Asking kindred spirits for money - Part 1
Think about how many nonprofit leaders dislike asking for money. Even hate it. And yet they do ask, they do raise money.
But it makes me sad that...
They have to do something they hate for the sake of something they love.
And it makes me sad to see...
How lonely they are when it comes to fundraising.
If you ask nonprofit Board members what they like least about serving on a Board, the great majority tell you it's the pressure to raise money. I'd even been willing to bet that over 90% of Board members dislike asking for money.
The consequence is...
Because they don't like it, they mostly don't do it.
Which means the burden falls on the ED alone. Or on her and her development staff if she's lucky enough to have any.
When my friend Kate and I started our nonprofit, I knew nothing about asking for money. So I read books, went to trainings, and studied hard. It got so I really knew my stuff. I could have taught a workshop on fundraising and made it look good.
But still, when I was face to face with a donor, the ask would stick in my throat.
I spent a long time looking for the perfect script, the magic technique, the trickiest gimmick, anything that might help me master fundraising.
The nonprofit Kate and I were running was CAP, a program teaching children how to get away from kidnappers and molesters, and what to do if they were being abused at home. There were kids who literally saved their lives because of what they learned in our program.
So what we were doing was very, very serious. And there were many more kids who needed CAP, which meant we needed more money. I kept working on my ask technique. And I kept failing.
CAP mattered to me more than anything and it was so painful not to be able to raise the kind of money I wanted to raise. Not to be a good provider.
What I needed was not more how-tos. I was drowning in how-tos. I needed a different relationship with asking...
In order to do development work, I had to do self- development work.
The key
What I found when I was chasing how-to's is that I ended up going shallower. But what finally worked for me was when I went deeper.
To echo the theme of this website, the point of this page is to help people be able to...
Ask from the deepest place in their hearts.
And to bring all their natural talents and core strengths to their asks so they can make this an enlivening experience instead of a deadening one.
Warm up
When I do a workshop on asking, I start by helping people find what I call their natural asking voice.
I want to help them see how much they actually already know about asking. I want to help them demystify it. I want them to feel smart instead of stupid, right from the start.
I find that when people break free from the pressure to do the perfect ask, or to do the ask in the voice of the expert instead of in their own voice, they surprise themselves with how smart they are.
If you want to try this yourself right now, here's how it works...
Tell us that story.
And now tell us...
And then reverse it...
How did your need to receive match up with his need to give?
Disclaimer
I know that what I'm offering is not for everyone. What I'm writing up on this page is what I like. This is what works for me.
Personally, I don't do well with pressure. I don't like when it's used on me and I don't like using it on other people. But pressure is a core part of our culture. It's part of our conventional marketing and sales. Business seems to depend on it. And in our nonprofit world, pressure is often, not always, but often part of soliciting donations.
The pressure I was taught to use in asking was not heavy-handed. It was light and polite. And it was well-intentioned. But none of that means it was not pressure.
I want to be clear that I'm not saying that pressured asking is not effective. Quite the contrary. Because it's cultural, an awful lot of people are comfortable with it. There are many, many donors who are used to it and expect it, so a tremendous amount of money is raised with pressure strategies.
I also want to be clear that I'm not a professional fundraiser. If that's what you're looking for, there are lots of great ones, and I've included some links near the end of Part 2 of this page for you to explore if you want. What I focus on is the underlying psychology of asking.
Okay, that's it for my disclaimer. From now on what you're going to get is a guy who's an unabashed advocate for negotiated asking.
Perspectives
Things to know so you can get more out of this page...
1. I'm writing for people who hate asking for money.
If we hate asking, that means we struggle with it. Agonize. Lose sleep over it.If we hate it, we avoid it, don't do enough of it, and get into slumps where we don't do it at all.
If we hate it, donors can sense this when we're talking to them, which lowers our success rate.
If we hate it, we end up feeling bad about ourselves.
2. I'm hard on what I call "sacrificial" asking because it's hard on us.
What kind of relationship can we build with a donor if we hate asking and she hates being asked?3. I hope to help you develop an inner circle of donors who are kindred spirits.
