Ops Insights #053 - Ambassadors Refer Potential Donors
November 22, 2024 | Read Time: 3 minutes | Written by Jenny Kleintop
An Ambassador Program is a way to drive referrals of potential donors. Ambassadors have existing relationships and serve as connectors to potential donors they know who care about your nonprofit, such as individuals you serve, friends, or organizations. You can partner with various Ambassadors who pass referrals to your Philanthropy team.
Ambassadors who are identified should be educated on how to pass the name (aka “Referral”) to the Philanthropy team, how to make the introduction, and be involved in a way that makes sense to them and the potential donor. Ambassadors can be in various roles, such as board members, faculty, staff, alumni, or volunteers.
Three reasons to launch an Ambassador Program:
You need to open avenues to identify potential donors.
You need more people in your pipeline.
You need warmer names in your pipeline.
Characteristics to look for in potential Ambassadors:
Length of time: How long have they been around? Someone who just started likely is not ready to be an Ambassador as they do not have established relationships.
Role: What has been their role? How closely have they worked with your target audience?
Priorities: What programs do they work with that align with funding priorities?
Relationship: Is their relationship with leadership and philanthropy staff in good standing?
Philanthropic: Are they philanthropic themselves?
Connection: Do they have the ability to be a connector and actively pass referrals to you?
There are four stages Ambassadors go through:
Prospective Ambassador: You have not interacted with this individual yet, but you believe they are a good potential Ambassador. There is no time limit for how long they are in this stage, but this list should be reviewed and cleaned up at least once a year, such as in December of each year.
Onboarding Ambassador: You have invited this individual into the Ambassador program, and you are educating this Ambassador on the program.
→ Invite to be part of the program → Educate on the program → Establish ongoing interaction cadence.
Active Ambassador: The Ambassador has agreed to become an Ambassador and has been onboarded. The Ambassador is now actively partnering with the Philanthropy team to make referrals.
→ Receive referrals → Conduct Ambassador Meetings → Thank for being part of the program → Update on the status of past referrals → Collect new referrals.
Former Ambassador: The Ambassador either said “No” to becoming an Ambassador or is no longer partnering with the Philanthropy team to make referrals.
Reasons may vary for saying “No” or no longer partnering and should be noted on the record. For example, the Ambassador may say “No” because they do not have established relationships, and we may want to reach back out in a year or two. Or the Ambassador may have left, and we want to note that.
There are various ways you can track Ambassadors in your CRM database. The key is to make it accessible and understandable to users. I’ve seen it most effectively tracked as Volunteer Job Assignments or Memberships, and I have also seen attributes and even custom fields used.
Here are the fields helpful to track, ideally all in one place in the CRM:
Ambassador’s name and contact information
Ambassador stage
Start Date
End Date
Area of Focus (if need to separate out on lists to align with funding priorities or initiatives)
Location (if have multiple locations)
Staff assignment for who will lead on partnering with the Ambassador
Take Action
The first step is to identify potential ambassadors.
➡ Talk through existing relationships you already know of.
➡ Pull lists of board members, staff, faculty, and internal stakeholders and talk through them.
➡ Narrow the list down to 20-30, even 10-15, depending on your philanthropy team’s size, to start small with Phase I to get moving. Remember you will need to nurture these relationships and have ongoing interactions so you do not want to go too big too fast
You’ve got this!
👋 See you next time,
Jenny
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