12:35:56 Today, we'll explore the idea of donor archetypes as a framework for rethinking how we speak to and engage with our donors.
12:36:00 Ensuring that our strategies are not just transactional, but transformative.
12:36:05 for both our organizations and the communities we serve.
12:36:09 So with that, I'm excited to introduce our communications experts from Yes Ann Lipman Hearn.
12:36:16 And invite them to share more. So please help me welcome and invite to join on camera Colleen O'Grady and Andrew Tai.
12:36:25 Andrew Tai is the Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning at Yes And.
12:36:30 He has over 16 years of experience overseeing marketing teams and leading brand, digital, social, experiential.
12:36:38 communications and customer service strategies in both New York and DC.
12:36:43 During his tenure at Ogilvy and Mather and Anomaly, he worked across verticals with a variety of clients, including Nestle, Pfizer, Coca-Cola, Marriott, and Dick's Sporting Goods
12:36:55 He spent several years also at Memorial Sloan Kettering overseeing fundraising events and donor experience marketing teams.
12:37:01 He's also launched the most successful Kickstarter project in DC history, which is Music for Cats.
12:37:08 And I would love to learn more about that personally.
12:37:11 His focus at Yes And is on helping nonprofit, commercial, and government brands connect with their audiences.
12:37:18 both rationally and emotionally across the many touch points of a customer journey.
12:37:24 Colleen O'Grady is the vice president of philanthropic Strategy at Yes Ann Lippmann Hearn.
12:37:29 With more than 20 years of experience in nonprofit strategy and communications, she has helped launch billion dollar plus campaigns for Caltech.
12:37:37 the Chicago Community Trust, the Nature Conservancy, and others, as well as two consecutive campaigns for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
12:37:48 She takes pride in providing clients with the tools to deepen connections with their supporters.
12:37:52 And with that, I'll turn it over to Colleen and Andrew.
12:37:58 Thank you, Jaren. And Lucinda. I'm so appreciative of this knowledge leadership series that you host. And as I share my screen, I'm eager to
12:38:12 launch into this.
12:38:15 webinar today are you um are you
12:38:18 thing the proper view of my screen.
12:38:22 Yes.
12:38:22 not the preview mode. Okay, perfect. Well, what we're going to talk about today is
12:38:28 something that we are calling donor archetypes. And we'll start with a look at some of the ways that we tend to think about
12:38:37 and engage.
12:38:39 donors in a process of building their engagement over time. And there are different stages that we want to be aware of that we might be using more productively to give people a deeper sense of belonging and a more of a sort of welcoming experience. We'll talk a little bit about what word archetypes are, how they function in our brains, and then we'll talk about the nine archetypes in detail, and then we'll talk
12:39:03 or some tools that we hope will be useful to you and adaptable to your specific situation that'll help you sort of expand your ability
12:39:13 be offering this experience to your donors a little bit about Yes And we're a marketing and branding agency. We're not sociologists. We're not preparing this research for publishing, but we're always
12:39:27 preparing ourselves to be of service to the nonprofits that we serve. And that includes looking closely at the kind of behaviors that we're observing in the world and the kinds of things that we think indicate opportunities that might be being missed that we can
12:39:46 prepare ourselves to address more
12:39:50 more thoroughly.
12:39:54 When we talk about centering individual donors, one of the tools we use is this marketing funnel. Many organizations probably have a version of this.
12:40:03 Which is a way of looking at the audiences that might be coming to your nonprofit, becoming aware of you, and then going through a process of evaluating and making decisions and transactions so that they can one day become, you know, you're sustaining supporters in your most
12:40:18 your most tightly involved supporters. And often the conversation, especially when you're under pressure as everyone is to meet an annual goal.
12:40:28 that the conversation tends to focus on things like the mechanics of the transaction and whether the person feels persuaded in the moment to make a gift. And those are important questions to ask, but
12:40:41 As you can sort of see from the shape of this funnel, we think that there are a lot of people who might be dropping out of the process before they even get to the point of making that question.
12:40:50 Or asking that question. And so we want to kind of turn the attention for today to that very early stage when someone is becoming aware of you
12:40:59 And we almost liken it to a person arriving at a party and seeing all the different clusters of people gathered on the porch of the party and people are scanning the room to see
12:41:09 Do I see people who sort of think about things the way I do? Do I see people that I'm going to want to talk with? Do I feel welcome here?
12:41:18 And, you know, it's even for me. And so one of the ways that we think about doing that
12:41:24 using storytelling or character archetypes. And I'm going to pass this over to Andrew to talk a little bit about what archetypes are
12:41:32 and how they function.
12:41:37 Thank you so much, Colleen. So, you know, I think we're all pretty familiar with whether we even know it or not with archetypes, because if you think about over the history of time, there are recurring characters that our brains recognize. They help us identify other people.
12:41:53 But perhaps even more importantly, build a sense of belonging ourselves by understanding
12:41:59 who we are and how we relate to the people around us. So we're going to start with a bit of a story about
12:42:05 puffins here. As some of you may or may not know, puffins, like us humans, are extremely social creatures. They, like us, they want to fit in and they ultimately look for others
12:42:18 who are recognizable to us. And if it's ultimately a close enough match, we start to emulate what we're seeing in order to sort of like, and what we're seeing modeled socially in order to sort of figure out kind of what our own behaviors should be and act like. So this was a phenomenon, I think it was from Iceland, where in order to attract
12:42:37 more puffins to a certain area, they put statues of puffins to sort of, again, attract puffins there and
12:42:44 As it turns out, the puffin sort of the statues looked like they were sort of operating on one leg. And as it turned out, that
12:42:52 was a modeled behavior that several puffins were observed
12:42:56 to actually go about doing themselves and standing on one leg, as you can kind of see here.
