Jonathan Poisner Strategic Consulting

One of the biggest mistakes I see made by both nonprofit staff and board members (and political candidates) is to underestimate their own personal list for who to ask for donations.

Invariably, when you push them, more names emerge.

So how do you “push” yourself if you’re the one needing the list.

Most importantly, don’t build your list purely by asking out loud: “who do I know?”

Instead, run through an exercise like the following:

Go through Your Rolodex: old fashioned, your email address book, your Facebook or LinkedIn connections, etc. Who among these are prospects?

Then ask a series of questions design to bring to the forefront of your mind people who might not have already been captured. Questions can include:

Do you attend any religious institution?
Do you socialize with others from the institution?
Are you involved in it beyond attending services?

Are you in any clubs or organized activities?
What is it?
Who’s in it?

Who do you hang out with socially?
Social networks
Outdoor activities
Watching/playing sports
Games
Book Clubs

What’s Your Professional background prior to your current role?
Do you have co-workers from previous jobs who believed in you?
Were you part of a professional association?
Who are your past employers?
For each, what’s your relationship like with the employer?

For each, list the 5-10 people with whom you most closely worked? What are they doing now/where are they?

Do you have any friends or colleagues from your higher education?
Social Clubs
Fraternities
Honor Societies
Extra-Curricular Activities

Odds are overwhelming that an exercise along these lines will yield a significantly more robust list from whom to fundraise!

Download/View a Printer-Friendly PDF Version

I recently was speaking with an organization that had gone to great lengths to identify different levels of membership benefits that would be received by their members based on the level of dollars donated as part of their membership.

Donate $40 and get X.

Donate $75 and get X and Y.

Donate $120 and get X, Y, and Z.

Etc.

They wanted my advice on how to further boost up the X, Y, and Z to make membership more attractive.

My advice — start over and ditch the concept entirely.

This wasn’t  a professional association — it was an organization that could be loosely described as progressive and ideological.  People aren’t joining the organization to gain “benefits.”

They are joining to advance the mission.

The difference between larger and smaller membership gifts isn’t about offering them more benefits.  It’s about (a) the donor’s capacity, (b) the donor’s  understanding of the organization and the impact it’s generating, (c) the donor’s emotional connection to the organization and/or the people involved, and last but not least, (d) whether the donor was asked to give more.

Instead of saying your $75 gets you X where X is something the donor gets, you should say $75 will help us make impact X — by framing it as part of a larger campaign.

And make them feel part of a larger community of like-minded donors so they’ll feel emotionally connected.

If you get them thinking analytically about the size of their donation as one of costs/benefits to them, my guess is you’ll almost always depress the size o their donation, not increase it.

Download/View a Printer-Friendly PDF Version

One of the biggest keys to successful fundraising is asking people in a meeting for money.

Events, letter, phone calls, and emails all belong as part of a robust, comprehensive fundraising system.  But thriving organizations almost always find that one-on-one solicitations are where they secure most of their unrestricted funds.

Many fundraisers I train believe that making the ask at the meeting is the easy part – where they profess to get held up is in getting the meeting in the first place.

Here’s  a dozen tips for how to get the meeting

1. Make sure you’re working connections and not cold prospects.  If they’re not current donors, you should focus on people you know, or having someone who knows the donor connect you (either by making the meeting request directly or at least letting you use their name).  If you’re counting on your board to supply connections and they’re not being helpful, find others who will be.

2. Make the request via phone, not email.  It’s too easy to duck an email and in an email you can’t engage them, motivate them, and respond to any misapprehensions they might have about the meeting.   Or worse, they may give in response to the email, but at a much lower level than you would secure in a meeting.

3. Start the process far in advance of when you really need the meeting to happen.  If you need the ask to take place in November, start requesting the meeting in October.  The further out you set a proposed date, the less likelihood that conflicts will get in the way.  Or, if you ask for a time 10 days out and they say they are already booked, it gives you an easy (and hard to refuse) follow-up ask for a later time when they’re not booked.

4. If they say it’s a bad time to talk, ask if you can call back “in an hour/tomorrow.

5. Start by thanking them if at possible.  For past donations.  For past volunteer work.   For some other community work they’ve done even if not for your organization.

6. Be passionate and upbeat.  Passion is contagious and people are more likely to want to spend time with someone if they perceive you as upbeat.  You are selling yourself as much as the organization in trying to set up the meeting.

7. Make clear you’re looking both for their input and to see how they can help.   Propose some topic where you’re seeking input (your upcoming or new strategic plan, your communications, ideas, some specific organizational issue, etc.).

8. Focus on their convenience, not yours.  Always offer first to meet them at their home, office, or a nearby coffee shop or restaurant.  Let them choose.  Be willing to meet early in the morning, just after work, or during the evening.

9. Use peer pressure.  If you know they’re friends/colleagues/rivals of someone else who you’ve met with or are meeting with, figure out how to drop that into the conversation.

10. Propose a specific date and time.  Don’t ask: can we meet?  Ask: Can we meet on Tuesday the 22^nd at 3 p.m.?   This “assumption of yes” will get them focused on when you should meet, not whether.

11. If they say something that divulges something personal (e.g. I’m going to my son’s wedding”), don’t be afraid to follow up with a question designed to make the relationship more personal (e.g. “Congratulations!  Where is he getting married?”  You should be genuinely interested in them as a person, not just a checkbook.

12. Be prepared to pivot back to a second ask if they initially say no.   Most eventual yes’s and successful donor visits will start out with donors initially saying “I’m too busy” or “Don’t waste your time with me, I’ll donate regardless” or some similar statement.  Make the case why it’s valuable and ask again.

Above and beyond these tips, the most important thing is to be relentless.  You will often have to try to call a donor a dozen times before reaching him or her.  Don’t leave messages and don’t give up.  Just keep trying at different times and dates.

Download/View a Printer-Friendly PDF Version