Higher Education Fundraising and Strategic Planning Alignment—Strengthening Donor Relationships and Institutional Resilience:

Changing Higher Ed podcast 278 with host Dr. Drumm McNaughton and guest Dr. Bill Crouch

Transcript: Changing Higher Ed podcast  278 – with host Dr. Drumm McNaughton and guest Dr. Bill Crouch

Introduction to Changing Higher Ed^®

Welcome to Changing Higher Ed^®, a podcast dedicated to helping higher education leaders improve their institutions. With your host, Dr. Drumm McNaughton, CEO of The Change Leader, a consultancy that helps higher ed leaders holistically transform their institutions. Learn more at changinghighered.com. And now, here’s your host, Drumm McNaughton.

[00:00:20] Introduction and Guest Welcome

Drumm McNaughton: Thank you, David.

My guest today is Bill Crouch, CEO of BrightDot. Bill has spent 40 years helping nonprofits and organizations transform fundraising from a transactional process into a catalyst for lasting change through the art of fundraising. Bill is a former university president. He’s a fundraising expert, and he is trained many leaders nationwide to create that ripple effect of generosity that fuels impact far beyond a single donation.

Bill joins me today to talk about how giving isn’t an obligation, it’s an opportunity to change lives, and how he and his team have been able to impact so many institutions in doing what they do.

Bill, welcome to the program.

Bill Crouch: Thank you so much, Drumm. I’m delighted to be a part of this.

Drumm McNaughton: It’s my pleasure. You have been a fundraising aficionado, an expert for well over 40 years. It’s amazing because you only look like you’re about 50. So I know you started really early.

Bill Crouch: Thank you. Thank you.

Drumm McNaughton: But, before we really jump in, because things have changed so much in the last six to eight months. Even more so than they had been, let’s just say four and a half, five years ago under Trump one.

[00:01:45] Bill Crouch’s Background and Early Influences

Drumm McNaughton: Before we get into that, give us your background, you’ve got a fascinating story to share with us.

Bill Crouch: Well, thank you. So I am very, very fortunate to have come from a family of educators and that was just a blessing that I even realized more today than obviously when I was growing up. But I was asked recently what were one or two of the things that really impacted my decision to become a college president, and I was surprised, it goes back to when I was seven, eight years old. I would be laying in bed at night, my mother would come into the bedroom, have me lay on my back, cut off the overhead light, cut on the lamp, and she would put a towel over the lamp shade. And she would tell me to look up at the ceiling and to tell her what I saw. Well, at first I just saw dark shadows and she would say to me,” look deeper, look deeper, look deeper”.

And this was a process that went on for months, Drumm. And before long I was seeing skyscrapers and I was seeing cars and I was seeing basketball games. I was making all kinds of things I was seeing in those shadows, and she would then move the towel and create a different shadow and we would go through that exercise. And what I didn’t know then, but what I do know today, she was teaching me how to be creative, how to always see something more in what was really there. And I went on to college, I went on and got my graduate degree and I went to work as a professor at Garden Webb University in North Carolina. And then the president came to me and said, “Hey, I think you can be more than what you are. Let’s imagine together what your future could be”. And that led me down the road that led me to being the college president. And by the way, one who had to know how to raise money.

Drumm McNaughton: That’s a fascinating story. And what we’ve typically seen, because we do quite a bit of new president onboarding, we typically find that your new presidents, your first year presidents, first time presidents, they’re really good on one side, the internal side of the house or the external, and the external obviously is the fundraising, it’s the creating of partnerships with the community, et cetera. You were taught early on in this incredible lesson by your mother to use your imagination to see things that other people aren’t seeing. What a gift.

Bill Crouch: It is been a great gift. And and it worked both internally and externally because I was able to see things in my employees, even in my faculty members, that I was able to take them in other directions than they’ve ever been before. And so it became both an internal and an external gift. It was one of the greatest gifts I was ever given.

