The Extreme Fundraising Blog

June 30 is the end of the fiscal year for many of you.

How are you going to set goals for next year?

If you haven’t already tried the MagnetGoals Goal Setting program, why not do it now? It’s free and powerful.

You can subscribe to the e-course by going to the bottom of the page at fundraisingcoach.com.

Or you can download a PDF of the workbook here.

A few months ago, I attended “Meet the Funders” conference hosted by the Maine Philanthropy Center. The highlight for me was the keynote address by Andy Goodman on storytelling. If you ever are able to hear him speak, I highly recommend it!

He persuasively explained the importance of storytelling. Studies have shown our retention of information is remarkably better if the facts are presented in story form. It’s practically something in our DNA as human beings. Evidently, some anthropologists have even defined us as the primates that tell stories!

Think about it from your own experience. If someone is unexpectedly late to a meeting with you, what’s your automatic reaction? 9 times out of 10, you start creating a story for why they’re late!

Nonprofits are notoriously bad at telling their story. And story telling is an extremely important part of fundraising! (If you don’t believe me, look back to this post.)

Andy wants to help change that so much that he gives his book Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes away free to nonprofits. (Click here to see if you qualify for a free copy.)

One of things Andy highly recommended nonprofits do is identify their “core stories” and make sure every staff and board member knows them. Here are six areas he suggests for core stories:

1. The Nature of Our Challenge Story: this describes “what we’re up against” or “what’s gone wrong” 
2. The Creation Story: this tells “how we go started”
3. The Emblematic Success Story: is actually a collection of stories that tells of times you’ve “won” in ways that are uniquely you.
4. The Performance Stories: these are stories celebrating how your people go above and beyond the call of duty
5. The Striving to Improve Stories: stories about how you’ve tried something new and totally crashed-and-burned and what you’ve learned–these stories make risk taking safer
6. The Where We’re Going Story: what is it you’re creating; Kennedy’s “We will go to the moon and back within this decade” gave NASA a story–they seem to be struggling to find one for years now

Andy pointed out that if you don’t tell your stories, people will tell stories about you.

So how about you? Can you easily rattle of the stories specific to your organization? If not, why not?

After his talk, I walked up to him and asked him if the stories could be about an organization or if they should be about people. He said, “The hero has to be a person or people.”

As you’re collecting your organizations stories, don’t fall into the trap of making your organization the hero. Celebrate the people–the founders, the employees, the volunteers, the donors, the parents, the children–that took the initiative and created these stories!

Here’s an interesting article from the New York Times: Investing in Good Deeds Without Checking the Prospectus.

How could this affect your fundraising? Especially since we all think we’re being rational…

[I received this on a very helpful daily email of philanthropy news, a service from The Chronicle of Philanthropy. You can subscribe to this free email at http://philanthropy.com/services/daily/.

This just came across my desk. The Maine Children’s Home is an incredible organization here in Waterville.

Director of Development - Maine Children’s Home, Waterville, ME

This position requires a proven track record in identification, cultivation, stewardship & solicitation of individual, corporate gifts. The ability to communicate our vision in a bold, passionate & compelling manner is critical.

Qualifications include: A bachelors degree with at least two years of related fund raising experience or equivalent; high level of motivation and organization, attention to detail and excellent written and organizational skills; ability to meet deadlines and achieve ambitious goals is required; must have highly developed computer skills as demonstrated by proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, and other database applications and programs.

Knowledge of GiftMakerPro, valid driver’s license is necessary; must have an ability to manage and motivate staff & volunteers; and ability to make an impact in a not-for-profit environment. Competitive salary commensurate with experience. Excellent benefits.

Send Resume to:
Sharon H. Abrams, Executive Director
Maine Children’s Home
93 Silver Street
Waterville, ME 04901
Fax: 207-872-7548
Email: sabrams@mainechildrenshome.org

We’ve spent the last couple of issues of Extreme Fundraising looking at objections. Before we go further, let’s use what we’ve learned. After reading this, see if you can use it this week.

Those of you who’ve been subscribed for any length of time know that I err on the side of raising serious money by asking for major gifts. (I tend to define that as gifts of at least $1000 a year.)

Think of the brainstorming exercise I talked about a couple of posts ago.

• You and your team (paid or volunteer) make a game out of trying to find every single reason people won’t give to your cause.
• Then you narrow it down to that most common 5 or 6.
• Finally, you develop stories that you can use to answer these objections before you even ask the person for money.

Can you see how this could help you in the mundane things as direct mail or (heaven forbid!) phonathons? If you know the most common objections, you can develop copy and scripts that attempt to answer them.

Then you can have fun tweaking the copy and scripts. Each story won’t have equal success. Some will be totally ineffective. So keep monitoring their effectiveness. Dump the ones that don’t work and keep the ones that do.