Social Entrepreneur blog for the world changers
Jason Dick
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Homepage: http://www.asmallchange.net
Posts by Jason Dick
A List of Soft Touches
Jul 25th
My last post featured the importance of soft touches over the course of a year in building a relationship with your donors. Here are a few examples of the kinds of touch points that you can use as a great way to build relationships.
- Send a card on your donor’s birthday and have everyone in the development and executive office sign it.
- Make a thank you phone call within a couple of days of receiving their gift.
- Send an update on what your organization has done the year before. This update can be specific to a programmatic or regional area of interest and should include some insider information from a program manager or director.
- Invite them to sit at your table at an annual event.
- Offer them a tour your organization. This is a great way to help someone connect in a deeper way with the work that you are doing.
- Arrange a meeting with the donor, one of your program staff members, and yourself to provide an in-person update.
- Send them a handwritten note with a few words about a special interest they have.
- Buy them a cup of coffee and tell them a story of something that happened because of their support.
Related posts:
- Soft Touches
- Regular Tours
- Referrals Program
- Growing your Existing Donor Base
- A Donor List is More Than Past Giving
Soft Touches
Jul 18th
Most people do not like being asked to give money. Donors do not often look forward to the solicitation or asking experience. Many organizations don’t talk to their donors at all or the only time they talk with them is when they ask for a contribution. This kind of action is what makes people dislike fundraisers.
Develop a plan to talk with your donors throughout the year outside of asking for money. This is particularly important if you have major gifts donors who like to give at a specific time each year. Schedule a number of touch points throughout the year where you are updating your donors about the work of your organization. Take time to thank them for their relationship with you. Send them a note from one of your clients. Then when it comes time to talk with them about a gift they will be ready to have that conversation with you. With a good stewardship program by the time you ask for a gift a donor will be so ready to give that it will not be a challenge at all.
Everybody wants to know that their contribution is of value and that it is making a difference. When you do major gifts fundraising you have an opportunity to work 1-on-1 with people about their philanthropic priorities. Make sure to take the time to allow a relationship to grow. Some donors will want more of a relationship than others. You will be way more successful growing your major gifts program if you have regular soft touches with your donors than if you ask only once a year. What kinds of programs have you created to build relationships with your donors? Do you hold events?
Related posts:
- A List of Soft Touches
- The Multi-Year Gift
- Major Gifts or Middle Giving
- What Motivates Giving?
- Too Much Cultivation
Sharing Stories
Jul 11th
Using stories is essential for all development work. Donors connect with stories often more than they connect with anything else. If you have a donor that is not involved as a volunteer, their most powerful connection to your organization will be the stories that you share.
Use stories differently with annual fund donors than with major gifts donors. When you are cultivating $100 gifts and reaching out to a crowd you need to tell lots of stories. Take the time to share lots of different stories that talk from many different perspectives. Use video and pictures to make these stories more meaningful and relevant to your audience. Work with your marketing department when creating annual fund stories so they are polished and persuasive. The most important thing to remember when creating stories for crowd consumption is that you need to be able to have fresh relevant content. This means that you need to have a good pipeline of receiving and publishing new stories.
When you reach out and engage with your major donors your use of stories are going to be different. These stories need to be personal. Because you are talking with these donors individually and often in-person telling someone else’s story has less meaning. It is important that you are able to convey the mission of your organization using stories that have been a part of your experience with the organization. If you do tell someone else’s story, make sure to tell that story from your perspective.
Related posts:
- Great Donor Stories
- Fact or Stories?
- Fundraising Generalist or Practitioner
- Interdisciplinary Work
- The Major Gifts Fundraising Myth
Regular Tours
Jul 5th
The very best way to help people understand and find meaning in the work of your organization is to provide them with first-hand experiences; many of our greatest donors come as a result of volunteering with the organization. Another great way to give people this first-hand experience is to provide them a guided tour of your nonprofit.
Think through various program staff members that have been great advocates for your work. Who is always coming to you with an exciting new story or wants to show off a new idea? Find a few people in your organization who are excited about the work they are doing and ask them if they’d be willing to participate in a regular tour of your organization.
Choose just a couple of areas to highlight and plan on highlighting each of them for 20 minutes or so. Your tour should not last much longer than an hour and a half. Start the tour with some historical context of your organization and an overview of what your nonprofit does. This is a great chance for your chief development officer or one of your target major gifts people to say a few words. The rest of the tour should be given by program staff and program directors. A great way to close a tour is to have a few minutes for an update and Q & A with your CEO or Executive Director.
