Donor Relations the Disney Way

Don't Miss It! Wayne Olson's Prominent Presentation

Is There a Disney Difference?

What if Walt Disney were the CEO of your organization? What would you do differently? How much more money would you raise? This session looks at the successes of Walt Disney and how we can apply his philosophy, his creativity and his approach to our mission and running our organizations. We’ll also look at some contemporary examples of companies that are doing it right, and we’ll have some fun as we learn ways of being more like Walt.

Learn in this Webinar:

Why a 12-year old can write a better "thank you" than you could ever pen.
Why windows matter.
Why you can give donors above average service and still stink.
What you can do that costs nothing but will win donor loyalty forever.
Why the guy who writes brochures for a living will also tell you they are not important.
Why the best donor story may be written on a cocktail napkin.
Why one charity thinks it is raising money even while it is going down the drain.
Walt Disney’s approach to roadblocks (and he had plenty).

Zoom Date

We all give Wayne Olson a Five Star!

AFP

Conference

Wayne Olson, JD

Philanthropic Evangelist

Wayne excels in donor solicitation and engagement. He is the author of six books, including Big Gifts Small Effort, which helps charities, fundraisers and boards understand and use planned giving to better their organizations. His most popular book, The Disney Difference, shows nonprofits and for-profit corporations how to apply Disney-like principles to improve their organizations. Fundraising Success Magazine honored Wayne with the “Most Inspirational Speaker of the Year” award.

This presentation is not associated with the Walt Disney Company. The views expressed in this presentation are those of the presenter, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Walt Disney Company or its affiliates.

Original Audience Comments

Actual original comments copied and pasted. Misspellings and capitalization were fixed.

Great presenter
Very insightful and loved the success steps at the end.
Very interactive and informative
Best event I have attended on the topic. Great, practical examples.
Very thoughtful presentation with concrete examples provided when asked about specific situations. The presenter had a very pleasant manner and delivery. Enjoyable and informative webinar overall!
I’m always a fan of virtual events and you at AFP are amazing at making sure captions are enabled. Wayne was so impressive and confirmed the approach I take with fundraising.
Very good
Fantastic presentation. Thank you!
The slides were great visuals – less text, more pictures were very helpful
This was perhaps the best webinar I’ve ever participated in – strong, personable material, applicable – it was all so good.
It was an outstanding presentation.
I would have liked a more detailed handout and the example of the survey Wayne shared which was not included in the webinar’s handout (resource tab).
Troubled by his suggestion to exploit the story of a “victim.” We need to be advancing person-centered, asset-focused story telling that doesn’t exploit individuals. It’s also becoming really outdated to put a donor as the hero – there’s a lot of white privilege here.
I enjoyed this! It’s the small things that we may take for granted as we are caught up in the fundraising jargon and focusing on the ask while putting the human touch to the side at times.
Overall positive, but narrow focus and perspective lacked intersectionality (aka, working mothers, POC, members of marginalized populations who may hold fundraising/development roles)
Very good
Thought-provoking information from a seasoned professional. Some generally accepted practices of fundraising theories and statements were revealed to be problematic.
Very broad and lots of quotes vs actual stories and examples
I would recommend fewer quotes. I was also disappointed that the speaker didn’t seem to know much about community-centric fundraising.
I appreciate the presenter’s attempt to provide a broad overview of communicating with major donors, but think it was too broad. Also, I don’t think the content was specific to major donors, but would work for all donors. I appreciated the fact that the presenter took questions during the session though, I think it would work well at the end, too.
Helpful and relevant information. I appreciated the specific examples that were shared.
Good format
Wayne did an excellent job outlining best practices for communicating from the donor’s point of view and ensuring we listen to donors more than we speak when in meetings.
I enjoyed Wayne’s presentation and I thought his insights were very valuable.
This is a fantastic presentation – thank you! Spot on.
Really good presentation – thank you Wayne!
Completely agree about personal notes. If a donor has the time to write a check, the org should make the time to write a letter
This is all spot on, Wayne.
Just yesterday I learned that anonymous donor asked for an update. None came. He had given hundreds of thousands of dollars. He has now stopped giving, and removed the charity from his will. Would have been millions of dollars.
Thank you for a great presentation, Wayne, and for confirming how important it is to think like a donor! It makes such a difference for our donors and should be a priority for us.
Great content Wayne. Very informative.