Tag Archive for: Methods

YOU NEED TO BECOME A CONTROL FREAK!

WHAT??? Has Marcy finally lost it?

Nobody likes a control freak! They’re demanding, obsessive, overbearing, and determined to have everything their way.

But what if becoming a control freak is one of the smartest decisions you’ll ever make?

I’m talking about becoming a control freak when it comes to YOURSELF!

Your thoughts. Your words. Your reactions. Your decisions. Your actions.

Let me explain.

You know my four favorite mindset messages:

1. We become what we think about.
2. Something gooooddd is gonna happen to me!
3. I create my life!
4. People love to give me money!

These aren’t just cute sayings. They shape how I approach my work, my relationships, my challenges, and my life.

And WOW, did I get to practice them this past weekend!

A little mindset magic at Forest Lake Academy

I joined my colleagues at Forest Lake Academy in Florida for an incredible ribbon cutting, building dedication, and two-day alumni celebration.

After nearly 50 years without new construction, the school was celebrating beautiful new buildings that will transform the experience for students, teachers, and families for generations to come!

There was just one little complication.

Our Development Director had unexpectedly welcomed her beautiful baby early! She did manage to stop by, baby in arms, and offer some direction, but the rest of us were pulling together to make it all happen.

Were there challenges? YOU BET!

The new elevators were in place but couldn’t be installed in time because of installer union issues. Some tours were spontaneous and probably missed a few stops. There were moments when we needed to regroup, rethink, and redirect.

But here’s what struck me.

WE MANAGED OUR MINDS!

Instead of dwelling on what wasn’t working, we kept coming back to what WAS working.

Instead of getting stuck in frustration, we found another way.

And instead of allowing a few bumps to overshadow this historic occasion, we celebrated the extraordinary achievement unfolding right before our eyes!

Was everything perfect? Of course not.

Was it wonderful? ABSOLUTELY!

And that’s the power of mindset.

90% of major giving success is in your head!

I share this in nearly every talk I give.

Think about what you tell yourself as you approach your work.

Are you thinking:

• “People are asked too much.”
• “Our mission doesn’t attract as many givers as theirs.”
• “The economy is so uncertain.”
• “People are stressed out. This isn’t a good time to ask.”

OR are you thinking:

“People LOVE to give me money!”

Why? Because YOU are the link between their generosity and the impact they long to make. You create the opportunity for them to invest in something meaningful and experience the JOY of giving!

Same economy. Same mission. Same potential givers.

Different mindset. Different actions. Different results.

Whatever you repeat, you become!

One of the simplest ways to retrain our brains is to pay attention to the words we use—especially the words we say to ourselves.

During our FLA weekend, I noticed that occasionally we would slip into complaining about what someone was or wasn’t doing.

But we caught ourselves! We reframed. We redirected. We got back to creating a wonderful experience.

That’s why I LOVE mantras. I say my four mindset messages to myself AND OUT LOUD, often!

Think about these everyday statements:

“I can’t.” What if you replaced that with “I haven’t figured out how YET!”

“I’m so stupid!” How about “Well, THAT didn’t work. What can I learn?”

“I’m too busy!” Try “Today is packed, but I can make time for what matters.”

“Life isn’t fair!” Maybe not. But what CAN you do to make the situation better?

These aren’t just changes in vocabulary. They are changes in possibility!

And I’m not suggesting you ignore real challenges, deny difficult feelings, or pretend everything is sunshine and roses.

I’m suggesting you intentionally TALK TO YOURSELF as who you want to be and take charge of what happens NEXT!

Control what you CAN control!

You cannot control the economy, someone else’s behavior, the past, or every unexpected obstacle that comes your way.

You certainly can’t control whether the elevators are installed in time for the ribbon cutting!

But you CAN influence how you interpret what happens, how you respond, what you say, and what you choose to do next.

THAT is where your power lives!

Mental toughness doesn’t mean you never experience fear, doubt, frustration, or discouragement. It means those emotions don’t get the final vote.

You may not control the first thought that pops into your head. But you can challenge it, redirect it, and decide whether it deserves to stay.

And every time you choose possibility over pessimism, courage over fear, and action over excuses, you strengthen that ability.

It takes practice. I know. I practice every single day!

So who’s running YOUR mind?

As you move into these final weeks of the year, I encourage you to become a CONTROL FREAK!

Not over your colleagues. Not over your board. Not over your givers. And certainly not over circumstances you cannot change.

Become a control freak over the thoughts you nurture, the words you speak, the choices you make, and the actions you take.

Your thoughts influence your choices.

Your choices guide your actions.

Your actions create your results.

And here’s the beautiful part.

YOU get to choose what happens next!