12:43:02 You know, again, from a donor standpoint, our goal is really to communicate to donors a sort of a varied set of stories, right, to help them see themselves
12:43:13 in the stories that we're telling to, again, help whoever comes across your organization feel welcome and inspired rather than sort of mystified and out of place.
12:43:25 So again, what they do is they really help us get to the meat
12:43:29 of a story more quickly. Because again, like our own brains
12:43:35 So your own brains done this. We all do this every day. For those of you who are familiar with Daniel Kahneman's work and behavioral
12:43:41 behavioral science. There's a lot of things that we do in our everyday lives and shortcuts that our minds take because we need them to.
12:43:50 And archetypes and sort of
12:43:52 categorizing people is frankly one of the ways that we do that. Again, it helps get us to the meat of a story more quickly because you know we you know you
12:43:59 we subconsciously and consciously, by the way, will recognize the archetypes that we see out
12:44:05 In the world, you may have, so these are from the world of pop culture
12:44:10 We've got some of your investigator as a part of the X-Files here. Mulder and Scully, those are scholars, right? People sort of there that are really investigating things. That's, again, another archetype that we're pretty familiar with in pop culture. The warrior, you know, in this case, someone from the Avengers franchise, you know, again, sort of like standing for
12:44:28 what's ripe and are we willing to fight for that? And then you have the eccentric, right? Willy Wonka being a perfect example of that. So these are
12:44:35 There are a bunch of types of archetypes. You guys, by the way, may also be familiar with archetypes as they're associated with brands themselves. Nike, for example, is a pretty prominent example of the hero archetype.
12:44:49 And so again, like different sort of characters in our lives, both in pop culture and outside of it, can play these roles and the people that we know in our everyday lives oftentimes map to these types of archetypes. So what we're going to go through here
12:45:06 is ultimately later on in this presentation is the donor archetypes that we've synthesized for you all. But we wanted to start off with a quick little poll for you all.
12:45:16 Which is, what was a nickname that was given to this Olympic gymnast and what was he known by? And you can pick A, B, C, D, or E, A being the specialist.
12:45:28 bee pommel horse guy, C, Clark Kent, D, Spider Monkey, or E,
12:45:35 Paul. So we'll give you guys maybe 30 to 45 seconds to fill out this poll and then we'll see what the results are.
12:45:44 But we wanted to take a recent example from the real world for those of you who may have watched some of the Olympics over the summer.
12:45:59 Right. Well, it looks like we've already started to see some results go in. I'm seeing about half of you put pommel horse guy.
12:46:07 About 40% put Clark Kent, and then there were a smattering of others with the specialist and spider monkey as well. Only one of you put Paul. As it turns out, actually A through D are all correct. This guy's name is Stephen Nedorosic. I believe I'm pronouncing that correctly. Paul is actually a different gymnast on the U.S. team.
12:46:31 But ultimately, one of the reasons why this moment was so sort of resonated across, you know, social media and across, you know, sort of regular media as well and traditional media
12:46:43 was because it tapped into the embedded awareness that we have of a certain archetype. In this case.
12:46:49 It was a person with a very specialized skill kind of flying below the radar and then coming through in a very clutch moment.
12:46:57 For those of you who aren't aware of sort of what took place, again, he was kind of, again, wasn't really prominently featured. There were people wondering who is this guy on the gymnastics team who didn't seem to be doing much.
12:47:07 And then when he was needed most for his team, he went and crushed his pommel horse routine.
12:47:13 And help the team win its medal. So again, this is the idea that even though we are not ourselves elite athletes, most of us.
12:47:22 we could still relate to this because we understand the archetype that was at the core of what it was.
12:47:28 So again, that's just an example from the real world that we figured would get us into the right mindset. But with that, I'm going to turn it back over to Colleen to start going through the nine donor archetypes we've got to share with you today.
12:47:41 And then we'll talk about how to sort of utilize those afterwards.
12:47:46 Yeah, thanks, Andrew. And the reason that we like sharing that example from the Olympics is that, you know, not a lot of people
12:47:52 But right out of the gate, imagine themselves as elite athletes or think about things the way that person might. But what we'd like to see is stories that are told about those athletes that do contain an element that's relatable. So when we think about donor archetypes.
12:48:09 We're looking for qualities and ways of thinking about the world that seem to be found in these donor stories that we see in the culture so that we can extract those elements, package them into easily memorable
12:48:24 archetypes and then give communicators tools for sort of opening up their thinking about the stories that they're telling the world about who a donor is and who a donor might be or
12:48:34 kinds of different ways that are all allowable and invited to participate in giving. So as we were preparing this
12:48:42 set of archetypes. Going back, I think, six or seven years now, we've been looking at
12:48:47 personal statements that are being published by Giving Pledge signers in which they articulate the reasons behind their own decision to make
12:48:56 to make this pledge to give.
12:48:59 their wealth during their lifetimes to nonprofit purposes. And then we're also looking at media coverage of gifts and giving and doing some social listening because we don't only want this
12:49:10 set of archetypes to be informed by ultra high net worth individual giving, but by the stories that are told about people who maybe bring a different lens to it or a different type of resources so that we're not risking alienating any potential donors.
