Let's Begin
The training you are about to begin is written for Chimorel fund raisers. Other fund raisers can use the concepts discussed to develop their own fund raising programs. The concepts have been drawn from many sources and from our own experience. Acknowledgments are made at the end of the training.
As This Is Written
As this is written, Mrs Beautiful, Coco, Sparkle and I were camping. My wife was self-conscious about my calling her Mrs Beautiful. Her hair was a little shorter and there were a few more pounds, since I met and married this stunningly beautiful young lady over 35 years ago, but the beautiful, determined spirit was still there before she died. When you see Mrs B, you know who the important one was.
When I sat down to write, Coco and Sparkle, our dogs, came over eager and excited (the spirit we want in our volunteers) ready to go for their morning walk. At 6am it was a little early for other campers to share their enthusiasm, so they settled down on their mats in the trailer and I began to write. Sparkle is the shy one. She needs encouragement, but is not too shy to barge out of the trailer when she thinks Coco is going for a walk without her. I took both dogs out around 8am. Later, Mrs B took Sparkle first, then Coco because they were a little much together.
Did you catch the message? It is about spirit. My spirit of appreciation for Mrs B. The dogs’ spirit of excitement and enthusiasm. A spirit of encouragement and determination. Recognize each person’s need for self importance. Bring out the confidence in shy people with a spirit of competition. These are qualities you seek in your volunteers and in yourself as you begin to raise money for the cause.
Volunteers = Base of Support
We want to enable our volunteers to focus their energy efficiently as they plan events and activities which ask for money and sell our programs. At Chimorel our constituents are asked to be our volunteers. We encourage the people we serve to become excited and enthusiastically involved, seeking to build a powerful base of support.
Every day people ask you to pay for what you get. You want to transfer paying for what you get to your fund raising efforts. Let’s say you donate $10 to enable someone to buy diapers. You support that mother’s children to grow up healthier and she isn’t “forced” to steal diapers from the Dollar store. Let’s say you get ten people to buy Starter memberships to support two families. Each family can put a $500 deposit on an apartment they desperately need. Now the families can move out of a homeless shelter. They may get welfare briefly, but at Chimorel they will also start the process to get a stable job. When we support these people, we will expect them to support others in return.
We want to ask our volunteers why they give. What motivates you to buy Girl Scout Cookies or pledge to United Way? Why will you become a member with Chimorel? When you ask someone to give, what is the sizzle for the steak you are selling?
It is important that we respect our volunteers’ and donors’ time. As our fund raising takes shape, we must focus our effort as efficiently as possible and have fun. You want to sell two Starter memberships instead of 400 50 cent raffle tickets to raise $200. Ask the bank to become a $1000 corporate sponsor instead of making a $100 donation. Teach the bank officer all the benefits they receive as a corporate sponsor, then involve 25 new member bank employees in fund raising for the Special Project to provide housing. Introduce the banker to Chimorel’s Work for Rent program and get the loan for new apartments. What just happened?
What Just Happened?
Mrs B and I came back from walking the dogs, together this time. Coco is watching passers by. Sparkle is stretched out on her pad. Let’s make some sense of what just happened in the discussion on the left.
A Starter Membership is $100. Selling two Starter memberships ($200) should take a lot less time and effort than selling 400 50 cent raffle tickets or even 100 $2 tickets. The efficiency here should be obvious. Now let’s tackle a more complicated transaction.
By doing your research, you determine $1000 is an appropriate amount to ask the bank for, ten times the $100 amount a timid volunteer might ask for. A $1000 corporate sponsor at Chimorel receives several benefits, one of which is 25 Starter memberships. Now let’s make your efforts much more efficient. Your enthusiasm convinces the bank to give the memberships to 25 employees who become volunteers. Ten catch fire and raise an average of $5000 each or $50,000. The bank realizes an income opportunity by using the $50,000 as a down payment on a $250,000 apartment building for the Work for Rent program.
The message here is that your enthusiasm can open many doors. Use your time as effectively as possible. Ask for significant sums and give real value in return. Provide real value. Reach out to support many people. Together we can make the world a little better because we make the effort.
Incidentally the joy of the Japanese couple celebrating their wedding at an Irish castle is the kind of thing we want our volunteers to share with our sponsors.
