alma maters and with their colleges and institutions, often at events, often where there is alcohol, often, right, where there are opportunities for people to be a little looser, maybe be a little inappropriate, not come into a space from a, you know, we're doing business, this is a professional setting, but yet as fundraiser, we're never trained on how to deal with that. And again, I don't think it's a bad thing that that's how we interact with folks, just like it's not a bad thing, that's how bartenders interact with their customers, but it's something we have to acknowledge about our space that until recently, I don't think we ever really talked about. And so again, the purpose of today, hopefully, is to a, let you all feel like you're not alone in this, and b, to give you some tools and, you know, opportunities to feel better prepared and feel like you have opportunities to follow up more effectively. And so, you know, why is all of this popping up in fundraising? Well, first of all, money, right? Money is such a core part of power. It is a core part in our society, particularly of how people kind of, you know, put value on others and privilege. And so the minute that we're dealing with money, which is exactly what we're all dealing with every single day as fundraisers, there's going to be a power dynamic. There are also power dynamics within your institution, right? And so different levels of power and privilege and decision-making authority that come with being in large institutions, you know, inherently come with their own set of power dynamics. You know, there's, you know, this idea to kind of terminology, and then I'll kind of lump building relationships in with this, is that in our profession, you know, since day one of me being in this, in this profession over 20 years ago, I have heard about building relationships. And it is such a core part of what we do. And it's such a core part of how we talk about what we do. And yet we never define what we mean by that, right? So relationship is a big, broad word that means a whole lot of different things to all, to different people. And when we kind of put a blanket statement out there about building relationships, I think it can send the wrong messages to fundraisers and to donors about what we mean by those relationships. I will admit that I have been guilty of this in the past, and I still continue to hear it all the time, but trainers using dating analogies for fundraising, right? And I've done it. I'm not, you know, I'm not immune from, from having, having gone there. But again, these, these lines that get blurred between what we're talking about when we're saying building relationships, when in fact, we're talking about really building relationships between our institutions and donors, not between ourselves. I've had clients and other folks that I work with, and I had a client who spent half of her personal vacation staying with a donor, you know, and, and I think, no, no, you don't have to do that. That's not, that's not what, you know, what we need to do. And I'm not saying there aren't going to be donors that you love, that you love personally, that are personal friends of yours, that you just, you want to hug, and you want to, you want to be close to. That is just a reality, and one of the joys of, of our work as fundraisers. But it is not something that is a requirement. You don't have to build personal relationships with folks. But again, we, we just kind of throw this out there, right? Like building relationships without really defining or making it clear to fundraisers where they are allowed to draw lines in those relationship building processes. Again, we talked about kind of the professional versus personal issue of this, that we're in our professional space, often our donors are in their personal space, and some of the weird dynamics that that, that can cause. And then finally, just some of our ways of doing business. And Bob, Bob alluded to some of these things, but I, you know, most of us have probably at some point in time been on, done a home visit, right? Gone into a donor's home. Many of us have been in car rides with donors. Many of us have been alone with donors in situations that didn't feel entirely comfortable. There are a lot, again, the presence of alcohol in a lot of our, our interactions. And again, I'm not saying don't do these things, but I am saying be thoughtful about the repercussions, the implications, right, of some of these situations. I, I jokingly, but seriously say when, you know, the, the last time I did a home visit was when the 90-year-old donor opened the door in his boxer shorts and was unhappy I was there because he forgot that I was coming. And it was a terribly uncomfortable situation. And from that day forward, I said, I think I don't want to meet in donors homes anymore, or at least don't want to meet in donors homes by myself. Right. Because as uncomfortable as the situation was, it could have been far worse. Right. And it was, it was, you know, until you, you come upon a situation that is inappropriate or uncomfortable. You kind of think like, well, it's the worst that could happen. But part of, you know, as Bob will talk about later when he talks about follow up, part of what we need to start doing is thinking about what's the worst that could happen and trying to mitigate some of those situations. So just wanted to kind of put that out there, some of the different things that are impacting us as fundraisers. And then I think probably the bottom line thing that is, is makes it most difficult for us as fundraisers is this kind of place we sit between our donors and our employers, our institutions, right. And I always, one of the things that I talk a lot about when I talk about fundraising in general and this career that I've had in this world for 20 plus years is I, I am passionately enthusiastic and love the fact that as a fundraiser, we get to be the catalyst, right. We get to be the ones who go out and look at the really amazing work that our institutions are doing and go and find folks who are also enthusiastic and motivated and excited for that work and, and bring those two things together. We are that catalyst that allows folks to embrace and, and enjoy the, the things that they're supporting. We are that catalyst that allows folks that maybe, you know, don't get to do life changing world altering things in their day jobs. And we get to help them do that every day by supporting our institutions and that is a privilege and an honor and something that I love about this work. It also puts us right smack dab in the middle of this interchange between our donors and our institutions, and trying to please both and sometimes feeling like we can please neither. Sometimes feeling like we're getting smushed in between the two. And so, you know, in addition to all of these just natural power dynamics that come around fundraising generally as the fundraiser, you are particularly put into this middle role that can make this even more complex. So I wanted to I acknowledge that, and, you know, say, there are really great things that come with this dynamic, and there are really challenging things that come with the same dynamic we're going to talk more now about kind of moving past this but I do just want to encourage all of you to, to, you know, just take a little time and, you know, sharing these things can be hard you know and sharing them particularly in chat but, you know, if, if, if anyone is wants to share something in chat please feel