12:49:28 So the set of nine archetypes are listed here. We're going to go through each of these.
12:49:34 And sort of three by three and outline a little bit about what are some of the things that might
12:49:40 make you…
12:49:41 that might be recognizable or relatable to people that are hearing these stories out in the wild.
12:49:48 And the first of these is the closer. This is somebody that brings a really special expertise, a specialized resource that few others can offer. I think in baseball, there's a position called a closer, which is a pitcher. They're not running to every situation, but they're brought into special moments. This gymnast that we looked at just now is also another example of this
12:50:09 Where when it's their moment to shine, they really step in.
12:50:13 The second is a strategist. This is someone that is looking at getting to the root of an issue, very comfortable working behind the scenes, quietly, sort of taking things apart to see how they work, and then putting them back together in an even better way.
12:50:30 And then something that, you know.
12:50:34 looks like a little bit of a contrast to that is an enthusiast.
12:50:37 someone who just values
12:50:40 the novel experience of being a philanthropist or being philanthropic who really recognizes and values that as something that brings
12:50:50 joy to their life and is really core to their experience.
12:50:57 we look at something like, we use this word mantras to talk about what is the sort of
12:51:04 core position that we think this person might be standing for. For a closer, this is my time to shine. I can bring something special to the situation, a strategist committed to understanding this problem at a macro and micro level.
12:51:17 And these are the sort of badges that they're wearing that they want to show the world for the enthusiast.
12:51:23 This brings me joy and happiness. This enriches my life full stop.
12:51:28 And then what is the quest that these people are on? What are they trying to accomplish in the world?
12:51:33 Whether it's moving the needle single handedly or by rallying others, doing something that others couldn't accomplish on their own.
12:51:40 Maybe it's adding to the volume of knowledge while making a difference, really being part of that problem solving team.
12:51:48 or enjoying and reflecting on this novel experience, building quality relationships that are bringing meaning to their life.
12:51:56 And finally, looking at the personality that we think is inhabited by each of these archetypes. For a closer, this is somebody that's going to come across as courageous.
12:52:07 insightful, you know, very at ease taking risks. In fact, they kind of prefer that space.
12:52:11 when the moment is right. For a strategist, this is someone who's inquisitive, they're diligent, they're very in the details, skilled, patient focused.
12:52:22 And the enthusiast is someone who is open and friendly, really responsive, loves to meet people and engage with them and learn and are sort of thoughtful about the process and the experience of being a donor.
12:52:36 So this is the first set of three contrasting to one another. I'm going to pass it over to Andrew, who will talk through this next set of three.
12:52:44 Yeah, so to build off that, again, the nice thing about archetypes is, again, that the
12:52:50 They're quick ways of referencing certain types of
12:52:53 gatherings of personality traits and again, how they kind of view the world. So these are somewhat self-explanatory, but to give you some more in-depth
12:53:02 understanding of each of these. The first is this explorer, right? And again, it kind of makes sense, but this is someone
12:53:08 Who is mindful of risk, but ultimately sort of like wants to proceed gradually while learning, right? I think it's sort of perhaps in the, if you're thinking about it from a Myers-Briggs standpoint, someone who needs to sense things out before sort of understanding how to do things versus going maybe by intuition as much.
12:53:24 You then have your world builder, right? Someone who sees sort of giving and nonprofits and philanthropy as instrumental to ultimately advanced some sort of agenda, whatever that agenda might be.
12:53:37 And then the power shifter, who is someone who wants to correct imbalances of power and ultimately help people
12:53:44 Who need more help and give them sort of, and again the
12:53:48 giving them more agency through their giving. And so with that sort of like the mantras that are associated with them, the explorer, you might hear them say things like, I want to make a difference, you know, sort of in taking sort of like doing that takes care and thought. It sort of isn't something that you can just sort of like do off the bat or perhaps make an intuitive
12:54:09 decision on, but something that the person needs to kind of dig into and really get their hands, their hands on to understand
12:54:16 how they want to make that difference. The world builder, right? The idea of advancing their agenda
12:54:22 Whatever that agenda might be. And the power shifter mantras around people who are closer to this issue than I am, they do know best and we need to speak to them. I need to know
12:54:31 what is sort of what's going through their minds and they deserve trust. They deserve a chance. They deserve an opportunity.
12:54:38 So again, some of the keywords that might help you understand when you're communicating with or speaking to different donors, how their mindset might align with some of these archetypes. In terms of what they're questing after, the explorer is all about gathering knowledge, not making gut decisions.
12:54:55 learning the context, avoiding mixed steps, again, making sure that they kind of understand the depth
12:55:01 of the topic that you're talking about.
12:55:04 the world builder is going to leverage advantages and resources towards some sort of vision of their own, right? So again, less about understanding and exploring sort of how the impact can most be made, but they kind of have an idea in their head of how they think that impact can be most
12:55:20 can be made best and they're going to sort of like use information to kind of support that worldview
12:55:26 And that vision that they have. And then the power shifter is again, going to try to see and correct
12:55:31 power imbalances, right? To listen and adjust and try to understand the perspectives
12:55:37 of those sort of like across the sort of power spectrum.
12:55:41 And then some personality traits and characteristics that define them, right? The explorer
12:55:46 likely to be sort of humble, very curious, capable, but cautious in sort of like new territory. Again, wanting to explore and really kind of make things tangible.
