Jeff Schreifels, Nonprofit Fundraising Expert: Veritus Group

I get to help nonprofits alleviate needs in the world.

I get to help fundraisers find joy in their work,

joy and a trail of happy memories.

Well, Yaa, hold onto your hats and I'm wearing one today.

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I jetted off to Europe, hoping to find some eye research

that will provide me hope.

And I found some in Sweden.

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You know how much I enjoy sharing these positive imprints with you

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So during my European escapade I hugged some of my podcast guests in real life.

It was like, well, for me it was like stepping into a dream.

Brilliant visits I had just brilliant.

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I do certainly enjoy serving my community as a volunteer firefighter.

Well, my family remains committed to philanthropy through hands-on efforts,

which we believe are essential for creating positive imprints in the world.

And today's guest is truly exceptional, particularly in his role dedicated

to fundraising for organizations that address diverse needs of

individuals around the globe.

Without the efforts of individuals like my guest today and all of my previous

heroes on this podcast, the vital information regarding their work and

initiatives that they champion would remain unavailable to inspire positive

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Well, here's to creating more positive imprints together.

Today I am featuring Jeff Schreifels, owner of Veritus Group, and Veritus

Group is a global leader in major gifts and mid-level fundraising strategy.

So what does this mean?

Well, it means that Jeff's 30 years experience has assisted nonprofits

such as St. Jude's and United Way in raising millions of dollars through

strong donor-focused relationships.

Now, that's key is that relationship, and we're gonna learn more about that today.

As a renowned speaker and author, he is dedicated to transforming

nonprofit fundraising by sharing inspiring success stories.

Those stories that we love hearing that are part of building positive imprints and

part of those legacies of the past and of the future, and of course of our present.

And I am looking forward to our enlightening conversation

with Jeff Schreifels

jeff, welcome to your positive imprint.

Hi, Catherine.

Thanks for having me today.

Awesome.

Absolutely.

So you have been around in the fundraising world for three decades.

Yeah.

A long time.

And a very long time.

Not to just get started right on fundraising, which I don't want to,

I wanna first get started on, on Jeff and learn a little bit more about you.

But one of the questions is.

Why fundraising?

Did you have a background in, in accounting?

Were you working with nonprofits?

So again, welcome and let's start with Jeff, who you are.

Yeah.

And where you're from.

Well, um, I'm Jeff Schreifels and I live in Philadelphia.

And to answer your question, I was a history and secondary

ed major coming outta college.

And I thought I was going to teach high school history in

the inner city of Philadelphia.

so I had to find a part-time job at least.

So I reached out to a small nonprofit.

That I knew of because , they were a nonprofit magazine and

I used a lot of their articles in some of my college papers.

And so I just called them, , got white pages, looked them up and called 'em,

and I said, Hey, do you have any jobs?

And they said, well, we actually have this fundraising job open.

I said, well, I don't know anything about fundraising, but I'll come down.

I'd love to come down and talk to you about it.

So I did, and they hired me.

Now they probably hired me because I was willing to take the really low salary

that they're pay, and they said, you can learn how to do this on the job.

And I did.

And being someone who's very curious and wants to learn new things, I.

Learned as much as I could about fundraising, and I made a lot of mistakes

doing fundraising, but I started to really understand what was all about.

And I think a key moment during that time was, you know, I had to write fundraising

appeals and send them out and then.

The beautiful thing is I would get all the returns, , the people would send it

back in the little BRE and I remember getting this one specific, , check

in the mail for $5 and you could tell that it was written by a really old

person, , from their squiggly handwriting.

And this person wrote in the note section.

I love what you do.

I wish I could give more.

And it made me realize that people wanted to give, they found joy in giving and this

little amount was a lot for this person.

And that's when I really started to fall in love with fundraising because I think

that's when I realized at a very young age that people found joy in their giving.

And also at the same time, by doing that, they made an impact in the world.

And I got to be the person to deliver that me, you know, to bring it together.

And that, that hooked me.

And so from that moment, I, I just, dedicated myself to learning the craft and

learning all aspects of fundraising from

direct response to major gifts, to plan giving, all of those things.

And I was able to work at an agency for 12 years to work with large nonprofits.

I've worked with really small nonprofits.

, for eight years.

I was a development director for two small nonprofits, so I know

what it was like to be the only person really doing the fundraising.

, my, uh, partner, my former business partner, I got together and created

Veritus group really out of a desire to help nonprofits around major gifts because

that was an area that we felt was really underdeveloped and we wanted to bring a

very disciplined approach to major gifts that had a structure and a process and um,

ongoing accountability and management.