Plan The Details
Be enthusiastic and bold, but plan the details. Control your time with a detailed schedule. Your timetable needs specific deadlines for each stage of the project. Soon you will schedule big fund-raisers which become annual events. Your first event will train for the next year. Keeping accurate records will create your contact list and plans for next year. Expand profitable activities. Revise or eliminate time wasting and unprofitable activities. Enable each person to feel good about his or her work. Determine that the campaign will make the whole organization more unified and stronger.
What is the reason you got involved with Chimorel? Each person’s reason for giving will be different. You want to determine each person’s goals and problems. This is the exciting part of fund raising. As you meet each person’s needs, get them involved. I will give and volunteer when it is personally important to me.
Make it personal at the feeling level. Address letters to “Dear Andrew,” instead of “Dear Friend.” Bring your friends to the meeting, instead of giving them directions. Ask what a prospective donor is concerned about. Then listen. Emphasize YOU. Reduce I. Focus on “our.” Ask face to face. Make it fun. Learn what they want. Make the extra effort to do what they expect. Celebrate at the construction of a Japanese pagoda and bring home what will happen when the new addition is built at the Chimorel Sanctuary.
Your effort will have a long run payoff. Your courtesy today, even if their budget has been spent, may introduce you to other givers and can open the door in six months or a year. Make an appointment, be on time, get to the point, do not overstay your welcome. Look it up, then address the mail correctly. Send thank you notes for each favor gained – each meeting, the donation (receipt), special efforts. Personally thank your workers. Thank people who don’t expect to be thanked – let their bosses know. Make each meeting a pleasure. Did we say send individual thank you notes to everyone, promptly?
Sell Your Program
This website has a training module dedicated to Principle Based Selling (click link). We’ll touch on a few points now. You can explore this training when you are ready. You begin by knowing who your customers are. Be creative. Accentuate the positive, energetically. Sell the best parts of your program. Emphasize your accomplishments. Clip the newspaper article and show it. Break down the costs to show what each donation will buy, ranging in steps ($7, $15, $21 … $1050). Ask for a specific realistic amount, based on your research, then appeal to the donor’s broader vision. Here is an example:
“Joe, I would like to invite you to become a Concerned Citizen. Your $350 donation will give you an altruistic Action Planning Membership with Chimorel and it will help five participants start our I Got a Job program. Each participant will work ten hours to earn their Starter membership. Then they will continue with a 250 hour commitment: learning skills, proving their willingness to work and earning the benefits they receive through our program. As they prove themselves, we will help them get jobs, earn a place to live and solve other problems in their lives. You and your family receive a Recommendation Privilege and can set, reality test and develop an Action Plan for at least one important goal. Would you like to write a check or use Pay Pal.”
Actively involve everyone. Accept all volunteers. Show them how to use their Recommendation Privilege as a member to undertake Special Projects for their church, their concerns and their needs. Create a job for everyone. Be creative. Multiply every member’s influence by all their friends, family, acquaintances and business contacts. Each member can create more than seven new contacts. Build your base. Active members will give more than non-volunteers.
Decide to have fun and plan the fun. Make many new friends. Celebrate the victories. Find ways to generate an overwhelming feeling of goodwill. Enable everyone to feel like they are winners in a winning organization. Arrange things so donors and askers enjoy the experience and want to do it again. Your enthusiasm and good manners make each transaction go smoothly.
Make the most of every opportunity. Be bright, alert, prepared and on time. Control your time. Start and end meetings on time. Respect busy schedules. Do your homework to be ready for a “short notice” meeting. Know your facts and figures. Practice asking for money and telling the Chimorel story. Ask people what their goals are. Then ask them to become a member and start the process to achieve their goals.
First, let’s deal with your fear. Are you eagerly ready to go out and ask people for money or are you procrastinating, making excuses and afraid you might lose face? Let’s conquer this fear of asking for money, once and for always!
Recognize you have a unique set of inhibitions. A hesitancy to ask for money may be at the top of the list. Your hesitancy is very common. Learning to control this feeling is a personal victory. Raising money for a cause you believe in, not only strengthens you, it also gives you the courage to get that raise and overcome other challenges in life.
Think about why you give to other causes. Write down every donation you made last year, perhaps even for several years. Who asked for it? Reflect on the donations to your church, the Girl Scout cookies, the T shirt for the marathon, tickets for the ballet, everything. Why did you give? Was it something you wanted anyway? Did you have a personal reason? Did you make someone happy?
