Fundraising: Frustrations from the Frontline (and how to overcome them)

Fundraising for a Charity or Not For Profit (‘N4P’) is a tough gig.

In my day job I mainly work with commercial, professional, and corporate clients who provide tangible services and products.

But I am also involved in supporting several charities and I am a charity Trustee.

This means that I see first-hand that, whilst sales and marketing are hard in commercial businesses, in the third sector it’s even more challenging!

There is some ‘read across’ between the processes, mindset, and techniques that commercial organisations use for sales and marketing, and third sector organisations use for fundraising and sponsorship.

 In this article, I am going to share seven top tips for fundraising, and then dive into some detail about speaking to potential donors.

 To be clear, I am not going to be talking about crowdfunding or applying for grant funding.

 If you want to know about that – and I’d urge you to find out more if you’re not already maximising the potential of grants – then I’d recommend reading the posts of Andrew Heaward of Heaward Solutions and maybe even reach out to him on LinkedIn and connect with him.

 Quick Wins – Seven Top Tips for Fundraising Success

 1.     Optimise your website – a statement of the obvious … online interaction is important.

Have you got someone supporting you with your website? What do the analytics tell you about your bounce rate? (How many people visit the site and then leave without acting?)

Have you gone on to your own website and donated?

If not, then do so! You will experience first-hand what the donor’s journey feels like. It’s not uncommon to spot some annoying, confusing, or off-putting feature of the process that, if solved, may increase donations.

Is your site ‘responsive’ (i.e. – is it optimised to appear on mobile devices)?

A huge majority of people these days browse the web on mobile devices instead of desktop machines. If your site doesn’t look good when held in the palm of someone’s hand, you’re probably missing out on donations.

2.    Can donors really see, feel, touch, and understand the impact of their donations? Donors, particularly corporate donors, want something tangible – an outcome or result – that springs from the work you do and which, ideally, they can directly relate to their investment.

 Not only do you need the usual testimonials and quotes, case studies and stories, photos and videos, and facts and achievements, but also you need very specific data that says (for example) “a donation of £X creates and outcome of Y”.

3.    Human beings are social creatures – leverage the power of community. A study by Harvard Business School found that giving to others can make you happier than spending on yourself. This extends to charitable donation, but only if they made that donation due to being introduced to it via a friend, family member or another social connection.

 The ability to receive public recognition for having donated is also important – a public recognition wall, social media thanks for those who have donated, etc. You will have noticed that very few people click ‘make my donation anonymous’ on JustGiving… there is a reason for that!

 Build a referral programme – help to make it easy (and attractive) for your donors to introduce friends, family, and business contacts.

4.    Retail generates cash and builds brand – it doesn’t suit every charity or N4P organisation, but look at it seriously ... could you leverage donations of physical items and trade them through online stores, eBay, and even bricks & mortar outlets?

5.    Do not neglect your legacy proposition. You probably have loyal supporters that have been donors or volunteers for some time. It may seem slightly awkward, but it would be remiss of you not to create an opportunity for those supporters to continue to support you even after they are gone.

Many N4P organisations benefit every year from supporters who leave a gift as part of their Will. Legacies are one of the biggest sources of unrestricted gifts and comprise c.12% of the sector’s voluntary income. There is an untapped opportunity - only around 1 in 7 people currently leave a charitable gift in their Will in the UK but c.33% of people say they would consider it.

6.    …and the award goes to!

Donors cannot commit all their money to N4Ps and they cannot support every charity that asks for help so, once they have decided to donate some money, they have to make decisions about where to make their donations.

Part of that decision making process is typically based on organisational credibility. The first question that floats through their brain, even if they don’t say it out loud, is often, “have I even heard of these people?”

 Awards and press coverage, local and/or national presence, strong branding … all of these things can help to show some credibility and buy you some gravitas.

