Perfect Philanthropic Protagonist

Who is your nonprofit's perfect philanthropic protagonist? There's an easy way to figure this out. In this post I use the word prospect to represent both current and future donors to an organization.

A protagonist is the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text. For our purposes it is a person or organization that has the propensity, affinity, and capacity to invest in your nonprofit's mission.

Let's look at this through the lens of writing a short story. A good story has a structure that clearly communicates its plot and theme in a creative, captivating way. Writing a strong, relatable protagonist is key to engaging an audience. In a very real way, your prospects are protagonists in the story of your organization. They are your heroes. They should always be at the center of your story.

Quantitative vs qualitative data is a topic I've written about before. And guess what? Your organization's perfect philanthropic protagonist is found within the nooks and crannies of the quantitative and qualitative data stored in your system.

I'm sure you've requested or pulled on your own many prospect profiles over the course of your fundraising career. Most donor management systems have a version of this report. It's usually called something like constituent, individual, organization, alumnus, or member profile. These reports can include things like giving history, contact information, past interactions, and relationships among other data depending on how you configure the report. They're certainly useful but they're usually pretty dry.

What if we looked at these reports or profiles as the jumping off point for creating the story of our philanthropic protagonist?

Try this the next time you're prepping for a prospect visit. Produce your typical profile report. Then use it to answer in writing the following questions. The answers should come from what you see in the data (which may include information from a prospect screening service) as well as from your knowledge of the prospect. 

1. What does the philanthropic protagonist want more than anything?
   Think of this as your prospect's goal in supporting your organization's mission. Consider their expectations, feelings, professional, and personal history as you determine your philanthropic protagonist's giving priorities.
2. How does the philanthropic protagonist plan to get what they want?
   This represents a prospect's philanthropic plan. It helps to give some attention to your prospect's immediate and future charitable giving plan. Depending on where they are in their life journey, some of your prospects will have a plan and some won't. It is part of your job as an asker to help them see how your organization and its mission fit into their current and/or future plans.
3. What is the philanthropic protagonist willing to risk losing to get what they want?
   Supporting your organization should never hurt in the physical sense of the word, but a stretch gift is a way to increase both a prospect's financial and emotional investment in your organization. The higher the stakes, the more we typically pay attention to something. Our charitable investments are no exception.
4. What is the philanthropic protagonist worried might happen instead if they fail?
   No one enjoys feeling failure. The sting of failure is even worse when we've heavily invested time, talent, or treasure. This question encourages you to feel what your philanthropic protagonist might feel if the return on their investment did not meet their expectations. It also forces you to think about how you would handle this situation.
5. Why does the philanthropic protagonist want their object of desire?
   This last question gets at your prospect's motivation for giving. Perhaps they benefitted from your organization's mission at some point like an alumnus or grateful patient. Maybe all of their friends are giving so they decide to join in. They might be motivated by the community your organization serves. Or they might just simply like you as a person. Whatever the motivation it helps to consider it before reaching out to your prospect.

For bonus points include your answers in a note on the constituent's record. This way the next time you or someone else is working with the prospect it can be reviewed or refreshed. 

Hopefully you're beginning to see that this exercise helps you step inside the mind of your prospects and start thinking like them. It helps to put yourself in the shoes of your prospects to not only serve them in the best way possible but to also consider any objections they may raise to your ask. It is a tool to help deepen your relationship with those investing in your organization.

Thinking about your data in terms of quantitative and qualitative isn't just a nice idea. It helps you better fundraise by clarifying your prospect's story and seeing where it intersects with the story of your organization.

Stories matter. Stories supported by data matter even more.