That we saw in the direct response world a lot, but we brought it to major

gifts and we saw some tremendous things happening because what happened is

it, it allowed fundraisers the time to build real relationships with donors.

If they had this structure, if they had goals and they had revenue plans.

They were then able to know exactly what to do and they had the time to

build those relationships because that's what fundraising is really all about.

It's not about money.

It really is about building relationships and really being that bridge between

the donor and their desire to change the world and all the things that

the nonprofit does to do just that.

And when you do that right and bring them together, the money follows.

Right.

And that's been our ethos from at Veritus for all those years, and

it's proven out because we've helped hundreds of organizations do that work.

That's inspiring with how you got started, and I want to

add to that excitement and that joy.

So.

Being an educator.

We do St. Jude's Children's Hospital fundraisers.

Yeah.

I'm in a private school, and the students who are in charge of it,

they see the videos of the children.

Yeah.

They connect with the kids.

Sometimes they write letters to the students.

Mm-hmm.

And the student writes back.

Yeah.

Sometimes the parent writes back with mm-hmm.

Not the happiest of.

Of ending story, right?

Mm-hmm.

And it touches kids' hearts.

Kids come in with money maybe 30 cents , 40 cents.

These are third graders, they are just absolutely thrilled to give that money.

Yeah.

And it's a great feeling.

So mistakes.

What are some of the mistakes that are important?

Because I have to do fundraiser.

I still work with nonprofits.

What are some of the mistakes?

Oh gosh.

I mean, some of the mistakes, just, uh, simple things like when you're

writing a fundraising letter.

Not asking for a gift.

Oh.

You know, or it can happen.

Or talking about how wonderful everything is.

Donors wanna solve problems.

Mm-hmm.

And if you don't have a problem for them to solve, they're more apt not

to support what you're trying to do.

So those are some simple ones, but I think the biggest mistake I ever made

in fundraising was in my second job.

And it was very early on in my tenure with this organization and , I was still young,

I was still in my twenties, and I wanted to make an impact as a fundraiser there.

They really hadn't had a full-time fundraiser before.

And so what I did was I concentrated on who are the largest donors, when was the

last time they gave, and let's set up a plan for me to go ask them for money.

So it was all, first of all, it was all centered around "let me get the money."

And I remember there was one board member who had been giving like $10,000 annually

and he hadn't given in like two years.

So it was like, this is Prime, right.

The person hasn't given in two years, they gave, you know, 10,000 and a board member.

So I set up a meeting with him and went to his office.

And , he told me all of these things about himself, about his family, that if you

are a really good, major gift officer, you would think this is gold because

he's , telling me all this great stuff.

But I wasn't really listening.

What I was trying to do was figure out when he was gonna pause long enough

so that I could go in and ask him.

For the $10,000.

And I found that moment and I caught him off guard, but it so much so

that he basically was like, uh, yeah, I think I can do $10,000.

And I was great and I left, drove back, and on the drive I was

feeling so great about myself.

Like, Hey, I've only been at this job for a month or so and

I already got this big gift.

I'm gonna go back to the office and the CEO is gonna be really happy with me.

So I get to the office and the CEO looks a little bit, uh, upset and he said,

Hey, Jeff, can you come into my office?

And I did.

And he said, well, uh, were you just with a meeting with Dan?

And I said, yeah, well, he just called and resigned from the board.

He was so offput by your approach.

He just thought, if this is the way your organization's gonna be,

I don't wanna be a part of it.

Wow.

And fortunately, my boss had a lot of uh, uh, , patience with me he said,

look, I know you went in with the intention of trying to do something good,

but the way you did it was not right.

. Over the long term I was able to win back that relationship and

eventually he came back on board and he did give that $10,000 gift.

But I learned a lot about fundraising that day.

, it's not just about the money.

Mm-hmm.

It is about building that relationship.

Um, but that was a big mistake going after the money.

And that's a good lesson to learn.

And that brings me to some words that you've used, , when

I was reading about you.

Yeah.

So, and this is exactly what you're talking about.

"There's a difference between transactional gifts mm-hmm.

And transformational" gifts.

And I love the word transformation there was a, a fellow I had on the podcast

He said, transformation is total change and you can't go back.

Mm-hmm.

You cannot go back once it's transformed.

Yeah.

You can't go back.

And that's the good part about transformation.

Hoping that, you know, the transformation was a positive one.