free to share anything of how this is maybe presented itself in your work. But this is also something you know Bob and I always joke that before we started doing this as a formal presentation that the only time we'd ever really tell these stories with each other was like at the bar at conferences, you know, like, you don't be gathering around and then everyone would kind of start kind of sharing their, their outrageous donor stories. And I think like it's time for us to just start talking about this more and and again sharing it in a, in a brave way and sharing it in a supportive way, but sharing it in a way that allows us to kind of get it off our chests but also problem solve with other people. And we'll talk about this more later just in terms of creating brave spaces where other folks can talk about these things, and also better prepares folks who haven't made you maybe are newer to the, to the field haven't been out with donors as much haven't seen some of these things again to help them to better prepare but, you know, take some time in the, you know, after, after the session today to think about where these power dynamics present themselves in your work or could present themselves in your work, and maybe with your team you know, even if you're the only person from your team who's here today. Maybe you go back to your, your next team meeting and say hey you know I went to this this webinar the other day with Bob and Laurel and I'd love to have a little chat about about this, and just kind of hear where everyone is, is with this. Before we kind of get into the like, so how do I deal with a, you know, an actual situation. I want to just take a moment to talk about clarity around roles and decision making and action taking and this kind of is directly related to that, that middle in that in that dynamic. And I think one of as much as this is a really wonderful topic to talk, talk about and we're really excited to get to have this conversation with folks. It can be really challenging because there are times when because of difficult donor situations fundraisers are put in inappropriate awkward difficult situations with donors, and that can lead us to feel like our institutions shouldn't be working with that we shouldn't be, you know, the no fundraisers in our institution should be having to deal with this donor. And as an individual, I might feel very very passionately about this donor and about whether or not my institution should be should be a partner with But that is very rarely a decision that I as an individual to make. And that is again one of those other difficult dynamics is that even if I have been in a difficult situation with the donor if I am currently in a difficult situation with a donor. It is not my role to act in a way to say something to tell this donor anything that might sever their relationship with the institution because that's ultimately not my decision to make your institution has gift acceptance policies hopefully Bob will talk about that later, and and processes for how these decisions are made, and hopefully you know again, in a decision like whether or not we're going to continue to take money from a problematic donor as an individual, I am typically not the activator in that I don't get to make the decision, but I can be an advocate so I don't, I don't want this to feel like I'm, you know, we're stripping you of your, of your, of your authority, but this is just the reality of how this works on a day to day basis like we are not the individual decision makers for relationships with donors, but we can be advocates and I encourage you as an individual to play your role as an advocate but also encourage your organization and institutions to allow fundraisers to be advocates to include those impacted directly in the adjudication process when they're making these decisions. And, you know, again, I think there are a lot of things Bob talks earlier about, you know, we're not going to talk today about some of the bigger more systemic in general, and in many ways those are not decisions about you know, I don't make any decisions about death policy right I may disagree with death policy but I am not in the federal government and I'm not voting on those decisions but I can be an advocate, right, I can call my congressman and I can write a letter to my senator and so there's lots of things where we are not always the direct activator the direct decision maker but we can still be advocates and vice versa. There are times when you know our, we have the ability to be our own decision makers, but we need our organizations to be advocates for us right. So we'll talk a little bit more about that in just a minute. So how do some of these difficult situations occur I think it's important to recognize just kind of where, where and when this happens because it does impact how we respond and it definitely impacts how we prepare. Some of these things happen unintentionally sometimes they happen intentionally so many times and many of the stories that I hear are unintentional and unanticipated situations where you went in perfect, you know, thought it was a perfectly innocuous donor and suddenly something has happened somebody has put you into having someone has said something done something inappropriate awkward inappropriate that, you know, is making this situation, difficult, however, it's important to note that sometimes we go into these situations intentionally I mean I think many of you on this call and certainly Bob and I have had situations where we've had to go in and talk to donors and we know it's going to be a difficult situation we know that we're about to kind of deal with the situation with them head on we know that we're about to, you know, we work with a lot of organizations that sometimes have difficult policies that donors don't agree with that they will have to go and have like a very intentional conversation about, you know, differences in policy decisions or differences in programmatic decisions. And those are things that we go into intentionally and we anticipate that it's going to be difficult and we prepare for that. So, you know, again, and everything in between, right so but I think it's important to just remember that, that we, we sometimes do choose to have hard, hard discussions and hard conversations with folks, but sometimes they come out of nowhere. I also think it's important that we are able to assess the situation, fairly quickly and I'll talk about this a little bit more in the next slide. In terms of little tips and tricks to buying ourselves some time and this also comes up in the follow up piece which we'll talk about a bit later, but really being able to just kind of understand the who the what the when the where, and I put this in here because I do think we have a tendency to gaslight ourselves a lot. I think we kind of do that thing where you know we hear something and we think, did I hear that right now I must have not heard that right. And so I think sometimes just being able to take a moment to kind of think about, you know, who, who is involved in the situation what happened, when was this and where were we because that often can impact the way something comes across or the way something impacts folks. And so, you know, just being able to take a little time to really think about, you know, just just what all all happened here, and then intent versus impact right so this is a very real thing like intent, good intent never negates the impact the negative impact that it might have, but it