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

Volunteers must be the ones who ask prospects for big gifts. This is not a job for staff — not even the executive director. It is certainly not a job for consultants.

Some organizations with few or no staff have dreamed of hiring someone to look after fundraising for them. Re-evaluate! Staff can fill in grant applications for government, foundations, and some corporations. Staff or consultants can handle direct-mail campaigns. It is even possible (if expensive) to pay people to make telephone fundraising calls.

Appeals to major individual prospects, however, must be led by volunteers. A staff person may accompany the volunteer on a visit to an individual prospect, but should never take the lead role. There are several reasons for this.

First, donors expect to be visited by volunteers, not staff. As one donor said, “If the organization can't get a volunteer out for the 15 or 20 minutes it will take to talk to me, they are in big trouble, and I'm not throwing good money after bad.”

When staff people ask for donations, it looks too much like they are asking for their own salary — and often, they are! Volunteers convey sufficient distance to keep the focus where it belongs: on the work the organization will accomplish with the donors' money. In rare cases, where a senior staff person carries a great deal of prestige, he or she can be involved in a fundraising presentation. A university president or a dean, a bishop or a respected rabbi, a scientist or a noted journalist, for example, may be exceptions to the rule.

In addition, face-to-face solicitation often depends on personal contacts. At a forum I helped organize on major gifts, philanthropist Lyman Henderson talked about who can ask him for a donation:

It must be a personal approach by someone we know. And the credibility of the appeal is going to be very much dependent on the credibility of the person we know, and the degree of friendship or the degree of prestige or whatever, that that person has.²²

Other people have said much the same. For his book Mega Gifts, Jerold Panas interviewed people who had given donations of over $1 million. Here's how one of them described the importance of who asks.

George Pardee tells how having `the right' person call on him can make the difference:

I'm really interested in the Boy Scouts; so when they called on me the first time for the YMCA capital programme, I just wasn't interested. That's no reflection on the Y — it's just that it isn't as dear to me as the Boy Scouts. The second time around, well, the person who made the call on me was the difference. I have so much respect for him, I felt I had to do something. It wasn't nearly as much as I give to some of my other charities, but it wasn't insignificant, either. I like to be called on by the right person. No matter how worthy the cause, the solicitor has to be someone I respect.²³

Don't let this frighten you away. Many people assume they don't know anyone who could be a major donor. As you will see in this book, most people have more contacts than they realize at first. Further on, we'll explain how to work with people you don't know, and develop new contacts.

However, everybody has a limited number of existing contacts. If you depended only on staff people to use their contacts, their lists would quickly be exhausted. Fortunately, every volunteer brings his or her own circle of friends, and each new volunteer brings more contacts.

Finally, face-to-face fundraising takes time. It does not make sense to pay people to do what volunteers can do. Although the rewards are very large, volunteer labour is still more cost-efficient. In this era, all nonprofits have to be highly cost-conscious.

Despite my strong conviction that this work is best done by volunteers, there may be exceptions to this rule. I write this reluctantly, fearful that some novices will see this as an excuse not to follow the more difficult, but more effective route of volunteer leadership.

A volunteer who knows the prospective donor will almost always be the best door-opener. If you don't have such a volunteer, however, the choice comes down to approaching the prospect now with a staff person or waiting until you can find the right volunteer. In some cases, the group's need is so urgent that it just can't wait. In others, the chances of finding a good volunteer (even after reading the rest of this chapter) may seem low. If that is your situation, begin the process with staff — but use the most senior staff person you have. More research, more homework, and more visits will almost certainly be required to achieve success.

But in an article devoted to taking a contrary view of accepted wisdom, US fundraiser Michael F Luck writes:

…Fundraisers should do most of the fundraising and not depend solely on volunteers. Most people dislike the act or process of fundraising. The few people who are comfortable asking for gifts are usually not even good at it. The idea of assigning prospects to volunteers and training them to be fundraisers is part of philanthropic legend — it is just not worth the time and energy. For peer solicitation, however, volunteers may be of help in writing letters of introduction, making telephone calls or making verbal requests for attention from their colleagues, friends and acquaintances on behalf of the fundraiser.