And this is what you're talking about is that that relationship

building, it's a so transactional gift is what you were going after.

Yeah.

And, but you realized it's part of the transformation, it's

part of community building.

Mm-hmm.

How you, how do you talk to these clients to let you in the door

to go talk to people out there?

, Jeff Schreifels: well, what we do with our clients, you know, many of them

are transactional in their approach to fundraising, meaning they're either

doing hands-off type of fundraising where they're doing direct response

letters or emails or social media to try to bring in revenue, and

those aren't necessarily bad things.

They aren't transformational type of giving.

Those are, that's a way to maybe acquire new donors or get donors to think about

you for the first time and, and start to dip their toe into what you're doing.

And so though that kind of fundraising isn't necessarily bad, but it's not that

transformational what we're talking about.

And I think transformational can be two ways.

One is a gift can be transformational for an organization to go.

Into a different place.

Mm-hmm.

Or to provide something that you're right, will never, they'll never go back to.

They'll, it'll take them somewhere new.

But it's also transformational could be, uh, for the donor themselves that

, it's a gift where they themselves are sacrificing their hard earned work

that they've done all their lives.

Giving some of that away to make something better happen in the world.

And so that transforms them themselves.

And so how we help our clients do that with their donors is really

to help them understand that you have to understand what are your

donors passions and interests.

Why do they have them, and how does it relate to all the things that your

organization does to make the world a better place and match those passions

and interests with those specific programs and projects that do that?

Because we know that when a donor feels connected that way, that's when

transformational gifts happen, not only for the donor, but for the organization.

Indeed.

So for your organization Veritus Group, you are not removing this and I just wanna

make sure that listeners understand this.

Yeah.

You're not saying that the donor that sends in their five

bucks, their 34 cents from the child, that's not of little importance.

That's of great importance.

Yeah.

And you're working with the big.

Donors where you're going into this larger world of big money financing.

Yeah.

Uh, donations.

And so let's just talk a little bit about the fundraising world.

Yeah.

'cause people think that truly, and I'm gonna bring some, some

things in 'cause maybe you can answer questions, but, okay.

Part of fundraising is spending money,

correct?

I, you have to get a letter out.

You have to get your brand out.

You have to get the information out.

And yeah, you might have these great points that are, they're your

organization's doing great here, but hey, we need to get to this place.

As you were talking about, we can't get there without dollar amount,

but we're working towards it.

So my husband and I, we will receive umpteen times.

Mm-hmm.

You know where this is going?

Yeah.

From nonprofits, you know, the calendars, the address labels, and I know they

probably get it for free and we always ask, you know, please don't send it.

We want you to keep the money.

And they never leave that as an option.

And then they send out more mail.

Organizations will use those kind of

things that we call premiums.

Those calendars, they'll do all kinds of, now, the reason they do

that is because it does, it works.

It elicits the response.

Mm-hmm.

Maybe not from you, but they're, do they, they're doing it

because it actually does work.

They wouldn't do it if it didn't work.

In other words.

So in acquiring new donors or cultivating small dollar donors.

It is very effective to do it.

Now if a donor, if you are a donor of that organization and you write them

and said, I don't want any of those things, then a good organization will

honor your preferences and mark that in the database so that you don't see

those kind of things anymore longer.

But if you're not a donor and you're just getting it for the first

time and you say, don't send this.

Uh, most often they'll never probably talk to you again, or it'll be some other

group that you might say, oh, that's, I see this kind of thing all the time.

But the reason organizations do that is because it does elicit enough

response to make it worth it to do it.

It's a fundraising tactic.

Mm-hmm.

That elicits a response.

It awakens something in the potential donor to say, oh, oh,

I'm gonna get this calendar.

I feel like I should send them a gift.

Right.

It's like you don't wanna walk out of a restaurant without leaving a tip.

Correct.

But what they've been able to calculate is, does the cost of all of that.

Does the revenue that we're going to bring in, or the number of new donors

that are gonna come in from it justify the cost of that initial package, right?

That's what they're always looking at.

What is the ROI, the return on investment and the number of new donors, the percent

response that we get back, does it justify the cost of sending that out?

And so they'll not only will they, will a good organization justify it

based on the initial, amount of revenue and the response they get, but

they'll look at what is the long-term value of a donor that gives that gift?

Because we know that if we bring in a hundred donors at

a long-term value of $400.

Over time we're gonna get $4,000 from that group of donors.

And that is true.

