Episode 54: Lisa Greer
Episode 54: An Interview with Lisa Greer, Philanthropist and Author
Join Lori and her guest, Lisa Greer, as they discuss a common issue in nonprofit management. In this episode, Lisa shares the perspective of the donors and how it’s important to understand why they’re supporting a cause. Stay tuned!
Here are the things to expect in this episode:
Here are the things to expect in this episode:
What’s one of the most important things to have as part of a nonprofit?
Some of the common issues in nonprofits. How can it be fixed?
Donors don’t often know the terms that fundraisers are talking about.
And much more!
About Lisa Greer:
Lisa Zola Greer is a philanthropist, entrepreneur, convener, and the author of the bestseller "Philanthropy Revolution". Over the last decade, the Greer home in Beverly Hills has been home to nearly 200 charitable salons and events connecting nonprofits with donors and the community.
In 2020, Lisa was appointed by the Speaker of the California State Assembly, Anthony Rendon, as a commissioner of the California State Commission on the Status of Women and Girls.
In addition, Lisa sits on the board of the New Israel Fund and serves on the Executive Committee of the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors. She has also served as Commissioner and Chair of the Beverly Hills Cultural Heritage Commission and Trustee of the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, and as a board member of many organizations, including the L.A. District Attorney’s Crime Prevention Foundation, Make-a-Wish of Greater Los Angeles, Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles, and others.
Earlier in her career, Lisa was a studio executive at NBC and Universal Studios, and she founded and led several companies, including a management consulting and strategic advisory firm specializing in digital media and entertainment businesses.
Connect with Lisa!
Website: https://www.lisagreer.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lisazgreer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisazgreer
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisazgreer/
Connect with Lori Kranczer!
Website: https://www.linkphilanthropic.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorikranczer/
Episode Transcript
You're listening to the Positive Impact Philanthropy podcast where we share the journeys of everyday philanthropists as they incorporate philanthropy into their lives. Philanthropy is a personal journey and through the stories we will share here, we hope this sparks something in you and how you can make your own philanthropic impact in the world. I'm your host, Lori Kranczer attorney, philanthropic advisor and legacy giving strategist. Together we're going to share what it looks like to be an everyday philanthropist and make a positive impact on the world. Before we get started, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a new episode posted every Wednesday. So today I'm absolutely thrilled to welcome Lisa Greer. Lisa and I have a lot in common that I have to remember to press play everytime i speak with her. The stories are incredible, and I'm so excited. She's here today to share her journey on philanthropy and all her experiences to inspire others to take action. So welcome, Lisa.
Thank you so much. It's great to be here.
So Lisa, why don't you tell us more about you?
So I um a little bit of a long story, but I think it's a little well, in some ways, common in some ways unusual. But I have been a philanthropist for about 10 years. And before that was really more of the person who was the volunteer as opposed to the philanthropist and the giver because I we grew up in a very kind of average middle class home and although our family would give you know was supportive of maybe PTA or school things or I would I remember putting together books for care in Africa at some point but really the idea of being like in our community being a Jewish Federation family they call them or being somebody who is a regular contributor to something or a philanthropist. That word wasn't even used in our house not because we didn't want to give but because we just weren't of those means that that was something that we did and then so I was very interested in helping organizations and so I was usually the volunteer and occasionally when I would say hey, I've got a little bit of money, I can make a small donation, can I volunteer and maybe talk to you about being on the board and having some decision making ability and along the way I got my MBA, I was an executive in the entertainment industry for several years. But the answer was always Yeah, well, we'll get back to you on that because I didn't have the I wasn't a known entity as a person with large means lots of means and that really stuck with me as well. There's got to be a lot of other people like me who really want to give and can't really, the organization can’t benefit off everything they have to give because they don't because A. they might not have a huge amount of means but also they don't they aren't known. And so years later when we my I sold my company which was in the actual fertility business, actually after I was in the studio business, and my husband's