That's the sole focus of this page, not direct mail, internet fundraising, canvassing, special events, or anything else.4. What I love best is deep asking.
Not everyone wants fundraising to get personal. Not even every kindred spirit. But what would it give you to have a core group of donors who thrive on deep connection?5. The deepest asks are negotiated asks.
I'm basing this page on the negotiation system I learned from Jim Camp, and then I'm adding in what I've learned from three other remarkable teachers: Ricky Sherover-Marcuse, Marshall Rosenberg, and Laura Whitworth. You can find out more about them in the acknowledgment section at the end of Part 2 of this page.6. I use a lot of names for the same thing.
What I like I call: negotiated, relational, no-pressure, or leadership asks.What doesn't work for me I call: pressured, sacrificial, co-dependent, finessed, or guilt-tripped asks.
7. Social change fundraising is inherently challenging.
Whenever a fundraising teacher gets too happy about asking for money and starts running on about how easy it is if you just listen to him and use his strategies, it sets my teeth on edge. I want to believe him, but I don't.Look at the context in which we do our asking. Why do we have social change nonprofits in the first place? Because our society is organized in such a way that it mass produces suffering.
When we ask for money, we're asking into a society that is not eager for deep change. It's not eager to change how power works. So we meet with persistent and pervasive resistance.
Social change activists are a minority and so are social change donors. There's not an abundance of money for us to scoop up if only we would use the right tools. There are easy trillions for war, but not for what we do.
If we start believing that fundraising should be easy for us, we're setting ourselves up for putting ourselves down.
I believe social change asking, like social change work itself, is deeply challenging. But that doesn't mean it can't be deeply satisfying and pleasurable.
8. Asking kindred spirits for money is relationship work.
Not relationship talk, not relationship tricks, but down-to-earth, sweat-equity relationship work.I've been to seminars which taught me how to pitch an ask using relationship buzz words, but that's just putting makeup on a dirty face. It doesn't matter how pretty the words are if the same old pressure tactics are still powering the ask.
Notice I'm not saying that every ask is relationship work. There's such a range of reasons why people give to nonprofits, for example there are...
Donors who give for the sake of status and prestige.
Donors who want to give shine to their business.
Donors who are co-dependent and want to save people instead of empowering them.
Donors who give out of a sense of momentary charity, like at the time of a disaster, but don't support long-term social change.
Donors who like being wooed and won and wooed some more.
Some of these folks prefer to keep the conversation on the surface as long as they're getting what they came for.
But then there are those kindred spirits, people who get your mission and get it in their bones, who simply want to be part of the mission. That's enough for them. That's what satisfies them.
When we ask kindred spirits for money, I believe it's a special kind of ask. It's not based on a script or a technique. It's based on who you are and who your donor is. It's based on the person-to-person relationship. It's based on finding...
Contribution chemistry.
I think one of the reasons many of us have trouble with sacrificial asking is that it's too small for us. It diminishes us. The better we do at it, the less we're ourselves.
Yes, relational asking is challenging. So what? We're social change people. We thrive on challenge.
In fact, I think we need this bigger challenge.
Deep asking grows us and makes us more of who we are. And if we want to be at home with asking, maybe it'll come from taking on this challenge.
Which, of course, like a lot of relationship work, can be scary and exhilarating at the same time.
9. Sometimes asking is not relationship work, it's just plain fun.
I'm making an exception to what I just said. I know some people who have so much fun asking for money that it's simply fun to say yes to them. Their spirit is delightfully infectious. So they don't need any special techniques or preparation they can just go out and ask and enjoy themselves.These are great people to recruit for your fundraising team. And if you are one of them, if you have a "fundraising voice" or approach that consistently works for you, then please don't mess with success.
One more thing in terms of orientation, I sometimes use the word "prospect" which is shorthand for a person who might want to give a donation. I've heard marketers use that word in a cold and rather mercenary way.
But for me it has a feeling of warmth and anticipation, the sense that here's someone who might become very important to me. That's the relational way to use the word.
Now let's jump into the shallow end of the pool. Later we'll get to the deep stuff.
Pressure
When I first started asking for money, here's what I was thinking, though I never put words to it:
I have to get money from you.
