Top Strategy to Get 100% of Nonprofit Board to Give Passionately
Focus on the Rainbow, Not the Storm
If you’re coming at fundraising from the perspective of “no pain, no gain,” I’d like to suggest you reframe your approach.
Especially when it comes to asking individuals, one-to-one, for passionate gifts.
As long as you hate it, you’re never going to be effective.
In fact, if anyone in your organization feels this way, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
Why?
Because… (I really hate to break this to you)…
Donors can tell.
When donors can sense you’d rather be doing anything else than asking them for a gift, guess what happens? They follow your lead! In other words, they feel like they’d rather be doing anything else than making a gift.
Uh, oh. How can you change this equation?
Storm-based vs. rainbow-based fundraising
The first approach comes from fear, the latter from passion and joy.
If you approach asking as if a scary storm is advancing, and you’ll need to do everything in your power to avoid it, you’ll pretty much fail. Thinking about fundraising as an onerous, to-be-avoided chore, your urge to get it all over and done with as quickly as possible seeps through your very pores.
Sure, you’ll get some token or one-time gifts this way, but these donors are not likely going to feel good about their giving. They’re not likely to become passionate about your cause, or to remain lifelong, loyal and dedicated supporters.
You see, as long as you think giving is taking something away from donors, you’re sunk. That’s the absolute worst way to approach philanthropy.
Philanthropy, literally, means “love of humankind.”
Passionate fundraising is about love of humankind.
Love, not war. Pleasure, not pain. An anticipated rainbow, not a dreaded storm.
When you think to yourself that you’re “hitting someone up,” “twisting their arm” or otherwise inflicting some sort of pain and suffering upon your prospective donor, this attitude will come across.
- When you’re uncomfortable, it makes the donor uncomfortable.
- When you’re happy and relaxed, it makes the donor happy and relaxed.
- When you’re passionate, this passion is contagious!
Asking for money doesn’t hurt people.
In fact, it helps them:
- Accomplish things they could not achieve by themselves.
- Become part of something larger than themselves.
- Satisfy a moral or religious obligation.
- Fulfill their existential quest for meaning and fulfillment.
- See themselves reflected in the mirror as the person they yearn to be.
- Perpetuate their values.
- Get a rush of ‘feel good’
So stop thinking about fundraising as any kind of evil.
- Stop thinking of fundraising as begging.
- Stop thinking of fundraising as subtracting.
- Stop thinking of fundraising as an end in itself.
Fundraising is servant to philanthropy
You engage in fundraising (you facilitate philanthropy) to create more love.
You invite people to join you in making the world a more caring, loving, harmonious, just and beautiful place.
In Two beautiful truths that will make you an amazing fundraiser, Jeff Brooks of Future Fundraising Now advocates an approach to fundraising that accepts two fundamental truths:
- Communicating with donors is good.
- Donors love to hear from you.
You’ll have a much more satisfying life if you believe these things rather than the pessimistic, self-destructive assumption that fundraising is bad, but we have to do it anyway.
— Jeff Brooks
Philanthropy facilitators are, as my teacher Hank Rosso said, the fundraisers who “teach the gentle joy of giving.”
Connect people to their joyful, potential purpose
Even when you don’t secure a gift, you still have reached out to another human being with a heartfelt appeal that seeks love as its reward. You have engaged in a positive, truth-telling and love-seeking experience that’s fundamentally human. And if you’ve done so in a strategic and positive manner, you’ve likely raised awareness and begun to build what may become a much stronger relationship at some point in the future.
- Of course, you don’t want to send appeals to folks who aren’t likely to be interested.
- Of course, you don’t want to badger folks by telling them what they should do if they want to be considered good people.
- Of course, you don’t want to make it all about you and your work and not about the donor and their values and passions.
Good fundraising is all about sharing your values and matching them to your donor’s values.
That’s when the value-for-value exchange occurs.
It’s a win/win.
Everyone leaves with a little more love, and a little more gratitude.
Create opportunities for philanthropists to show their love.
That’s what great fundraisers do.