company went public. We became overnight really one percenters, hopefully the non pejorative version of that, and we we, as we heard it was happening and that we were going to become very wealthy overnight. The first thing that we did before even 10 days before the IPO came out, happened. This was after about 10 years of my husband not getting a paycheck and me supporting the family and all that kind of thing. We were very excited, very nervous. We didn't know if that's going to happen or not. And we thought okay to make us less nervous. Why don't we choose the first thing that we want to give to a really big gift? And we didn't know anything about giving really big gifts. It just seemed like if you're giving a really big gift, you call somebody and say I wanna give a big gift and they help you do it. And we were wrong with that. That really wasn't the case because we got on the phone and two things happened. I I talked to my husband and this was right before he was going to his last 10 days of his roadshow and we sat down and I said “Look, we're both really nervous. Really excited in the next 10 days. Why don't I do some research on where we're going to give our first big donation? And in fact, why don't we right now each pick a place where we want to give.” So Josh said, “Fine” my husband and I said,''Where do you want to give?” and he said, “Well, I said I'm talking about a really big , transformative gift.” I don't know if I said the word transformative, but that's what I meant. And he said, Well, you know, and we went over and he thought about it for about 10 seconds and said a background is he's had Crohn's disease since he's been about 11 been through lots and lots of surgeries, missed school and all sorts of issues for years and years and years. And he said, I want to make sure that no kid ever has Crohn's disease. And I want to find out what the genetic component is to that and how that can be fixed, but also how people can get better because I don't want a kid to have to go through what I went through. And I said, Great, how are we going to do that? He says, let's find out where the best research is being done on that. And I said, Okay, great. I will figure it out. I Said, do you want to go to the hospital where most of your surgeries have taken place and he said “well I don't know, I don't know if they do any research, he had been part of some clinical trials, but he didn't really know if that was their own research. So he says just call Stanford, and we live in Los Angeles and I said, “Great, I can call and try to find out where that is. But why don't we just try the hospice hospital first.” And it turns out they're a huge research institution, but they just don't promote it even to this day. So people like me who have exactly the same situation where they just say, let's just skip the local one because we don't know that they do that, which I think is a bit of a mistake, and hopefully they're going to remedy it. Anyway, so I I said, Okay, I'll do some work on that. He said, What are you going to do? And I said, Well, I'm the incoming president at our synagogue, been involved for several years and they are finishing a capital campaign.
They've got about a million dollars left to be able to finish it. We were restoring our sanctuary and I said as the incoming president and also because we're in this wonderful, you know, so fortunate to be in this position. Let's give them the final million dollars and just give it to them. And he said, Okay, great if that's what you want to do, fine. Okay, so I thought about it for a second. I said, okay, but you know what, we can make one of those calls right now we can actually do it and he said, Okay, and I said, we obviously can't do the hospital because we don't know who we're talking to. I'll work on that while you're away. But, I can call right now. So I called the head of the synagogue who was a very dear friend and a rabbi there who had been with the synagogue for, I don't know, 25-30 years. And I said, I just want to let you know I've got a piece of good news. And by the way, she knew the IPO was happening. She had some of the stock already from it and was very aware. And I said, we've decided that assuming this thing happens in 10 days, we're going to give you the final million dollars for the capital campaign. Pretty sure that's exactly what I said. And I thought, I don't even know what I thought the answer I got was the response I got was not the response that I ever thought I would get, which was instead of saying, oh, gosh, that's amazing. I'm so shocked. She just said, I don't know what to say. And I thought, oh, shoot, that was a little unexpected this’s the first time I've ever told someone I'm giving them a big gift and you said I don't know what to say. I don't know what to tell her. So I said, I guess you could say thank you. And she said, Well, I don't know if I can because I didn't make an ask. And I thought what the heck and at that second, I felt like I had moved into some alternate reality. Like where people don't you know do like Publishers Clearing House. And say wee this is so exciting and great. And then she got off the phone without saying really much of anything. She was very confused.