Children's lives were at stake, my work was that urgent, so it made sense that I would feel pressure.
But there was more to this story:
I have to get money from you, so I have to make you give.
I took the pressure I was feeling and put it on my prospect, too.
I was starting from a negative assumption:
I believe you don't really want to give...
And so...
If I'm going to get money out of you, I'm going to have to pressure you or push you or manipulate you or trick you or finesse you.
You're certainly not going to give just because you want to.
You can see how this perspective would put distance between me and the person I was asking instead of bringing us closer together.
What if I said this to you:
Hi, I'm from CAP and through our programs we're saving kids lives. If you don't give, kids will die. So how about it?
Or this:
Hi, I'm from CAP and through our programs we're saving kids lives. Really good people give to CAP. How about you?
Now I always had a lot more suave than to make such a bald pitch. These are both caricatures of pitches. But I remember doing asks with this kind of pressure as the silent subtext.
It was like putting the ask between two slices of guilt, making an unhappy sandwich:
—THE ASK—
If I get, I'm good, if I don't, I'm bad.
And do you know the hammer method? It's like being a lawyer in the courtroom making a case, presenting reason after reason after reason. And if you see a look of doubt in your prospect's eyes, you hit them with more reasons until you've hammered them into submission and they yell uncle by writing you a check.
For a nonprofit that's dedicated to bringing more compassion and kindness into the world, this is a sad way to raise money.
Here's what I call "The Next Week Test." Today you ask Jill for money and she says yes. Next week you're at an event and see her across the room. Does she turn her back? Does she talk to everyone else but you?
Or does she come over, give you a hug, and say, "I really enjoyed talking with you about your work. I'm so glad to be part of it now. Thank you!"
Ask or demand?
If you don't have the genuine freedom to say no to a request, it's a demand.
If I try to take away your right to say no, if I do everything I can to make it impossible for you to say no, then I'm trying to force you to give me money.
Sometimes the demand is implied by a single word of judgment or a phrase. I was reading a book last week that advocated against pressure in an ask, but then the sample ask went like this: "Please take a moment to decide if you'd like to make this excellent investment in the future."
The asker has just taken a position. And what would it make us if we said no to an excellent investment? Dummies? Worse? People who don't care about the future?
Once I saw the pressure ask as a demand, I had to stop.
I don't want to demand money from anyone I know and care about. I don't even want to demand it from people I don't know.
Why do so many people think of asking for money as "a necessary evil"? Maybe because there's something about the way we're doing it that does in fact feel fundamentally wrong.
And pressure asking doesn't always even work that well, like when you get a bail-out check. That means your prospect gives you a small check to make you go away. And for your part, you're glad to bail out, too. You take a $25 check from someone who could give you $100 or even $1,000 because you just want the ask to be over.
How do we get caught up in demand asking? There are lots of reasons. Here are two:
1. If we're doing sacrificial leadership, then we're sacrificing ourselves for our work. And that's the lens we'll likely use when we look at fundraising. We'll believe that the gifts people give to support our work are sacrificial gifts. We'll forget that people can give out of a sense of joy and connection.
2. We're like fish swimming in a sea of marketing. Ads are everywhere. We see hundreds of them each day. Marketing is fundamental to our culture.
And it's not invitational, it's imperative.
We're not invited to buy if we happen to need a product. We're told that we need it, and we're told to buy it and buy it now and buy lots of it.
Marketers do not give us choices, they give us commands.
Whenever nonprofit fundraising gets contaminated with that spirit, whether it's explicit or implicit, we've got trouble.
Rebelling
Let's say you've been trained to do the pressure ask. And then you read a standard textbook on fundraising. In the section on "Who to ask" it tells you to go to your friends, relatives, co-workers, anyone and everyone you're personally connected with.
What happens? You work your way through your whole social circle one by one. You pressure them. You diminish your connection with every person you care about. You make them want to pull back, maybe not see you for a while.
You're sacrificing your relationships for the cause. That's why I consider the pressure ask to be part of the sacrificial operating system.
And really, how much money would you have to get from a dear friend to make it worth hurting your relationship with her?
