The Extreme Fundraising Blog

All fall, we’ve been working through the basics of asking people for money with the simple four-step formula: R.E.A.L.

1. Research,
2. Engage,
3. Ask, and
4. Love ‘em.

I love asking people for money! I hope that outlining a simple process like this will help get other people as fired-up about fundraising as I am!

So far, we’ve looked at RESEARCH and ENGAGE. (You can see the archives at http://frcoach.blogspot.com/). I hope that these two steps seem like incredibly simple common sense.

We’d do well to get to know people before we ask them for money. Through finding out about a prospect with simple research tools and getting to know them in conversation over a period of time, we can focus our ask on projects that the prospect will be predisposed to supporting. And they’ll know you too, making the actual solicitation more of a conversation between colleagues.

As normal as this sounds, we often forget to do it. Faced with the crisis of needed funding, we either blindly send out a letter to a chamber of commerce mailing list, or we start calling people we’d love to have make a gift.

Both approaches may get moderate short-term results. But neither builds long-term relationships for your organization.

Two Suggested Resolutions for the New Year
Here are a couple resolutions to consider for the New Year:

1. Make a practice of taking time to P.Y.I.T.S., “put yourself in their shoes.” Before you send a letter or make a call, take a moment to ask how you yourself would respond if you were about to receive such a letter or call. 
2. Commit to reading Dale Carnegie’s classic “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” I try to read this book at least once a year. Why not do it in 2006?

I wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

I’ll be speaking at the Hampton Roads Institute for Nonprofit Leadership Fifth Annual Conference on held January 27, 2006.

Are you going? Or do you live in the Norfolk area?

I’d love to connect over a cup of coffee while I’m down there.

Drop me a line at marc@fundraisingcoach.com

I’m reading Emmanuel Rosen’s “The Anatomy of Buzz.” Very slowly. I’ve got it on my PDA and read it only when I don’t have any other book handy. But it’s well worth reading. Really.

Last week, during a 70 minute failed attempt to give blood (they kept missing the vein!), I read Rosen’s thoughts on behind-the-scenes. He comments on how we all love to “feel” like we’re getting a “behind-the-scenes” look at something. Even if we know it’s not REALLY behind-the-scenes.

To this day, I fondly remember Walt Disney World’s “Keys to the Kingdom” tour I took back in ‘98. For 5 or so hours, we walked “back stage” and saw all the secrets of the kingdom. We knew that we weren’t REALLY seeing all the secrets but it sure felt like they showed us alot. And for a person like me, that helped increase my enjoyment of the park on each subsequent visit.

In terms of the “Get R.E.A.L.” approach to asking for money, behind-the-scenes activities fit in both the “Engage” step and the unwieldy named “Live/Love/Like” step.

As you think about your Engage activities for the coming year, what can you do to include your donor prospects in a behind-the-scenes activity?

• Can you host a gathering at your construction site and have the general contractor speak?
• What about a relaxed Q & A with your CEO?
• What if you gave a tour of something you’ve always stayed away from touring–client homes, residence facilities, anything. I’m not advocating doing anything unethical. But all to often we go about business as usual because it’s easier.

At one institution, I created a monthly 1-page/2-sides newsletter for class reps called “Rep Rap.” I created it with a desktop publishing program template and photocopied them and sent them as self mailers. The informal nature of the newsletter made it feel like something hot-off-the-press.

Do you want to know my favorite part of the behind-the-scenes things? They often can be done with little or no expense. Given the very fact that it is behind-the-scenes, donor prospects expect it to not have the glitz and polish a regular activity would have.

To your fundraising success!

Marc