Fear is the father of procrastination, a thief of time. Time is money. When you teach someone to set and achieve goals through Chimorel, their kids will pay for college. Your friend will own the house of their dreams. A relative will add $10,000 to this year’s income. A stranger will get a job and have a place to live. When your fear allows you to procrastinate, these things don’t happen and maybe your boss never gets around to that raise you were hoping for.
Now, let’s rally the troops. Fear => inertia => low morale => low income => lose face => failure to act. Get together as a group. Discuss the work frankly. Share fun stories. Applaud successes. Cooperate on hard cases. Give new members a boost. Go out in pairs. Build from small success ($7/mo, $75, $250) to large triumphs ($1000 Corporate, $5000 Lifetime, $100,000 Charitable Remainder Trust). If you don’t get this donation, you gain experience. You were brave enough to try. You know the next time will be easier.
None of the above by itself will overcome fear forever. What will overcome fear forever is to practice. Start small. Decide it will happen. Then practice, practice, practice.
Chimorel enables people solve problems and achieve goals. In every case the end effort is to set a goal, test it against reality and develop an action plan to achieve the goal. Dealing with a problem is looking at the negative side of an opportunity. If you or a client focuses on the problem, negative feelings are generated. The negative feelings suppress endorphins in the brain and lead to depression. Depression continues a downward spiral of negative feelings suppressing endorphins and more depression.
In every problem is the seed of an opportunity, hard to find, easy to overlook, but there. Setting a goal to find the opportunity initiates the possibility of positive feelings which release endorphins. The resulting natural high increases your resistance to pain and stress, as well as, boosting your strength and stamina. We suggest you make a genuine effort to move from a focus on a problem to setting a realistic goal. Here is a checklist of steps to make a difference:
- Ask, “What is the real problem?”
- Focus on one problem at a time.
- Deal with facts, minimize feelings.
- Seek information and knowledge about the situation.
- Take the time to develop trust, showing that you care.
- Don’t quit, look for the opportunities behind the problem.
- Set a goal, test reality, develop an action plan.
The above list should be viewed as both a check list and a series of steps. The end result is to set a goal that solves the problem. You may or may not need to do every step. You will want to be very clear as to what the real problem is. You should focus on one problem, solve it and move on; otherwise, you will dissipate your energies. Use the other elements of the checklist as needed. Click the link to the left for more detailed explanations of each step.
How does this apply to fund raising?
If you missed the point of the previous discussion, let’s bring it home. Chimorel supports people as they solve problems and achieve goals. Some people are overwhelmed with problems. You support these people to move from focusing on their problems to achieving goals.
Your intention is to enable them to accomplish something. They begin with a Starter membership, set and reality test an important goal. Then they continue on to an Action Planning membership and higher level memberships and programs. People who are solving problems and achieving goals will spend/donate more. You support more people and might get paid for your active support. Eventually these people will build a home, get a job, start a business or do other things to improve their lives. Along the way, they may support you and others as well.
Your goal is to support others. You start wherever a person wants to start: a Starter membership, an Odd Job Program, a Concerned Citizen program, a Nonprofit Membership, etc. Each membership and program entitles the member to use our on-line Goal Setting process to deal with problems and goals in their lives. Then when they are ready they may want us to assist with other goals in their lives, move on to a Special Project, raise funds to make the world better, maybe even tackle a big one like world peace.
We hope you have enjoyed this brief trip down the fund raising path. There is a lot more learning available. To get more involved and to learn more, let us know you are interested. We can provide access to a number of books on the subject. You can participate in Chimorel fund raising and get “baptized by immersion.” The best way to learn is to do.
Click for a list of How Nonprofits Raise Money. If you want to get baptized by immersion and support Chimorel as we raise money pick a specific fund raising strategy from the List. Do a little more learning. Then let us know about your interest. Call 614-885-0000.
Below are two books you will learn a lot from. We can probably get you copies for $10 or less each. Contact Us. Click the Nonprofit Start link above or explore other areas of our website.
Two of the Primary Sources for This Article Are
The Grass Root Fundraising Book
Successful Fundraising
both by Joan Flanagan
Alibris link
When you click the link for the books by Joan Flanagan, you will link to Albris on our shopping mall. You can buy either book. Just click a link, then copy and paste Joan Flanagan or the name of either book. If you prefer, we can sell you the books from our stock for $10 each when available. The last time we checked you could buy these books at Albris for 99 cents plus shipping. New, the price could be $29 or more.