Sometimes I'll meet with a Board of Directors that keeps talking about fundraising but never does it. I tell them, "If the only thing you know is the pressure ask and you hate it and that's why you don't do fundraising, congratulations!"
Of course, this surprises them, because they assume I'm there to put more pressure on them to put more pressure on their donors. But I think it's a good sign when people rebel against hurting their relationships no matter how worthy the cause.
And it's this rebellion that can lead us forward. I believe there's a part of us that knows asking for money does not have to be a "necessary evil." It doesn't have to be any kind of evil at all.
Spontaneous ignition
Over a period of a few weeks in 1980 in the neighborhood in San Francisco where I lived, nine girls, ages 10-14, were assaulted. Four of them got away from the attacker, five of them were sexually abused. Meanwhile the police were not alerting the public and the schools were not warning kids or parents.
So I called Sally Cooper at the Child Assault Prevention Project (CAP), which had been created by Women Against Rape in Columbus, Ohio. In a few sentences, I told her about our situation.
Then in her fast-paced, passionate way, she told me how CAP worked. She told me stories of kids getting away from kidnappers and molesters, and stories of kids getting help to stop abuse at home.
The call was only 30-minutes, but that one conversation changed my life. By the time Sally and I were done talking, I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do more than teach kids how to defend themselves. For the next 13 years I devoted myself to CAP.
I gave money to CAP, a lot for a guy without much money. But even more importantly, I gave my smarts, my moxie, my creativity, and my passion.
And Sally didn't even ask for anything. The connection between me and CAP ignited on its own because CAP was a genuine match for me.
It was just this simple...
CAP met my need to make the kind of difference that I wanted to make.
Nobody had to beg me or push me. I wanted to sign up.
In a moment I'm going to come back to this need to make a difference, because I believe it's the best ally you can have in doing an ask. But first I want to say something about me being...
Weird
Three years after Kate and I, with lots of support from Sally, started our own CAP project in the East Bay, and helped start another 35 projects around the state, Maxine Waters, who was then in the California State Assembly, called us and said she wanted to do legislation on preventing child abuse.
We wrote legislation with her proposing $10 million annually. Then we went into high gear, lobbying to get our bill passed. I loved it.
We negotiated with Assembly Members and State Senators, people who at the time I found plenty intimidating. I felt completely out of my league. Despite that, I couldn't get enough of it.
But after a day in Sacramento I'd come back home and maybe go to a meeting at the Chamber of Commerce where I'd talk to business executives about donating to CAP and I'd stumble badly over my words making a total hash of things. It was agonizing.
Or one morning we'd be sitting in the Governor's office talking with his legislative staff about CAP, our hearts in our throats, getting grilled, but so happy to be there, so happy to be asking for $10 million.
Then back home later that same week, we'd do our membership drive and when I went to ask my friends for $25 I'd be tongue-tied.
Weird. Asking for $10 million from scary people was easy. Asking for $25 from friends was next to impossible.
One morning when we were in the state capitol building, a professional lobbyist said, "You guys are doing your lobbying really differently than how a lot of groups do it." We were shocked: "What are we doing wrong!? Tell us!"
She said, "Don't change a thing. This is good what you're doing. It's working."
It wasn't until long after the bill passed that I figured it out. We weren't just asking legislators for their votes. We wanted them to join the CAP family. We wanted converts. So we worked extra hard to build relationships. And it paid off. We got 100% of the Senate to vote with us and 76 of 80 Assembly Members.
In my strange mind, however, even though the point of the legislation was to raise the money we needed to reach every child in the state...
It wasn't fundraising, it was organizing. And I love organizing.
Asking CEOs, asking friends, that was fundraising and it made me go stupid. But organizing was the best kind of fun. When I was organizing I was awfully confident, articulate, and bold for such a shy person.
Here's another angle on the same thing. During the day, Kate and I would work on our CAP project, then evenings and weekends we'd jump in the car and drive out to other counties recruiting people to start their own projects. We weren't asking these women for a donation, we were asking them for their lives. And so many of them threw themselves heart and soul into the work.
