In the last several years, Passion Marketing has been engaged by several of the super-wealthy and their foundations that are giving away millions of dollars.

We have also been engaged by organizations who are marketing their funding needs to these same people, as well as foundations, looking to raise a minimum million dollar gift, and very often single gifts of ten to twenty million dollars.

As we develop an expertise and reputation in the mega-donor area, more of our work appears to be heading in this direction.

Every day, as we delve deeper into this very specific marketplace, we are gaining valuable insights, making discoveries and creating methodology. Over the next several months, through a series of Passion Marketing Informs, we would like to share some of these discoveries with you. We ask, however, if you use the information provided, that you credit Passion Marketing as your source.

While we have produced many Informs on a variety of subjects, this is the first in the Passion Marketing Mega-Donor Inform series.

A while back, Executive Director Ted Sokolsky of UJA-Federation of Toronto, who had hired us to help them raise $250 million for a special project, was visiting our offices in Los Angeles. At the time, Passion Marketing hosted a Conversational Dinner inviting the thirty-five executive directors and senior fund developers of LA's largest nonprofits, ranging from museums and social service organizations to universities and culture. The subject matter was the "Culture of Mega-Donor Giving." The evening was set up as a flowing conversation where attendees actively discussed their experience in raising mega-donor contributions of one million dollars or more. Passion Marketing President, Gary Wexler, facilitated this conversation.

As we share the results of this dinner, we first want to inform you about the methodology required to make the discoveries we did that evening.

The Facilitated Conversational Dinner has become one of our most powerful marketing methods in the mega-donor arena, as well as in other areas of marketing, in both Nonprofit/Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) and business settings.

Facilitated Conversational Dinners meet multiple objectives:

1. As an information-gathering event of influencers: In many cases, when a Conversational Dinner interchange takes place at a significant level among the guests, it produces more quality information than focus groups and one-on-one interviews.
2. As a fundraising strategy: Through an evening of informal, but professionally planned dinner conversation, donors become invested in the issue and the cause, as well as in their peers who are seated around the table. The group dynamics spur some extraordinary individual cultivation for the fund developer.
3. As an advocacy tool for business or Nonprofit/NGO: We have found that people do not change their opinion about an issue or become a supporter of a cause because they read an advertisement, a brochure or view a public service announcement. They must be more than passively informed. The issue needs to be brought alive through action, exchange, debate and discussion.
4. As an idea creation tool for business or Nonprofit/NGO: When a business, industry or Nonprofit/NGO is in search of new ideas, Facilitated Conversational Dinners serve as a forum for dynamic group brainstorming leading to powerful idea creation.
5. As a forum for industry or business exploration: When a business, an industry or a Nonprofit/NGO is encountering a deep issue that affects professional thinking on a broad level, Conversational Dinners emphasize the issues and the solutions.

Facilitated Conversational Dinners do not simply happen. Professionals who understand the art of engagement must plan them. There must be the right people to sponsor the dinner, who have the ability to attract important personalities. The right discussion and amount of intrigue must be promised by the invitation. The right mix of attendees must be invited. An appropriate setting must be found. The right preparation materials, creatively strategized and assembled, must be sent to attendees prior to the dinner. Then there is the most important aspect: the facilitation. It is not focus group facilitation, but leisurely discussion, much like a salon. It must be carried out with sensitivity and an ability to listen, quickly recognize and capture an idea. This requires a professional facilitator who understands the need to ask the right questions, engage attendees with one another, instantaneously draw deep, sensible conclusions and effectively communicate the results to the attendees and the sponsors.

Below are some of the main points of the information that emanated from the spirited and critical conversation. The entire document, including all the important information from the dinner, can be accessed through our website. That complete document has become our guideline for working with the people leading the campaigns and the mega-donors providing funding to their campaigns.

• A mega-donor is a leader willing to take a risk, who views philanthropy as an investment.
• Mega-donors are not interested in repairing an organization or fixing its problems. They want their donation to create something new and influential.
• Mega-donors want straight talk and must be involved in ideas and input from the beginning of a prospective project.
• Mega-donors expect to be informed about progress in real ways, just as they would about any business investment. They will ask for substantiation.
• Mega-donors expect their gift to make a large, visible, and sustained impact or change.
• Mega-donors expect their gift to produce immediate, concrete results that can be maintained. They want a date, a number or milestone they can put their hands around.

To download the complete document, go to www.passionmarketing.com and on the right of the Home Page, click Mega-Donor.

To download previous Passion Marketing Informs on a variety of important subjects that affect Nonprofit/NGO and the business world, as well as to view our breakthrough strategic and creative work, click Creative/Strategic.

To learn more about Passion Marketing and our discoveries in Nonprofits/NGOs and business marketing, either go to our new website www.passionmarketing.com or call Annabelle Stevens at (213) 624-0612.

Thank you for taking the time to read this Passion Marketing Inform. We know how busy you are.

GARY WEXLER, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT
Passion Marketing - Capturing the Intangible. Marketing for non profits.