When I started learning about fundraising, all the training was aspirational. Senior fundraisers talked about developing an elevator pitch, working the room at networking events, overcoming objections and inspiring people to give. While aspirational, this was not realistic. Looking back, I wish someone had told me that 75% of prospects would never respond to me. Put another way, a response rate of 25% is success. It’s a numbers game.

In part 1 of this article, I mentioned a new role that provided me with the freedom and autonomy to build my own portfolio. This was an opportunity to experiment and practice the discovery process.

The process

Reverse engineer and simplify giving: This sounds stupid but it works—

• Before confirming a gift, ask for one
• Before asking for a gift, build a relationship
• Before building a relationship, have a discovery meeting
• Before a discovery meeting, invite the donor to meet
• Before inviting the donor to meet, write the invitation
• Before writing the invitation, decide who to invite
• Before deciding who to invite, identify prospects to choose from

Focus on the early steps of identifying prospects to send out meetings invites.

Identify prospects: Start with current donors, volunteers, and friends. Don’t fantasy fundraise.

Decide who to invite: Prioritize your outreach by sorting donors by gift amount, cumulative giving, years of giving, etc... If you exhaust your list of current donors, look at lapsed donors.

Write the invitation: “Be short and brief and to the point” (Daredevil, The Tragically Hip)

Dear donor,

Thank you for support of [charity name].

My role is to build a community of support for [constituents]. I would be grateful to learn about your experience with [charity name].

Are you available to meet in person/over the phone/virtually on date 1, date 2, or date 3?

As you can probably guess from my title, I am a fundraiser; but to be clear, my intention is not to solicit you. At this time, I’d be grateful for the opportunity to hear about your experiences and support of the organization.

Be direct, ask “are you” available instead of “would you”. The “secret sauce” is that last paragraph. We have conditioned donors to expect all our communications to be about asking for money. Acknowledge and overcome the objection before they can raise it.

While on the subject of being brief, cut out the fluff. Don’t start emails with “I hope this finds you well” (it’s a given) and don’t write “my name is…”. (They already know it. Your name is on the email and in your signature.)

Invite donors: Experiment with your message and find what works. Then, copy and paste, mail merge, or use email signatures to make the process efficient.

Continue to invite donors: Over 40% of my meetings come from following up with donors. Follow up 7-10 days later and then 7-10 days after that. If you don’t receive a response, try again in 6 months.

Hold the meeting: Discovery meetings are not an opportunity to pitch your organization or biggest priorities. It’s an opportunity to discover information about our donors. Be genuinely curious, don’t ask for money, and don’t expect it.

• Who they are? (age, profession, career/life stage, family, i.e. qualify their capacity)
• Why do they care about your organization and why do they give? (qualify their affinity)
• Do they want to engage more? If so, how (time, talent, testimony, treasure, ties) and when?

Learnings

Focus on what we can control

We can control which donors we invite to meet, how we invite them, how we meet with them, and what opportunities we provide for the donor to engage with. After that, it’s up to the donor to choose to engage, give, how much to give, and when to give.

Reverse engineer and simplify goals

120 donor meetings is a common annual goal, which works out to three meetings/week (rounded up after allowing for holidays, vacation, sick days, etc.). I get a 25% positive response rate to meeting requests. Therefore, I need to ask four donors to meet to book one meeting. Meeting my goal of three meetings/week, requires twelve requests/week or three/day.

Create a feedback loop

Create metrics around meeting requests and acceptance rates, and track those metrics on a weekly basis. This creates an immediate feedback loop that identifies what is and isn’t working and will help you to stay on track.

Email before phone

I’ve found email to be the most effective and efficient method of outreach. Email is donor centric and lets donors choose to respond at their own pace. Cold calls are invasive and if donors are anything like me, they don’t answer calls from unknown numbers or organizations. I know that cold calls work for many fundraisers so no matter the medium, the point is to have a method and practice it deliberately.

Summary

Thousands of meeting requests have resulted in hundreds of meetings, which have resulted in dozens of gifts. Those gifts have resulted in millions of dollars to support students, education, research, and community.

Millions of dollars from reverse engineering goals, focusing on what we can control, creating a system and feedback loop, and trusting the process.

It’s a numbers game. Three meeting requests per day. Have you sent yours today? Let’s go!

Eli Clarke (he/him) is a working dad, Director of Development, Major Gifts at the University of Waterloo, and creator of Essential Consulting. Eli works to make planned giving accessible to all fundraisers and charities by challenging the status quo to simplify it. Contact Eli, eli@essentialconsulting.ca.