The right volunteer asks the right donor for the right amount at the right time to support the right project with the right approach.

— The Six Secrets of Big Gifts

At this stage, you have the volunteers recruited. You know which prospects you will ask. You know how much you will ask for. You know when you will ask. You know what projects they might want to support most. One final question remains: How will you approach them?

This chapter will answer that in eight steps:

1. Do the final research necessary to get to know them as people.
2. Cultivate your relationship with prospects.
3. Prepare kits for the volunteer askers.
4. Train the askers in how to ask.
5. Identify any possible roadblocks and strategies that will overcome them.
6. Make the appointment to see the prospect.
7. Visit the prospect.
8. Follow up afterwards:
   a) keep records for the future;
   b) thank everyone;
   c) remind donors of pledge commitments;
   d) evaluate your progress.
   

Let's examine each of these in order.

1. Do the final research necessary to get to know your prospects as people

This is a process of systematically building relationships with people who share common interests with you and your organization.

The goal is to become friends with the top donors, not strip-mine their assets. The research is similar to the approach taken by members of a fan club. They want to know everything possible about their `fave raves' — from opinions to birthdates; from family background to favourite foods. Consider your task to be establishing miniature fan clubs for your top donors.

This is true whether you are asking for a donation of one or two hundred dollars for a grassroots group, or building a new hockey franchise. Cyril Leeder used the same methods to convince the National Hockey League governors to let him start the Ottawa Senators.

“See these?” he asks, hauling a dozen black-bound exercise books out of his desk drawer. “I recorded everyone's [spouse's] names, favourite restaurants and wines, kids' careers and so on, so the next time we saw them, we could ask about how their son was doing on the Harvard hockey team. The more you know about people's backgrounds and families, the more you build a relationship.¹

This is the time to collect any missing information about your prospects. The more you know, the better.

Are there any particular questions you should ask the prospect when you finally meet? Jot them down.

Are there positive issues you should be sure to raise — or avoid?

Are there people the prospect particularly likes and respects, who might influence the decision? If you have friends in common, that could make a huge difference. It might be another donor, a participant, someone who has given you advice, a religious leader you both know, a politician, or any other influential persons. Is there anything you can or should do to strengthen this connection?

If you will be talking to the prospect's secretary, what is her (or his) name? Are any particular facts worth recording about that person? Treat the secretary like a doormat or a barrier to be bypassed, and you will probably not get a donation. Treat the secretary like a person and an ally, and your chances improve considerably.

How old are the prospects? If possible, note their birthdays. If it's appropriate, send cards.

The smallest details can be helpful, according to Tim Hamilton, who was, at the time of this story, a fundraising consultant with Ketchum Canada. At a Brown Bag Lunch² meeting, he told the following story:

Research accidentally turned up the fact that one prospect, a senior bank executive, was fond of lobster sandwiches. We weren't looking for that; someone we talked to just happened to mention it.
When we invited him to the charity's office for a tour, we arranged lunch with several key people in the board room. We asked the caterer to provide lobster sandwiches in the assortment, and warned the others not to eat them. As the tray was passed, the person next to the prospect turned it so the lobster sandwich faced him.
The expression on his face said a lot. “Was this just a coincidence?” he seemed to wonder. “Did these nice people just share his good taste? Or if this was a result of research, they have certainly done their homework!”

Other facts may be more important. But you can never tell what might be useful. Record it all!

Doing your research well gives the prospect proof of your competence and your ability to work effectively in a variety of ways. Though the prospect will never see your research files, the depth of your knowledge will be subtly displayed.

Lawyers are trained never to ask a question of a witness on the stand unless they already know the answer. Journalists learn the same about interviews. (Now you know, too.)

The forms on the next pages may help you complete the research on the prospect.

2. Cultivate your relationship with prospects

Face-to-face solicitation may initiate a longstanding relationship if it is properly done.

Prepare your prospect with both facts and feelings. This preparation phase is called cultivation.

As gardeners know, cultivation involves preparing the soil carefully before planting the seeds. Fertilizer must be added. In the fundraising world, the `fertilizer' used is known by two initials: PR (not BS). Fertilizer is a tricky thing: too little results in a small harvest; too much all at once causes burns. Learn to cultivate properly.

One classic system³ of cultivating prospects involves these steps:

1. Identify. Choose the person who is likely to respond generously — usually someone already close to your organization.
2. Inform yourself about the prospect before you inform the prospect about yourself. Learn about the this person, especially from friends.
3. Interest your prospect. Find the most appealing program for this prospect and let him or her know about it. Discover where in your organization this person is likely to fit.
4. Involve your prospect in the organization; give them a chance to find out how important it is for them to belong to or support the organization.
5. Invest. Choose the best asker to approach the prospect and provide all the information necessary to maintain and raise the interest. Listen to people whose money you ask for, and take their advice. They are the experts. Ask the prospects not merely to give, but to invest themselves — to make an investment in the people you help.
6. Integrate donors into your organization. Make sure that the donors understand how important their support is for your organization. People want recognition; the solicitor should know how to thank, and you should send tokens of appreciation. Find out how the donor could further support the organization and what you should do to increase your donor's satisfaction with the organization.