I hung up the phone and about 30 seconds later the phone rang again. And she said can I talk to your husband and she got my husband on the phone and he looked at me like what's going on? And she said, I just want to make sure you're aware that your wife is doing this. And I was I don't know crestfallen is way too weak of a word, but I was so upset and she's a staunch feminist. And I just thought I just can't. I don't know where I am, what is happening. So I felt badly for her because and I still do because she had been trained. She's not a fundraiser. She's a head of an institution and a rabbi and wonderful and all that. But she didn't know that. She didn't know how to do fundraising and rabbinic students that one day and five years of business education. That's it and a little maybe five seconds. of that is about fundraising. Yeah, it's a really big part of what they're expected to do and be part of to keep their organizations going and so that she had been taught that you couldn't you don't accept money unless you make an ask. And that's crazy. And I'm still shocked that it is still the case today. I have given unsolicited gifts to many people who don't, they call me they don't in a panic. They don't know what to say. They can't understand how you could just do that. And for me logically coming from a business background and a volunteer background. I think that's crazy. On the side of the hospital, which was Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, a very big Medical Center. We just determined that they were doing research that was in the line that we were interested in, but it took them seven months to accept a $2 million endowment gift from us. Why? not because of paperwork but because they didn't believe that we had the money and they didn't bother checking but because we weren't on their list. We weren't in the wealth engines. We weren't on whatever that was that they just didn't think they just they just ignored me. So I kept calling and calling and calling and saying will you please take my money, and eventually it happened. The good news of that side is that they were appalled when they heard about it. I got very involved in the hospital. I still am. And they've made our story part of their onboarding program for all of their fundraisers so that it never happens to anybody else again. So that's terrific. And I have a book that that I know you're aware of and that they actually included a quote in there and talked a little bit about it, which I thought was just a really great kind of a learning opportunity. But but those two things were crazy and and so I kind of went along being a donor I think maybe I would have given up already at that point and learn that there's a lot of things about this world that are off putting and there's a lot of people that a lot, a lot of people, millions and millions, I think of people who want to give and if and they have that kind of experience that I had. They're just not going to and I think that's a big piece of the reason why there's $160 billion in donor advised funds, I think I don't think that's because people don't want to give. I think maybe that's some of them. But I think a lot of people just say, if you have one of those encounters, you just say this is too weird. This is too hard, or I don't have time to figure this out. This is very strange. Like how could you give somebody a gift and they don't get all excited and say thank you and so I decided that I know that it's a very hard field to fundraise and I know that there's lots of a million and a half plus nonprofits in this country alone, and they need help fundraising. They're always looking for money. And I believe that there's a whole lot of people out there like me, who have very similar versions who tried to give and then have that kind of experience. And then they don't give and I could see that problem and decided that I need to be there to actually make people aware on both sides so that it's not a problem anymore, and that people on both sides can feel good about the philanthropic process.
You know, Lisa I'm so glad that you're here and sharing this story because this is something that is not really talked about that much from your experience. And so I want to go into it a little bit more because I know that you talk about this in your book, but I also for our listeners, what do you think the disconnect is with the nonprofits and working with philanthropists or donors at any level? And what do you think maybe some of the solutions are for that, right?
So the book is all full of solutions. And I do i actually write a tip of the week every single week about something very simple typically free that people can do sometimes it's just think about something like like this week's was it whatever you're doing, if you're looking for money from somebody, or looking for a volunteer and you're part of a nonprofit, you need to remember to have empathy that one of the most important things that you can have is empathy and understand that the other person is a human being. And, and and if you don't have that, if it's a complete transactional experience, it's not meaningful on both sides. And actually, I think it's part of the reason why fundraisers typically leave after 18 months because it doesn't feel meaningful for them either. If it's all very transactional, go get the check, for example. And, and I think that's, I think that the structure of the way that it's been put together, which I did do some research and found out from a wonderful woman named Beth Reese who's whos story and an academic who specifically teaches the history of philanthropy, that the this ask and that's lunches and the, the oh you have to go through this 10 piece process and you have to go to the different layers and you have to look at their wealth engine, and all that stuff. Most of that stuff was created conceptually, and some ways cases practically over 100 years ago, she actually traced