12:55:56 For them before making decisions. Whereas the world builder is very self-driven, right? Comfortable wielding
12:56:01 power sort of like an understanding of, again, taking information and kind of understanding how it might be used
12:56:08 to sort of better the world in the sort of like with the perspective that they've got in terms of building that
12:56:14 building that better world. And then the power shifter is going to be very mindful of power dynamics. Bold at times
12:56:22 sort of like pretty easy going with ambiguity and maybe more comfortable with that. So again, like these are just maybe some helpful characteristics and qualities that may help you identify
12:56:33 Where some of your donors fall in. And again, worth noting, by the way, that these aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.
12:56:38 But that ultimately that people will probably identify and self-identify with some of these more than others.
12:56:43 And Colleen's going to go through the latter three before we get into some exercises.
12:56:47 Yeah, that's a good reminder that
12:56:50 many individuals who are you know
12:56:54 fully well-rounded individuals in the world are going to see in themselves or identify with
12:57:01 more than one of these elements or see inspiration in a variety of different types of donors that they observe. And so our goal isn't to try to label our donors and pigeonhole them into one way.
12:57:16 Thinking about the world, but more to sort of our thinking about
12:57:23 fact of the variety that we see in this set of nine includes the calculator. This is someone that
12:57:30 really believes and wants there to be an objective way to measure the effectiveness of their giving and to make sure that it's efficient. These folks are maybe thinking about what constitutes
12:57:44 a well-made gift as a sort of philosophical question.
12:57:48 a lot of those folks you'll see using the term effective altruism. That's something that we've been seeing more and more discussion of
12:57:55 lately. And then someone that we're calling the free spirit. And this is someone who likes to do things differently um
12:58:04 And maybe build movements, defy norms but um in this
12:58:09 in this way of looking at the experience of giving, there is a real irreverence and a sort of
12:58:16 desire to break against the mold. And that's part of the value of the experience for this person that they are kind of kicking against
12:58:24 what's expected and getting kind of a thrill and a joy and some motivation from that. And then finally, the helper. This is actually, we saved this for last because this is the depiction of a donor that we think is kind of most commonly relied on. This is someone that
12:58:41 Just values making an immediate impact and the feeling of helping. That's a totally legitimate and
12:58:49 you know, real
12:58:51 way of looking at problem solving that is found in the world, but it's not the only way of thinking about giving.
12:58:57 Looking at the mantras that each of these folks
12:59:00 these sort of extrapolated folks would be thinking about a calculator is saying I'm more confident when I can objectively measure and compare options. That sense of objectivity and of
12:59:12 having confidence in that is very important for our free spirit. They're thinking we want to mix things up. Let's just try to kick at the wheels of this thing and see if we can do it a better way.
12:59:22 And then if I can help in some small way, why not do it? It's not too complicated if they, you know.
12:59:28 make a difference in someone's life. That's a win.
12:59:33 the quest that they're on. This calculator archetype is on a quest to propose and test different measurement methods to maximize impact, to make a dollar go as far as possible and toward the right kinds of impacts.
12:59:47 There's controversy in that, but it's sort of a clue into a type of personality of way of looking at this question. For a free spirit, they're on a quest to model novel approaches, to model this
13:00:01 sense of maybe injecting chaos in a productive and a playful way, rebelling, generating conversation.
13:00:08 And then the helper is looking to stay open to ways to help, maybe developing a sense of gratitude and a sense of abundance in their own life.
13:00:17 And then personalities that we are seeing for the calculator. This might be someone that is seen as or wants the world to see them as brainy, earnest.
13:00:28 exacting and precise.
13:00:30 Free spirit is rebellious in nature, a little bit playful. They're comfortable with attention and um
13:00:37 blowing things up a little bit.
13:00:39 And then the helper is someone that is coming across as generous, big-hearted, but not overthinking things.
13:00:46 So that was a speed run through this set of nine archetypes. We want to pause for a second and ask which
13:00:53 of these nine archetypes resonated most with you. We'll give that a few seconds to sort of
13:01:01 for folks to process.
13:01:03 Yeah, feel free to take a bit of time to kind of
13:01:05 check them out because again, likely you'll maybe gravitate towards a couple of them. We're kind of interested in perhaps if there is one that
13:01:12 you see as most primarily like yourself would be interested in how that
13:01:16 shows up. We have some hypotheses going into a webinar like this about where some of our audiences might skew. But yeah, feel free to use that.
13:01:27 polling technology and then we'll see where
13:01:30 We'll see where we net out.
13:01:41 Give another five to 10 seconds.
13:01:45 to vote.
13:01:53 All right. Wow. Okay. This is very interesting. A pretty varied
13:01:58 and diversified set of webinar participants today.
13:02:03 That may not come as much of a surprise, the most common answer was the strategist. There were nine of you that considered yourself
13:02:11 to align most closely with that.
13:02:14 There were seven power shifters and then basically pretty diversely scattered across the other archetypes. I'll say myself, I consider myself
13:02:24 to be an enthusiast within this, even though a strategist is part of my title, ironically. We did not have very many closers. We only had two of those amongst the audience. But again, I think this is sort of an indication, right, that like Colleen mentioned, while the helper sort of may be
13:02:41 the archetype that we lean towards in many sort of ways.