Drumm McNaughton: That’s amazing.

[00:04:46] Learning the Art of Fundraising

Drumm McNaughton: How did you get so smart on fundraising?

Bill Crouch: Well, it’s interesting. My grandfather and my father were pastors of large churches and even though you did not call it this in churches, you called it stewardship or tithing, I constantly saw them raising money for new projects and stuff, and I was just an observer. But then when I got to Garden Webb and the president invited me to his office, as a young faculty member, and said, “I want you to become a college president and you have to learn how to raise money”. And he put me in the development office working on foundations and grants, but the greatest gift he gave me was he asked me to become his chauffeur. Wherever he would go over the next two years to see donors I drove him. And we had two rules, the first rule was wherever we went, I couldn’t talk and he was just going to work. And this was way before cell phones.

Drumm McNaughton: Mm-hmm.

Bill Crouch: And he had a big box, as you know, and he’d have magazines and letters and his secretary gave it to him and that’s what he would read. And then he always let me go in with him to see the donors. And then on the way back, he would do no work and he told me that I could ask him 11 questions about what I saw, what I experienced, why did we did this and whatever. So while I was driving, I was getting another doctor’s degree in being around this great fundraiser who was willing to share his experiences with me.

Drumm McNaughton: Wow, that is amazing. That’s mentorship 5 0 1. Forget 1 0 1.

Bill Crouch: Absolutely, and one of the scariest moments of my life we’re getting ready to go see a donor to ask for a million. I was walking in the room with him and he turned to me and he said, “you’re asking today”, and he threw that right on my shoulders right then with him looking at me, and it was one of the scariest but best moments of my life.

Drumm McNaughton: Well, Yes, especially, you probably didn’t have a whole lot of time to get nervous about it, I would guess.

Bill Crouch: Right. Just had to go do it.

Drumm McNaughton: So you’ve had these great experiences coming along. It makes me wonder, is fundraising a learned skill or is it something people, it’s like nature or nurture, that type of thing? Or is it both?

Bill Crouch: It’s probably both. But I would say it’s a learned skill over opposed to what I think is the key component to being a successful fundraiser, and that is emotional intelligence. And that emotional intelligence, I’d rather hire somebody who’s resilient and in charge of their emotions and able to be intuitive who’ve had no experience raising money than I have somebody who’s done a lot of pretend asking, and has very little emotional intelligence. So I think you can learn to raise money. Matter of fact, I think most of us have, because I think most people fall into the profession.

Drumm McNaughton: I think you’re right. I remember years ago starting out consulting. I had a mentor who said, “you need to look in the mirror and just role play and just say, ‘the cost of this project is X, Y, Z, and be able to do it without cracking a smile’.”

Bill Crouch: Yes. Yes. I think the biggest challenge we’ve got and the greatest friend we’ve got is the mirror we look into in the morning when we wake up.

Drumm McNaughton: Y Yes, I think I’m going to pass on that one. So you have coined a term, and we’re going to get back to emotional intelligence when we talk more about the skills that your development officers and your presidents need, but in talking about Fundraising 1 0 1, the art of fundraising, blending data-driven strategy with creativity, human connection, and storytelling to craft donor experiences that align with your institution’s mission and inspire transformational gifts. That says it all pretty much.

Bill Crouch: That’s it. That’s exactly what it is and, the power of storytelling, the power of reaching somebody, emotions, all of that is a part of the data and you got to have the data. You got to do that research, you got to have that, but you’ve got to have the ability to put it together. Interesting, Drumm, I traveled the country when I was first starting my business 10 years ago, I traveled the country interviewing top performers. And I learned a lot from these top performers, and I would always just go ask them one question. The question was typically different, but in one case, I went to a gentleman who owned funeral homes all over the country. The one question was, “what can you teach me about running a funeral home that I could teach fundraisers at nonprofits?” He said, it’s really easy. He said, whenever somebody used to come into my funeral home to prepay their funerals, they were only asking one question. And when someone came into my funeral home to pick out a coffin after a tragedy, they were only asking one question and it was the same question. And obviously I asked, “well, what is that question”?