When I asked them to join us, I was passing Sally's gift to me on to them, that's all. It wasn't something I had to strategize or write a script for...
I loved doing it so I did it.
So I encourage you to study your own life...
When have you asked for something that mattered to you and asking was straightforward and uncomplicated?
When have you enjoyed asking?
Then think about how you can import that that mood, that ease, that part of yourself, into the world of fundraising.
I'm sure you know the line: "Put the fun back into fundraising!"
Sometimes it's a bunch of crap. I remember in the days when I was struggling, how I'd tell myself, "Wow, this is fun. Really. I mean it. Oh, boy. Lots of fun. This is such big fun. I can't imagine having bigger fun than this."
Right.
But now I do know what it's like for asking to be fun. And more than fun. I know what it's like for asking to deepen my relationships and create new relationships. I know what it's like for asking to be life changing—on both sides of the ask.
And I'm betting that's true for you, too. Or if not yet, that it can become true for you.
What we really want vs. what we're supposed to want
When we do an ask what do we want?
"We want a yes!"
That's the answer I hear pretty much every time I bring up that question in a workshop. It's the answer I would have given, too, until I got into training with Jim Camp. Now I have a different answer...
I don't care if I get a yes or a no.
What I want is...
A real decision.
The most important question I ever have for a prospect is...
What's true for you?
This may sound noble, but forget noble. Think instead about the freedom this gives you.
Personally, I don't want to be dependent on someone else's response. I don't want to judge myself as a success or failure depending on whether someone says the magic word or not.
I can't control someone else's behavior. I don't even want to. So why should I judge myself based on whether I'm able to "make someone give"?
Now let me ask you this. Are there times when you might not want a yes?
What if you ask Eleanor for money and she's terrible at saying no, almost never does it, wishes she could, but she's not there yet? So she says yes and writes you a check, but she doesn't feel good about it. It's just one more instance where she's failed to stand up for herself.
Do you want that yes?
I call that an unhappy yes.
The flip side is what I call happy noes. There are times when I'm glad to get a no.
Suppose I ask Eleanor and this time she says what's true for her and tells me no. I'd want to celebrate. Take her out to dinner. Dancing. Something.
Or what if you run a children's program and you ask Henry for a donation, but he tells you, "Sorry, I give 20% of my income to nonprofits, but they're all hospice programs working with low-income seniors." What's not to like about that no?
Or what if Stella told you, "I lost my medical insurance and I have to have an operation, so I'm going to tell you no."
I'm sure you can think of a dozen more examples easily.
Oh, and one more thing about no. You get to say no to the donor. Why would you ever want to do that? I put that question to a workshop once and got 20 answers in three minutes.
One nonprofit turned down $500,000. Half a million dollars! How hard was that?
In a sense it was a snap. This was an education program working with teens. The donor wanted to demand a check of birth certificates for all the kids they served. He didn't want any money going to undocumented teens.
That was a violation of the nonprofit's mission, so they said no. What did it give them to stand by their mission? It gave them shine. Their regular donors were so proud to be part of a nonprofit that means what it says.
Here's another situation. What if a prospective donor called and said, I will create for you a $90,000 website and not only that, I'll handle everything. I'll design it, write all the copy, update it, and manage it. You won't have to do a thing, just turn it over to me, and that's the only basis on which I'll make this donation. I really want to make a difference."
Whoops. Can you turn over control of your core communications to someone just because they offer money? Or would you have to say no?
Your prospect gets to say no and so do you. Which means you're in a genuine negotiation. It means you're doing a negotiated ask.
Let's look at this for a moment from the prospect's perspective.
When someone calls me for money and they're doing the pressure ask, I don't like it. But I don't have to wait it out.
The minute I know a conversation is headed into an ask, I jump in...
"Are you going to ask me for money?"
Let's stop right here. That may sound impolite, but the reaction I've almost always gotten is relief. This is not true for the pit-bull telemarketers of course. But I'm talking about friends, acquaintances, relatives, or even strangers who are calling as volunteers for a nonprofit.
Relief is what I hear. And that's a sign that they're not enjoying asking. Which is a shame.
By interrupting the ask dance, we can now have a real conversation.