So when that next challenge arrives, when the unexpected happens, when you’re tempted to say, “This will never work”…

Remember those four mindset messages.

And especially this one:

SOMETHING GOOOODDD IS GONNA HAPPEN TO ME!

Because when you manage your mind, you’re ready to help make it happen!

Invest in Joy!™

You give your time, your energy, your creativity—and a good bit of your heart—to your mission.

You work to make sure others have what they need to succeed.

But when an opportunity comes along for YOUR learning, do you hear yourself saying, “We can’t afford that,” “I don’t have time,” or “The place will fall apart if I’m gone”?

Your growth deserves a place in the plan, too.

In September, I had the JOY of spending two days with more than 125 nonprofit leaders, board members, and fundraising professionals in Greeley, Colorado. We had hoped for 100!  Elizabeth Barber, Director of Capacity Building at The Weld Trust, was the vision behind this experience. Kelly Jackson, Executive Director of the Aims Foundation, provided an amazing space for us to learn and connect.  Jodie Riesenberger, Vice President, Community Impact for the NoCo Foundation provided a book sponsorship so that every attendee received a copy of my book to anchor the sessions.

The Weld Trust covered most of the expense, making the participant fee just $30!

What a powerful message and meaningful investment for these 3 organizations to support the people who carry these missions forward.

We practiced artful asks, explored relationships, and worked on clear giving opportunities. We also spent time on something that comes with us into every conversation.

Our mindset.  What are you telling yourself about your work? About your givers? About YOU?

Participants shared how the experience renewed their energy, helped them reconsider limiting beliefs, and gave them ideas they could use beyond fundraising.

That matters. Learning can give you a practical tool AND help you see new possibilities.

So, now the big question….WHO INVESTS IN YOU?

Give others the opportunity to support your growth.

Before you decide the answer will be no, ask.

Some conferences provide sample letters to help you request funding from your supervisor or board. Explain what you want to learn, how it connects to your work, and what you will bring back.

A board member may also welcome the opportunity to invest in your experience. Someone who cares deeply about your mission may see supporting your development as a meaningful way to advance it. Explore that possibility with your leadership.

You help people see the value of investing in your mission. Your ability to serve that mission deserves support, too.

Put your development in the budget.

As you plan for the coming year, include registration, travel, coaching, and the time to participate into your budget process.  National conferences can be expensive. Sometimes the financial barrier is real. Sometimes we decide an experience is out of reach before we explore scholarships, local programs, or other support.

And sometimes you may choose to pay for an experience yourself. If it fits your goals and your finances, you can decide your growth is worth that personal investment.

Make room for yourself while you’re there.

Some development professionals add a spa day at the conference hotel or a few personal days exploring the area. What a lovely way to enjoy a place you have already traveled to!

It doesn’t have to be a long vacation. An extra day at the end can give you time to walk, rest, reflect, and consider what you want to do with everything you learned.

Plan and pay for the personal portion separately—and give yourself permission to enjoy it.  You don’t have to fill every available hour with another session, another meeting, or another email.

Notice the belief that you cannot be gone.

Your work matters. You matter. And with coverage and clear expectations, you can make room to step away.  Just before the Weld Conference, I brought our entire family to Loveland, Colorado for the weekend to celebrate our 35^th wedding anniversary.  I didn’t turn on the computer once, and I tried to not get drawn into email and texts when I used my phone to take pictures. Honestly I was amazed that the world seemed to go along just fine for 3 days without me!

If you feel you just can’t be gone, ask yourself, “What would help me leave with confidence?” Then make that plan.

Professional development belongs on your calendar. So does time to absorb it.

Choose an experience. Ask for support. Budget for it. Perhaps add that extra day.

You invest in your mission every day.

You are worth investing in, too.

Invest in Joy!™

You could almost see the lightbulbs turning on!

 I recently spent a terrific day with key leadership, faculty and staff at Southwest Wisconsin Technical College exploring how everyone can play a role in inspiring generosity.

Some of the biggest ah-ha moments weren’t about my 3 sentence ask (though I taught it and they all wrote one and it was great!) The ah-has were much more basic.

“I had no idea I could fund THAT!”

And…additionally….

“I didn’t know the Development staff wanted to hear about the needs and dreams in MY area.”

Now, this is me speaking to my development professional colleagues for a moment… THAT’S a situation to not be frustrated about but rather, worth continuing to work to  solve. Do you assume (yikes!) that they all just Get it? Or that they get it after the first few times they talk with you?

It’s a two-way street.

You can’t expect your faculty, staff, board members, volunteers or program leaders to engage in philanthropy if they don’t understand how it works — or that they have a role in it and how they can best do that role.  You can’t sit in the development office waiting for them to figure it out. Plus be patient, take baby steps and keep it simple. You ALL have LOTS on your plates!