is when we respond to a situation it can impact how we respond to a situation and I'll just share something that brings the both of these things together and, and this is a fairly innocuous example but I'll share this one that I was doing a training once with another man who I didn't know very well we had, we had just met, but we were kind of put into this co training situation he was, you know, a relatively young good looking fit white male, and I'll say that as context to the situation and he presented he did his his part of the training and then I kind of got up and did my part of the training and, and afterwards he came up to me and he said, Wow, Laurel you have so much energy, I was not expecting that. And I kind of just was like, Oh, thanks. And then it, it just like didn't sit well with me like I couldn't get it out of my head what he had said, and I know that his intent was that it was a compliment. His intent was that it was like wow you you're a great trainer that was really great session. But the way he chose to talk about my, his, his lack of expectation that I would have energy really sat with me for a long time and as I, as I kind of thought through it more I couldn't help but think to myself like, Oh, so, so did you not think I was going to have energy because I was a woman. Did you not think I was going to have energy because I'm Asian, did you not think I was going to have energy because I'm heavy, like what's the thing about me after having known me for five minutes that made you assume I wouldn't have a lot of energy. Right. And, and as hard as it was for me to kind of think through these things and think about things that always like to think about myself. It was important for me to just like run through that in my head and and be prepared for future situations right for when, how I would have handled that differently instead of maybe saying, thanks like maybe there was something else I could have said to push the, the, the comments so you know a fairly not innocuous example but but something that has always sat with me for a long time, and made me realize that people do kind of, you know, kind of look at you and have certain expectations for for how you're And even when folks are giving you a compliment. It's not always a compliment, right, and and the intent of the good intent doesn't always negate the negative impact that it has has on ourselves. I'm going to pause right now because I see that we're getting chat chats and and questions Bob anything that's popping up. I have one, one question on on DAFs and how they impact conversations but I think, I think you were just making a, an analogy in this in this case about, about what we have control over and what we we don't necessarily have control over but there was a few few comments in the, in the chat and I think I've only been able to read two of them but, um, yeah I mean I think they both really emphasize the point that you were making earlier about how we're sort of in our professional space. And they're in their, their more personal space and particularly I think with, you know, with people who are the universities and their relationship with their with their alma mater, that that's there's a lot of history behind that there's a lot of emotional So I think folks are raising some some good points about again that sort of I think emphasize the differences, sort of where we the space that we're in as as professionals and the space that they're occupying as as alumni or as as donors or as board members, and and just the dynamics that that might that might cause. One of the things I didn't mention in our kind of ways of doing business right and in terms of some of the dynamics that that can cause and the the Osborne group is we are huge proponents of asking strategic questions we, you know, love questions as a way to get to know donors better to help to make points better. And, and even in situations like this I think in difficult situations questions again can be a really great way to address difficult situations we'll talk about that more in a minute, but I, I also think that it's part of the, what complicates the dynamic, because, you know, the more you know I want to know everything about the donor I'm talking to, but, but, you know, if they were to reciprocate and say oh well Laurel tell me a little bit about your, you know, family or your whatever. I'd kind of be like whoa whoa I'm, I'm on work time I don't have to share that with you right and so, but just the nature of how we are trying to engage with our donors kind of puts us into into positions for that to be reciprocated right. And so how do we, you know, deflect if there are certain questions that come our way that we don't want to answer how do we learn how to kind of politely say like what, you know, I love that you want to know it's not something I love to share, you know, in my professional space or, or something like that. You know and and yeah you know like Jill just says you're so beautiful are you single, like, you know, think I'm sure you, you are beautiful but that's not always an appropriate thing for a donor to, you know, kind of tell us, and certainly, you know, the one I've often got is the kids question I'm, I'm a middle aged woman with no children and you know I often get the like oh why what you don't have kids why no kids right and I think, wow, that's, that's totally not something I have to answer in a professional setting with a with a donor that I don't know personally right. And so being able to find those questions that you know are trigger points for you those questions that you know are kind of no go questions for you, and thinking about ways to specifically address those thinking about, you know, and practicing and we'll talk about that a little bit more practice is a huge part of this and I think role playing and with yourself and with others is a huge part of this. So how do you continue you know how what is your kind of pat response to, to what is happening but we'll go into this in more detail in a second. So for a moment, you know, I, again, so many of these situations are unanticipated unplanned. You know, we could just kind of find ourselves in them. And I'm sure you know always on calls like this always think like well wouldn't it be great if we were all just in a room together and we could just be, you know, chatting and sharing our stories with each other I'm sure I'm sure there are a lot of interesting stories from this, this group that we have on the call today. But, you know, some of, and again, this is not the answer to how every single situation but it at least maybe gives you some, a way to approach how to respond in the moment when a donor or other supporter volunteer faculty member or somebody does something inappropriate. I think first and foremost, being able to find a way to pause. I know this sounds silly, but I almost always love to have like a beverage within reach because if someone says something to me or does something. I and I just need that split second to give myself a moment to reflect on what has just happened and decide what to do next. Just the ability to say or to not say and just go, okay, you know, and, and just that buying yourself that, that moment. I will also say that being able, just saying nothing for a moment, especially if someone has said something inappropriate to you, just kind of pausing and like making sure you look like you're thinking about what they just said can be a really powerful way to indicate to somebody that they've just