And speaking of dancing, do you know the term "back leading"? That's when, in partner dancing, the guy is not a good leader so the woman, from the follower position, takes over and leads the steps, sometimes obviously and sometimes the guy doesn't even know.
What I do when I'm asked for money in the pressurized way, is to back lead. I take the pressure out of the conversation both for myself and for the asker. It sounds like this:
"Are you going to ask me for money? Let me give you a little help here. I'm a very experienced donor and I have no trouble making my decisions on my own.
"I give a few organizations bigger donations rather than giving small donations to lots of organizations. And I'm already set with who I give to.
"So it's almost impossible to get me to give to a new organization."
From here things can go two different ways. If I'm busy or not interested in the organization, I'll say...
"I'm not a good prospect for you and you'll do better taking this time to call someone who might be."
If they don't pick up on that for whatever reason, because they're nervous or there's a lot of pressure on them to bring in money, I'll be even clearer...
"I'm going to tell you no right now. I'm quite sure I'm not going to make a donation."
I consider this to be a kindness.
The asker doesn't have to go through their spiel for nothing. They can in fact make better use of their time. If I know I'm going to say no, then I don't want them to do their presentation and feel like they blew it when they never had a chance in the first place. I want to tell them there's no chance right up front.
If, however, I'm interested in hearing something about the organization, I might want to talk for a bit, but still with the understanding that I'm not a good prospect for a donation.
And sometimes they do get something from me.
Ginny, a coaching colleague, called and told me she had just joined the Board of an organization I know and I love the people there. She started asking for money, so I told her she was going to get a no from me.
Then I said, "But hooray for you! What a great Board member you are that you're actually doing fundraising."
And I was sincerely interested in hearing why she got on the Board. By the time we were done, I offered to come do an evening with the Board on fundraising or whatever they wanted to focus on.
They said yes, I showed up, and we had a great time together doing something very productive. If I measure that donation in terms of what I would have been paid for my professional time, Ginny got way more from me than if I had written a membership check.
For me, it was a gift I enjoyed giving, because it met my need to contribute.
And having met the Board, I now go around raving more than ever about the organization. I'm spreading the word.
Next time someone asks you for a donation, you might want to try back leading. I find it deepens my understanding of relational asking, and my appreciation for it.
So now you can see why I urge you to...
Detach from the yes and let yourself be passionate about getting a real decision.
But what does that mean, a real decision? What's it based on?
Asking into need instead of asking into sacrifice
I love how Marshall Rosenberg talks about needs.
He says needs are beautiful. They connect us to each other. They are the motivation for many of the best things we do in our lives.
He emphasizes the need to contribute to the welfare of others. Yes, the dark side of human nature is real and it's deadly, but of course that's not all there is to us.
If I ask into sacrifice, if I pressure you to give, then what I'm saying is...
"I don't believe in you."
"I don't believe you have a need to care about others."
What a terrible foundation for a relationship with a donor.
What's the cure?
Ask into the need to contribute.
If we speak to the part of the person which needs to make a difference in the world, which needs to make it a more compassionate place, really needs to do that, then we have a very different ask.
We can speak to that need even if we can't see it or hear it at first. We can take it on faith that it's there. By speaking to it, we invite it forward. And if it never shows up in the conversation, we haven't lost anything by assuming the best.
The focus of this page is asking into the need to contribute. But there are two other closely related needs that matter which I recommend speaking to.
1. We have a need to be seen for who we are.
This is different than bragging or being so needy for praise that we demand it. It's different than the drive for fame.
This is a simple, core, lovely need. Let me give you an example:
Years ago I was helping a small nonprofit theater company with fundraising. The first time I saw them on stage, I was quite taken with them. Once I got to know the nine women who were the charter group and saw what good hearts they had, I was just there. I didn't have to make a complicated decision about supporting them.
I remember the night they first put my name in their program under the thank yous. My initial reaction was, "Wow, I like that." Immediately my inner critic jumped on me, "No. Stop it. You're not supposed to like that. That's ego stuff."
But then I realized that it wasn't ego. At least not most of it. I imagined a friend of mine coming to a performance, seeing my name in the program, and thinking, "Oh, this is something Rich cares about."
