Did you love Ask Without Fear! but want more?
I wrote Ask Without Fear! to be intentionally brief—less than 100 pages. I wanted normal people to get fired up about fundraising. The plan was to help your volunteers get excited enough to do it on their own.
But there’s so much more, isn’t there? So, in response to requests from people like you, I’ve created the three part Ask Without Fear! Expanded!
With these three 90-minute webinars, I have the luxury of coaching you through each step in much more detail. Here is a taste of what you’ll learn in the 4½ hours of teaching:
Webinar #1. Ask Without Fear! Research
How to research your fundraising goal
- Case Statements
- Why it’s important to have one
- How to develop a solid case
- Why to include good and bad points
- Why you owe it to a donor to have one
- Whether to keep them informal or make them formal and polished
- How it answers objections—before they even come up
- Why there are only a few
- How to identify them
- How to build answers in to the presentation
- How to articulate donor benefits
- Naming opportunities
- And soft benefits—feeling of being part, contributing to community
- Fundraising Gift Range Calculators
- Where to find them
- Why they’re helpful
- What it looks like
- How they show helpful prospect to gift ratios
- How it can help you from starting a fundraising effort that’s doomed to fail
- Fundraising Gift Pyramids
- How it gives your fundraising goal a picture
- How to use it as a solicitation tool
- What shape the pyramid really takes
- Naming Opportunities
- Why they are important
- How to set the highest naming opportunity
- How they can keep you from making compromises
“Great energy and knowledge. Really showed that fundraising can be fun and rewarding career.”
Conference attendee, Montreal
How to research your prospects
- With free tools
- The #1 free tool in existence today
- The most important character trait for anyone raising money (be inquisitive)
- 2 simple tricks to make web searches even more productive
- Free tools that come right to you
- Social networking sites to check out
- A case study of how these free tools helped us move from a name to a top prospect
- Some limitations of free tools
- The benefits of paid prospect research services
- Names of providers to check out
- What they look at
- What you’ll get from providers
- How they interact (or should interact) with your current giving records
- Why to go with a mix of paid services and free tools
- Why it’s ethical
- Ways to get your board and volunteers involved
- Why your board is an untapped resource
- How to quantify data normally hard to quantify
- Two different ways to do peer reviews—and when to do them
- Why a donor database is critical to your fundraising efforts
- How to use the information in your relationship building
- Why research alone won’t get you to your fundraising goal
“[Marc] is very knowledgeable and energetic, engaging audience members and helping them understand specific things they can do to be successful in their positions…I highly recommend him…”
Rachel Hutchisson
Director of Marketing Programs and Events
Blackbaud, Inc., Charleston, SC
Webinar #2. Ask Without Fear! Engage
- overview of engaging
- fundraising is like dating
- practical tools of engagement
- why fundraising is electrifying
- reduce stress of fundraising, peoples’ expectations
- Ways to get out from behind your desk
- Ways to engage while staying behind your desk
- know mission then seek funding (don’t get into the “chasing money” trap)
- Find out compatibilities and what makes people tick
- Why getting around the donor’s “natural habitat” is crucial
- Specific questions to ask donors to learn about them
- How your own insecurities can help you at your next networking event
- How asking about a person’s story shows them incredible respect
- How open curiosity can help you raise more money
- Difference between suspects and prospects–and how suspects become prospects
- How lessons from selling academic footnoting software can help you build buzz
- engagement lesson from Disney
- construction hard hats
- tip on blueprints in building campaigns
- actual conversations and tips of using the phone
- ideas for using email for fundraising
- how to use Facebook, Twitter, Ning and other social media/Web 2.0 to raise money; and how these can protect you from seeing people as merely wallets
- how to quantify your engagement work for your boss or board chair
“Thanks so much for all you are sharing with me! I am actually enjoying learning about fundraising! I didn’t think that was possible.”
Cami Foerster
Chairperson of the Board of Directors
The Boston Project Ministries
Webinar #3. Ask Without Fear! How to Make the Fundraising Ask & Build Relationships With “Yes” and “No” answers (Love)
- THE most important step in fundraising
- even people that don’t ask…ask
- indepth look at simple tool to help asks be more effective
- how a person’s tendencies lead you in asking and thanking them afterwards
- ways to gauge people’s pace
- how to flex to match a person’s type
- actual gift planning table and how to use it in an ask
- importance of silence in asking
- how props can reduce fear–for both the asker and the one being asked
- why “asking” is not changing your relationship
- How many options to offer
- Specific phrasing for getting the appointment
- why stock transfers can be a great gift option
- how to make solicitations tangible, without over restricting your funds
- the importance of integrity and honesty
- Why objections are good
- how asking well is like lowering a drawbridge to help donors over the moat
- how to handle objections
- how to handle a “no” effectively too
The day after a live version of Ask Without Fear! EXPANDED, one participant emailed me to say:
I enjoyed your seminar so much, as did Danielle. We walked away very excited, and have already increase the number of people that will be at our next meeting, as well as more businesses coming on board to add to our fund raising. We have incredible things going on, and now adding what we have learned from your seminar has just motivated us even more.
Thank you so much for the gift you have given to us.