Now for Veritus Group, how do you go about, , with your fundraising,

So ours is relationship based.

So for example, in major gifts, we help organizations create a portfolio

of no more than 150 qualified donors for every major gift officer.

You think of a major gift officer who has 150 donors in their own portfolio.

Uh, these donors who are qualified have already said, I

want a relationship with you.

They may have given a gift that qualified as a major gift, but they've also said

to, uh,, the organization, yes, I want to find out more about your organization.

I want someone to come visit me.

I, I want, , someone to represent me in the organization

and tell me more about it.

Okay, so they have 150 qualified donors in a full portfolio.

They tier those donors A, B, and C from the highest level donor

to the lowest level of 150.

And then they have a revenue goal attached to every donor, and a plan for how they're

going to cultivate and solicit that donor over the course of the next 12 months.

And then with some of them, they might even have a two or three year

plan for how they're going to move them into a transformational gift,

a 6, 7, 8 figure gift over time.

So we help that organization set that up, and then we work with them every

week to give them strategy, encourage them, , ask them questions, help them

cultivate those donors, and keep them focused and accountable to their plans.

Hence the transformational gift.

Yeah,

That's the result of that.

Over time, you will start to see those transformational gifts.

Not all 150 are going to give 6, 7, 8 figure gifts.

A handful of them will, and many of them are going to give, you know,

5,000, 10,000 and hopefully move up their giving a little bit every year.

Of those group, maybe 20 of them are really gonna start

to give much higher gifts.

Why are they gonna do that?

Because you're building those relationships.

You're building trust with the donor and you're serving them well,

and you're showing them how their gifts are making a difference.

And when you do that well, that's when donors feel connected

and want to start giving more.

Hearing it from you it, it is a lot of work and it is a lot of keeping

them focused and keeping the brand.

And I look at St. Jude's Children's Hospital and, and United Way.

They're your clients.

Mm-hmm.

And in order for them to do their work, they need a lot of money to help all of

those families, not just from the United States, but around the world who do come.

Yeah.

With their children.

Yeah.

And every local community, there's a United Way basically that's

doing something in the community.

Yes.

And uh, having to raise money to make that happen.

Yeah.

Well, wow.

Hat's off to you for working so hard on doing that and building

Veritus to what it is today

do you do more supervisory right now?

Or you out in the field?

Well, as the, um, principal and owner, my

role is really to set the vision.

The long term strategy for Veritus today, but back in the day when it

was just two of us, yes, I did all the work that our current client experience

leaders do every day with our clients.

So everything they have done, they do with their clients I've done.

But today I am more working on building new business, marketing.

Um, and making sure the company's got a set vision.

And, you know, we're international now, so we, we work with clients

in Europe and Spain and , the uk and so that's kind of my role.

And then, you know, part of that is also the brand and speaking at conferences

and writing books and, , blogs and doing podcasts and things like

that to let people know what we do.

The work that you're doing is so important and working

with people who who aren't able to go do the hands-on, but they're

philanthropists and they want to provide.

That's right.

And I think whenever I think of philanthropy.

I, oh, well, I always think of my parents, of course.

Uh, and how they raised us and, and we, yeah, we were hands on.

And my mother's still, , she's going to be 92.

Wow.

And she's still at the soup kitchen.

She still goes to the homeless.

Shelter.

That's amazing.

It is very amazing.

Yeah.

And she's very involved in the community.

Yeah.

And she also has a voice, and she's very opinionated.

I don't know where I was going with that,

well, I think what you were, you were kind of hinting

at is you grew up in a family that As givers, they're lovers of people, which

is really what philanthropy is about.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and when you grow up in that way, you too are that way.

I grew up in a, in a house where my dad would bring us around the kitchen

table every payday and the first thing that he did, he showed us his paycheck,

and then he would write out checks to charity and then he would pay the bills.

And so growing up in a house where that was the center is that there were always

people who needed it more than we did, even though there were times my dad, you

know, I grew up in a working class family.

My dad was an electrician, and there were a lot of times he was unemployed.

He would take his unemployment check and do the same thing because there was always

someone that needed it more than we did.

And so growing up in a family like that, I mean.

How could I not be a fundraiser?

You know?

Exactly.

My mother raised us, both my parents, but mom's phrase growing up and still

today is, and we've heard the quote, I pass this way, but only once.

If there's some good I can do, then let me do it.

And so that is what she's doing.

Even at almost 92 years old.

Yeah.

So what you're doing is also role modeling what your

dad did, role modeling and people

want they want to help, but they don't know how.