Set up these tours as a regular monthly occurrence. Let your board members and executive team members know that you are doing this. When you start a tour program you can get a little bit of pushback about a regular commitment. But it will be much more difficult to book everyone’s time if you do not have a regular schedule. It will also be much more difficult to get your board and staff to understand the need to invite their friends. It will take a few months to get them in the habit of inviting their friends and co-workers.
Related posts:
- Showing Off Your Non-Profit: A Word About Tours
- Referrals Program
- How Do You Engage Your Board?
- Grassroots- A broad brush stroke
- Annual Board Solicitations
Nonprofit Blog Carnival: Handling Objections
Jun 29th
I am hosting this month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival featuring common objections. Each of the authors below has provided some great content for us. The question I asked was, “What are common objections you hear at your organization and how do you respond to them?”
“Most of our employees just don’t make enough to give to charity.” This is a quote that Jane Kuechle on her blog Kuechle Consulting heard many times when she worked for United Way. Jane submitted a great post, Who Has The Capacity to Give? This post is an excellent reminder that giving is valuable at ever level. Don’t pass over asking someone for a gift just because they are not a millionaire.
“We need to spread our sponsorship dollar to other areas of the community.” Brett Ridge from CDS Global for Nonprofits writes a great post, Sponsors Change Personnel, Can You Roll With The Punches? Here are some great words of wisdom as you are handling your corporate relationships as part of your sponsorship program. Thanks Brett!
“I already know the needs – use your time to talk with others who don’t.” Check out The Collins Group Blog’s post, Overcoming Objections from Obstacle to Opportunity. We all know the difficulty of setting up a meeting with a new prospect. Barb Maduell has some great tips for how to L.I.S.T.E.N. and how to start a fruitful conversation.
Responding to Negative Feedback. Pamela Grow in her post, Successful Fundraising – Not for the Thin Skinned, has some great advice about receiving negative feedback. Take one person’s negative feedback for what it is – one person’s feedback.
Submit your post to the July Nonprofit Blog Carnival, hosted by Britt Bravo, focusing on your best time management tips. Thank you for your great submissions!
Related posts:
- Carnival Submissions: Handling Objections
- Nonprofit Blog Carnival
- Nonprofit Carnival: Day in the Life
- The Fundraising Coach: Nonprofit Blog Exchange Round #10
- Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants
Sending on Behalf
Jun 27th
The most effective kind of referrals are those where a board member or friend of the organization directly introduces you to someone else. You will be the very most successful meeting new people if your board members take the time to prepare the individual you’d like to meet. However, that is not always the way that it works. Many times I will have people suggest I talk with someone in the community that they know but they are not willing to send an email to introduce me or make a phone call to let them know I’m going to call. This often happens during a research session where a number of names are identified and they don’t have the time to make an introduction to all of them individually.
A great way to connect with an individual that you will not have an opportunity to be introduced to is to connect with them on behalf of your board member. This can be done through mail, on the phone, or via email.
Before you reach out to a list of people on behalf of someone else, make sure that they know you are going to use their name. Ask permission to send a note or make a series of phone calls on their behalf. If you have a copy of the note, ask them to take a quick look at it. Make sure that your board member has a good idea of what you are going to say and believes it is the right message. Let your board member know that some of his or her friends may follow up with him/her and ask about the message and that he/she should be in full support of it.
Have you used this technique? I recently used this technique in inviting a number of individuals on some tours of my organization and it was rather successful. I found that it worked maybe 1 in 5 times where as a direct referral worked probably ever other time.
Related posts:
- Getting a Hold of People
- The Art of Phone Follow Up
- Handwritten Notes
- The Immediate Thank You Call
- Pick Up the Phone
Solicitation Pre-Knowledge?
Jun 22nd
When you schedule an ask are you always clear that you will be asking for money?
When I’m preparing and scheduling solicitations I find that it is a bit of an art in having the conversation about why I am looking to schedule time to talk with a donor. When it is someone that I know is aware of the process I find scheduling a solicitation to be less of a challenge. Sometimes I’ve found people will try and give a preemptive gift if I let them know that I’m planning on asking them for a contribution. But, I hate to fully surprise people as well so I’ve found it valuable to have everyone on the same page.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.Related posts:
- The Pre-Emptive Gift
- Soft Touches
- Sample Solicitation Semantics
- Calendaring
- Scheduling Your Solicitations
Using Video During A Solicitation
Jun 20th
Video is an incredible tool and can be used to tell a compelling story in a very short time. In today’s world of technology and new media we too often look at video as the answer to all of our problems. If you need to fundraise with a compelling message, create a video. If you need to train your volunteers, create a video. Want more traffic on your website, create a video. The “create a video” mantra is all too popular today. I think it is important that we do not forget that video is a tool that we can use and really only one way of telling a story.