13:02:47 There are people gravitate towards a bunch of different ones and it's a pretty
13:02:52 pretty diverse set of them that we as humans identify with. So also very good for us to kind of keep that in mind. And I think that this is sort of like, again, a small focus group here, but an understanding of
13:03:04 the diversity that people see them as, right? Because these are based on stories that are told throughout
13:03:11 history throughout culture, and so that we've seen ourselves gravitate towards certain ones over the course of our lives.
13:03:17 And it was really interesting to see the diversity with you all.
13:03:21 Again, worth noting going into how to utilize these. So that's what we're going to take you through is a bit of a toolkit on how you can
13:03:29 tell a more welcoming and inclusive set of stories
13:03:32 using the sort of archetypes as a foundation. And what we're going to do is take you through a kind of like a three part
13:03:40 toolkit that we think sort of would be helpful to
13:03:44 to begin executing upon by actually holding three different brainstorming sessions.
13:03:50 Again, we recommend kind of gathering your team
13:03:53 This could sort of be your own actual team sort of insiders who know your donors. Perhaps even if you know some of the donors themselves.
13:04:00 Those are going to be tasked with making the stories visible for three different sessions. They can be sort of up to an hour. Again, you can spend as much time on this as you'd like, but it's also, we want to mention it's very much okay to break this up over the course of several weeks because they're meant to kind of build on one another.
13:04:16 And Colleen will take you through them. But the first one is your channels and vehicles. This is sort of like starting with an understanding and a bit of an audit of where and how
13:04:26 what are the channels and the vehicles that you have through which to share stories, right? Where and how you're going to share these stories that are signaling varied approaches to giving
13:04:34 And again, to share stories that would resonate to people who gravitate towards different archetypes.
13:04:40 The next is story elements, right? The specific attributes and details found in the stories you might tell.
13:04:46 to tell that sort of varied approaches to giving. And then finally, your source material, right? What are some prompts and
13:04:54 and avenues through which you can actually go about gathering what you need to support these richly varied stories because you're probably not going to have them just literally in your back pocket.
13:05:04 So these are some helpful tools for that. So with that, we'll go into the first session, which is about channel and vehicle inventory.
13:05:12 Yeah, thanks. So our goal in this
13:05:16 toolkit is to, you know, we don't think that it's productive to try to assign everybody a lot of homework or tasks
13:05:25 that involve relabeling or recategorizing all the donors that are in your donor base, but rather approach it from the end of what it is that might be out in the world that your prospective donors could be seeing. Let them choose and sort of decide for themselves which things are inspiring or which things they might respond to.
13:05:47 But what we're hoping is that this creates
13:05:51 space for you to be creative about the ways you weave in story elements
13:05:57 into your existing channels. So the first step is to take this inventory of all the channels that you currently are using and that you might gradually, you know, maybe all at once or maybe gradually over time, start to weave in
13:06:11 little micro stories that start to advance different ideas about who a donor is and what types of donors are welcome at your organization.
13:06:19 So looking at channels, these are what we mean by channels are you know things like short form social media, maybe a series of Instagram grid posts.
13:06:30 And what we see commonly is when organizations make an announcement of a gift.
13:06:35 the most common thing that we often see is the name of the donor, the amount of the gift, sometimes the purpose that the gift was intended to, but we rarely see any kind of insight into the decision-making process that led them there or the kind of thing that they're hoping to accomplish
13:06:51 Other than making a direct impact
13:06:54 that is sort of clear about why the gift was made to that purpose. But thinking about things like
13:07:01 having um you know having
13:07:04 whether that gift sort of felt a certain way to them or whether that gift is likely to have a long-term strategic impact or at least yield some information that will inform long-term strategic impact. So when we think about something like a series of Instagram grid posts that might feature testimonial quotes from donors.
13:07:23 that's an opportunity to start to reveal and unpack some of those motivators that could be
13:07:30 behind those donor stories. We can, you know, this will be different for every institution, but you might also be looking at using long form social media like
13:07:39 in-depth posts on LinkedIn. You might be looking at video compilations of donor testimonials that can be shared at an event. And every one of these touch points is
13:07:50 an opportunity to look at an opportunity to look at
13:07:53 perhaps past instances of communications like this and you can sort of
13:08:00 evaluate the stories that you have been telling and try to identify, have you been telling people stories of
13:08:06 donors that are primarily helpers or primarily strategists or maybe a mix of
13:08:11 many different archetypes and more that aren't even on this list of nine. But what we're hoping to do is give you some prompts that will allow you to
13:08:21 not create you know build um reinvent the wheel, but to look for the things that you're already doing that put don't
13:08:31 stories in front of your donors and prospective donors and look at ways to maybe enrich them and change the angle on the way the story is being told.
13:08:41 And I also find it's helpful to kind of assign a level of effort
13:08:46 to making this tactic effective and being as realistic as possible about that will help you prioritize
13:08:55 the tools that you are going to commit to evolving to a more diversified story base versus things that are just
13:09:04 too hard to attempt right now, something that we'll table maybe to next year.
13:09:10 And then the next phase that we are recommending is to take an inventory of
13:09:15 the tellable stories that you have at your disposal. And rather than, you know, you might
13:09:24 align your donor stories with the nine archetypes specifically, or you can make it a little bit easier on yourself and just align those tellable stories with
13:09:34 some of the features and qualities that are true of some of these archetypes so that you're just simplifying that process a little bit more. Are there elements of risk or leverage that can be found
13:09:46 in the donor story? Does it seem like the person is
13:09:51 very prescriptive and focused on evidence or does it seem like that donor is less prescriptive and more sort of deliberately trusting in the way that they've made their gift and often you know donors do think about these things and
13:10:06 want to be
13:10:07 you know they would welcome their story of impact kind of carrying these additional elements.