And he said, “does my life matter? Does my life matter?” That little dash between your birthdate and your death date, does that matter? And he said, “you, in the nonprofit world, you and the fundraisers don’t understand, you’re missing the point. You talk a lot about the people that you serve mattering, but what you got to do first is to make sure that the donors know they matter. And they matter, not just for your nonprofit, but for the world.

[00:10:57] The Concept of ‘Mattership’ in Fundraising

Bill Crouch: They’ve done a lot of things in their lives because they all want to know that you know them, and that, you know, they’ve done powerful things at other places, and you want to invite them to be a part of your organization to provide that same type of “mattership.” To the “mattership” is the word that we’ve trademarked and that we’re building all of our teaching and coaching around right now.

Drumm McNaughton: So tell me about “mattership”, because if I were to make a guess, most fundraisers, most development officers, talk about “what is the impact on the college” and that’s important and the future students, but “mattership” to me means “what does it mean to the donor, the person who’s giving the money”. It’s almost a, I hate to say it, but it’s almost a WIIFM what’s in it for me.

Bill Crouch: Correct. So again, as I visited one of the wealthiest people in North Carolina, during this period of time, I ask him one question. And I ask him, “would you teach me to think like a wealthy person”?

Drumm McNaughton: Ooh.

Bill Crouch: And he said to me, “why would you ask me that”? He said, “nobody ever has”. I said, “well, for all these years I’ve sat on one side of the table presenting proposals to people like you, and the whole time I’m presenting my proposal, in the back of my mind, I’m saying, I wonder what he’s thinking about this proposal that I’m presenting”.

So what were you thinking when I was presenting these proposals? And you said, “it’s very simple”. He said, “it doesn’t matter how old you are, what institution you’re representing, none of that matters because I’m always thinking the same, every time a guy like you comes to visit me, and by the way, about 10 come a month”. And I said, “okay, what is it?” And he said, “how stupid you are”.

Drumm McNaughton: Really?

Bill Crouch: And I said, “why would you say that?” And he said, “it’s easy. It’s always about you and your organization and never about me”.

Drumm McNaughton: Mm-hmm.

Bill Crouch: “I want to know, you know me. I want to know that you have found something within you, what you’re doing that’s going to excite me. But you always show me the building that you want, or you start telling them about the needs that you want”. He said, “Bill, did you know every wealthy person loves art and music? Every wealthy person loves art and music”. He said, “I like contemporary art”. And his room was full. He said, “I like classical music”. And that was playing in the over from the ceiling. And he said, ” no development person, should ever go see a high wealth person and not know what art and music they like before they go”. And the conversations should start, “Hey, let’s talk about this picture you’ve got right here. Or let’s talk about this”. He said, “one day, somebody’s going to bring me a proposal, and on the cover it’s going to be a Manet, and the second page is going to be words from a Mozart cantata. In the third page could be a picture of the building they want to build. But what they’ve said to me immediately, ‘I know who you are. I want you to be on my team. You matter. We need you and what you’ve done to other places. We need you to come be a part of our place. Can we have a conversation about what that might look like’?”

Drumm McNaughton: That’s the WIFFM.

Bill Crouch: That’s it. That’s it.

Drumm McNaughton: Oh my gosh. It’s that simple, huh?

Bill Crouch: Really, it really is that simple. If you can convince yourself and have the confidence in yourself that this is how it’s done. We’ve even created a whole network of different kinds of proposals you can present and that type of stuff, and it really works.

Drumm McNaughton: Let’s go into some of the characteristics that you need to see and then we’ll cycle back and say are these evergreen or have they changed significantly? And I’ll be willing to bet they haven’t changed a whole bunch, but they have changed some.