7.    Prior Preparation Prevents Particularly Poor Performance.

• a.   Define a profile for your target ‘prospect’ donor – who are they? What are their values? Where are they based? What sort of industry are they in? What sort of personal resonance does your cause have for them? Why would they be interested in donating or sponsoring your cause? (Spoiler alert … this is always something emotional and personal; things like ‘corporate social responsibility’ are usually just a post hoc intellectual justification for the donation. If ‘PR” is the reason they’re donating, then why? What PR do they need and why do they need it? Do not take things at superficial face value).
• b.   Research your prospects and build a credible target list. Peer research, LinkedIn, existing relationships (who are your board of Trustees connected with, for example?)
• c.    Map out your proposition, referring to the profile of the target donor – what are your key interventions and products? What impacts do they have? What collateral do you need to support the story you’re going to be telling to potential donors? Know your product and service intimately. Understand the problems you are solving, the opportunities you are creating, how you are doing this and why your organisation is perfectly placed to achieve these outcomes.  
• d.   Build a structured process for a fundraising meeting with a potential donor, and create a series of scenarios and talk tracks (not scripts … in the real world the other person never has their half of the script, so as a fundraiser you have to be fair more agile than a ‘script’ can ever support you to be).
• e.    Rehearse with other fundraisers in the team. Role play is uncomfortable, but if you want to be good at anything you need to get a little bit uncomfortable at times! This ‘skills practice’ session should have one of you playing the prospective donor, and one of you playing the fundraiser. Play around with questions like “why should I support your cause?”. Practice reversing this question (“that’s an excellent question, Mrs Prospect… I’m not even sure that our cause is the right one for you to support. I mean … obviously I am passionate about it, but it would be wrong for me to assume that everyone shares my passion. Tell me, I’m curious; what are the key attributes you look for in any causes you choose to support?”)

 Let’s go a little deeper…

 Fundraising is a sales function with a different slant on it.

 Fundraising is an interesting challenge because it is B2B (business to business) selling but, in some respects, it's selling good feelings instead of a physical product.

 It’s really like any intangible sale that, in Sandler, we would coach businesspeople with, but in many respects it's even more challenging.

 Although some fundraisers are dedicated fundraisers for an organisation, many are part-time, amateurs, or doing it as a ‘one off’. That means that, almost certainly, there is a lot of inconsistency in approach.

 In Sandler we look at success in anything as being a perfect confluence of three things:

• Behaviours (processes, ways of working, habits, and consistent actions that lead to predictable results that then build compound interest and marginal gains over time).
• Techniques (skills and core competencies necessary to carry out the behaviours).
• Attitudes (the mindset and approach needed to stick to your behaviours and to practice and trust in your techniques and, more importantly, the way in which you ‘show up’ in any given situation).

 Attitude underpins everything.

 What are the optimum attitudes for fundraising success?

 The first challenging attitude we often see in fundraising is that people don’t take it seriously. They treat it as an afterthought – they stick a page on a website and think that will be enough.

 Our mindset really needs to be that fundraising should be proactive and intentional. It should be a serious thing, not an accidental thing that might happen if somebody stumbles across the page on the website.

 Fundraising needs to be seen as an important facet of the organisation and it needs to be recognised as a sales function.

 A second key facet of a successful attitude to fundraising stems from this recognition that fundraising and sales are twin siblings.

 Sales is often described as a ‘rejection business’ (you are going to hear ‘no’ a lot more than you hear ‘yes’).

 Fundraising is the same.

 Getting comfortable with hearing ‘no’ and not taking it personally is essential. They are not saying no to you, they are saying no to donating. They (probably) have their reasons for that! Find out what those reasons are. Understand them and respect them.

 If we don’t learn to take it on the chin when we get a ‘no’ – if we take it too personally - then our attitude is all messed up, which means we can't even pick up the phone and make the next call.

 This speaks to another key attitude; respect for the prospective donor.

 As a giver, it's the organisations that they trust most, and which emotionally resonate with them the most, that will win their share of the giver’s wallet.

 As a successful fundraiser your job is to ask smart, insightful, helpful questions that respectfully uncover why this donor would ever donate anything to anyone, work out whether your organisation fits the bill, and then proceed according to what you have uncovered.

 Organisations that can build a relationship of trust and give value back are the ones who will consistently raise the most money from donors.

 You won’t get it just because you asked for it.

 People do business with people that they know, like, and trust.

