Dan Clark with Westfall Gold

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, CSU’s executive MBA program. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Dan Clark with Westfall Gold. Welcome.

Dan Clark: Thank you. Lee, appreciate the invitation. Glad to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. For folks who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about Westfall Gold? How are you serving folks?

Dan Clark: Yeah, so Westfall Gold serves nonprofit organizations who are advancing good by helping them engage audiences of high capacity givers. We are we describe ourselves as an experience design agency and a fundraising consultancy for organizations that are passionate about advancing good.

Lee Kantor: So what’s the backstory? Can you share a little bit about the origin story?

Dan Clark: Sure. So our founder, Bob Westfall, a little over 20 years ago, he was the chief development officer at a nonprofit organization in the Atlanta area, and he was charged with a task of raising a significant amount of money in a rather short period of time. And the president and CEO of the organization at the time, he said, Bob, I, I can’t go do a road show with you. You’re going to have to find another way. So Bob said, you know what? How about we bring all of the donors to you and let’s host an event. And that became the the inaugural edition of Westfall Gold’s major donor experience. And 600 events later, we’ve served hundreds of nonprofit organizations, different sizes, sectors over the last 21 years. But it all got started out of that necessity. And we see organizations large and small still today benefiting from that approach. There’s a lot to be said for gathering groups of people, homogeneous, like minded leaders that have a passion for the the cause and the mission of the organization.

Lee Kantor: So in the nonprofit world, is that or the fundraising world is that unusual? Is that not how most of them go about doing fundraising?

Dan Clark: Well, I can’t speak to what most are doing. Our focus is on the major donor segment. Specifically, it is the one numerous outlets have reported over the last couple of years that it is the one donor segment in America that’s actually growing, while others are shrinking. The major donor audience is actually growing. And the I think the other factor that we have our eyes on is really going back to 2006. There’s been a consolidation in giving. You have a smaller percentage of people who are giving a larger percentage of the dollars. It used to be like 8020, the Pareto principle. You would see that played out in most nonprofits, 20% of the donors are giving 80% of the money. And then we went through the economic crisis. And 0607 you had the early 20 tens, it started to shrink. And you come out of the pandemic, and we’re now in a 90 over ten environment. For most nonprofits, 10% of the donors are giving 90% of the dollars. And if economists are right, and we continue to see a widening of the income gap that dynamic is going to become only more and more real and more consequential for donor funded organizations if they do not have an effective major donor engagement strategy. It’s going to be difficult times, and we see those who who are succeeding in this arena. They are thriving even in our current times. And those who are absent of that strategy, you know, they’re fighting to survive.

Lee Kantor: Now in the fundraising world, is there a kind of an amount of donors you have to have in order to have to use the Westfall Gold methodology, like, do you have to have, you know, a thousand donors so you can peel off that 10%? Or do you can you do it with even like a startup nonprofit?

Dan Clark: Yeah, we’ve served organizations large and small, some that are, you know, in the top 100 list largest charities in the United States and others that are just getting started. So there’s range and we offer a variety of options, and we’re looking for what’s the best fit for the client organization, whether it’s a weekend long experience, maybe it’s a one night event. It could be a week long cruise. We do those too, but what’s important is that we take the time at the beginning of every conversation. Even before we enter into a contract with a client, we do a screening of their file to try to determine whether or not they are ready to be successful. With this approach, we don’t want to take anybody on as a client that we don’t believe can be successful. So it it can be relative to the number of donors that are in their file. It can be, uh, it can be based more on the capacity of a, you know, small number that just have a tremendous capacity to give. And if we can get that group in the room and move the needle in the right direction, they’re going to be very successful.

Lee Kantor: And can you help a brand new nonprofit that doesn’t have kind of that database of former donors, like, begin the process and get those initial donors to help them launch?

Dan Clark: Yes, we absolutely could. And that is common for us, will be approached by younger and smaller nonprofits that have a lot of vision, and we’re cheering them on. And we would tell them, you know, you’re not quite ready for an event yet, but we can help you get ready. And so that’s another area of service for Westfall Gold, and that is development consulting. We have a team of veteran major donor fundraisers who have led different development shops at different nonprofits around the country and in their earlier years. And so we bring that expertise to those smaller nonprofits and help them develop their ground game and build the infrastructure and the strategy that’s necessary to position them to eventually host that large gathering where they’re going to really move the needle in a big way.

