Episode #219
Is your skill set holding you back from bringing in more donations?
If you’re like Jim Shapiro, you probably are good at some aspects of fundraising and not so good at other parts of fundraising.
Early in Jim’s fundraising career he struggled and felt like he wasn’t being as effective as he thought he could be. But then he discovered the “Ask, Thank, and Report” process and he began to raise a lot more money. And it helped him build much better relationships with donors.
In this week’s video, Jim tells you what he did and how those three little words (Ask, Thank, Report) made him a much more effective fundraiser. If you’d like to contact Jim, you can do so here: betterfundraising.com
If you have any stories or advice on raising more money, please share them in a comment box under the video. Your nonprofit friends will appreciate it.
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If you have any stories or advice on raising more money, please share them in a comment box. Your nonprofit friends will appreciate it. Thanks.
Great video! I am planning to use these suggestions starting today.
Thank you
Brilliant – the essence of fundraising best practise in 3 simple words.
really appreciate the frank simple system I will be adding this to my tool kit
Frameworks that work need to be simple and ingenious. Jim’s framework for fundraising–ask, thank, report–is simple and ingenious.
I like this but it’s seriously missing one very important word: ENGAGE
Engagement involves the donor on an emotional level. Reporting isn’t really engaging. It could be, but true engagement is more sophisticated than that. And, most important, engagement is the key to serious bucks!
Valuable engagement opportunities for donors include offers for volunteering, participating at events, taking a tour, watching a video, allowing the donor a chance to tell their story explaining why they care, letting them give feedback via a donor survey, a chance meet face-to-face, view a webinar or read an eBook…. the list of offers is really endless.
Sadly, most fundraising is absent meaningful engagement offers because providing them is time-consuming. But, nowadays technology can help you give your donors fantastic one-to-many engagements.
Sorry… but this plan just feels too transactional. Engagement will bring the donating process up a notch or two— into a more robust, win-win relationship.
Also, you should offer valuable engagement opportunities FIRST. Give the donor something valuable and meaningful to them before you ask. The Rule of Reciprocity works! And nothing beats a powerful engagement experience.
So it should look like this:
Engage > Ask > Thank > Report > Engage > Ask > Thank > Report
Oh… and here’s a blog post to add more depth to my comment. The pads are free too!
http://imarketsmart.com/smartideas/2014/02/3-1-major-gift-fundraising/
Thanks, Greg, for this additional info – it makes great sense!