Prospect's name:

Conversational Guidelines

“Active listening” questions to draw prospect out:

Positive issues to raise:

Sensitive issues to avoid:

Advisors

Who does the prospect respect, listen to, or turn to for advice?

Are those people supporters of ours? __Yes __No

Do we have contacts with them? __Yes __No

What action is needed to increase their support?

Miscellaneous Details

Place of work (or, if retired, former place of work):

Job title:

Secretary's name:

Notes about secretary:

Other Personal Likes

Other Personal Dislikes

Other Comments

There are many different ways to cultivate a prospect. How do they compare? A form letter from a staff person is not as effective as a personal meeting with a senior volunteer.

Earlier, we used Kent Dove's rating system⁴ to calculate how many cultivation contact points were required. The number varied, depending on the prospect's interest level and the potential amount of the gift. The points required match up with the points `earned' in each of the contacts listed below.

Dove suggests a system where “contacts are weighed according to significance, importance and impact.” A typical weighted system looks like this:

“Cultivation begins”, Kent Dove says, “when the prospective donor first hears about a particular institution. It reaches its highest point when the donor asks, `How much will it cost?'⁵

Two hospital fundraisers recommend the following process for cultivating prospects:

Give them the opportunity to set the pace — give them freedom of choice relative to the area they wish to support, the amount of money they wish to give and the type of giving vehicle they wish to use. By giving a donor `breathing room', you really limit the reasons why they cannot or will not make a gift…
Listen [and pay attention] to what your prospect is saying — both verbally and non-verbally. Keen listening skills are essential in building relationships.
It's always prudent to do your homework and learn the basic interests of your prospect, but there will be times when you won't know anything about the prospect beforehand. That's when carefully developed listening skills will help you discover what it is that will tug at the prospect's heart-strings and, hopefully, their purse- strings as well!…

Make an extra special effort to communicate with your prospects and contributors regularly by sending them various articles and informational materials that show the positive effect your organization is having on the community it serves — not mass mailings of generic information, but information that addresses their specific interests. Again, it should be personalized — you are subtly telling them that you are aware of their particular interests and concerns and that they are not just names in your ever growing database. This type of cultivation is an ongoing process — one that builds positive relationships over time and makes the difference between success and failure…

Make it part of your ongoing cultivation activity to contact your prospects every six months or so just to keep in touch. Based on past experience, quite a few of our major gifts would have been missed if not for this kind of persistence and quiet tenacity.

The forms on the next pages may help you plan your cultivation.

Every volunteer will require a kit to take with them when they visit prospects.

Prepare enough kits for everybody. Give them out at the session when you train the volunteer askers. In each folder, include:

• All the information you have about each prospect the volunteer will visit
• Guidelines on what projects the prospect is most likely to support
• Guidelines on how much to ask the prospect to contribute
• A pledge commitment card for the donor to sign
• Key facts about your group's work, and human interest stories
• The telephone numbers of people to call (night or day) during a visit, if the prospect has questions that the volunteer can't answer
• Letterhead, envelopes and suggested wording for letters to send the prospects:
  • A letter confirming the appointment
  • A thank-you note after the appointment
• A form to report the results of the visits, including:
  • New or changed information for the prospect's file
  • Action to be taken
• Brochures about your work, budgets, and audited statements — to be shown to the prospect only if the prospect asks.

Prospect's name:

• A short reminder of how to discuss this opportunity with the prospect, how to ask, how to handle questions, and what not to say or do
• A note thanking the volunteer for this effort
• An evaluation form to give suggestions on how the process can be improved for next time

Volunteer Fundraiser's Checklist

• Be optimistic and enthusiastic.
• Know the program thoroughly. Be able to describe it in your own words.
• Make your own donation — as much as you can afford — as soon as possible. You'll be surprised at the psychological lift you'll experience — and how much difference this makes in increasing your sense of immediacy and closeness to the fundraising effort.
• Learn all you can about the individual or business you are approaching. Determine their particular interests.
• Have all the appropriate materials with you when you go.
• Explain why you are volunteering and why the group is important to you.
• Be sure to actually ask for a specific gift amount.
• Be direct about the dollars you hope the prospect will give, but keep the emphasis on what the money will accomplish.
• Remember: you are not asking for money for yourself, but for an organization with a good cause.