Lee Kantor: Is there any advice you can share for those emerging nonprofit brands to get them jumpstarted? Is there some kind of low hanging fruit they can be doing now to get them ready?

Dan Clark: Build relationship, major donor fundraising, in fact, all successful fundraising. We believe it is. It’s not transactional, it’s relational. And when you can move away from transactional giving to relationship based giving, that changes everything. And it’s the only way to be successful with major donors, in fact. And so my encouragement to those smaller organizations is do the hard work, start now doing the hard work of building true relationship with the family of supporters that you have around you. And relationship will. It will go the distance and it will ultimately win the day.

Lee Kantor: Now, what are some ways that nonprofits can incent the donors? Is this is something that, um, you you have to have kind of like the, the tiers, like platinum level or gold level or is this something that you kind of create bespoke, um, incentives for these top donors?

Dan Clark: We create bespoke experiences, not incentives. Um, again, incentive would take you back into a transactional relationship. Um, you’re going to give this and you’re going to get that. And that’s not at all what we’re trying to do in our environments when whether it’s a one night gathering, a weekend long or or a week long event, what we are endeavoring to accomplish is to build community and to inspire trust and to deliver a compelling case for support. And those are the things that ultimately draw people in and lead them to give at a transformational level. And there’s important components there. Um, building community. People want to be part of a winning team. They don’t want to feel like they are the only one who is funding this endeavor. Funding this mission, they want to know that there are other successful, like minded people who see the same thing they do, who see the same opportunity. And when they look around the room and they see people who have experienced success like them, and they’re choosing to invest in this mission, this organization, they feel even greater confidence about their own decision. And again, you’re talking about relationship there. They are going to have opportunity to grow in relationship with like minded individuals and grow in relationship with the organization.

Dan Clark: Inspiring trust is creating a deepened understanding of what the organization does and how they do it. Business people who have the ability to give significant dollars. They care very much about your business plan that they have not Become successful by being sloppy in their decision making or their. Investments, and they care deeply about how you’re going about. Accomplishing your mission. They care about your financial governance. Practices. They want to know about your fiduciary controls. And so we. Surface that information in a proper context. And we inspire a trust. Both in the organization and its leadership. And all of that is part. Of delivering a compelling case for support where you are, you’re delivering an intellectual case, an emotional case and the transformational case. And that is ultimately what gets people across the finish line and moves them to make what is often the largest gift they’ve ever made in their lives. It’s understanding the impact that that a dollar is going to make, or $100,000 or $1 million. The impact that these dollars are going to make in the life of a person and sharing that story effectively really creates that transformational case that, um, gets people across the finish line, like I said.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you maybe share a story of one of the experiences you helped an organization do and, and really differentiate how that experience is different than, say, a gala or some of the events that are more traditional?

Dan Clark: Yeah. You know, there is a there’s a place for the the one night gala events and we support those. And we’ve had we’ve had great success even recently, we partnered with a, um, organization, a nonprofit in the Denver area this summer and helped them raise just over $5 million in one night. I’m not going to mention names here to protect client confidentiality, but it was a name that a lot of people would recognize. Um, opposite end of the spectrum from that one night event, uh, we have we have clients that we serve in hosting week long cruises where you are taking a group of maybe 100 or more couples and you are spending a week together, maybe in Europe or Alaska, maybe even the Caribbean during winter time. Everybody loves to get away from the cold, and that is a that’s an environment where you get to really become family with your donor audience, because you are sharing multiple meals together throughout the week. You’re enjoying entertainment on the ship, on shore, different excursions that people will participate in that that extended period of time. It just creates a proximity that allows for natural and sincere relationship to be developed. And again, that’s the that’s the big win here is when we move people from transaction to relationship.

Lee Kantor: Now you mentioned that this your services for all nonprofits. But is most of your work done in certain niches, like do you focus on faith based? Do you focus on like, chambers of commerce, medical? Do you have kind of a specialty?

Dan Clark: I wouldn’t say that. We have a specialty. We have a track record of serving many faith based organizations. We serve a number of universities, uh, medical research foundations. We have just entered into serving hospitals. And we’re we’re excited about the opportunity to serve, uh, organizations that are advancing good in many different sectors. So we’re, uh, we’re kind of arms wide open.