13:10:14 So in this example, we've got a few that we are imagining could
13:10:21 be demonstrative of some of these ways of thinking about the world. A student who creates a kind of
13:10:27 food pantry gift mob for his fellow students and you know might be telling a story that's very exuberant and that involves an element of disruption and irreverence and
13:10:38 also has an immediate impact.
13:10:41 So that story might resonate with more than one archetype. So we want to sort of just be aware of the tellable stories that are in our universe and in our experience and be mindful about highlighting and bringing those
13:10:56 elements to the surface in the stories that we tell.
13:11:01 And then finally, this is a little bit of a
13:11:05 donor interview tip sheet that we use as a starting point and some of the partners that we work with who use this
13:11:14 lens of archetypes to think about their donor communications will say that going through this exercise of
13:11:20 thinking about those attributes.
13:11:23 that donors might be resonating with or trying to exhibit to others
13:11:29 is an exercise that helps them
13:11:31 just adapt as listeners and change the way that they engage with
13:11:38 the current donors that they have relationships with.
13:11:40 So this list of questions is something that has evolved from those partnerships
13:11:45 We think it's a great starting point. There are likely going to be other questions that you would add to this as you begin working on it.
13:11:53 the utility of this list or the intention behind it is for
13:11:58 people that are tasked with creating or writing up a donor impact story that might be shared on the web or on an Instagram feed or somewhere in a
13:12:08 annual report that they have.
13:12:11 some additional thought starters that can help them probe to that deeper level of
13:12:17 of revealing what it is that it is
13:12:21 helps exemplify
13:12:23 all these different types of ways of thinking about problem solving and impact in the world. So that's a lot to
13:12:31 to speed through.
13:12:32 And I wanted to make sure that there was time for questions. So I will wrap up there and turn it over to
13:12:40 Jaron to talk us through some Q&A.
13:12:44 Yeah, thank you so much, Colleen and Andrew. That was really
13:12:49 fascinating information and conversation. I really appreciate you sharing it with us.
13:12:55 A reminder for everyone that you can submit questions that you have for Colleen and Andrew using the Q&A
13:13:03 button at the bottom on your toolbar
13:13:07 And we'll try to get to as many
13:13:10 as we can. But first off, I know I was
13:13:15 taking notes furiously and thinking about you know how
13:13:18 which of these archetypes
13:13:20 resonate with me.
13:13:24 And I think one question that came to mind for me
13:13:29 As you started to talk through
13:13:31 some of the
13:13:34 The toolkit especially
13:13:37 is I'm hoping you can expand a little bit on
13:13:41 how organizations can go about
13:13:45 figuring out which of these archetypes might resonate the most with their donors and
13:13:52 then practically, how do they adjust their messaging in order to appeal to those?
13:13:57 archetypes.
13:13:58 Yeah, I think that's a great starting point for the
13:14:02 for the conversation and the conversation and
13:14:05 One thing that I'll say is true is you may, in delving into the set of archetypes, you may look at one or two of those archetypes and say, that's
13:14:14 that person or somebody who thinks about the world that way might not actually be a great fit for this organization.
13:14:21 If there's a donor that is really eager to be disruptive and to sort of throw a little bit of a chaos into the mix.
13:14:30 there are some organizations where that's a productive enterprise and then there are some other organizations who
13:14:38 you know for whom that would not really be a great a great pit or a world builder, someone who is
13:14:45 looking at the nonprofit sector as
13:14:48 sort of just another way of organizing
13:14:51 interventions in the world and they'll um
13:14:57 you know, they'll do what they will to get the outcome that they're looking for, whether it's helpful to the nonprofit or not.
13:15:03 So there's, I think, a legitimate
13:15:07 moment of evaluating whether all of those archetypes truly are a good fit with your organization because you don't want to be out there promising
13:15:16 belonging to people that aren't really going to
13:15:19 how that would be a good fit and helpful to your organization. But if you are identifying people that you think would
13:15:27 find that they would find a good fit with your organization in accomplishing a sort of strategic
13:15:33 understanding of what's behind an issue or any of these other experiences for the explorer archetype
13:15:42 being able to offer people a way to get their legs as philanthropists and explore and learn from peers and
13:15:52 sort of come to understand
13:15:55 what sorts of impact is possible without um
13:15:59 getting out ahead of themselves
13:16:01 too quickly uh you know that is an experience that you have to also be able to promise them.
13:16:07 If you're going to be
13:16:09 making yourself welcoming to them. So I think
13:16:15 The…
13:16:16 I don't want to belabor this or go on for too long.
13:16:21 that inventory exercise
13:16:25 And that step of looking at what you have been communicating
13:16:30 to the world could be a good starting point to say, oh, here's an opportunity where I might have told a more nuanced story about the motivation behind that gift.
13:16:39 I think that can be really revealing and illuminating for an organization.
13:16:45 Absolutely. You know, building on that, we got a question from the audience about
13:16:51 how do we ensure
13:16:52 that these archetypes we're thinking about and sort of
13:16:55 crafting our messaging around don't slip into stereotypes.
13:17:01 Yeah, that's a great question.