One way to be an effective peer fundraiser is to become well known in the community. This is accomplished by being active in the community — getting on boards, helping other nonprofits and socializing. The bottom line is: If you do not have social events in your home for people in the community, they will not invite you to theirs.²⁴

Is there a role for consultants?

Consultants can be of great help, but they can't do it for you. The are not for every organization, either.

As solicitors, consultants invite even more controversy than staff. Prospects may see them as mercenaries without real loyalty. Despite many honourable consultants with outstanding records of public service, the behaviour of a few unscrupulous individuals has led to understandable concerns. This is especially a problem if the consultants are paid a commission based on a percentage of the total raised, or if they contact prospects on the group's behalf. Ethical consultants are paid according to the amount of time they work, and they always stay behind the scenes. They must not act as your `sales representatives'.

Although I am writing this as a self-help book, I am also head of a consulting firm. To avoid a conflict of interest in answering this question, let me turn to Lyman Henderson:

What about the incorporated fundraising companies? It would seem that a charity could benefit from their experience without making a staff commitment. On the whole, they are effective or they wouldn't still be in business. But they are expensive — particularly when compared to volunteers. And because their reputation rests on success, they may push you farther and faster than you wish to go.

A fundraising company will:

1. provide you with experience and expertise in planning and methods;
2. analyze what needs to be done to reach your goal and advise whether this is realistically obtainable;
3. help with organization and administration;
4. plan the recruitment process;
5. set a value on key target corporations and individuals (from previous experience);
6. plan and produce campaign materials;
7. train canvassers;
8. keep the machine running even during difficult times; and
9. most importantly, provide focus, cutting short time-consuming discussions about which organizational setup or which approach to use.

It will not:

1. raise money for your cause;
2. provide canvassers or volunteers;
3. guarantee success.

Professional fundraising companies are particularly valuable in one-shot appeals, where you have neither the time nor opportunity to build up experience and expertise. They are also excellent when an organization is starting out on the campaign trail. In these cases they can be worth their weight in gold. But they would be the first to say that their value is in the relatively short term while they train your volunteers to do the job themselves. Are you too small to interest a fundraising company? Why not ask them? They'll soon tell you whether they're interested or not.

It is essential to build up a professional approach and method in fundraising. If you are new to the game, you can follow the twisted trail of trial and error (if you survive long enough) or you can recruit or hire experienced help. Having tried both, I strongly recommend getting a consultant on board even if you have to pay for it.²⁵

To get a list of consultants, contact:

How many volunteers do you need?

You need volunteers to do several different tasks. Depending on your situation, these may include:

• Recruiting other volunteers
• Training other volunteers
• Identifying potential donors
• Researching prospective donors
• Preparing information about the organization
• Cultivating the prospects
• Visiting the prospects and asking for the donation
• Handling simple correspondence
• Making sure good records are kept for the future

In small organizations, the same volunteers will do all these different types of work. This is easiest to administer, and makes sense when there aren't many people. In addition, it saves a lot of formal research if a volunteer who knows the potential donor well handles all the phases. That may not always be the best way, however.

If your current volunteers are overworked or don't feel competent to do some part of this, you may need to recruit others with special skills. Many grassroots groups find that their volunteers and board are very committed to the cause, but don't approach prospects directly because they are too busy or because it makes them uncomfortable.

It may be appropriate to divide the tasks according to special abilities. Someone who is good at research may not be good at asking directly, or vice versa. Or someone who is good at asking may be too busy to handle the other details.

At least ten volunteers are required. Below that number, it is hard to sustain enthusiasm. It may also be hard to keep up the momentum if one or more volunteers drop out for personal reasons. It is possible to succeed with fewer volunteers — but it is harder.

What would be a good job description for a volunteer solicitor?