Lee Kantor: So now, um, right now, you are the new CEO. Can you talk a little bit about how you got there?

Dan Clark: Yeah.

Dan Clark: So I joined the Westfall Gold team, uh, almost three years ago. It was January 1st of 2022. And prior to that, I was in the client seat for 11 years. I spent 15 years serving as vice president at convoy of Hope, a humanitarian organization that now is, according to the Forbes list, the 35th largest charity in the United States. They do disaster response and international development, meeting the needs created by poverty and hunger. And we hired Westfall Gold back in 2013 to help us engage an audience of major donors. We had, uh, taken several, uh, attempts at the plate and a lot of swing and miss. We had just not been able to figure it out. And we had we had experience doing events and we, you know, felt like we had the the competency that was needed. But again, we had not we had not discovered the sweet spot. And we there was nothing we had done that we wanted to repeat, I’ll put it that way. And so we got introduced to Westfall Gold and their approach. Honestly, Lee, it pushed us outside of our comfort zone because it represented a significant investment more than we had ever chosen to. Invest to create an experience like this for major donors. And, um, I’ll go ahead and eat the humble pie here and give you the expanded version of the story. So we we told Westfall Gold, you know, we we like what you’re you’re what you’re offering here. But few things make us uncomfortable. We don’t think we need this, this or this. And Westfall gold was real gracious. Um, Bob Westfall was the one serving us at the time.

Dan Clark: And, you know, he said, hey, we we hear you. Um, we we’ve gone on the record. This is what we believe is best, but nonetheless, we want to work with you guys. We’re going to we’re going to try to make the best of what you are comfortable with here. And, um, you know, we’re cheering you on and, hey, maybe we’ll learn something. And so we, we did that first event. And honestly, the the results were entirely underwhelming. We invested about $150,000 and raised $450,000. Now, you might say that’s that’s 3 to 1. You know, that’s good. We didn’t lose money, but we were looking to raise millions of dollars. We needed a greater harvest. And so we kind of felt like, you know, big whoop. Um, and that led us to a gut check moment internally with our management and board. And we said, all right, if we’re going to do this again, we need to do it the West Hall way. We need to follow their counsel and just run their playbook. And so a year later, we we did that. We increased our investment. It was about 600. 650,000 invested to pull off that first event. And we ended up raising just shy of $3 million. And that was really when the glass ceiling was shattered for us. And, um, that return on investment that we experienced at that first event is consistent with what Westfall Gold has delivered for its clients over the last ten years. We’re over ten years. Our ROI is consistently 5 to 1 or better. And in fact, last year our average return on investment was 6 to 1 in 2023.

Dan Clark: And this year it’s been even better. Um, the the giving results in 2024 have been record breaking, and we will probably set a new record for total dollars raised this year. We raised $316 million last year. And we’re we’re on pace to eclipse that here in 2024. So it is not a small investment for that kind of experience. And again, we offer a variety of options. But the ROI is tremendous. And there really is not anything else out there that we were able to find. When I was at convoy of Hope that could deliver that kind of return. I mean, I wish my 401 K could do that. Um, so, you know, we convoy, we did that first event and, you know, 3 million. And then the next year we did it again. We deepened our investment, got more people in the room. We almost doubled the return. And we just went on this, this rocket ride over this ten year period where we started adding multiple events a year, we’d do a spring event on the West Coast, a fall event on the East Coast. We started adding summer events, and at this point, convoy is still a client of Westfall Gold, one of our most valued clients, and we will do 5 or 6 events for convoy next year. Um, and I can tell you that it was a it was a significant factor in the growth trajectory of the organization. Westfall. Gold helped us really figure out how to engage this audience of high capacity givers and do do so, um, uh, you know, in a way that it really it created a family, a family that wanted to invite their friends.