[00:14:53] The 95/5 Strategy in Fundraising

Drumm McNaughton: You’ve got something called the 95/5 strategy. What is that?

Bill Crouch: So the 95/5 strategy looks at the demographics of our country and the policy changes that are taking place and have taken place that are driving the middle class to not have the same incentives that they had in the past to give. And the distribution of wealth is now instead of the 80 20 rule, it’s the 95/5 rule. And yet when we look at most of the nonprofits that we get exposed to, they’re still operating on the 80/20 rule. And example, golf tournaments, galas, these things that take hours and hours and hours to perform, that focus on the people who can buy a $1,000 table or pay $500 to be in a foursome. But the wealth of any community in America almost now is held by 5% of the people, and they’re not the ones that are participating usually. I mean when you get really, really excited, if you can get a high wealth person to buy a table at your gala. But what we’ve begun to focus on: let’s turn that pyramid, the giving pyramid, upside down. And let’s say that if you got 5% of people who have high wealth, spend 75% of your time building the relationship and focusing on that group of people. Right? And so that’s why we believe that no major gift officer should really have more than 30 people in their portfolio. That’s where they really, really focus. And we believe in a personal relationship that you develop. We even say stationary is important.

Drumm McNaughton: Oh Yes.

Bill Crouch: the kind of stationary you use. I can tell you most high wealth people are using stationary like Crane stationary.

Drumm McNaughton: Mm-hmm.

Bill Crouch: And as a head of a nonprofit, we want you to be able to relate to that, and to understand that. That’s important to learn. That’s an important part to learn.

Drumm McNaughton: Yes, and on those same things, that’s one of the things that I learned growing up was thank you notes, handwritten out, not on 8.5″ by 11″, but on executive size paper.

Bill Crouch: Yes. Executive size paper. And I just happened to have this on my desk because I was showing it to somebody today. It’s a note, handwritten note from President HW Bush and it was three sentences long and I got it in 2002 and I’m still talking about it. Right? because made an impact on my life and I felt special.

Drumm McNaughton: Yes.

Bill Crouch: And I still do.

Drumm McNaughton: And that’s what we want people feeling from the nonprofits. We think that people, the donors, they’re always trying to figure out, “do I really belong here? Am I really making a significance here? Is what I’m giving moving the needle here?” And if we’re not talking to them regularly and sharing with them the stories that you talked about and the impact their gifts are having, then they go away because there’s a lot of other places they can go.

Oh, absolutely. You told me a story, back when we spoke last week, about donors going to your college versus, I guess it was Tennessee or another university, it’s like, why would they want to go to your college instead of Tennessee? But you made it to where they felt more valued by you.

Bill Crouch: Correct. We worked really, really hard to make sure that we were more creative, faster, more personal than a public university could be, although they all try it. I’m all for public universities. My daughter went to a public university. I had to be competitive and the way I had to be competitive was to move faster, be more personable, and really make an impact quickly, on anybody.

And it’s the same way with recruiting students as it is recruiting people to be donors. We can’t change the capacity of what a family has in terms of their wealth, but we can change where they give it and where they spend it. And that’s where this fundraising is going in the future ahead.

Drumm McNaughton: Which, thank you for that segue.

[00:19:17] Challenges and Changes in Fundraising

Drumm McNaughton: in the last, well, I don’t want to say in the last seven months or the last eight months, but it seems like that, how has fundraising changed?

Bill Crouch: Well, last week I interviewed a very wealthy person to ask him that question. From their perspective how have things changed over the last seven months? And basically what the individual said to me is, “we’ve gone into hiding”. And I said, ” “what do you mean we’ve gone into hiding? As philanthropist”.

She said, we’re just sitting back to see where all of this is going and therefore we’re not giving at the same levels this year that we’ve given in the past”. And that was a real eye opener for me. And so when I drilled down a little bit further and said, “well, what are you going to be giving to?” This is what she said, “I’m going to be giving, right now in this crazy time, I’m going to be giving to the place that I feel like my gift matters, the most. Matters the most.”