13:17:03 And I think the way we differentiate stereotypes and archetypes internally is
13:17:09 We think that a stereotype is sort of claiming that that's the full story about a person or a character that you see.
13:17:18 And an archetype sort of uses a little bit of an inherited awareness or template of
13:17:23 how a person thinks about things, but then elaborates on it and expands on it. So I think it's
13:17:30 more, it'll be more true to life and more realistic if you begin to tell a story of
13:17:37 a donor and the way they think about problem solving and let the nuances of their
13:17:44 thought process as they articulate it.
13:17:46 come through rather than trying to shoehorn
13:17:51 them down into representing only one way of thinking about things
13:17:57 I think we want there to be elements of the story that are recognizable
13:18:01 And that don't seem like they come out of left field, but then we can also let other elements of the story
13:18:08 begin to show nuance that is very
13:18:12 particular and personal.
13:18:14 Yeah, it's sort of like the first layer of
13:18:18 Essentially sort of being able to inform how you'd sort of
13:18:21 probe more into what a certain donor is looking for, right? And sort of giving you an idea of, oh, okay, if I'm hearing these sorts of words, I wonder if they might gravitate towards X, Y, and Z. But then that becomes, again, a learning experience because to Colleen's
13:18:37 point. The last thing we want to do is sort of assume that a couple of things that we might be sort of hearing from a donor sort of immediately puts them into sort of a bucket that they might not completely identify with or agree with. So again, it just gives kind of like a starting point and a sort of springboard
13:18:55 upon which we can learn more about each of them.
13:18:59 And I know that actually sort of gets into, I know this sort of the next, another of these questions, which is sort of how do we use them to sort of guide which staff member has them sort of in the portfolio, right? Like consider sort of who is paired with them. Absolutely. Like, I think that that's kind of spot on and that what this
13:19:18 can do is help understand not only what stories to connect the sort of certain donors to.
13:19:25 but how to go about connecting them to that. And do you have someone on the team that maybe sort of
13:19:33 relates to that type of archetype, you know, or can say something like, oh, I'm like you in this way, race and XYZ. And that sort of creates a level of
13:19:42 relatability that you can do. So I think sort of going through this exercise and understanding even
13:19:48 who the members of the team, how they map into the different archetypes might help you understand who to
13:19:54 who to have conversations with and who should be having conversations with certain donors. So I think that's a great point. And I think certainly one way to
13:20:03 to kind of take it, but it involves some level of an understanding of our own personality types and the ones that make up the team in order to kind of pair them properly with
13:20:14 In order to inform some of those conversations.
13:20:17 I love that. I love that idea of having your own team go through
13:20:21 the exercise. I think we all
13:20:23 Just by virtue of being here today and doing the poll.
13:20:26 we've understood a little bit more inherently what these
13:20:30 these archetypes are by
13:20:33 the exercise of thinking about how we fit in. And so we have a deeper understanding that way. And so it could be really
13:20:40 beneficial for before you try to take this out to your donor base to have your team understand where they fit in.
13:20:47 It makes it easier to have the conversations. And I'm also hearing you say in a couple of different ways, a reminder that
13:20:54 this
13:20:55 paradigm for thinking is really for the beginning of that funnel
13:21:00 It's the entry point. It's the springboard, as you said, Andrew, rather than the like, how do we craft the ask message for this particular person, right?
13:21:10 It's earlier in the process.
13:21:14 I want to um
13:21:15 An interesting question came in around, you were talking about the the um
13:21:20 inventory, the storytelling inventory
13:21:23 And how to use that. And an interesting question that I think you all are particularly positioned to answer because you straddle the world of donor communications and marketing.
13:21:35 is how do you have any advice for working with marketing departments?
13:21:40 for most of us are development professionals here. How can we work with the marketing department
13:21:46 in order to start to enable this kind of strategy
13:21:53 And help them see how this can help them
13:21:55 help us, but also complement the storytelling we're already doing.
13:22:01 Yeah, I think the question is probably coming from the perspective of an organization where there's
13:22:09 a separate marketing team that is not within fundraising. And often when our clients kind of share with us a challenge in that area.
13:22:19 One of the things that they'll
13:22:22 share is that the marketing team thinks that what they're being asked to do is to solicit people.
13:22:27 through the Instagram channel or through, you know.
13:22:30 digital ads or whatever it is that they're promoting. And, you know, we try to stress that
13:22:37 the story of impact is of impact
13:22:42 is not, you know, it needs to be thought of in a different category as a solicitation that
13:22:48 talking about the mission of the organization and the impact of the organization needs to go beyond just profiling people that are helped by the organization or make claims about the mission, but also starting to talk about all the people
13:23:04 that are part of that are part of
13:23:07 community that is
13:23:08 concerned about this issue and the ways they think about how they can be helpful so that
13:23:14 you know sort of
13:23:18 permission to be more expansive in how you think about as marketers communicating a story that has to do with fundraising or that's
13:23:26 in a way supportive of fundraising without it being an ask, that does help
13:23:31 people feel you know more open to it. I would also say maybe taking those marketers through an exercise of
13:23:36 looking at these archetypes and trying to identify with one or the other, that might sort of build their own buy-in or investment in
13:23:47 how meaningful it might be to bring stories like that.
13:23:51 to the surface.
13:23:52 It's really helpful. And as I know, I've always struggled with that conversation and exactly what you're talking about. We're not asking you to make an ask.