done something that was not appropriate. And oftentimes what I'll see is that people will notice that you're not responding, will notice that you're taking time to pause and think about it and will themselves then say, oh, I don't, that's not what I meant by that. And then we'll kind of give you an opening to say, yeah, I didn't, I didn't love that comment. That's, you know, that, that felt a little, a little inappropriate, but, but let's move on, you know, and, and, or however it is that you, you, you want to, to reflect on that. So I think finding a way to pause, whether it is feigning a pause by, you know, taking a drink of your beverage or kind of saying, oh, what happened over there? Or, you know, whatever it is, or actually making a point of pausing and thinking and letting the person kind of understand that they've said something to give you pause. Right. But that split second is often the thing that helps us to reflect and decide, right. To, to kind of say, so what did I, A, did I hear that right? Did it, that whatever I believe I experienced just now, did that, is that what I actually experienced? And then to decide how I want to respond. And I will say that in a difficult situation, there's, you know, there's kind of two ways to respond. I will say that, you know, first and foremost, I just want to say, because no one ever said this to me in my career is you can leave. You can opt out of a situation. I'm not saying that that's what you will typically do. I'm not saying that that's the typical response. You know, typically to actually leave a situation, something fairly egregious has to have happened. But I can remember being, doing this session with a fairly large group a couple of years ago. And the biggest thing we got feedback on was folks telling us that no one had ever told them that they could leave. And, you know, I think it's important to remember that your physical, emotional, psychological safety is the most important thing here. And if you are being put into a situation where any of those things are being put at risk, you can leave. You should leave gracefully and you should leave appropriately. You probably shouldn't, you know, shout an expletive and punch them in the face and leave, but you should, you can leave. And we'll talk in a minute about some ways to have an exit strategy. And so I just want to say that. But most of the time we're probably going to stay. And I think, again, if you stay and you kind of stay within the situation, whether it's at an event or in a visit or whatever, wherever it is, I think you have a couple of options in terms of how you respond. I think you, you know, you absolutely can address it appropriately. I go back to the kind of activator advocate role. We don't necessarily have the option to address it head on in a way that makes it, makes any kind of implication that the university or your institution doesn't want to work with that donor anymore, but you can address it. You know, I've even just, I kind of been keeping my little eye on the chat and seeing some folks, you know, saying, you know, some of these things about, Oh, that's interesting. Or what makes you say that? Or can you say a bit more about that? Right. You can actually, if somebody says something inappropriate to you could actually just address it. Right. And, and, and if you felt like you were comfortable with doing that, and you wanted to kind of just write, you know, right back out and kind of say, but I, you know, I'm, yeah, I'm curious what makes you, you say that, or I'm curious where, you know, again, strategic questions are often our best friend in some of these situations. You can also deflect. And I will say that I just want to make it clear that this is like, not the coward's way out. Sometimes, sometimes when I talk about, we've done this session so many times, and I've had some folks be on this call and be like, how could you not say something back to somebody? And honestly, I've been in situations where I just, it isn't worth my emotional and psychological fraughtness to, to address it. This person isn't worth me putting myself through, like the, the ick of having to address it. So I deflect and I move on. I was in a conversation with a donor once, and he had been kind of asking me about, he'd asked me a couple questions, you know, the, any, any of you who are on the call, some of you will, will identify with this question. I get the, what are you question a lot. And he had kind of done the, what are you question and the like, oh, what's your background question? Right. And so I finally had talked about, where are you from question, right. And so I finally had, had mentioned that I was mixed race, half Caucasian, half Asian. And he said to me, he says, oh, you have hybrid vigor. And only because I grew up in a very small agricultural community did I know that hybrid vigor is when you cross breed livestock to make them stronger. And again, intent versus impact. He meant it 100% as a compliment, as though to say, oh, you're, you're a hybrid. So you're, so you're, you're very strong. Essentially, that's why you're so smart or whatever he was, he was trying to compliment me on. But, you know, I also don't love being compared to livestock, right. Like, so not my favorite, my favorite thing to, to have somebody say to me. And then he, he also then decided to follow up, follow it up with, like, by very creepily saying, my wife has that too. And so, so like, piled on that, I was just like, ew, like, and now I just feel gross. But in the moment, I, I was there to get some information from him, chat with him about this organization. I don't care enough about this man to stop and address head on what he just said and put myself into an uncomfortable situation to feel like I have to confront him and explain to him why what he said was inappropriate, even though he thinks it's a compliment. Like, I, I don't want to go there with him. That's Laurel's decision. And so I just said, huh, I have not heard that one before. But you know, I think we're running out of time. I'd love to get back to these questions that I have for you. I don't want to waste your time, any more of your time. And I just went right to the next question, right? And, and maybe some folks will say, Laurel, you should have called him out. But you know what? I didn't want to call him. I didn't want to have that conversation. And it didn't matter to the future relationship of with me and him or with the organization, whether or not I confronted that head on in that situation. So I just say that to say, you have choices in how all of this goes in the moment. So just, you know, again, thinking through like, what are my options? What are the different ways that I can, I can address this? Again, having an exit strategy, I think anytime you go into an event, a donor visit, anything, I think already kind of thinking about in the same way we do like emergency preparedness, right? Like, you know, where the exits are, and all of those things. Again, remember, protect yourself, avoid, you know, find ways to avoid conflict or further harm. So if you know, how can you exit out of this situation in a way that allows you to, you know, not experience more harm to yourself, and avoid conflict, if that's what you want to do. And I will tell you, for Laurel, 90% of the time, my number one objective in life is to avoid conflict. And so, you know, that's always going to be the thing that I'm going to lean toward. But that's me. You know, that's, that's my response to the