Drumm McNaughton: Wow.

Bill Crouch: And she was a graduate of a major, major university in the country. And she said, ” my gift there this year will not matter at all. Where I’m probably going to be giving is locally.”

Drumm McNaughton: Wow.

Bill Crouch: Right? And not to the large place. And I think we as fundraisers ought to understand that that might be some high wealth people living around us who’ve never given to us. But who are feeling the same way that it’s the local impact that’s really going to matter.

So instead of us always feeling like we’re the underdog, and another point that I would make about that is if it’s local, then we have the opportunity to put children in front of donors. We have the opportunity to show them the impact. We have the opportunity in, it is hard to compete against sitting in the president’s box at Ohio State football game.

Drumm McNaughton: Yes.

Bill Crouch: But that’s not changing the life of a kid in a local community who’s a single family child, and we got to learn how to tell that story.

Drumm McNaughton: Oh, absolutely. Especially, given the pulling of research dollars back from universities, the tax laws changes, that middle level donor. It used to be that you’d have two different parts of your development activities. You’d have your high wealth and you’d also have your alumni, and the alumni factor isn’t as big as it used to be.

Bill Crouch: And one of the things that have changed, Drumm is the US World and Report. I know that when I was president I wanted to rise up the US World Report every year. And one of the biggest thing was the percentage of alumni giving. And I didn’t care whether they gave a dollar or a hundred dollars, I wanted that percentage up. That doesn’t matter anymore. Matter of fact, that if you see giving going down, and we’re particularly seeing it right now in religion, religion is down 28% this year, according to the “USA Giving Report” that just came out. It’s going to be less people giving, but more people being raised and more money being raised. Right?

And so we got to turn our focus within these development shops to where the money is. We still got to cultivate the small donors because we’re going to need them in the future, but right now we’re living in a interesting period of time where we have to go where the money is. Right?

Drumm McNaughton: Yes. This kind of reminds me an ancient Chinese curse. “May you live in interesting times”. It seems like what’s going on? And there’s good reason. Institutions are scared. I think you told me, when we spoke last week, 79 liberal arts institutions went out business last year. The publics, they don’t have the same concerns because they’re not tuition driven, gifts driven, research driven. It’s still a thing, but the accounts payable is slowing down. We’re seeing that ourselves. It’s difficult and it’s interesting you bring up the Christian colleges because I’m seeing more and more Christian colleges, and I hate to say it, but they’re going out of business. They’re trying to find new business models where they can partner together. I think that ladder is really good, but I hate to see so many institutions going out of business.

Bill Crouch: Yes. And so many of them are liberal arts colleges. I had an alum who was very powerful in Washington. He was not of the same political persuasion I was, I, but I invited him to come back to our campus to speak and he’s, I’ll never forget what he said. He said, “at this liberal arts college, I wasn’t taught what to think, I was taught how to think”.

Drumm McNaughton: Bingo.

Bill Crouch: Please don’t quit doing that.

Drumm McNaughton: Yep.

Bill Crouch: What a person chooses to do with that when they leave that’s theirs, but you got to teach them. Most of these Christian colleges were denominationally funded for years and years and years.Denominations are shrinking. The money given to churches is shrinking. And so the pipeline, that these Christian colleges have had has gone away. And now most of them are turning to athletics to draw students and that’s a no winning proposition in the long run.

Drumm McNaughton: No, it really isn’t. I do want to go back to that last comment you made about “don’t tell people what to think, teach them how to think”. That is the beauty of a true liberal arts education. Liberal arts doesn’t mean all history or all whatever. It means science, it means math, it means politics, it means all of those different subjects so people can learn how to think. That’s critical.

