326. The Habits of an Impactful Major Gifts Officer - Julie Ordoñez
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Overview
Welcome back to our Friday Series The Habits of an Impactful Fundraiser. This week we're taking on major gifts, and you better hold onto your britches for this conversation with one of our experts, Julie Ordoñez, founder of Courage Lab and Nonprofit Courage Lab podcast as we breakdown Habits of an Impactful Major Gift Officer. Prepare for everything you've learned about raising investment-level gifts to be upended - for good. We're bringing tips, case studies and the Do's/Dont's for a modern fundraiser. Tune in ✌️
Special Guest
Julie Ordoñez, founder of Courage Lab and Nonprofit Courage Lab Podcast
“Where there is a lack of focus, there is a lack of funding.”
Episode Transcript
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Episode Highlights
Tonesetting (1:00)
Mindset challenges that are barriers for raising major gifts (4:20)
How major gift officers can feel more confident (12:40)
Committing yourself to taking action and meeting your goals (18:50)
Actions for success that major gift officers should take (24:35)
Understand how to prioritize your relationships (29:40)
KPIs for major gift officers to track (36:20)
How to connect with Julie (43:10)
Powerful quotes
“We think the answer to overwhelm is I need to raise more money, I need to hire more staff I need and we need more. And then that would that way, it'll all will have it under control? No, you won't. Because you're already overwhelmed with less. Right? So if you just get more people on your team, you will scale a culture of overwhelm.” -Julie
“We think the answer is more to our overwhelm. No, the answer to raising more and overcoming overwhelm is focus. The antithesis of overwhelm is focus.” -Julie
“Where there is a lack of focus, there is a lack of funding.” -Julie
“We're trying to do everything all at once, therefore you're mediocre at best at 10,000 things, and most of them you may not even enjoy doing and they do not leverage your unique strengths as a fundraiser.” -Julie
“Fear is exhausting. When we are afraid, and we don't have the skill of managing our thoughts and our mindset. It is so exhausting, because what we do is we end up talking ourselves out of taking action.” -Julie
“We're overwhelmed by doing crap that is not a our high ROI activity.” -Julie
“Fear is exhausting and it makes us smaller as leaders and makes our mission smaller. It makes our impact smaller and there's nothing noble about that. Courage, it's momentary discomfort, but in the end, it creates greater impact. You get to maximize who you are and it's exhilarating.” -Julie
“Confidence in your fundraising results comes from doing something even when it's uncomfortable, it's painful, you're tired, you're afraid. Those are not reasons to let off the gas and talk yourself out of taking the action that you said you were going to take.” -Julie
“The mentally mature leader says, I know brain, I know you're scared, we can do this. I've committed to doing it and I said I was going to and I'm going to keep my promise to myself. Whether I'm tired, whether I'm scared, I decided ahead of time that is not enough reason to bail on the promise that I made to myself.” -Julie
“That's the reason people don't have confidence, because they would rather bend over backwards to keep their promises to other people and meet other people's expectations than they would keep their own word to their self.” -Julie
“We underestimate the power of just taking one action step that we said we were going to do.” -Julie
“Major gift work is like 90% mental. It is a mental game of getting over yourself, the stigmas, the fears fears, all of it, if you can get past that, you will be a force for good.” -Becky
“Do be solutions oriented. Do not be problem focused.” -Julie
“One of the foundational principles of being an excellent major gifts fundraiser is knowing how to prioritize your donors.” -Julie
“This is what the nonprofit fundraiser does not understand, that there is tremendous wealth and we must ask for more. Anytime that we can, anytime that it's strategic and it makes sense, we must ask for more. Because it's on us to change our communities. We are the ones.” -Julie
Connect with Julie
LinkedIn / Instagram / Website / Nonprofit CourageLab Podcast