it to four men who created some of those roles. And believe it or not, this is one of the few industries I can think of, or sectors where it really hasn't changed in over 100 years, which is just hard to deal with. I mean, yes, we instead of having little cards with people's names on them, we have it in a computer database, but that's not a significant change. And so there's a reticence to change. And I think and it's funny because I don't think I have been asked this exact question before, but I think that part of the problem is that it's worked for them for a period of time. And and there's a lot of fear in well, if we if we take our resources and we pull any resources away from the what I call them, typically the 10 old white guys it's I the reason I say that is just because it reminds me of the the bankers in the old Mary Poppins where they're trying to get the money out of a little boy's hand and that those guys have been controlling a lot of our big institutions of philanthropic institutions for years. They're in their 80s and 90s. You've got to talk to a younger group of people but it for for a typically under-resourced fundraising entity to say well, we're going to take some resources from that and put it towards a new language and talking about things in a different way and using technology and talking to younger people. I think it feels like we're going to lose the money from the existing donors and people in their 80s and 90s. And that's just too scary. So they'd rather keep talking to them as one person of kind of a dyed in the wool medical or business fundraiser told me, she said it's very hard because you're actually you've got two masters who want things completely differently. Older people who want the check and the ones who you're meeting and the annual reports and the lunches and then you've got a whole bunch of other people who are younger, who want none of those things. They're going they're not going to give you a check. They're going to do something digitally or from their donor advised fund and they're not going to want to lunch, they're fine doing things online. They want to know about the impact. They want to talk to you on a regular basis. And and so to ask the fundraiser to do both is is scary. It feels a little overwhelming. And so it's sort of well we've got a known why to go to the unknown. And unfortunately, they're getting to a period of time because of the age of these people who sustain these organizations, where I see the bottom falling out in the very near future like the next five to 10 years at the most. And I just fear for all the organizations that will just go away because there were a bunch of fundraisers and institutional nonprofits who were scared.
Yeah, we can have so many different conversations about everything you were just mentioning. I mean, just even the structure of nonprofits how they are broken up into different silos of how someone gives rather than talking about an individual and then all the ways that that one person can give there it's basically constructed from, you know, many, many years ago broken down to annual major gift. donors don't know anything about this. They know that they are connected with the organization, they have no idea what's going on inside the organization, how it is siloed and that's a big problem. There's a lot of issues actually within nonprofits. So I'm glad you're bringing this up and just start talking about the solutions and how we can fix it.
Well, first of all, one of the solutions is you just kind of hit on is understand as a fundraiser that donors many many donors do not know the terms you’re talking about. I did not know what a development officer was. I did not know what an annual giving campaign was. I didn't know. I mean, there's some of the words that I'm still learning today that are standard in that I didn't know I mean, cultivation. I was talking to someone with cultivation. And someone said to me, you know, we're not plants and I said, You're right, we're not plants. So this, the time, talent, treasure, i mean all of those things. I didn't even know a lot of this. And I've been working with lots and lots of nonprofits for over a decade now. I didn't know some of this until the last year. So it's those internal pieces of how somebody said something about the cards, and I didn't understand what the cards were. And you know, things like that, or why is it that if I talk to someone on the phone, and I want to volunteer, and they're asking me for money, and I want to do both, why is it that they don't they can't answer me like that, like the volunteer people are supposed to be separate from the donors and the big donors just like you said, are all separate. So I think the first thing to do is to realize that the person you're talking to, there's an excellent chance that they don't even know the words you're talking about. So you need to really be careful of, of making sure that and that's from any industry, you just don't give a lecture and not explain what the words are you're talking about. And so that assumption thing is a problem. So number one is do not assume anything. Do not assume that if a person looks like A, B, C and D, especially in this climate today, it gets pounded into us in other areas. But But if you say well, this person has a house that's this big and has this much to a political campaign, therefore they must be that is not it's, for me that information is kind of worthless. It might be the beginning that gives you some information. So I suggest that every fundraiser does what I call a five minute Google search. And it's shocking how many people don't do that because I think you can learn about the person that way as opposed to learn their relationships and about them. In five minutes. You can learn more than you get from the typical questions that come in a feasibility project or something that you might have. The other is to think of the other person as a human