 So…Go to them.  Again.

During my years leading development at the UW Foundation, I made a point of attending each department’s all-faculty meeting at least once a year. (I had 23 Departments and 14 Centers)

My message?

• You are important to me and I am listening.
• What are you working on?
• What do you need?
• What are you dreaming about that isn’t in the budget? (And, aren’t we always having budget cuts in higher ed?)
• How would additional resources help you?”

And I discovered something that seems almost ridiculously basic.

Some faculty didn’t realize THEY could make a gift specifically to support their own department!

Think about that.

You can sit in the development office wondering:

How do we get more faculty, program staff, everyone in the place… to give?

(The old 100% staff giving goal!)

Meanwhile, someone down the hall may be thinking:

“I had no idea I could fund THAT!”

For many years I experienced 100% staff giving. Once you create a culture that understands how the partnership with development can help them support their own dreams they have passed an important first step. Your faculty, staff, program leaders and volunteers are the people who know your mission most intimately and can best help move their own programs forward AND help you help ALL your donors.

The Advancement team THEN can take Step 2, and both empower those faculty, and join with them personally, to additionally bring opportunities back to their people.  It doesn’t mean Advancement ‘Takes over’ the relationship! It means we say, “Good luck with that.” We trust each other to have the giver’s goals at the forefront and work together.

Yes, you CAN fund that! And it’s exciting to see your internal “family” understand what generosity does for them, personally, in their area, and for their dreams and visions. 

At SWTC, Dennis Cooley and Stacia Stephenson have good relationships with the faculty and leadership. The goal – create even MORE success for their departments by helping them understand how they can give themselves and partner to strengthen their areas.

Coming up next time: Our workshop provided faculty and leadership ideas THEY COULD SEE THEMSELVES DOING to CLEARLY share with their people — alumni, advisory council members, industry and community partners who already have a connection to their work — the impact they can create with generosity.

So ask, (again) the people closest to your mission what THEY see that philanthropy could make possible?  And help make their own giving fun and beneficial for their areas and rewarding for them!

Here’s the punch line — Getting everyone on board doesn’t mean turning everyone into a fundraiser.  It means creating a culture where everyone understands that generosity is one more way to advance your mission.  (right up there with teaching, research, programs, etc.)

So before you ask: “How do we get more people to give?”

Try asking: “Do the people within our “family” even know they CAN?”

Because sometimes the beginning of a wonderful gift isn’t:  “Yes, I’ll give.”

It’s… “I had no idea I could fund THAT!”  Wohoo!!!

And remember…. You GET to be a fundraiser — ALL the time and GET to share a bit of the JOY you bring your givers with all of your partners! 

 SO much opportunity…together!

Invest in Joy!™

Think about what happens when someone makes you feel that you matter.

You stand a little taller. You smile. You have a bit more energy. You have more to give.

You will often hear me say, “Help your giver find the gift that brings them joy!” That has everything to do with those artful conversations where you gently uncover how your giver feels about your mission and your vibrant options for giving. Where will they be able to have the impact that they want to have.

But today I’m talking about one layer beneath that.  You have a giver who loves your mission and is excited about the gift they will make – the level that fits and the result that fits.

Now, consider adding a new dimension – tell them that THEY MATTER!

And start with remembering that YOU MATTER!

You matter to your loved ones, your givers and your mission.

You matter to me. Know that.

Every word and action you take shares a message and leaves a feeling.

You matter.

Or perhaps…does this drift into….

• You matter when I have time.
• You matter when I need something.
• You matter when you make a gift.
• You matter when it’s convenient.

Ouch.

While you don’t intend to send those messages, in the rush to get everything DONE, it’s remarkably easy to do.

You dash off the thank-you.  You glance at your phone while someone is talking. You promise to follow up—and don’t. You send the perfectly automated birthday greeting to someone we’ve known for twenty years.

You race into the next ask without really celebrating the last gift.

And sometimes you get so focused on raising the money that you forget the person sitting across from you.

People know when they matter.  They can feel it.

And fundraising gives us one long, wonderful opportunity to tell people they matter.

Not because of the size of their gift.  Because of who they are.  Because they cared.

Because they showed up. Because something about your mission connected with something in their heart—and they chose to act on it.

Now, pass it on.

Think about what happens when someone makes you feel that you matter.

See the person, take in the person as you are taking whatever action you are taking.

A sincere thank-you matters. Remembering someone’s story matters.  Putting down your phone matters.

Listening matters. Showing up matters.  The words you choose matter.

Every step matters.

So beginning today, will you please both remember that YOU MATTER and TELL SOMEBODY ELSE!