Bill Crouch: Yes. And I grew up in debate clubs and I grew up in things that really forced you to take both sides of an issue and to be able to think through both sides of the issue. And, those are some of the things being cut out of even public education, at this time. So it’s a real crisis. And that’s what’s so beautiful about the nonprofits. The nonprofits, educational and nonprofits are filling the gaps. Art’s taken out of school so a nonprofit shows up and starts teaching art to the community in every area. And that’s what I’m trying to say to high wealth people. You’ve got to invest in these places, like the community colleges that are providing technical education, which we desperately need, these nonprofits that are filling in the gaps, whether it’s food banks or something else. They matter and we got to connect them with people who feel their lives matter as well, and that connection has to come together.

Drumm McNaughton: You’re spot on. Spot on. We’re starting to run out of time, and I really want to get to this last part. You’ve got different roles at the university. You’ve got development offices and officers, you’ve got presidents, you’ve got boards.

[00:26:20] Key Skills for Development Officers and Presidents

Drumm McNaughton: What are the key skills that each of these folks must have? Maybe let’s just start with the Major Gifts Officers.

Bill Crouch: Okay, the Major Gifts Officers, I think, have to be people of audacious confidence. They’ve got to have had some kind of success in their lives that they can fall back on when they need to. They have to understand high wealth individuals.

We call them Eagles. And, Eagles hang out with Eagles. Eagles never hang out with sparrows, and most institutions are covered with sparrows. Wonderful, wonderful people, the Bible calls them wonderful birds, we got to have them, but everybody’s got to have some Eagles, some people who can make the six, seven figure gifts, but we’ve tended to try to bring them down to hang out with the sparrows, but you can’t do that. You got to have another group of people. And the CEO and the Major Gifts Officers needs to be perceived as an Eagle who lives in that world. Your annual fund people, your alumni people, all those are incredible, your data person is incredible, and so what has to happen is that every person on the team must feel like they matter.

I’ll never forget, Drumm, when I was doing work with a major university and I was interviewing people, and I went to visit a donor researcher. I asked her how long she had been there. She said 16 years. I asked her what that was on the corner of her desk, it was a leather pouch, and she said, “I’ve included the university in my estate”. I said, “Hey, I got to ask you a question. When was the last time a Major Gifts Officers came into your office to say thank you for uncovering a person who he or she were able to give a million dollars?” And she started crying and said, “no one’s ever walked through that door to say thank you to me”.

Drumm McNaughton: Wow.

Bill Crouch: Right? We got to understand that we’re a team, that regardless of your role, you matter, and you play an important part in our ability, and nobody gets a million dollar gift on their own.

Drumm McNaughton: Mm.

Bill Crouch: Right? It’s always a team effort, so building this culture within the development operation, but I also think within the institution. So I often say to a new college president who goes through our Aspiring Presidents class, ” on the first day of your job, walk down to development operation, put them all together, the secretaries, everybody in a room, introduce yourself and give them a check and say, I’m on board with you guys. Here’s the check on my first day to the college and let’s go get it done”. Right?

And I think creating that type of synergy and energy, and I would do the same with the faculty and staff. And I used to tell my faculty and staff, “guess what, you’re all a part of the development operation”.  So faculty smile when you walk across campus. Staff, if you see a piece of paper, pick it up and throw it in the trash can. That’s development work, that’s fundraising work. It needs to happen and we’re all a part of it. And I think everybody should be a part of that fundraising team and feel as if they matter.

The Skill of Critical Listening in Donor Relationships

Drumm McNaughton: When we talked, there were a couple of other things you had mentioned, we’ve already talked about etiquette, we’ve talked about language, being able to talk like Eagles. The ability to listen and listen critically, I think if you understand who your donor is, you understand what their interests are, you can read between the lines of what they’re saying to understand what’s really important to them. Does that make sense?