world. Also, recognize when with your exit strategy that you have to be able to allow for further discussion and decision making. I did leave a meeting once, there was one meeting that I actually like, said, Okay, well, I think we're done. And I got up and left. And it was a donor who just consistently wanted to rant and rave about some things that were making me very uncomfortable. And I couldn't get him off of the rant. And I tried several times to kind of move the conversation along, and he wouldn't. And so I finally just, you know, I kind of looked at my notes and pretended like I was shuffling through my notes. And then I said, you know, I think that's all I, you know, I know, I know, we still have another half an hour, but I'd love to give you back that time. And I think that's all I have for you today. And I just before he could say anything, I just stood up and I walked out of the room. And so again, I wasn't rude, I was appropriate. I allowed for, you know, future discussion, but I was done. I was done listening to the things he was saying. And so I excused myself. And I said, you know, somebody will be following up with you and you have a good rest of your day. And I left. So, you know, I also think, you know, being able to do things like excusing yourself to use the restroom, and then come back and say, Oh, my gosh, my kids school just called. I don't even have kids. And I'd use that excuse, right? Like, my kids school just called, I got to run over and pick up my kids sick or gosh, you know, I think that lunch is just not sitting very well with me. I need to, I think I need to go, you know, whatever it is that is going to make you feel like you can exit in a way that is safe for you and appropriate. But you know, thinking through and being able to, and another great thing to brainstorm with your team members, like having just a discussion about like, so what would you say in this situation, and you, you wanted to leave? If you are going to stay, I will just say again, you know, some tools you have at your disposal. Remember that, you know, you can always go back to values alignment. I think this is a really good one, especially if someone says something inappropriate and say, you know, as you know, you know, are you the university really values diversity or equity or whatever. And so it's really important to us that all voices are heard or, you know, whatever it is, but going back to kind of institutional values can often be a great way using dialogue and stories. I've heard this a lot with universities too, where donors are maybe unhappy about things that are going on on campus or things that students are doing and being able to tell stories about student experiences, being able to say, well, you know, I, I also had some questions about that. And then I had a really interesting conversation with one of our students. And let me tell you what I heard from them, right? So being able to use stories as a way to illustrate points and not make it about you and not make it about the institution, but make it about people and people's experiences can be really helpful. And, you know, again, just thinking about how do we show compassion, recognizing intent versus impact, and then focusing on our visit outcomes. That's the other thing too. Like you go on these visits, you do your visit prep, you have outcomes for the visit. Just, if things start to stray, always going back to that, you know, I have some very particular things I want to, I want to chat with you about today. And I know we only have, you know, 40 more minutes. I want to make sure we stay on track, but back to the agenda, right? So just finding some of those ways to kind of keep that conversation moving, and then remembering that you have your own set of tools. So vision and values of the organization, going back to your case for support, your stories. If you have a physical, I was just talking to someone the other day about a physical situation, a board member who just always goes in for the hug, no matter how many times she like puts her hand out first and all that. I had a colleague who shared that she also had a donor like that. And whenever she knew he was coming into her room, she'd like walk behind a table. So there was always a table in between her. So she had, she could only shake their hand. And so just thinking about some of those, those things, how we use props, how we use our physical location, how we use each other. So how we kind of work with our colleagues to maybe have like little hand signals or something that we give each other during an event that is like the, hey, I need help getting out of this situation kind of thing. So just thinking about ahead of time, what are our tools, but a lot of this requires us to have really good follow-up to difficult situations in order for us to be able to prepare better for future ones. So I'm actually going to turn it over to Bob, who's going to talk to us about follow-up. Thanks, Laurel. Do we want to pause for one second? Just see if there's any questions. Christy, was there any, any questions that, any burning questions? Yeah, there was just one submitted. I think you've seen the chat. People are sharing a lot of great stories about the things that they've said and used. Someone asks, how would you respond, or do you have any suggestions for responding if a donor attacks you personally? And the example given is that they think they were wronged and want to get you in trouble. Bob, were you going to say something? I don't have an amazing response. If you do, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to respond specifically because there's probably so much context to the, to the situation. You know, I, I would, you know, always, you know, kind of err on the side of bringing other folks in on this. And again, this is a little bit about kind of getting ahead of these situations too, and Bob's going to talk about this in follow-up, is knowing that you could, in a situation, say, you know, that was not my intent, but if you feel like we need to have a discussion about this with my manager, we should, we should absolutely do that. You know, and, and as long as you know your manager will have your back. Now, if your manager is not going to have your back, this is a different, a different scenario and a different situation. But I think being able to say to someone, you know, I don't, I don't think this is an appropriate conversation for us to be having. It was not my intent to attack you and, and I, you know, or, or to make you feel wronged. But if we need to have a conversation about this, then I think we should, you know, take this to, to my manager. Again, I think part of this is not putting yourself into a situation where you're just going back and forth. You said, you said, I said with a donor who probably doesn't feel like they're wrong and will probably never feel like they are wrong in the situation. And also it's partially to just cover yourself because the more you engage one-on-one with someone in a situation like this, the more of a he said, he said, they said, she said situation it becomes and you're kind of just escalating the situation within this, this bubble. So I would, I would, you know, err on the side of, of getting out of this. Bob's going to talk about this actually right now. Whoever that trusted entity is. And again, hopefully it's your manager. It might not be your manager, but I think being able to say, I would really like to engage our HR department, or I'd really like to engage the board chair, or