Show them.  And here I go — it’s a mindset…deeper than gratitude, more powerful than stewardship.  Look them in the eye. Say their name. Tell them specifically why they matter to you.

Then watch what happens….ok, I’ll tell you. They will matter more AND YOU will matter more from your authentic action!

Never forget how very much you matter to me.

Invest in Joy!™

How are you FEELING about this year so far?

Excited?  A little overwhelmed?

Proud of what you’ve accomplished…or wondering where the last six months went?

Maybe a little of all of the above.

Late June, after teaching a Major Gifts Master Class for the Wisconsin Technical College System Foundations staff, I sat down and read every evaluation. It was a GREAT DAY, and I got the expected feedback about fundraising techniques, major gifts, and my Three-Sentence Artful Ask.

But I got more, over and over again, about something entirely different.

Mindset.

My sessions always begin with mindset.  I can see the eyes roll – “yeah, yeah, just teach me how to get major gifts already.”

Yet here were some of the comments for, “Your biggest take-aways…”

The words we use are key.

Looking at my work—and myself—differently.

Simply changing the way I think about my work made everything click.

Your reframing negative language exercise.

Choosing better words that really do Create a JOYFUL GIVER – not just pay lip service to it.

How we talk about our donors TO them and ABOUT them.

How we talk about ourselves – out loud and in our heads.

One comment especially caught my attention. After spending time covering A LOT of material, looking at the clock, one participant gently reminded me that I had said, “I’m already behind.” She ended her note with a smiley face and suggested I replace it with, “I’m precisely on time.”

Touché. She was absolutely right.  Teachers need reminders, too.

This also prompted me to consider where I need to make changes, updates, write new songs!  We are, after all, halfway through the year!

So before simply making another to-do list, looking at what wasn’t on track or finished…I decided I needed to ask myself a few better questions.  Dig deeper. Let me share this with you.

Here are the 7 areas I chose to consider – yours may be very different:

1. Personal health
2. My band – music overall
3. Personal finances
4. Long term planned giving and legacy planning
5. Home and work environment (home, office, garden)
6. Family, Friends, Clients – Connecting and Supporting
7. Business Planning and Implementation

You may have thought that running my business would be Number 1.  In fact, when my weight topped 205 pounds – I hated to take the stage – singing or speaking. Now at 150 pounds, I’m no model, but I look a whole lot better. It was a major shift in how I used my time and creating new habits.  Anyway – pick your areas and, of course, you can change them!

“It’s YOUR life to make delicious!”  Marcy Heim

As I reflected on these areas of my life, these questions became my guide:

• Why is this area important to me?
• What’s already right?
• Where am I struggling, procrastinating or stuck?
• Who can help me?
• What’s my first next step?

You may notice one question that seems almost too simple.

What’s already right?

I included it on purpose.  My mind jumps to what’s not even started, what isn’t finished, and where I could have done better. Maybe yours does too?

Unless I intentionally stop and look for what’s already right, I can miss the relationships that have grown, the conversations that mattered, the progress that’s been made, and the joy that’s been present all along. Personally and professionally.

Gratitude doesn’t always happen naturally.

You need to remind yourself to look for it – give thanks – cherish all that is good and right in your world…and THEE world.  Consciously! Deeply!  And it may inspire you to send a note, make a call or just hug your kids/friends/colleagues/donors a bit longer. In a world that can feel very judgy – more than ever – this is an important part of any reflection.

Celebrate the lives you’ve touched and the relationships you’ve strengthened or repaired.

Celebrate the courage it took to keep going when things weren’t easy.

Celebrate what is already right. Where you moved forward to get the results!

Then look at where you are not where you want to be – Not critically, but with curiosity.  WHY am I stuck? What am I afraid of?  Who can help me figure this out. And let me tell you, today that might well be conversations with your favorite AI!

Then ask yourself the most important question, “What’s my next step?” The one that will restart this. Not your next ten steps. Not your five-year plan. Just your next intentional step.

As for me?

This helps with the clutter – just like my closet needs all those fat clothes GONE – each area has one key step to take that will get me reset.

Trust me on this — you will see it.

So the second half will be where you really score – just like the Green Bay Packers!

Why – you looked at where it didn’t work in the first half – adjusted the defense. What is the mindset you need now and who/what can help you focus on what will make the magic happen!

Each area has one step.  All more focused on what matters most.

So…Woo Hoo!

You’ve made it this far in pretty darn good shape! It’s halftime and your gearing up for the second half. Go Pack! Go Marcy! Go YOU!

You don’t change your life by judging where you’ve been. You change it by choosing your next intentional step.

Begin with gratitude, continue with intention, and find the one beautiful next step in each area.

You’re totally got this….and I’ve got you until you do.

Invest in Joy!™