The volunteer solicitors you need must be willing to:

• Ask potential donors face-to-face. It is important that the volunteers actually visit the prospects, and come right out and ask for a donation. They must not fall back on using the telephone or writing letters. Much, much more money is raised through direct personal contact than by mail or phone calls. They must not be wishy-washy. Ultimately, they must ask.
• Accept training. There are right and wrong ways to ask prospects for donations. Using the wrong methods can damage your reputation and turn off a potential donor — permanently.
  Training will likely take about three hours in a group session.
• Ask five to ten people each. In view of the training and preparation needed, it is usually not worth the trouble to train someone who will ask fewer than five prospects. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. If a volunteer can get a large enough donation, a single appeal may be all that is needed. For the most part, however, that is fantasy, not reality.
• Don't let volunteers take on more than five visits at first. In a list of common mistakes people make, Warren Steen includes this:

  One volunteer took 22 pledge cards! Isn't that great?
  No, that is terrible! Encourage your enthusiastic volunteer to take a maximum of five or six pledge cards. Diplomatically tell him or her that additional cards will be assigned after these have been worked.²⁶

• Make their own generous gift. The volunteers who ask others to give must first make their own donation. It does not have to be a lot of money, but it must be generous according to their own ability.

  “It's interesting to ask a person who approaches you, `How much did you give?'” says Lyman Henderson. “If we find somebody said, `Well, I'm still thinking about it,' then I don't think that approach has been particularly significant.”²⁷

Why is it better to have volunteers work in teams of two?

Have your askers work in pairs. Two people should visit each potential donor.

This does mean it will take more volunteers than if one person visits alone — twice as many. The results are worth it, however.

• Before the visit, if they are reluctant to make calls, one can urge the other on.
• The prospects will be impressed that they are important enough to send two people.
• The two volunteers can keep each other on track, each filling in any points the other has forgotten.

It is tempting to skip this stage. Some inexperienced people let the volunteers decide for themselves if they want to team up. This is a bad idea. Here is how one fundraiser learned the merit of visiting in teams:

One prospect taught me the value of taking along a co-solicitor. He was a master of dramatically and unexpectedly changing the subject. Just when I thought he was ready to hear an important point or was primed to respond positively to my donation request, wham! — off he went on an unrelated topic.
So I tried again. We'd end up on the same roller-coaster ride. I was stymied and went home without a gift. He was chuckling, I'm sure.
The director of development came along for the next visit. She presented the case. I observed and made points at opportune moments. He tried to divert our attention, but I was able to steer it back on track. I heard when it was time to ask for the gift. I did, and he said yes.
He's now my favourite prospect to solicit — with or without a partner. Our time together is almost like a fencing match. Thanks to him, I've learned to listen intently, to be very focused, and to have some fun.²⁸

Match the teams up carefully, if you can. There are various ways to do this. Hints for matching include:

• Match an experienced person with a new person.
• Match someone who is shy with someone outgoing.
• Match someone who knows the facts and figures with someone who can make an emotional appeal.
• Match a person who is a close friend of the prospect with someone who is more objective.
• Match someone who may be impressive, but doesn't know your organization well, with someone who can speak knowledgeably and can close strongly.
• Match a volunteer with a staff person, if a staff person must go.

How much time will this require?

Each visit will take from twenty minutes to an hour. (If the volunteers stays longer than that, they're visiting their friends, not making a fundraising call.) A few prospects may require a second visit, or even a third.

A volunteer team will need time to plan a strategy before visiting. Allow a little more time to make notations in the file after each visit. Add in a little travel time to and from each visit. Altogether, it may take five to ten hours for this segment.

Add to this two or three hours for a post-campaign session to share lessons learned, to evaluate and to celebrate. Include the three hours for training noted above. We're now up to between 10 and 22 hours.

If the same volunteers are involved in identifying potential new donors, an additional two or three hours each will be needed.

Researching the prospects is important, particularly if you are approaching people you don't know very well, and even more so if you are looking for very large sums of money. The amount of time for research is harder to estimate. An hour or two is often plenty for covering the main points for an average prospect. However, when the prospect is well known or exceptionally generous, research can continue to uncover useful information for much longer — days and days. But that is rare for a grassroots group.

Where can you find volunteers?

There are people in almost every community who would be willing to help you raise money. Many organizations are surprised to discover how easy it can be to line up volunteers.