They would be able to see what I value and who I value. They'd see a side of me that's different from the child abuse prevention guy. They'd see my love for good writing and storytelling.
What I realized that night is that giving to a nonprofit I love is a way of expressing who I am. It's a way of being seen. And that's a legitimate need, a genuine need, a beautiful need.
So now I want people to be seen for who they are when they give. I like breaking the tyranny of the ego interpretation.
Sure if someone is just looking for status through their donation, we could call that ego. But heartfelt giving is different. I want people to be seen for what's in their hearts.
And being seen is one way we can lead. When we give, we're encouraging others to do the same. I don't want people to be modest about their gifts. I want them to be passionate and vocal and visible about why they love the nonprofits they support.
2. We have a need to grow.
It might seem strange at first to connect contributing with growing, but here's what I mean. When I gave myself to CAP, I grew. Did I ever! A lot of it wasn't easy. But I developed talents and strengths I didn't even know I had. I learned so many things about myself. Some of them made me happy. And then there were things that I didn't like, but once I could see them I could set about changing them.
Before I talked with Sally, I had no idea that my need to prevent child abuse, to contribute to the world in that way, was so central to who I am.
It was in my conversation with her that I connected with this need to grow into the next phase of my life.
This is another reason to have a person-to-person conversation rather than a script-to-person conversation...
In real conversations, people make real discoveries.
I believe it's okay, and more than okay, for an ask to have challenge in it.
I know an organization that's at the cutting edge of their field. They get lots of criticism. Attacks even. They've been vilified by right-wing talk shows. When you give to them, you're taking a serious stand. As they take on new challenges, their donors take on those challenges with them. They're all growing together. In both senses of that phrase.
There are people, especially those who believe in social change, who very much want to be part of exactly this kind of journey. Let's invite them to step into the challenge. Let's give them a chance, as donors, to change their lives.
Let's give them a chance to...
Give from what's deepest in their hearts.
When we do that we no longer have a passive donor who we have to pressure and "close." The reverse is true. We take the pressure off and they open. We have an active decision maker. A partner in the ask.
We put our focus on their needs first, not the organization's needs. Maybe that seems backwards. And it is backwards if you're under pressure to get a yes.
But it's exactly right if you look at what the key to the ask is...
The prospect's decision making process.
Yes, you can find people caught in co-dependency who will accept the pressure ask without protest. In fact, they might want you to tell them what to do.
But if we're doing social change work, don't we want donors who make their own decisions?
Don't we want donors who are taking a stand, not donors who are caving in?
Here's another shift for us...
With sacrificial asking, our donors are our adversaries.
Because we see them as not wanting to give.
With relational giving, we are advocates for our donors.
What is it to be an advocate? We want our prospect to make the decision that is right for her. Period.
But we have to mean it. This has to be more than a good intention. We have to live here. It matters that they feel our advocacy for them. That it's so present they don't even have to think about it.
Yes, we need money, so when we pick people to go talk with, we'll pick the people most likely to be kindred spirits. That's a smart and strategic thing to do.
But when we are there one-to-one with a prospect, what matters is that they make the decision they need to make. The fate of our organization is not riding on this one person. At least it better not be. Desperation is not good for relationships.
Interference
Let's say I've gotten myself completely into the relational mindset, I've got the advocacy spirit, I feel no pressure to get a yes, I'm happily anticipating a straightforward, personal conversation. Then I walk in the door and get hit by a wall of resistance.
Getting ourselves out of the pressure mindset, that's only step one. Step two is making sure our prospect meets us there.
When someone realizes you're going to ask them for money what's their first reaction? Are they overjoyed? Or do they start playing defense?
Before we ask into the prospect's need to contribute, we may have to clear out...
Cultural interference—Our culture has a particular attitude about asking for money. Pressure is the default. It's what people expect. And their expectations get triggered the minute they know an ask is starting up.
Personal interference—Many people have had bad experiences with being asked for money. Rarely do they feel seen and heard in an ask, so it's not a pleasant experience. And it's easy for unhappy memories to get triggered at the beginning of an ask.
