Last month we launched the “Ask the Experts” portion of the Bacon Lee & Associates newsletter, inviting your questions on a variety of topics. The response was terrific! We received numerous requests for dialogue on topics of interest to funders and fundraisers alike. The one we’re highlighting this month deals with “What happens with relationships when I leave my nonprofit?”
Question: Can you share some guidelines about how to transition donor relationships when one moves from a development job with one nonprofit to another? In the two big job transitions I’ve had over my career I didn’t maintain relationships with donors at all during or after the transition – I couldn’t figure out how to do it – but that means as time has passed I really don’t have the ability to reach out to them at all. Any good tips for appropriate ways to “stay in touch” with donors?
Answer: Well you sparked a lively discussion among all of us at Bacon Lee & Associates. Barbara Anne Stephens and Mike Patterson were really helpful and gave us some great information.
We think that the most important aspect of your question is to first remember that the AFP’s Code of Ethical Practice and Standards, Standard 18, Example 3 provides a fairly decisive guideline that in essence states that “donors with whom the member has been previously involved are not portable.
To directly solicit donors that you met while working for your previous employer would violate this standard, that said, people are human. Throughout the course of building a relation with a donor for our employer, we build relationships with them as humans. They grow to be interested in us, outside of our professional relationship, and frequently want to know where we are and what is happening in our lives.
So to boil it down:
Don’t solicit your former donors for new gifts to your new organization. The only way this is permissible is if those donors are already on your new employer’s database and are already considered prospects and donors.
Sometimes social contacts are unavoidable. Maybe you attend the same church, etc. If so, keep it social, friendly, etc. If they invite you for dinner or to their home for a party, that’s fine since it’s their initiative. But keep shop talk at home, unless they initiate the conversation.
If your former donor contacts you at your new position and asks about supporting the work of your current employer, it’s perfectly fine to enter into that conversation. Again, that’s at the initiative of the individual, not you.
You may not be able to transition the donor to your new nonprofit if there is no mutuality of interest, but you and the donor can maintain a relationship if your intentions are sincere.