Bulk fundraising letters

Catching up on my blogs today, I came across an interesting rant from Hildy on Direct Mail Fundraising is Junk Mail. Here’s a taste: Have our organizations ever spent as much time trying to engage the people who come through our doors as we spend trying to...

Ask Yourself

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...

Reality Check

This morning I set time to start calling prospects to set up solicitations. And I found out I’m really good at distracting myself! I checked GoogleNews. Then I made a call. I remembered I needed to read an article on one of the people before I called. I printed...

Keep Asking!

“I’d like to ask you to consider a gift of $5,000 to the campaign.” Did you practice the question? Is it rolling off your tongue? Keep on practicing. Then try adding higher dollar amounts. I was just speaking with a new colleague who told me a cool...

Ask!

All fall, we’ve been working through the basics of asking people for money with the simple four-step formula: R.E.A.L. Research, Engage, Ask, and Love ’em. Now we begin focusing on “ask.” Some of you may be wondering why it’s taken so...