So when we step into an ask, a lot might get stirred up. And we can't count on our prospect to see that our ask is different if we don't tell them it's different. We're going to have to untrigger them before doing anything else.
My first focus is to make sure my prospect is in my ballpark. I want to know that she has crossed over from the pressure ballpark to the relational ballpark. When I know that has happened, then and only then will I do the ask.
The power of presence
If I were reading this page back in my early nonprofit days, by now I'd be saying, "Enough background already. Tell me the words to say. Show me the practice."
Fair enough.
Except it's not about the words. And the background is actually the main point, because...
Presence trumps technique.
And the best practice emerges from presence.
Imagine this combination:
You're asking into your prospect's need to contribute.
And your prospect is really good at saying what's true for her.
What else do you need? I can't see any problem here.
You're at home with deep asking.
Your prospect is at home with making her own decisions.
If these two elements are present then asking is easy. Okay, scratch "easy." I don't want asking to be easy. I want it to be alive—with challenge and possibility.
Even in an optimal situation, though, I'd still want to give my prospect explicit permission to say no. I'd want that to be spoken and present between us, to relax us. It can be just a quick check-in:
Gena: Hi, Jack!
Jack: Hey, how're you doing?
Gena: I want to ask you about being a donor for my nonprofit. Now one thing I know about you is that you're good at setting boundaries and saying no when you mean no.
Jack: Yep. No problem there. Never has been.
Gena: Well, if you're willing to have this conversation with me, can I count on you to simply tell me what's true for you? If this is not a match for you, will you tell me that?
Jack: Sure will
Gena. And if it is a match, I'd love to have you say yes, because I'd love to have you be one of our key donors, and I'd be glad to tell you why we want you.
Jack: You're on. Go for it...
One time I forgot to give the permission upfront. At the end of the conversation, Tricia said to me,
"You know what was great about this? The whole time we were talking, I felt like it would be completely okay to tell you no if I wanted to."
That's when I understood the power of presence in an ask.
Notice the difference between these asks:
1. A friend called me. I could tell by the breath he took before he said "Hi" that this was going to be an ask. Have you ever had that happen? You can feel the tension even before the first word is spoken. That's a kind of presence, but not the kind we want in an ask. I immediately put up my guard.
And this is a guy who's usually lots of fun, sometimes a jokester. I wanted to ask him, "Who are you and what have you done with my friend?" Which actually, now that I think about it, might have been a kind thing to do. I could have tossed in a bit of humor to break the spell and reconnect us. He was actually someone I could have said that to.
2. A colleague called me and said, "Hi, Rich! How's it going..." We rambled around for 15 minutes before I realized she was sneaking up on an ask. And then I just felt sad. She's a gutsy, charismatic woman. I hated seeing her thrown off balance like that.
3. A cousin, eight years old, calls me up and says, "Hi Rich, this is Emma! Do you want to make a donation to my soccer team?"
She goes on to tell me how everybody on her team likes each other and how the coach says that's why they have a chance at the playoffs this year.
But she's already got me. She knows nothing about fundraising. She's just herself so her ask is full of sunshine and it's fun, not an obligation, to write her a check.
If asking robs us of our sunshine, then isn't there something wrong with the way we're doing it?
I remember I used to do what I call, "bringing the fear to the party."
I'd come to an ask...
hating fundraising,
feeling like a failure,
scared I was going to blow it yet again, and
not wanting to be embarrassed.
I was so twisted up I was a sad pretzel of myself.
I'm sure my prospect could feel it. I'd give her my best attempt at sunshine, but she could easily tell I was faking it. Instead of putting her into a state of relaxation, I put her into a state of alarm.
Even under the best circumstances, people are quick to put their guard up against an ask. But my prospects put up a double guard because I was so uncomfortable and they didn't know what to do with me.
There's no technique in the world that will make up for this kind of distress.
What would it take for you to be present in an ask? What do you need so you can show up 100%? The best part of you. The part of you people find compelling.
Part 2 of this page.
And give you sample asks.
So you can...
and how prospects might surprise you by giving you more than you expected.
© 2008 Rich Snowdon