Start with people who already know your organization. They are already supporters, and have a good understanding of your purposes. It will take less time to convince them of the need or to educate them on your work. They may need training on how to ask for a big donation, though. Begin with:

• Current board members: Members of your own board of directors are the best volunteers, because prospects will see them as the people who are most committed. Important prospects may also feel that people equally important should come to see them about gifts. However, current board members may be too busy, or feel that this was not why they joined the board.
• Past board members: They have almost as much prestige and commitment as the current board — maybe more. They are likely to have more free time. Many organizations have been surprised to discover that people who were board members years before would welcome the opportunity to help out, but may prefer not to serve on the board again.
• Current and past volunteers: They know what you do, and they may be glad to do some different work for a change, if they have the skills. You know them well enough to evaluate what they can and can't do.
• Current donors: They can talk to other donors as equals, and they obviously understand and support your work to some degree already. Some are pleased to be asked to do more; few are likely to be offended at being asked. There is a risk that they will discover unpleasant truths about your organization when they see it in action up close.
• Current and past participants You may call the people your organization serves by many names: alumni, audience, clients, customers, drop-ins, fans, learners, members, parents, performers, players, recipients, spectators, street people, students, subscribers, telephone callers, viewers, and so on. For brevity's sake, I will refer to them all here as participants.
  This applies equally to arts groups and social service groups, advocacy groups and schools, sports teams and health care providers. All have people who participate in one way or another.
  They can explain why the work you do is important better than anyone. They are not appropriate in some groups, for example where confidentiality is a concern.
• People not already active in your group. Don't limit yourself to people who are already or have been actively involved with your group. Although people who have been active are probably easier to recruit and more effective as representatives, new people may have much to offer. They bring new contacts, fresh energy and a new way of looking at things.

Some groups are hesitant to bring in `outsiders'. Self-help groups, for example, may feel that no one else can understand the situation the way they do. Sports groups think that people who don't participate (or drive their kids to practice) will not care as deeply. Cultural groups may suspect that people not steeped in the intricacies of their culture won't communicate in the same way.

All that may be true, but outside people can still be useful, even if sometimes in a limited way. Often, outside people are interested and supportive. Discovering how to include them can be energizing and liberating.

Care should be taken in opening your group up to new volunteers, of course. Don't ask them to do too much too soon. Don't give them too much power before you have developed trust.

Here are some examples of outside people who would be particularly useful to recruit to help with major individual donations:

• People active in fundraising and service clubs: Someone who learned how to do this kind of fundraising in a campaign for the United Way, a hospital, a school or a religious centre may be willing to show you the ropes.
• Family and friends of people actively involved with your group: People who care about your current volunteers, staff and participants may be very willing to help out. Often they wonder when they'll be asked, and are pleased to be included.
• Business leaders recently promoted to upper management: Busy as they are, they still need to make contacts and demonstrate that they are community-spirited citizens. If they don't already support you, though, you have to persuade them that you do good work and that they should volunteer. Find them through colleagues who work in the business world and by reading announcements in the media.
• People who have recently retired from business: You can help them fill their newly empty hours and make use of their experience. A cautionary note is required: many people who retire discover that their influential circle of business contacts evaporates the moment they leave the job.
  It can be depressing to discover that people you thought would do you a favour as a friend were really only interested in a mutually beneficial business relationship that you can no longer deliver.
• People just moved to town: You can help them make new friends and get established in the new community. They can bring expertise they've developed elsewhere. Find them through Welcome Wagon, real estate agents, schools, and so on.
• People connected to politics: People who run for political office (and those who work behind the scenes) are often active in many ways in their communities. The best of them do so because they genuinely care. Cynics may say that some are only interested in gaining exposure and meeting potential supporters. In either case, political people may be willing to be involved in your fundraising campaign (and if they get elected, you may have friends in high places). Get their help before they declare their candidacy. Once they are openly running, they may be too partisan, and too busy, to really help.
  Frank Stronach, the millionaire owner of auto-parts maker Magna International, is one example of the positive side. He has been active with charities for years. For example, he served as national chair of Big Brothers in the mid 80s, and they continue to be a favourite of his. He holds fundraising barbecue parties on his farm called Frank's Festivals (with entertainment from bands like the Good Brothers) to benefit organizations in the Aurora-Newmarket community, ranging from a shelter for abused women to sporting groups. He chaired the regional United Way campaign in 1983. In 1986, he served as chair of the York-Finch Hospital's $5 million dollar campaign, because so many of his employees lived and worked in the area. “He signed every single letter, hosted lunches and dinners, leveraged several big gifts, and was a real hands-on, terrific chair”, according to Nancy Redner, who was the hospital's staff fundraiser. Frank Stronach ran for political office in York Simcoe in 1988. Although he lost the election, he continues to be an active fundraiser.

