The Extreme Fundraising Blog

I’ve long been an advocate of PYITS: put yourself in their shoes. (I’ve blogged about it here, here, here, and here.) But during the Q & A portion of my “Taking the Fear Out of Face to Face Solicitation” seminar last week at Blackbaud’s Conference for Nonprofits, a participant asknig me how I reacted to being asked for money caught me off guard.

I’m not sure I’ve ever thought of the question that way before. And the answer wasn’t pretty. What came to mind was when a nonprofit left me a message asking why I didn’t give money to them. The voice mail was something like, “We’re both Christian groups and you’re supporting another group like ours so why in the world aren’t you supporting us?”

My blood started to boil. I called him back and told him exactly what I thought of his group and his target audience. That my giving to this other group was exactly because I didn’t want to give to his. I told him I was sure they were doing good work and it was probably work that others were interested in but not me. I ended letting him know how appalled I was with the brazen familiarity of his voice mail (we’d never met yet he acted like we were buddies) and its unabashed entitlement (that they somehow deserved my money and I was apparently too dumb to see it).

It wasn’t a pretty phone call. And I’m in the process of trying to apologize for my attitude. They are doing great work. It’s still not targeted where I want my giving to go, but I believe life for thousands of people is better because this group exists.

Reliving that experience helps me to re-examine my own fundraising:

• Do I seem overly familiar with people I haven’t met?
• Is entitlement, that awful “we deserve your money” attitude, sneaking into my solicitations?
• Have I done enough homework to see if the prospect really is interested in us?

How about you? How did you respond the last time you were asked for money?

Did you get asked after you’ve made all your charitable decisions for the year? Did you get asked for more than you were expecting? Or were you simply thrilled you could invest in such a cool organization and grateful that someone brought it to your attention?

Take some time today to review your responses. Then ask yourself how your answers will change your own approach to asking.

[A copy of the powerpoint slides for the Taking Fear Out of Face to Face Solicitation seminar are here. An audio recording of the Creating Donor Evangelists seminar is here. If you want the direct link to the mp3 file, click here.]

It’s easy to “keep score” in our field. We can track dollars raised, new donors acquired, donors retained, etc. But all of these are sort of rearview mirror, views of how you did in the past. Have you ever wondered where the windshield is?

In Jeffrey Fox’s idea in How To Be a Rainmaker of a point system for each day seems like a great candidate. This chapter was a special bonus–a free prize inside–when I read this book.

Fox recommends this point system:

1 point: Getting a lead, a referral, an introduction to a decision maker

2 points: Getting an appointment to meet the decision maker

3 points: Meeting the decision maker face-to-face

4 points: Getting a commitment to a close (a donation) or to an action that directly leads to a close.

His suggestion: work each day to get four points.

What if you started each day with this system as your windshield? Can you see how this could help focus your fundraising? None of these activities is wasted time. Each of these activities gets you to a face-to-face meeting. Each one leads you closer to a gift.

You’ll always have to process mail and other things that seem like time wasters. But what if you committed from now to the end of the calendar year to making each day a four point day?

I’m getting really excited about next week’s conference!

Download a PDF copy of the sessions here.

I’ve finally got around to putting up a page with more of the nice things you all are emailing me.

I haven’t decided where to link it at fundraisingcoach.com yet but the direct link is:
http://fundraisingcoach.com/testimonials.htm

Thanks so much for letting me know how all of this is helping you!

(If you’re not represented on that page but would like to be, feel free to leave me a testimonial using the comments feature on this page.)

No, I’m not going to talk about how much donor relations is like baby sitting–despite how similar they may feel at times! *grin* In reading Jeffrey Fox’s How To Become a Rainmaker, he devotes a short chapter to advice given to a babysitter. I found it to be helpful as a one-person development office for our hospital.

For those of you who are parents, when you hire a babysitter what do you want to come home to? According to Fox, one mother offered this advice to a babysitter she liked:

“Always say the kids were great, no problems. And always leave the house cleaner than you found it.”

Isn’t that great?

Think about this in terms of fundraising. Do you spend your time telling donors how hard it was to [fill in the blank}…get the gift, build the building, see the prospect, etc.? They really don’t care. That’s just your job.

John Wimber, a great church leader at the end of the 20th century, always said, “People aren’t interested in the birth–the pain, the groaning, the techniques. They just want to see the baby. Just tell them about the baby.”

So as you talk to donors and donor prospects tell them “the kids were great, no problems”–the pieces came together, look at this incredible accomplishment you helped us make!

The second part of the advice is just as important. It bugs me to no end to come home to a house as messy, or messier, than I left it. How hard is it to put dishes in the dishwasher or wipe a counter?

How could “leaving the house cleaner” look in fundraising? The first thing that comes to mind is to put plaques on the wall. And maintain them. So many of our organizations put plaques, often cheap ones, on doors and walls but forget to keep them when they fall off or the room is renovated.

Organizations that preserve the plaques and donor recognitions, even when the space has changed, show donors that they’re still grateful for the investment. Even if it happened decades ago.

Two local organizations that do this well are the Alfond Youth Center and Sebasticook Valley Hospital. Sebasticook has a special wall right in the lobby that showcases all the old plaques and donor recognition. Even though the building has changed, these rememberances are still prominently displayed.

The Alfond Youth Center does this extremely well. It’s practically a museum. Every where you look, you see community leaders pictures, names, and accomplishments prominently displayed.

At an event last month, a lady told me how excited she was to see her brother’s picture from the 1940’s on the wall. She was immediately drawn to this new multi-million dollar facility because they had done the work to connect her with the old location, even though it had been on the other side of town. It’s inspiring even to someone like me that doesn’t have the history here.

That’s just one “leave the house cleaner” idea. What other ways can you think of?