Bill Crouch: Absolutely. We believe that in the first visit that you have with a donor, you’ve got to ask some questions that can get to their heart. And we have a favorite question we always ask. And development people often laugh at me when I first tell them this, and I’m going to ask you, Drumm, “what was your favorite childhood toy?”

Drumm McNaughton: Oh my gosh. I’d have to say a baseball bat. I love to play baseball as a kid.

Bill Crouch: So what was it about hitting the ball with that bat that was so wonderful?

Drumm McNaughton: Well, actually I have to stop and revise that a little bit because I pitched, I wanted to take the bat out of people’s hands.

Bill Crouch: And how did that feel when you got a Big K by your name?

Drumm McNaughton: Oh, absolutely. Wonderful.

Bill Crouch: Right. So let me tell you what we do at our place. At our place, we have kids coming with bats in their hands and they’re batting off all kinds of things that are distracting and keeping them from being successful. But what we do is, we’ve pitched to them, we throw them balls that will open up new worlds to them, and we need some good pitchers right now. And I’d like to ask you if you would join our pitching team and do such and such.”

So we’re looking for the vocabulary. We’re trying to get to the heart, and every person I ask that does the same thing you did, they get real quiet first. Then they start talking with their hands, and then they get big smiles. And we get that done on the first visit, and to me it’s that kind of creativity, and it goes back to my mother who put that towel on that lamp and say, “Phil, what do you see differently?”

Now, I grew up with “The Five I’s of Fundraising.” I was under Jerry Panis for years learning from Jerry Panis, and he learned from Si Seymour and there’s the five steps (Identify, Investigate, Inform, Involve, Invest), but if you don’t add creativity in today’s world, and if you don’t bring art in today’s world, then you’re going to lose in the competition.

Drumm McNaughton: And it’s always about the relationship. It’s about the donor, not the institution.

Bill Crouch: Exactly.

Drumm McNaughton: I learned something today.

Bill Crouch: It’s always about the donor and not the institution. Right? Remember all wealthy people love art and music.

Drumm McNaughton: I will remember that. The next category, presidents. Presidents have a unique role in this. Your major gifts officers tee it up, but it’s the president who closes the deal.

Bill Crouch: And what I’ve learned through the years, it has to be a personal relationship so I think that a president should have 5, 8, 10 people that are given to them by the vice president that they really focus on. I just think the importance of things like a personal stationary. Don’t write them on the university stationary, send them a personal note on your personal stationary, like Crane stationary and really good quality stuff. Pick up the phone and call them.

And we believe, Drumm, that if a president will take two hours a week, in what we call “intentional time,” where they lock the door, and they tell their secretary no interruptions, and all they do is think about, “who can I make a phone call to who can I write a note to? What can I learn about fundraising during these two hours?” It will explode their results in fundraising.

Drumm McNaughton: Yes, it’s so critical. Most presidents, get locked into the operations side of things, but don’t take that critical time to think about the big picture, what they’re doing, how it fits into it, and, where’s the “blue ocean” piece of it? Where’s, the new stuff that they could go into?

Bill Crouch: And who do I need to take me there?

Drumm McNaughton: Exactly.

Bill Crouch: And how do I tell them that story and make them feel like, “I can’t get there without you and you matter.”

Drumm McNaughton: Yes. Invite them in to help with your strategy.

[00:34:09] The Role of Boards in Fundraising

Drumm McNaughton: And that’s a good segue for the board because your boards, as it’s supposed to work, your board should be setting the direction for the institution and giving you, here are your objectives, et cetera. But the smart presidents go to their boards and say, “Okay, this is great. I think you’re on the right track. How do you help me in getting there with the fundraising, with all those things?” Take it away, sir.

Bill Crouch: That’s right. So we’ve got to understand the gift that we’ve been given by having a board, and if we’ve done our job right, we should have people on that board who can take us places we can’t go [on our own].