I'd like to engage, right. Some, some other entity into this conversation. Again, I think the more you keep it one-on-one, the more it just can, can potentially escalate. That's my thought again, without knowing more context, it's hard to give a specific answer. That's a great point. And I just, I want to highlight one comment. I think it only got sent to the host. So I don't think everyone could see it, but someone had said pointing out that this is also a two-way street and that sometimes we as gift officers or people working in fundraising say something wrong. We get someone's name wrong. We get their pronouns wrong. We make a remark that they find offensive and that we're human. And so sort of, as we make these mistakes, that part of it is about how to mend fences and to sort of move forward. I'll hand it back to Bob. A great point. Thank you. Thank you, Christy. And I see there's some other questions in the, in the chat and I'll, I think I'll be able to get to those, particularly your, your question, Charles, which I think is a, is a pretty, a pretty interesting, interesting question. I'll get to it shortly. So I want to mostly talk about like policies and procedures that we can have to mitigate these situations, but I want to still quickly start off with following up like immediately after the, after an incident may have happened. So an incident has happened and, and now, and now what? And so one, I think is assessing the situation. We follow a very similar pattern to the pattern that Laurel had already, had already talked about. And so one is just thinking about like what, what happened. So Laurel teases me when we first started doing this Laurel teased me because we were discussing this topic and I was saying, well, nothing like, you know, I've never really had to deal with this, you know, as a, as a, as a man. And, and she's like, come on, come on, Bob, you, of course you, of course you've had to do that. Of course you had. And of course I did. Cause I could remember as soon as she started mentioning that to me, I could remember four different incidents. And these are the, probably the things I remember most in my career. There's these things that I, at the moment I was dismissing had as being not in particularly important really did have an impact on me. So one is just not gaslighting ourselves and really thinking about like what, what did, what did happen here? Did really assessing the situation and then talking to a trusted entity and then figuring out what next steps are, or is what happened addressed by some policy that we have as an organization. And we're going to talk momentarily about what those policies might, might be. And a lot of this, as you can see in talking about just in the chat, you've all been very active, which is great. There's no one answer to any of this. It really is, I think, working together as a group within your team and really figuring out what's appropriate for me, and what's appropriate for the team, and what's appropriate for the institution, and really thinking about, OK, if this happened, how might I mitigate this from happening again? If this were to happen in the future, how would we want to deal with it as a team and really do the problem solving? Because there really isn't any one particular answer here. And so to your point, Charles, yeah, I think for some of us, we would really want to call out a particular donor in a particular situation. But I think there's lots of things that mitigate that potentially. So one is money. The reality is we're not saying what you should or shouldn't do, and we're not saying this is an easy decision to make. But if you are a small institution and this was a million-dollar donor, you're probably going to act differently than if this is your big institution, this is a $5,000 donor. That's going to have some impact on how you deal with the situation. Where you are in your career can make a big difference. Laurel and I have done this a bunch of times. And it was interesting. I think younger people, we've noticed, didn't necessarily want to call out people because this is their career. And they're going to have to deal with this donor potentially going forward. Or maybe the donor will be moved off of their list in some way. And they're not going to be able to interact with this particular donor. And so maybe I want to call this donor out, but maybe I don't. And I think that's a fair decision for somebody to be able to make on their own. And so having, again, having those conversations within your team, I think, is particularly important. Because I might be at a point in my career, like now, I certainly am at an age where I'm quite willing, I think, to tell people how I feel about something. Because I feel very secure about where I am in my career and in my ability to navigate those situations. But it may be different for other people. So I think one of the big things that we've taken away in this work is really to have these conversations with your team. We're going into this event. If this happens, how would you want me to deal with it? If you saw something inappropriate happening, how would you want me to handle it? Would you want me to intervene? Would you not want me to intervene? What's, we're going to have this donor meeting. If something inappropriate happens, how would you want me to handle it? And really having that understanding within your group and within your team, I think, is important. And having the knowledge as a fundraiser that you have the support of your team, that whatever decision that you're going to make, because you have had that conversation and because you have talked about it, I think, is really important to this, too. I think a lot of the time, we don't always react to a situation the way we might want to. Because we don't know whether we have the support of our college, of our university, of the group, of our supervisor. And so if we knew that, if we had had that conversation, then we might react in a very different way than we might otherwise. So I think having those conversations are really, really, really important. Can we go to the next slide? And then it's really, you can have policies around this. And again, these are all fairly predictable interactions that you're going to have. You're not going to be able to predict every single thing that happens. But we can look at categories, and we can kind of see, oh, there's going to be an event. There's going to be alcohol at this event. Or we're going to go on a donor visit. And we can kind of think about, well, what is likely to happen? And again, how would we want to do this? How would we want to talk about this? How would we want to have this adjudicated? How would we want to think about it? And both as a team, but also for yourself. I'm personally a fairly non-confrontational person. I'm probably, I really want to have my, I kind of want to know what I'm going to be facing and have things planned out. And so for someone like me, I would want to really talk it through with my team and really think about how I would want them to respond, how I would want them to deal with things. And that's something, again, that you can be planned. But we also, as institutions, can really plan out what our policies are. So do we have a policy about going on visits alone? You don't have to go on visits alone. You could have a policy where you're not going on visits alone. There always have to be two people on a visit together. Or we can have a policy about not driving donors home. I think one of