Author: Jim Shapiro

If there is anything I’ve learned over the years, it’s that if you want to be a successful fundraiser you must simplify and clarify your message.

Most donors do not want or need complex jargon. They just simply don’t have time to decipher what you are trying to say.

We tend to think that if we deliver more statistics, descriptions of programs, and detailed reports, that our donors will be more likely to give us a gift.  In most cases, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.

The best thing you can do is deliver a human-sized problem for the donor to solve. Once you have clearly communicated the problem and given the donor simple ways to help, then you can deliver more content and information to build a case for more support.

Just about every single month, I receive an emergency phone call from an executive director that is short their budgeted goal for a project or program.

The organizations that call us often have something in common: a leadership team that hasn’t had a disciplined approach to cultivating relationships with their major donors.  So when it was time for those organizations to ask their major donors for financial help . . . their donors weren’t inclined to help.

What does that mean for you?  It means that TODAY is the day you need to reach out to your top active donors and donor prospects.  Right now, pick up the phone and give them a call.  This very minute, pick up a pen and write them a thank you note.  Sometime this week ask a donor to lunch.

Then, make sure you have a disciplined system that keeps you in touch with them as often as they would like – which is usually more often than you think.  Especially if you are good about Thanking and Reporting back to them on the effects of their previous gifts.

But for now, make the time to connect with your top donors.  By taking the time to connect with your donors, you not only will build great mission-driven friendships, your donors will be ready to give when asked.

Urgency is a powerful fundraising ingredient that motivates donors to action.  Adding a deadline to almost any fundraising effort will usually improve your results.

Your donors’ lives are BUSY.  A deadline – especially deadlines with consequences – gives them another reason to stop what they are doing and send in a gift today.

And here’s how a deadline helps you.  When delivering a major donor appeal for support, I always ask the donor to send me their gift or financial pledge by a certain date.  Including a “respond by” date does a couple of things for the donor and for me:

1. The donor knows exactly what to do and when to do it by.
2. The donor knows that if the gift isn’t received by a certain date that there is a negative consequence for the project, person or program we are trying to fund.
3. It gives me a clear reason to contact the donor again if I don’t receive their gift by the response date.

So the next time you ask your donors to make a donation, be sure you’ve included a “response by” date and that you have clearly stated the negative consequence that will happen if they don’t send in a gift by then.  You don’t have to hit them over the head with it, but deadlines are magic.  And consequences, however small, help a donor realize that their gift really is important.

If you are like most development directors or executive directors, you feel a little overwhelmed by your day-to-day responsibilities.

And the day-to-day demands of your job puts you at risk of not making the time to cultivate your major donor relationships the way you’d like.

To help you prioritize your major donor development and fundraising, I strongly suggest creating a donor rating system.  Developing a system is relatively easy and will take the guesswork out of which donor you should contact and cultivate first.

Here’s how it works. Using a scale of 1-3, with 1 being the lowest rating and 3 being the highest rating, rank each of your majors on these four qualities:

1. Total giving for the past 12 months; the top third should be rated “3”, the middle third rated “2”, etc.
2. Affinity for your work or cause; do they love what you do or who you serve
3. Relationship strength; is the relationship between the donor and you or someone else at your organization strong or weak?
4. Financial capacity; regardless of how much they have given, how much could they give?

Add up the total score for each donor.   The best score would be 12, the worst would be 4.  Then sort your list by the highest rated donor down to the lowest rated donor.

Now you know which donors you should cultivate first!  And now you know how to spend your time to create a bigger impact for your organization.

If you would like a copy of an excel spreadsheet that illustrates the final result from this rating process, please email me at jim@betterfundraising.com.

All too often I work with executive directors and CEO’s that say, “I’m not a fundraiser.”  In most cases, this is the farthest thing from the truth.

That’s because fundraising is a knowledge issue, not a talent issue. 

I’m convinced that if you have risen to the top of your organization, you have what it takes to be a great fundraiser.  You are good with people, you know your mission and work like no one else.  And you have passion for your cause.  These ingredients combined with just a little bit of coaching and confidence equals fundraising success.

Consider these examples from our clients . . .

• A Head Master of a local private school needs to raise $3M to build a new school building. He just secured a $400,000 donation!
• A founder of an organization that serves homeless moms and kids needs to raise $5M to build a new resource center. She secures a $1,000,000 gift in her very first donor meeting.
• A local director of a youth services organization needs to raise $10,000 by the end of the month to fund his programs. He achieves his goal, first by receiving a $5,000 lead gift from a donor that had never given a gift to his organization.

None of these clients were confident about their fundraising ability.  But they are good at their job, and I taught them to be good at fundraising.  Want to learn what they now know?  Get in touch!