 If you don’t spend time to listen, to hear, and to truly understand the donor then you cannot build a genuine relationship of this type.

 Possibly the most fundamental attitude (and the one that is hardest to adopt) is this:

 A successful fundraiser must be more attached to understanding the truth of why a donor would ever give a donation than he or she is to ‘winning’ that donation.

 In other words – your attitude must be that it is about them, not about you.

 Behaviour – build a plan, follow it, and you can bet on the outcome

As mentioned in the seven top tips earlier in this article, a lot of the strength in your approach comes from preparation.

 Think of these as the three non-negotiable steps in your process:

1. Identify who you want to talk to,
2. Work out how you are going to start a conversation with them, and
3. Define a process that you follow religiously for those conversations.

 Your job as fundraiser is to talk to people who are going to make donations and/or are going to introduce you to people who might make donations.

 Your process should be designed around a simple principle – not everyone will be a donor, therefore you should find out as quickly and respectfully as possible whether this person is a genuine prospect. If they are not, then you should disqualify them and move on to someone who is.

 Do not waste their time.

 Do not waste your own time.

 Time is a non-renewable resource, so your process should be respectful of all people’s time!

 Technique – the core competencies you need for the job

 There are three elements that underpin all successful techniques:

1.     Strategies

2.    Tactics

3.    Personal Presence

 Strategies - for fundraising the strategic approach is implied in what I’ve said earlier in the article; it’s about uncovering the reasons the prospect has for donating or sponsoring your organisation. This is likely to be emotional, personal, and have an impact on them. This means you need to have tactical approaches that support you asking sensitive, insightful, questions.

 Tactics – your core competencies are all around communication, with the emphasis on the emotionally intelligent and insightful questions you ask (much more so than the information you give). Your active listening skills must be a superpower. You also need a technique that, in Sandler, we call the ‘up front contract’. This is a clearly defined verbal ‘rules of engagement’ you discuss openly with the prospect at the start of a conversation, in which you establish the mutual right to veto (you can both say ‘no’ and walk away) and also obtain permission to talk about sensitive things and ask questions around those things.

 Personal Presence – this is underpinned by your attitudes, of course. Your strategic and tactically approach will look cynical and superficial if not imbued with your personal passion, charisma, and gravitas.

 Finally – asking for money

 This is, without doubt, one of the biggest challenges that people face.

 Talking about money is awkward for lots of people, but it is particularly tough for non-profits.

If you ask for a number too small, you might not hit your goals.

 If you ask for a number too big, people might feel stressed and angry and not donate at all.

 The Goldilocks zone is where you want to be … but it’s elusive!

 There are a couple of things I have found that are beneficial here. One is giving people some options.  If you just say, “I'd really like you to donate £25,000” and they can only do £10,000 they might feel like a failure.  

 You’ve unintentionally made it awkward.

 Instead, maybe I say something like: “Generally people find if they want to support our cause, there is one of three buckets they fall into. Some people want to give between £15 and £25k. Some want to give between £10 and £15k. And some people want to give between two and eight ... Which one of those are you most comfortable talking about? Or do any of those even makes sense?”

 Here's the rule - give people three choices, they tend to make decisions faster (and they’ll typically go for the middle option, especially if you couch that in terms of it being “the one most people choose”).

 By the way, don’t be tempted to give a whole menu of choices otherwise you end up in option paralysis and they walk away without giving at all!

 Summary

Successful fundraising is really about mindset.

 Make sure that you focus on the right things and tap into other people's emotions. People make all decisions emotionally and understanding that helps greatly in fundraising.

 Don’t forget the three-step process: figure out specifically who we want to talk to or share ideas with; figure out the best way to start those conversations; and then, figure out what those conversations should be.

 Following that process means that you will be working logically and not just winging it on every single interaction.

 And remember – the most difficult lesson of all is to avoid getting emotionally attached to the outcome.

 Not everybody's going to be passionate about your cause.

 Not everybody's going to be excited about it in the same way that you are.

 All you can do is ask those questions, probe, and see if it's something that they care about.

 If they don't, that's okay.

If they do, well then you are in a position to help each other to achieve an outcome that is mutually advantageous.