your clients, Laurel, has an Uber fund that they have for donors to, if they've had too much to drink or need to get back from someplace, there's a fund that avoids you as a fundraiser having to drive that particular person home. We can just have a policy around, just state it aloud, have it written down that you're allowed to leave. But again, to Laurel's point that she was talking about earlier, that can be something that is formalized in some way and something that could be written. We can be really clear, like as a board member on a number of different boards, I've really appreciated that some of the boards that I've on have really defined how I can interact with staff members. And that's helpful to me even as a board member. So for instance, we're not allowed to ask questions when someone's giving a PowerPoint presentation until the very end to avoid board members kind of interrupting people, lording over people, belittling people, and it's really made a big difference. And I think that's something too that people can really appreciate. So all these things are things that we can think about and things that we can plan out and then we can have some specific policies around. How do we track data? Like when there's an incident, do we record that in the database or not? Laurel and I say, yes, in some way. I think it's important just on a factual basis to make a note so that it doesn't occur to someone else. And there's obviously some privacy issues with that as well. But again, if you're just reporting facts, there shouldn't be any issues with it. So there's lots of different dimensions where we can think about this. But again, just having those conversations, having discussions within your group, I think is probably one of the, I think for me, it's been the biggest takeaway in having these conversations with other groups that we've had. Because again, there's no one answer to these questions. It's really you deciding for yourself, you as a team, and you as an organization really deciding how do we want to handle any given situation and then giving yourself the space to have that conversation on a regular basis. Because as your team members change, as circumstances change, as time goes by, you may have very different answers to those questions along the way. And so having some kind of mechanism for addressing those conversations, addressing those situations, again, I think is a really important part of this to have an ongoing conversation and really think about, yeah, how do we want to handle this as a team? So I think we're gonna pause there and we have about 11 minutes left, I think, in the webinar, and just see, again, if there's any questions and we're happy to answer any questions or take any comments that you might have. Yeah, someone asked in the Q&A, how do you feel about flagging a difficult donor so that the person doesn't simply get passed off from one fundraiser to another without a heads up? Yeah, I mean, I think we've landed, correct me if I'm wrong, Laurel, but I think we've landed on the idea that it's okay, that we think that it would be important to flag that person in some way for that very reason. And our thinking about it was, we both are kind of old school, and so our first reaction when this came up was like, oh my God, we can't have that in the database. But then we thought like, well, okay, if this really happened and we're not imposing our own judgment on it, but we're saying this happened, this objectively happened, whatever that objective happened is, why are we protecting this donor? Why are we worried about their feelings about it? Or why are we worried about their reaction to the fact that we've put this in the database? So I think our opinion on it is that we're pretty okay with it and maybe think it's important. And just for me in my career, I can think about a situation where I wish I had done that. There was a known donor. It was very inappropriate, repeatedly with my fundraisers. It was understood. I definitely tried to protect them as best I could, but I didn't put a flag on that particular person. And I hope that they never did anything later. And if I, this was 20 years ago, if I had a chance to do it again, I certainly would have. So that's, I think that's where we land on things. I will add a caveat that I know a lot of the folks who are on this call today actually work for public schools and work for public institutions. And I know that you all are kind of beholden to other challenges and potential issues with like data and data transparency and things. So I understand if that's a challenge, then I think, but you still need to find like a workaround for it. If it's not formally in your database, I think there are other workarounds, other places where that information can be housed, maybe not in your formal database, but I think it is important to have a note and have a way for it to be noted in perpetuity. Someone actually had commented that both the EU and Canada have policies, meaning that people can request those. And I think that that is also the case in the US. So I just lost my question here. Oh, sorry. As someone who has been through harassment with a board member and spoken up, I was made aware that my institution does not have a policy or procedure to back me as a fundraiser or employee. So this person asks, how would you suggest me continuing to be an advocate for myself and others who may go through this? Yeah, it's, and hi Nikki, actually no Nikki, but I will, I think A, this is where you all really need to be advocates to your institutions. Any of your sexual harassment, anti-discrimination policies that are internal, that impact employees with each other should also pertain to your work with external folks. The reality is these are interactions that you're having through the course of your work. So all of those policies need to be reflected. And I think being able to go to your managers, talk to other folks on your teams and think about how you can advocate to your HR departments, to the university, to make sure that all of the relationships, all of the interactions that you have as part of your work are covered under those policies is really, really important. And so I just, I stress that because in a lot of ways, those formal HR policies are the biggest kind of thing you've got protecting you and providing processes for adjudication and all of that stuff. So, but I think again, in lieu of that, if that's a challenge, if that's gonna be a long-term process or a very difficult road ahead, I think being able to create at least department policies around things, at least creating kind of written agreements. I love somebody mentioned the, kind of a fundraiser's bill of rights, even if it's a less formalized policy, having some of that in place, I think can be really helpful. Someone else had said that a response they used to get a lot was you're being too sensitive when she tries to set boundaries. Do you have any suggestions for responding to that? Oh, I mean, I have lots of responses. I always joke, our colleagues, and I always joke that the Laurel 24 hours after somebody says something inappropriate to me is so much smarter and more clever than like the Laurel in the moment, right? Laurel in the moment is always like, they can't find the words, but a day later, I'm like, oh, I should have said that. I think that it is perfectly appropriate for you to say, I appreciate that you respond to situations differently than I do, but I need you to respect how I'm reacting to this. My father