13:24:01 I'm…
13:24:02 I'm curious if you have seen
13:24:06 strategies that work well incorporating this kind of messaging
13:24:11 that speak both to speak both to
13:24:15 welcoming new donors and helping them see themselves in the organization.
13:24:19 As well as current donors who were maybe a little bit further along in the funnel.
13:24:25 Are those two different strategies or are there ways to sort of do both?
13:24:31 Well, I think, andrew pylon, if you like, but I think that, you know, for
13:24:40 And our experience has been when
13:24:42 committed donors or people that have been involved for a while are invited to sort of
13:24:47 reflect on not only why they choose this
13:24:51 subject area to have an impact in but you know what has been their thought process or their learning process or
13:24:58 What has changed for them over time as they think about being involved in
13:25:03 being of help to this kind of a situation.
13:25:06 And when they are given that window to reflect and share some of how, you know.
13:25:15 how their thinking has evolved or what the experience has meant to them personally, that starts to reinforce or deepen their own connection with the organization. So for many of those folks, they welcome the opportunity to reflect on it and then
13:25:29 will be willing to be willing to
13:25:34 to share testimonials that you know sort of
13:25:38 help show the world who they are. So I think it can work as a cultivation relationship cultivation strategy
13:25:48 Absolutely. That's a great point.
13:25:51 I know we only have a few minutes left, but I thought there's one more question that came through and I think it's a good
13:25:57 way to wrap up, which is that
13:26:01 You know.
13:26:02 toolkit that you laid out and the strategy for sort of moving through the different sessions
13:26:09 It's kind of a lot. It's great.
13:26:13 But for those who maybe find themselves in smaller organizations or smaller shops.
13:26:19 What's the one practical thing
13:26:22 that you would recommend
13:26:24 they or anyone who's like ready to start on this but doesn't really know how, what's the practical step to implement some of this stuff that maybe isn't
13:26:33 the whole enchilada.
13:26:36 Colleen, I'm happy to quickly start with that. There's actually sort of specifically designed to be helpful for very small teams, kind of like, you know, using these frameworks
13:26:44 printing them out and just sort of using them to do a bit of an inventory. Because I think the first level is a getting a sense of your own self. And again, I'm just going to use somewhat of a staff of one as an example.
13:26:57 You know, getting an understanding of the types of donors that you typically have that come through your organization and why they might be supporting it. And then again, just doing that kind of in your own head and then going through the inventory of the stories that you have to tell and seeing
13:27:14 what sort of what questions those stories answer or what sort of the things in a couple of those worksheets that Colleen presented, where your sort of gaps might be. Okay, you know what?
13:27:27 we're really missing a story that says this and this. And then you can actually go about finding that within
13:27:34 You know, the walls of the impact that your organization is making. So I think kind of getting an inventory and seeing where
13:27:43 you have where your stories sort of are playing, where those gaps are, I think is probably a good place to start. And that's something that frankly, like a team of one can do because ultimately what that helps you do is understand, okay, like where.
13:27:54 Where do I need to do a bit more digging? And then when you're getting, let's say like, you know, you're about to have a meeting with someone, let's say it gives you a framework for understanding, okay, well, this is the type of
13:28:05 Because I know X, Y, and Z about this donor, I think that stories about these sorts of things might be good to share with them the next time I speak with them. So again, it just kind of gives a bit of a head start
13:28:18 In terms of not only seeing an inventory of the stories you have, but also informing those direct conversations you might be having
13:28:24 one-on-one as a part of a small shop. So hopefully that helps a little bit. And Colleen, feel free to add anything.
13:28:42 Yep.
13:28:30 Yeah, I think that's well said. I think just giving yourself permission to approach this enterprise or approach this task in bite-sized pieces, you might look at in the next six months, what are a couple of publications that you know you're going to be putting out an annual report or, you know, even a direct mail appeal and think about, you know, am I telling any donor story
13:28:55 in those situations.
13:28:57 And then look for what I call the black box donor story where it's opaque, where you know some facts about it, like the amount of the gift and the name of the donor, but nothing more.
13:29:09 So what we're hoping to do is replace that black box
13:29:12 of like opaquickness with something that's a little bit more transparent into you know what was done. And if you can do that with one donor story in the next few months, that's a great
13:29:22 a great start.
13:29:23 baby steps. We're eating the elephant one bite at a time.
13:29:27 Yes.
13:29:28 Well, thank you so much. We're almost at time. I want to thank Colleen and Andrew very much for their time today and for sharing all of their insights. This has been a really interesting and robust conversation and I know I've
13:29:41 have a lot of things to take away from it that I'm going to be thinking about.
13:29:45 And with that, I'm going to invite Lucinda to wrap us up.
13:29:49 Absolutely. I want to echo that. Thank you, Andrew and Colleen. And thank you, Jaren.
13:29:54 For moderating what wonderful information and really great examples and tools.
13:30:00 for everyone to take away and get started right away. Thank you everyone for joining.
13:30:06 This has been a really wonderful, robust session.
13:30:10 A couple of quick reminders.
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13:30:58 You can email us there. We would love to continue the conversation and answer your questions and dialogue more about the donor archetypes.
13:31:07 So with that, again, thank you um
13:31:10 to our speakers and presenters, thank you all to all of you for being here and participating.
13:31:15 And we're going to conclude today's session. I hope you all have a really wonderful day and afternoon and hope to hear from you soon. Thanks so much
13:31:22 Have a nice day.