Welcome back. In the previous lesson, we opened the door to your prospective donor. And now we'll focus on your objectives during that initial visit. At the end of this lesson, you will be able to explain the objectives of an initial visit and strategies to accomplish them, describe the three fundamental attributes for a major gift prospect, discuss how to assess the giving capacity of a donor during that initial visit, and finally, identify effective questions to pose to determine giving interests. Let's get started. So now we have our first visit. The qualification meeting is set. Now, what? What is the purpose and goals of this initial visit? The three fundamental attributes for a major gift prospect are linkage: Are they connected to your organization and mission in any way? Willingness: Does this individual have a philanthropic spirit and ability? Does this person have the financial capacity to make a major gift? These are the key elements that a development officer is trying to assess during a qualification call. Ability or capacity is the only element to this equation that is completely outside of our control. Willingness and a philanthropic spirit can be harder but not impossible to overcome. Linkage or the level of connection a prospect feels with our organization, is well within our ability to influence. How do you determine capacity? Some basic research regarding your prospects job and potential income levels will give you a base to start with. The value of their home and other property holdings. During the course of your meeting, you will be able to ascertain your prospects lifestyle and level of affluence based upon a number of things; Office furnishings, the car they drive, the clothing they're wearing, jewelry etc.. These markers alone do not automatically ensure that your prospect has the ability to make a significant gift as their lifestyle may be highly leveraged. However, they are a start in the right direction. Determining an individual's willingness or philanthropic intentions requires the ability to ask good questions and listen carefully for the answers. What other organizations is your prospect involved with? Do they serve in leadership capacities for other groups? Remember, gifts of time are often more difficult to make than that of financial resources. Here are a few examples of effective questions that you can pose to help determine philanthropy and giving interests. What do you like to accomplish with your philanthropy? What factors go into your philanthropic decisions? What other organizations do you currently support, or volunteer for, or serve on the board of? Which are your top three and why? Where does our organization fit on your list if not among the top three? And finally, what gifts have you given that have given you great pleasure, that have made an impact. How did it come about? What was the impact and what made it so pleasurable? Are you still involved with that particular organization? This final piece linkage will be strengthened based upon our determination of the first two qualifiers. If we deem the prospect to be both philanthropic and financially capable of supporting our organization, we will build an effective cultivation and engagement plan to move our relationship forward. During the course of your first meeting, be prepared to ask lots of questions. The purpose of our meeting is to listen far more than we speak. While we will share some information about our organization during this discussion, we are far more interested in hearing about our prospect, their life, and what they consider to be of value. When considering what questions to pose, you will find yourself with a wide variety of from which to choose, something that will be helpful in every situation. I think this quote from Stephen Covey is appropriate when considering our objectives for a first time visit with a prospect. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. As I mentioned, our goal is to pose open-ended questions. They are especially helpful should you feel the discussion coming to a potential dead end and will lead the way to a new territory and keep the conversation going. Open-ended questions start with the following statements; What? How? Why? Tell me, Describe, Explain more, please go on and give me more information about that. Another excellent way to keep your prospect talking is what are referred to as one word questions. In reality, these are actually short phrased questions or statements that are very effective ways to get deeper understanding of what your prospect is saying. While some might not consider them to be probing or deeply inspiring questions, they do work. Examples of one word questions include; uh-huh, hmm, interesting, oh, why? Sometimes when you are seeking to steer the conversation in a particular direction, another tactic in communication will be useful. Present your donor prospect with closed questions, these ask for very specific information. They actually restrict the possible answers. They are questions that can be answered with just a few words, usually yes or no. Questions that imply multiple choice answers are also classified as closed. They are helpful if you are trying to determine a path for your next line of questioning and discussion topics during a meeting. Counter-intuitive questions are another type of question that may be used to change the direction of a discussion. They are often used in situations where there is pressure and you are encountering a barrier to moving forward. Examples would include: Can we agree to disagree on this issue and let's get back to what we came to discuss today. Sounds like you've made up your mind, haven't you? Is that good or bad? It doesn't sound like this is of interest to you. What of the other things we do at our organization would be? And I believe this is not of interest to you. One last type of question that is often employed by development officers when meeting prospects, I classify as follow up questions. As the name implies, these questions are helpful when seeking additional clarity regarding a prospective donors position on a subject or determine whether or not the items you are presented have been correctly interpreted. Examples of follow up questions include: how so? Can you clarify that? Can you give me an example of what you mean? Do you have any questions about what I just said? What specific results are you looking for? Still other follow up questions would include: Can you say more about that? Did I understand you correctly when you said? Did I answer your question? How did that come about? What did that mean to you and your family? And how do you feel about that? And finally, these additional follow up questions. How strongly do you feel about that? What do you think about that? What is the most important to you? Are we in agreement? And are you ready to move forward? Realizing that not everyone who participates in this particular class is either currently employed by or has aspirations to work within higher education, I have attempted to make much of the material presented in these modules as general as possible. In this particular situation, I want to share with you a few first visit questions that I encourage members of my team at UC Davis to pose with their prospects. Some are only germane to the education field. However, the others could be adapted for use with other non-profits. They are: How did you come to choose UC Davis? What were some of your best experiences as a student here? When were you last back to campus? What brought you and what were your impressions? In what positive ways has UC Davis influenced your life? Which faculty members or administrators made an impact on your life? With Who are you still in touch? All of these questions will help provide the development team with some much needed information to round out our prospect profile and influence our cultivation plan in the event that our prospect is qualified at the conclusion of our meeting.