is a retired psychotherapist, and one of the things he always taught me was that the one thing no one ever gets to question you about are your feelings about things, right? You can question facts, you can question data, you can question objective pieces of information. No one gets to question how I feel about something. And I think it's really important for you to be able to say, we are coming at this from a very different perspective, and I appreciate that that's not how you would respond, but this is how I feel about that. And that's not something that's up for debate, right? So, or take that sentiment and make it your own. Yeah, I like that. I think just as a woman who grew up as a little girl, that sensitive comment is certainly something that I've heard many times throughout my life. And I'm like you, I'm like, I never had the response in the moment, but a week later I'm replaying that conversation with 25 things I wish I had said. Someone did ask if anyone has a fundraiser spill of rights they could view, and I think Bob, you responded that you haven't seen one that you love, but if people are willing to share, if you guys have one, I would be happy to sort of post them as well for everybody if anybody wants to email them to me at KGRIM at case.org, either anonymously or with your organization's name. We'd love to see that. If you have people have one, I think a number of groups are working on that. And I think it'd be really important to have something like that, that we could all adopt. So I know AFP is working on it. I don't know that they have a draft of it yet. So, but if others have found some good ones, you know, again, all this is an ongoing, evolving conversation. So, you know, if you have anything, we'd love to see it as well. And I can actually, I can turn on a discussion focus that's attached to this webinar in the learning platform so people can share directly with each other. So I'll do that and I'll include that in the followup with the webinar. I think we're almost at time, but we have one more question that came in. So I'll just ask this quickly. Someone said, you mentioned mitigating factors. $1 million donors getting treated differently than $5,000 donors, for example. By the time a major gift prospect behaves inappropriately, the fundraiser may be in too deep to raise objections. What's a good way to ensure we get ahead of potential situations in long-term relationships for a major giving? I mean, I'll just say my first, my instant reaction, I'm curious what you have to say, Bob, too, is, you know, I don't think you're ever in too deep. I don't think there's ever a point in any relationship with a donor in any kind of where longevity somehow negates bad behavior. And so I would say that, you know, again, if a donor is behaving poorly, if they're being inappropriate, if they've done or said something inappropriate, then you absolutely can continue to raise objections. What the institution chooses to do with those objections is likely going to be different to Bob's point. But I think in your role as an advocate, you always have the option to say, I don't think this is appropriate, regardless of how long you've been working with someone. So, you know, I would say that length of time and depth of relationship is not the factor that would make me not say something or not report a bad behavior or discuss a bad behavior. Maybe it would impact my expectations around what was going to happen as a result. Yeah, I mean, I think my point of raising it was just that there is a different dynamic there. I think how you deal with it is kind of up to you and your institution. But I would say this is where, one, having a gift acceptance policy is important and values is important. Having some way of, just like when we are in campaign and we kind of decide whether we're gonna get a gift of life insurance or some weird real estate gift, you can have some mechanism for adjudicating how you deal with, you know, a major donor and whether you're gonna continue your relationship with them. And to Laurel's point, you know, we work with a lot of environmental organizations who have seen a lot of turnover of donors as they've sort of changed how they approach things. And I would say, while they have lost donors, most of them have also gained just as many donors. And so by having that value and living those values, you may take a small hit at the time, but very often by being clear about what your values are, it can be a real positive for the organization. So thank you all. I know we're at our time. We really hope that this has been a useful webinar for you. You can find us at theosmongroup.com. Here's our personal email. And again, these are ongoing conversations. So we're having these ongoing conversations in our social media and our website and all the places you can find us. But we hope that you will take this conversation back to your own space and have these conversations because it's really important. For too long, we just haven't talked about this as an institute, as a sector. So thanks again and enjoy the rest of your day. And we wish you good luck navigating your relationships with your donors. Thanks everyone. Thank you so much, Laurel and Bob for joining us today.
Video Summary
The webinar "Navigating Difficult Donor Situations" by Laurel McCombs and Bob Osborne from the Osborne Group focuses on addressing challenging interactions between fundraisers and donors. The session emphasizes the evolving nature of fundraising, moving away from tolerating inappropriate donor behavior to promoting equitable and respectful donor relationships. It highlights the importance of preparedness, understanding power dynamics, and fostering clear policies and procedures to handle difficult donor interactions.<br /><br />Key points include:<br />1. **Power Dynamics and Identity**: The presenters discuss how power dynamics influenced by gender, race, and other identities impact fundraisers. They highlight historically unaddressed situations that fundraisers face and the necessity for such training.<br /> <br />2. **Response Strategies**: Practical tips for dealing with inappropriate donor behavior in the moment include pausing to reflect, using strategic questions, addressing the issue directly, or deflecting if addressing it isn't worth the emotional toll.<br /><br />3. **Preparedness and Policies**: They emphasize having exit strategies for uncomfortable situations, utilizing organizational values, dialogues, and leveraging support from colleagues. Institutions should have formal strategies and policies such as not attending donor meetings alone, flagging problematic donors, and using Uber funds to avoid sensitive situations.<br /><br />4. **Advocacy vs. Activation**: Fundraisers are encouraged to view themselves as advocates rather than decision-makers in whether an institution should continue engaging with a problematic donor.<br /><br />5. **Collaboration and Continuous Conversations**: Building a supportive team environment where fundraisers can discuss potential scenarios and strategies is crucial. This continuous feedback loop helps prepare individual fundraisers and promote institutional learning.<br /><br />The webinar concludes by encouraging the adoption and sharing of policies and experiences, and reminding participants that their safety and well-being should always come first.
Keywords
donor interactions
fundraising
power dynamics
inappropriate behavior
preparedness
policies
advocacy
collaboration
supportive environment
safety
well-being
×