An Interview with Donorly Founder and President, Sandra Davis

In honor of Donorly’s 6th Anniversary, and in celebration of last week’s opening of our Washington, D.C. office, we sat down with Founder and President Sandra Davis to talk about where Donorly came from, and where we’ll be going next!

Sandra, what inspired you to start Donorly, and what drives your work with small and mid-sized organizations?

When I was an in-house fundraiser, most of my career was spent in the development offices of large performing arts nonprofits. I always had the benefit of a donor research expert on the development team—until I didn’t. I took the job of Director of Development at a large theater in 2008, in the midst of the financial downturn. Our expense budget didn’t allow us to hire a professionally trained prospect researcher, let alone invest in the tools that person would need to do their job properly. It was debilitating. It created challenges around making informed decisions, efficiency suffered, and I felt like guesswork was a necessary and unfortunate aspect of my job—to the detriment of our fundraising efforts.

This was not a particularly small organization, so it made me wonder how even smaller organizations could possibly manage any kind of professional prospect research. That experience led me to develop the research plan we now offer to nonprofits—offering a set number of hours of research on a monthly basis for an affordable monthly fee. Large nonprofits have full teams of professionals who do nothing but prospect research. It puts them at a huge advantage, and I want every nonprofit in the country to have access to quality research, no matter their size or budget.

 Why choose Washington, D.C. as the location for Donorly’s second office?

The richness and number of nonprofits is one important factor. It is in the top five with New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Chicago for number of nonprofits. And Donorly is already serving clients in the D.C. area, so it just made sense.

Washington, D.C. is a city unlike any other, and the diversity of nonprofits that choose to do business there is vast, and quite fascinating. I’ve spent several years fundraising in both New York and Seattle, and I know that every city and region has its own traditions and strategies for fundraising success. That’s definitely true for D.C., and we’re looking forward to having a presence there.

What do you see for the future of Donorly?

One of the things I’m most passionate about is building a team that can grow and thrive together alongside our clients and their teams. As our team begins to spread outside of the New York offices (we now have team members in Denver, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.) we need to be truly thoughtful about how we work together and how our team stays cohesive and continues to support each other. I know we have a high level of trust across the team, and we really enjoy working together, that’s one thing I never want to lose, no matter how big we grow. I believe that maintaining and deepening that team culture has great value to our clients.

Do you have a go-to piece of fundraising advice that you impart to all of your clients?

This seems counter-intuitive, but do not get invested in the outcome of a solicitation. Hopefully before you ask, you’ve done your research, you’ve learned what motivates and excites your prospect, you’ve carefully planned your request. Once you’ve asked, let go. The future is now in the hands of your potential donor. You have no control at that point, and you must respect their process for decision-making and their decision.

One advantage to this strategy, if the answer is “no” you can brush it off faster and move on to the next solicitation without having to go through a grieving process! And you can re-engage with that prospect at a future date without the sting of a perceived failure.