Dan Clark: And it just kind of feeds itself at a point. Um, and you just keep leading with big vision. Um, you know, what’s important on the other side of the equation though, Lee, for your nonprofit leaders who are listening is you know, what matters at the end of the day is that you do what you say you’re going to do, that you under-promise and overdeliver and that you operate with the highest levels of integrity. We can help you raise lots of money, but if those things aren’t true about your organization, your results in year 2 or 3 or, you know, whenever they’re ultimately going to shrink because people are going to see, hey, you’re not living up to the promise. Um, so those are important factors. And convoy of Hope is one of those organizations that, uh, operates at the highest levels of integrity, does what they say they’re going to do and always under promises and over delivers. And I think that was a part on the other side of the equation that led to convoy success. But I got to experience that, um, that ride for about ten years and was approached by Bob Westfall a few years ago. Um, asked me if I would consider becoming his successor. He was ready to step into retirement and this for me. Lee was an opportunity to help other organizations experience the success that we did at convoy of Hope, and so far it’s been a lot of fun.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you help the nonprofit that might be struggling with the maybe the optics of, hey, we’re going to invest a lot of money on this special experience for the wealthiest people that are in our community. And it it’s not really part of your core work that you’re doing on a day to day basis, that you’re focusing on relationship building and nurturing these high net worth folks, um, that aren’t really the community that you probably serve. They’re a portion of it, but they’re really the funders of it. So how do you help the organizations reframe the optics of that?

Dan Clark: Yeah. Um, we would often help them identify someone in their network that could help underwrite part or all of that first event. Uh, but ultimately, what this is about is ROI for every dollar that you invest in gathering this audience, you’re going to get $5, $6, maybe more back to fuel the work that you just described. Their whatever their core mission is. I mean, fundraising is a it’s a necessary endeavor for any nonprofit. And there is a dynamic here of you don’t just reap what you sow, but you reap based on how much you sow. And it’s kind of like that story I shared from our beginnings at convoy with Westfall Gold. Um, you know, we sold, we sowed sparingly, and we reaped a small harvest. When we sowed more generously, we reaped a much larger harvest. The $3 million first event. And, um, you know, now, that same event, you know, ten years later, is raising tens of millions of dollars, um, each year. So it’s, uh, there is a there’s a correlation there that is is important to pay attention to. It’s a it’s a bit of a risk reward. You have to be you have to have the courage to take a smart risk in order to earn that generous reward. And we would help again, identifying for year one, um, someone that can help underwrite it and in, in full or in part usually what happens though is after an organization experiences that return on investment, um, it’s, you know, they’re saying the same thing I am today. It’s like for every dollar we put in, we’re getting five, six back. There’s there’s no place else we can do that.

Lee Kantor: Now, what’s the pain these nonprofits are having right now that Westfall Gold can help them get to new levels like have they plateaued or is there, um, is it getting, you know, they’re they’re generating less and less donations. Like, what is the kind of the pain point they’re in where Westfall gold is the right move for them to make?

Dan Clark: Yeah. I can’t speak to what every nonprofit is feeling, but what I can say is that Westfall Gold is, uh, prepared and poised to help them more effectively engage major givers that are in their network or even just identify. And that’s usually the starting point for us, is helping them, bringing some tools that we have access to, uh, to the table and helping them identify people that are already in their file or in their network that have significant capacity to fund their mission. And they’re just not even aware of those people. Um, and so that is that’s the usually the starting place. And that is an exciting series of conversations, because these leaders then see how much potential there is right in front of them. Um, we in fact, did a study, uh, just a couple of years ago and found that when we examined the donor files of our clients across all sectors and sizes, that only 7% of the people who had major giving capacity were actually giving at that level. Everybody’s thinking about, you know, how do we go find the next, you know, million dollar donor, but there’s 89% potential just living within their existing files. And so that’s the first step for us. It’s to help them surface and understand who’s already giving to their organization that they need to be more effectively engaging. Um, if they’re only giving, you know, $100 or $500 or $1,000 a year, but they could be adding some zeros. Um, it’s likely that the only reason they’re not doing so is because they have not been engaged effectively. So we’re prepared. Uh, we’ve got a long track record of success helping organizations effectively engage major donors. We are experts in leveraging the power of gathering. And so we can combine those two muscles. We talk about them like two muscles, two biceps. We we can lean into just the consulting and development work absent of an event, or we can blend an event into the model. And of course, that is where we’ve seen the greatest success over the years.

Lee Kantor: And if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Dan Clark: Yeah. Invite you to check us out at Westfall gold.com w e s t f a l l gold.com. And you can learn more about how we can serve you, your organization and set up a time to connect with our team.

Lee Kantor: Well, Dan, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Dan Clark: Thank you Lee.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.