We met on campus in the modest conference room down the hall from my office. Ed talked about his exasperation with the political process, his frustration with the media, his concern that the public was ill-informed, and his determination to do something about it. I wanted to understand what he was thinking.
What worries you the most?
Politicians getting off with vacuous ideas and ridiculous sound bites that drown out serious debate about real problems.
Where does the problem lie?
In endless campaigns, fueled by bottomless bank accounts, blind ideology, and scattershot media.
What are the consequences?
People have more opinions than facts. We need to get better information out there—verifiable, impeccable, nonpartisan information. Facts, not opinions about where and how America spends money on foreign aid, education, infrastructure, jobs, climate change, and more. People should have information about jobs and the global economy and trade. That way, Ed felt, maybe we’d have a country where politics and big decisions would more closely correlate to reality.
What could we do about it?
After hours of brainstorming, we came up with an idea. Ed would provide financing and build a board of advisers for “Face the Facts USA.” It brought together undergraduate and graduate students and professional journalists to produce a website, videos, infographics, TV specials, and live events built on original, deeply researched facts—100 facts in the 100 days leading up to the 2012 election. It was an ambitious idea with a preposterously short runway.
We developed and launched our fact-a-day project in just three months. We gave away our daily facts to news organizations, talk shows, and civic groups. We used social media to build audience. While our project did not change the world or transform politics, we showed that it was possible to drive conversation built on undisputed and straightforward facts.
Ed and I had discovered our common goals by asking one another about the challenges the country faced and listening closely to each other as we kicked around ideas about what should be done and what each of us could contribute. Ed is a man of conscience and clear vision. Collaborating with him was richly rewarding.
“I try to fix things I care about,” Ed said, “driven by values and mission.”
The Value Proposition
Asking about goals and interests—and listening closely for the answers—drives Karen Osborne. Karen started the Osborne Group to provide advice and instruction on fundraising for schools and nonprofits that depend on philanthropy and has raised money for hospitals, schools, research organizations, civic groups, and cities. She draws from pages of questions she has composed to create a customized discussion. Like a menu at a restaurant, she offers starter questions to get you going, then main courses to chew on and desserts to end on a high note. I met her through a colleague who had heard Osborne speak and was impressed with her insight on the power of questions to establish shared mission and meaningful associations.
Osborne grew up in the South Bronx. Her family had emigrated from the West Indies. Her father, a manager with the Social Security Administration, was about the only person she knew with a white-collar job. The neighbors in the duplexes around them—African Americans, Italians, and Jews—were mostly firemen, cops, transit workers, and teachers. Surrounded by diversity long before it was celebrated, Osborne was captivated by the people around her, each a compelling character, each in search of some form of the American Dream. A voracious reader, young Karen devoured five or six books a week. She loved getting lost in her reading, getting to know the characters and their adventures, imagining the places the books took her.
In college, Osborne majored in English literature, hoping to be a writer. But she didn’t have the luxury of spending years in the attic hoping to hit on the great American novel. So, after college, she got a job in Tarrytown, New York, helping to figure out how to access state and federal funding. She got good at it. She started working with universities, hospitals, and other nonprofits that needed to raise money.
When she set up her own consulting company, Osborne developed a set of questions to help her identify what people care about and where and why they give. She asked about their work, life passions, goals, and objectives. If they had a track record of giving philanthropically, she wanted to know where that came from, what it connected to.
What values underpin your philanthropic decision making?
Osborne’s discovery questions generate a conversation. They ask what people care about and the motivations behind their passion. Perhaps someone lost a relative to cancer or was moved by an experience with at-risk youth. If they are now in a position to do something more about the problem, what will they do?
“In a discovery visit, I’m trying to learn enough about you so I can craft a strategy that I can develop for you to have a joyful experience,” she says.
How do you like being engaged?
How do we fit?
Osborne’s “rapport building” questions define principles and goals and connect past actions with future aspirations. They establish a conversation and build a relationship.
What are the guiding principles that have helped you in life?
What do you hope to accomplish with your philanthropy?
What values do you consistently support?
Osborne asks her questions to get answers, but she also asks to be sure the other person is doing the talking. She explained to me that her experience bears out the research: “People forget what they heard, but they remember almost everything they say.”
Imagine you’re trying to raise money for a new pediatric cancer wing at the local hospital and you’re looking for community leaders to sign on to help. You take James out for lunch to see if he will join the cause. You can talk for twenty minutes and explain the new wing, what it will do, why it is needed, who else is supporting it, or you can ask James about the initiative.
What have you heard about the project?
How familiar are you with what the new wing will allow us to do?
What do you think it will mean for the community?
If James says, “This could make a huge difference for these kids,” or talks about what he’s read or heard about the project, or if he reflects on a friend who had a child with cancer, he will have joined the conversation more personally than if he just sat and listened. Your questions prompt him to answer and to engage. That’s a critical step, Osborne says, if people are going to embrace a cause for which they’re going to provide significant financial support.
Want to get people to turn out for your class reunion and give money? Get them talking about what they did the last day at school or about the all-nighter they pulled when they were working on the hardest paper of their lives. Ask them about their favorite home game or their best friend. Invite them to tell stories about what the place meant to them and the difference it made. Then connect it back to the fundamentals.
How did you use the education you got from this institution?