being and that everybody's different. And the best way to do that is to think about anything that you send out, anything you say to somebody else. Anything you think of someone else,put yourself in their shoes. Would you want to hear that? Would you want to hear that “I want to volunteer and I want to give and I can't do both talking to the same person”. Wouldn't you be angry about that? Or there's a bunch of discussion there was a few months ago, online in the community about not saying thank you because it was a power differential. Really, you know, we teach our two year olds to say thank you, you can say thank you. And that's that's an important piece of this and I had somebody who their development department would let them send a thank you note for a month and it's been given to his program. And he finally he kept asking so I can't let this go on any longer. I need to thank this person. And so he found my email address and just thanked me and I that like that can't keep happening or, my favorite one is that we just have to stop doing is a friend of mine is at a large institution and a few months ago called me and said I just had the last of my nine month session, my nine month program that the institution had all of its fundraisers go to and they're very, I said so how did it end up?. He said well the last thing they said was, “remember the script we gave you and make sure you do not divert from the script that you need to do exactly what that says.” And I thought in this day and age really? So to realize that like think of that, like do you want someone to talk to you from a script? Do you want someone not to say thank you? Do you want somebody to say to look at you as unfortunately I think a lot of fundraisers have been taught to look at donors as a piggy bank. And I think I used to say as an ATM, but now I say a piggy bank because, and donors don't want to be thought of this either. But I say piggy bank because piggy banks an inanimate object that doesn't talk back and you can just go smash the piggy bank you go there's money inside you can run and you know, no one wants to be thought of that way. And that is not a sustainable plan. And that was only about 18% of first time donors will donate the second year.
Yeah, the numbers are astounding. So I you know, we can talk so much and uh, maybe we'll just have you back on another time, Lisa, because we're hitting on so many important points that our listeners are there a range of individual philanthropists or nonprofit professionals. I think we could all learn a lot from what you're talking about today. I wanna get to our last question, which is what do you consider your legacy to be?
So my mission now and I've had lots of different careers. But my mission for the last almost two years has been to really take the situation that I described earlier, I see the nonprofit sector as being sort of like the Titanic going towards an iceberg and the iceberg is these older men passing on and all of a sudden, a lot of money disappears from the from the effector. And a lot of nonprofits 1000s and 1000s. if not hundreds of 1000s of nonprofits who depend on that money coming from XYZ Foundation. They just go out of business overnight, and I can see that plain as day and I just want to turn that ship so it doesn't hit the iceberg and in practical terms, I want my book to become the because it's the only book written from a donors perspective. I want the book to be the place that sort of the every fundraiser has every board member has every nonprofit leader has people who are teaching nonprofit management so that it reminds people that there is a donor there's a person on the other side and here's some a lot of support for that idea and and I think that will change it. And so I would love my legacy to be that I was able to keep the ship from hitting that iceberg.
Right. Tell us more about your book because I want you to also share where people can find out more information. About you and your book.
Thank you. So just go to LisaGreer.com L I S A G R E E R . C O M. You can see the links to my tip of the week, my newsletters. My newsletter is called Philanthropy 451 which is because I think that philanthropy is on fire and I'm trying to fix that and also find out where to purchase the book and where I'm speaking and all those kinds of things. So I would really encourage everyone to just sign up for the newsletter, it's free Philanthropy451.com or LisaGreer.com and check out the other things that I do and the book and we also have it on it's on Audible. A lot of people enjoy listening to it that way.
So for everyone listening please, philanthropist, nonprofit professionals, anyone that's involved in philanthropy, please get this book and read it. It will provide so much guidance and also sign up for Lisa's newsletter as she mentioned, it is free and you get these tips weekly. So Lisa, thank you for joining us. This has been an incredible insight for many of our listeners, I'm sure because we don't often touch upon the donor's perspective and sharing some of these war stories that you've experienced. So I think there's a lot to learn here for everybody involved.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you. So everyone, thank you for joining us and we hope we provide some insights and inspiration that you can use for your own philanthropic journey. See you next time. Thank you for joining us. I hope we provided some insights and inspiration that you can use for your own philanthropic journey. You can tune in every week on Wednesdays when new episodes are dropped. We'd love to hear your feedback. So leave a comment and a rating about what you like and what you'd like to hear more about. And if you liked the episode today, make sure to share it to raise awareness about the story to inspire other women to take action. I'm Lori Kranczer And until next time, you can make a positive impact through philanthropy every day. Thanks for listening