When using a video on a solicitation it is important to understand the reason that you are doing so. If the board member or program staff member has a really hard time telling the story or is not a super compelling person, a video is a great way to guarantee that a story and message is shared. However, in a one-on-one solicitation a video can feel impersonal and become very distracting. If you have a script and a plan, moving from talking face to face to watching a video can disrupt the flow of your presentation. Everyone is watching the individual who is speaking and the conversation starts to grow and then you stop everyone from talking and listening to the speaker to move to watch and listen to a video.
Videos tend to tell a short concise message in a short period of time. Is your audience going to be compelled by a flashy video or will they be confused and try and catch up? Is the video going to be played on their TV or on a small computer screen? Will they even be able to see or hear the video? Can the video show something that you are unable to share using pictures? Would it be possible to bring someone along with you that can tell their story directly so you wouldn’t need to show a video?
What do you think? There is a time and place for video and it can be used incredibly effectively. But there can be a time when using a video produces adverse results. Do you have any stories of when video has worked well for you during an individual solicitation? Has video ever become a distraction?
Related posts:
- In-Person Meetings
- Power of Community Involvement
- Duplicate Solicitation Letters
- Scheduling Your Solicitations
- Donor-Centered Solicitation Plans
Scheduling Your Solicitations
Jun 13th
Everyone has a different style of making a solicitation. Some people like to script out every word that could possibly be spoken and others like it to feel natural and it can feel like they are unprepared. Regardless of how comprehensive your preparation, taking time to schedule your solicitations can be very helpful. Most often when going on a solicitation your colleague is a friend of the individual you are asking for a gift. If your volunteers are anything like mine they are involved in a million different things all the time whether it is running their business or serving on other boards or just trying to find time with their families. When you script every single word it requires a level of preparation that very few people are willing to put in.
Flow during a solicitation is crucial. The team should know what’s coming next and where are they in reference to the ask for support. A schedule is much easier to memorize than a script. Scheduling is also a great tool that can be used to bring your message together and make sure that you are covering everything that you need to. Asking for a gift does not involve a bunch of random chit chat and then an ask for money. It is easy to get carried away talking about something else and forget to ask at all. People love stories and many can spend their entire time only telling stories. Some people really like to help you understand why their issue is so important to this region or this time. I have found that it is often really easy to lose track of time at the very beginning of a meeting when you are breaking the ice and getting comfortable.
If you run out of time, by the time you get to make the ask it becomes rushed and you miss out on the opportunity to talk with a donor about their concerns and answer their specific questions. The most critical part of your conversation is often how you respond after you ask for money. Do you give them time to respond? Do you have enough time to really understand and respond to their questions?
Related posts:
The Whole Life Offering
Jun 10th
We are 
all on a quest for significance whether it is through our work, giving, or service. When I first met Eric Foley I was impressed by his vision for and understanding of philanthropy. He spoke of the development process as transformational not transactional. His newist book, The Whole Life Offering: Christianity as Philanthropy
Eric brings us back to the original definition of Philanthropy which comes out of the ancient greek as “a gods love towards human beings.” He talks about Philanthropy as a way of living and a way of responding to a benevolent God.
“The focus of Philanthropy is on who one is and what one is becoming as one makes the donation.”
Too often I live my life in boxes. I can be one person at work, another online, and another at home and with my friends. This book makes a bold declaration that everything is connected and how we give should flow out of who we are. If you are a Christian, this book will change your perspective on how you live out your faith and give. If you are not a Christian, this book makes some remarkable claims about how faith can and should impact your giving.
The Whole Life Offering
“Sharing one’s bread is something more than giving to organizations that help the poor.”
“Every act of opening one’s home is more than a response to human need.”
“As one immerses oneself in an ever-widening circle of human need, one stops giving to fund-raisers and becomes one instead.”
On this quest for significance, the ideas found in The Whole Life Offering
To learn more about Eric Foley and The Whole Life Offering: Christianity as Philanthropy
- Eric Foley’s Blog & Website
- Purchase The Whole Life Offering for Kindle on Amazon
- Purchase The Whole Life Offering
Related posts:
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