Help volunteers overcome the fear of fundraising

Most of us believe that we don't know much about fundraising. And many of us are afraid of it.

“Ask people for money? Not me! No way!”

Sound familiar? There is a solution: get them `hooked' on fundraising.

Many people find they get hooked on fundraising. They cite a number of reasons leading them to feel this way:

• Comprehensive training leaves volunteers confident that they know how.
• After you successfully obtain a donation, the feeling is fantastic.
• Fundraising is enabling and empowering. Good fundraisers realize they are not merely asking for funds — they are creating a better, more effective organization. Fundraising builds public support and enhances your group's public image.
• Fundraising allows you to get out into the community at large and talk about the organization to new people.
• Fundraising can help educate people about your organization's work. It also measures the success of your past educational work.
• If you handle it properly, you're not going to lose friends by asking for donations. In fact, people who give feel good about themselves. People who are not asked to give often wonder why they have been left out.
• The volunteer who raises funds uses and improves skills in communication, presentation, networking, educating and organizing.
• It is pleasant to discover how much you already know about how to raise funds, and about who gives.

It is easier to recruit volunteers if you remind them that the prospective donor is not going to be forced to do anything unpleasant.

The goal is to build a long-term and positive relationship with supporters who may give again and again over many years. Offer prospects an opportunity to fulfill their own best intentions. Contributions make a difference in people's lives — no small benefit!

Henri Nouwen, a Catholic priest known for his many books on spiritual journeys, tackled this very topic. “Fundraising is proclaiming what you believe in,” he said, “and doing it in such a way that you offer the other person an opportunity to participate in your vision; precisely the opposite of begging… People only invest money in people who know how to make money grow… not in people who say they have nothing, who will start begging again next week… Ask for money standing up, not bowing down.”²⁹

Neither guilt, embarrassment, harassment, pressure or any of the other negative reasons to give have any place in this kind of fundraising. The goal is not to extract money from unwilling victims by any means necessary. This is not the place to try to squeeze money from a rock or a turnip. At best, that gets money for today, and makes future fundraising much harder. At worst, it backfires immediately.

Your goal is nothing less than to change the donor's life by a great unselfish act — a huge gift in money and effort to achieve good. You inspire him to transform his life by tremendous benefits to others.³⁰

Some people are amazed to discover that this approach works! Here's an example of what happened when a tenants' rights group approached a slum landlord. The story is told by the board member who made the visit:

He didn't own any property where we were organizing. I knew he owned some really foul buildings in another part of town, though. I took some pictures in our neighbourhood, and took a community leader from that neighbourhood with me. We talked for a long time about irresponsible landlords, run-down properties, crisis in public housing and the like.
He finally said, “You must know that I am one of the people you are criticizing”.
I said, “I don't believe you would have agreed to see us if that were true. You have made some serious mistakes with your properties and let them get run down, but in your heart you are not a slumlord.” He looked so puzzled and sort of half hurt and half complimented.
He said, “How much do you want?”
I said, “$5000.” He wrote the cheque right there. The next day he started fixing up his buildings.
This slumlord was not a bad person. He grew up in a slum, but he had removed himself from all that. Instead of reminding him that he was a capitalist pig, I reminded him of something that had been true a long time ago — that he was a decent, caring person. Who knows how long he's going to act right, but it's a good start.³¹

Some volunteers feel a prospect would only give as a personal favour. This certainly happens. However, it does not build a long-term relationship between the organization and the donor. It is seldom worthwhile.

Some volunteers feel they will be obliged to give an equally large gift to some other cause the prospect supports. This too happens. It is the organization's job to make this less likely, by keeping the donor excited about the work and pleased to be thanked so thoroughly.

Don't send any volunteer to ask for a donation from someone they don't want to ask. Some people are willing to ask strangers, but never someone they know. Others feel the exact opposite.

For more information on how to proceed once you have recruited them, refer to the chapter on how to train volunteer solicitors.

The next step is to identify potential donors. This may involve work by volunteers as well as staff (if you have any).