And sometimes the only way they know how is to make out a check or send money.

Yeah.

So that check is an extension of helping, you know, that's their way of being.

Hey, I can't be on the front lines like you are, but I can

give you this to help you do that.

I love the way you summarized that, the extension

of being on the front line.

That's great.

I like that.

Now I have a question also.

Mm-hmm.

On, and I know this doesn't have to do with what you're

doing, but is it effective?

Scan codes, you know, scan codes whenever Oh yeah.

Uhhuh.

Are those how I use them, so I know they're effective with

me because I don't make checks out anymore just because of the fraud.

Yeah.

But I will do Apple Pay or I will scan that and I will just send the money in.

Yeah.

So is it as effective as what it is on me?

Yeah.

I think anything that a nonprofit can do to make it easy for people to give,

they should do it because I think no matter what the gift amount is.

The minute that you decide to send it, whether it's through a

check, through a scan code, through a text message, whatever way.

Something really mystical happens when you give of yourself in that

way to make something else happen that alleviate a need or pain in the

world, and you're sending your $10 or a hundred thousand dollars or $10

million, something mystical happens in that moment, and I think to make it as

easy as possible for donors is great.

The more giving that people can do, the better

mystical.

I, I also like that, I like your choice of words today.

And when I think mystical and when I think philanthropist, I

think often of Melinda Gates.

Hmm.

Her moment of lift, she has a book out and I love her book.

It's called The Moment of Lift.

Okay.

And exactly what you are talking about that moment of, yeah.

Oh my gosh, I can help and I'm going to do it.

It's that moment of lift, it's lifting you up and saying, by gosh, I've gotta

go in and so what is our moment of lift?

Right.

And that's a, that's a fair question to ask people.

What are your positive imprints?

Mm-hmm.

And you have remarkable positive.

Imprints.

So do you have anything else you wanna share that I haven't touched upon before

we get to your last inspiring words you'd like to share with the listeners?

Well, I, I've been thinking about your positive imprints,

you know, what are the positive imprints that we're making on the world?

And, you know, I,

I get to help nonprofits alleviate needs in the world.

I get to help fundraisers find joy in their work, but I also get to help

our people that worked at Veritus having a meaningful employment.

You know, that's another positive imprint that I get to have every day, and that

allows me to help, uh, you know, uh.

The, to know that I get to help people around the world from

Veritus, people, staff, people have joy in their work and meaningful

employment is incredible feeling.

Um, and you know, the bottom line is, is that that allows me to be

able to love what I do every day.

So, you know.

I really thank you for the whole idea around positive imprint.

Like it merely made me think like what are some of the positive imprints I'm making

are companies making the the clients that we're working with are making.

And when you really sit and think about it, it's quite incredible.

So thank you for allowing me to think about that.

Uh, I think that's really neat.

That's.

A wonderful compliment and I appreciate that.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

That was inspiring.

And what would you like to say to listeners as your last inspiring

words to them moving forward?

Well, I hope that the overall, this podcast inspires people to

think about their own positive imprint.

Um, I'm doing it through fundraising and having my own company, but other

people are doing it in other ways and it, what I did, I went, actually went

through an exercise a couple of days ago preparing for this, just thinking

about what are some of the positive imprints I'm making or that I'm a

part of, and so hopefully people will be inspired to do that themselves.

And it's quite a great exercise and you realize what an impact you

actually are making on the world, and I think that's pretty cool.

Jeff Schreifels that is.

Awesome.

Very inspiring.

Awesome.

And I thank you for being on the show and for your transformational gifts

yourself that you are providing, , to the world with your own positive imprints.

So thank you.

Thank you so, so very much, Jeff.

Yeah,

thanks for having me.

To learn more about Jeff, go to VeritusGroup.com,

V-E-R-I-T-U-S-G-R-O-U p.com.

You can also find him on LinkedIn, Jeff Schreifels, and that is

J-E-F-F-S-C-H-R-E-I-F-E-L-S.

Also, you can find Veritus at Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube and his podcast.

Nothing but major gifts.

Great.

Thank you again, Jeff Sh rifles.

Thank you.

Follow me on Instagram, my YouTube channel, your Positive Imprint,

and you can also follow me on Facebook and connect with me on LinkedIn.

Check out my website, your positive imprint.com, where you

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ChrisNole.com C-H-R-I-S-N-O-L-E.

Thank you again for listening and for your support of this

podcast, your positive imprint.

What's your P.I?