• We have to ask them for advice.
• We have to ask them what they would do differently.
• We have to ask them, “Hey, hold me accountable sometime. Pick up the phone and tell me I’m not doing what I need to do”. I run the institution. I don’t want them calling me and telling me I need to fire somebody. That’s my job. But I want them taking me to places I can’t go by myself, in my thoughts, in my imagination, and in my network.
• And you’ve got to thank them. You’ve got to always have an attitude of gratitude for these board members for what they do.

Drumm McNaughton: It’s up to each board member to hold the other board members accountable for their performance. That’s not something that you typically see.

Bill Crouch: Correct. I believe that the thing that drives board performance is not the mission of the institution. They join the board because of the mission of the institution. What drives performance is peer pressure, and that’s the peer pressure that a board member’s put on each other, because nobody wants to disappoint another person.

I had some really high-powered people on my board, and by golly, the rest of the board would never, they wouldn’t mind disappointing me, but they sure weren’t going to disappoint the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

But typically, we don’t hold each other accountable, so board members don’t know what the other board members are doing or what the clear expectations are. So you’ve got to get those clear expectations upfront and hold them accountable.

Using “Perk Banks” for Cultivating Wealthy Donors

Drumm McNaughton: And you told me about something that I’d never heard about a “Perk Bank.” Tell me about that.

Bill Crouch: We think we have found this to be one of the best ways to keep boards engaged. A Perk Bank is something that a board member owns or controls that they’re willing to donate to the institution to allow the institution to cultivate high wealth donors. So, it could be sky miles, it could be tickets to the Super Bowl, it could be your minimum food allowance at the country club that you let them have 25% of. It could be that you have a beautiful beach house and you’re willing to have a party there for eight people. And then the development staff’s able to use that to be able to cultivate others.

And then they’re able to say back to the board member, “Hey, I couldn’t have gotten this done if you hadn’t let me do this.” So, it becomes a two-way street and we’ve discovered that this Perk Bank really is a way to get board members engaged.

Drumm McNaughton: Yes, what a great concept.

[00:37:23] Three Takeaways for Boards and Presidents

Drumm McNaughton: We could keep talking for another hour easily, but unfortunately, we are just about out of time. So, I want to thank you for being on the show and give you our two standard questions wrapping up.

Three takeaways for boards and presidents. What can you do to improve your fundraising in today’s environment?

Bill Crouch: One, understand what an eagle is. And it’s not necessarily that they have to be able to write big checks, but their people of big influence. Understand that and stay focused.

Two, develop some intentionality time where you just think about fundraising as part of your week.

And then for a board member is to understand, we love your cash, but what we really need is your assets and your network.

Drumm McNaughton: Very good. Those are great takeaways. Thank you. What’s next for you, sir?

[00:38:16] Conclusion

Bill Crouch: I’m really excited about my company, BrightDot, and the talent that we’ve put together and the impact that we’re beginning to make. And so right now I’m going to go outside and take a walk, which is part of my routine. I’ve got to get my two miles in every day, that’s next. And then I want to have dinner with my lovely wife and just relax.

Drumm McNaughton: Very good. I love those wonderful short-term goals. It helps keep us all sane, especially at my age. You’re still a lot younger than I am, but that’s beside the point.

Bill Crouch: I don’t think so. I don’t think so.

Drumm McNaughton: Oh, we’re not going to go there.

Bill Crouch: Let me tell you what my PR team told me. They said, “Bill, quit worrying about apologizing for being old. You are just cool and wise”.

Drumm McNaughton: I love it.

Bill Crouch: I’m Cool and wise.

Drumm McNaughton: I’m going to steal that one. Thank you. So, Mr. Cool and Wise, thank you so much for being on the show. I have thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I look forward to the next time our paths cross.

Bill Crouch: I hope it’s not in the distant future.

Drumm McNaughton: Me as well, sir. Take care.

 Thanks for listening today and a special thank you to my special guest, Bill Crouch, CEO of BrightDot. To my listeners, thanks again for tuning in. See you next week.