Share the joy – ASK
“I can’t ask people for money. I HATE begging! Don’t you? How can you stand it?”
If you’re in Development, you’ve heard these words – from board members, administrators, staff and volunteers. But in Development, we just see asking differently. For us, we invite people, who share our interests, to join us in making a difference. Doing good feels good.
Well, it turns out science agrees. Giving actually does make us happy. It all started long ago. Dacher Keltner, co-director of UC Berkley’s Greater Good Science Center, points out that because our young are fragile, the human race wouldn’t have lasted if we hadn’t developed altruism. He says, “Human Beings have survived as a species because we evolved the capacity to care for those in need and to cooperate.”
Helping others is who we are. It’s part of our biology. It’s part of our chemistry. Literally. Jorge Moll of the National Institute of Health shared the biology of happiness. He and his colleagues found that giving to charities activates the regions of the brain associated with pleasure, social connection and trust. (Which may help us understand why trust is so important in our relationships with donors.)
Eva Ritva, MD, a psychiatrist, explains the chemistry. She says that giving releases Happiness Trifecta of brain chemicals. Kindness triggers the release of oxytocin, serotonin and dopamine. You get the same high as running several miles – without even having to breathe hard. Not only is your mood boosted, but these chemicals counteract the effects of cortisol, the stress hormone.
Michael Norton and his colleagues at Harvard Business School found giving to others increased happiness even more than spending on ourselves. Happiness, better health, who wouldn’t want to share that, but wait. There’s more.
Giving may even lengthen your life span. Steve Cole of UCLA and Barbara Fredrickson of UNC-CH found a life of meaning and purpose (or eudaimonic happiness) lowers the inflammatory response, because it is so pleasurable. It also strengthens our connections to others and that strengthens our immune system.
So just think, when you give a person, who cares about your mission, an opportunity to help, an opportunity to be part of doing good, you are sharing happiness. You are sharing purpose and social connection. You are sharing better health and longer life.
So do your friends, your donors a favor. Give them the opportunity to give.
Six Building Blocks for Growing Support
- Board members are absolutely key. Many grants will ask for a list of your board members. A number of grantors will ask about what percentage of the board financially supports your mission. They want the answer to be 100%. I always tell my board members, “If we don’t care enough about what we are doing to support it financially, why should anyone else?” It is important that they like and respect you. It is equally important that they all give at leadership levels – whatever that means for each person. (We have materials to help board members learn about their proper role in governance and giving.) Board members will ideally be people of influence. They should be respected by your community. They should be people that others turn to say, “What do you think?”
- Recruit at least three – five additional people to serve on a Development Committee. They will be in training to see if they are a good fit for future board members. They will serve as your right hands in hosting small events that introduce people to your organization and writing thank you notes. (Yes, it takes time to recruit and train them, but it will save you time in the long run.)
- Use social media. Assemble a team of On-line Ambassadors – folks who agree to like, comment, and share your social media outreach and who will link back to your website from their social media. It seems so simple but it moves you up in SEO and keeps you in the news feeds longer so you can reach more people. You can ask them to watch for posts from others where they can draw attention to your organization in the comments – like, “I know an organization that helps with this. Check out their website.”
- Now, you have a core group that will help you share your stories. You want ways to share the stories of lives changed. You need stories, and you need people to share the stories with. You need contact information, so you are able to share the stories. You will need names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mails and if possible the relationship to someone connected to the organization.)
- A sampling of ways to engage prospects:
a. Invite businesses that are interested in your mission or benefit from it to come for a tour or observe your organization in action Be sure to collect contact information from the attendees. Send emails or notes thanking them for coming. Add them to your newsletter and appeal lists.
b. Have Board members and Development Committee members host small coffees, where they invite 4-8 people they think may be interested in your mission. In addition to light refreshments, have a brief PowerPoint or video or talk outlining what is special about your program – include brief stories of lives changed. If you have collateral marketing material, hand it out. Be sure to collect contact information. Have committee members follow up with a phone call, asking attendees for feedback and if they would like to get involved in any way – such as volunteering or donating, and do they know anyone else, who might be interested.
You’ve collected contact information for prospective donors, now what?
a. Consider sending a newsletter two times per year. Share stories of lives changed with a focus on the role of donor support. Tell about a program expanded and the difference that made for a life. Include a donor profile in each newsletter. Telling the story of the donor and their words for why they give. Keep it personal. Lives saved. Understanding gained. Community improved.
b. Mail out an appeal with a response card and envelope to everyone in your data base in the spring and in the fall. Focus the appeal on the difference donors make in lives. You can do electronic appeals at the same time. Keep in mind that in-person asks get 64 times more gifts than either written or electronic asks. So make personal asks of potential larger donors.c.Enlist a well-respected board member to help you solicit the rest of the board.
c. Have your board members and development committee members divide up the names of donors and see that each donor is thanked in writing as quickly as possible – within 48 hours if possible. Call each donor who gives more than $250 the day the gift is received.
d. Once a year, have the Development Committee host a thank you gathering for all donors. Display pictures related to your mission. Have light refreshments. Consider having 3 very brief testimonials from people who understand the power of your work.
e. Have a Thank-a-thon where Board and Development Committee members use a script to call donors and thank them. Usually, they will leave a message.
f. Thank yous from people who benefitted or closely observed the benefit are particularly powerful.
Money may not be the root of all evil
As Development Officers, we think a lot about money. There are goals to be met, programs to fund, salaries to pay. Even when everyone: staff, board, dedicated donors and volunteers help, that goal feels very personal. The stress can feel enormous and too often Development staff leaves. Fourteen months is the average stay for a Director of Development. Fourteen months and carefully built relationships must be rebuilt.
But what if we reframe Development’s job. Yes. We’re raising money, but that is the outcome of building a team of compassionate people with a shared concern for others’ well-being. That concern may be for starving kittens or hungry kids or homeless families or a dying species, but it is built on caring for someone or something other than self.
What if we are enormously grateful for our compassionate team and for the good we’re making possible – together, and what if we share our gratitude with the team: staff, board, donors, advocates and volunteers.
What if we rejoiced in the opportunity to be kind and generous, and in our ability to share the opportunity?
We might just meet our goal – together.
We might feel satisfaction rather than stress.
How do I know? Because, according to psychologist, Sonja Lyubomvisky there are:
Three factors that seem to have the greatest influence on increasing happiness:
- Our ability to reframe our situation more positively.
- Our ability to experience gratitude.
- Our choice to be kind and generous.
Or as the Dalai Lama says, “A compassionate concern for others’ well-being is the source of happiness.” And isn’t that what Development is all about really – not dollars, but a compassionate concern for others.
So what if we did these three things and met out goals, helped others, and found happiness!
The Power of Feeling Heard
As a Director of Development, I quickly learned that I wasn’t asking people for money. I was giving good folks a chance to be part of something that mattered to them. It changed the conversation.
When I met with new prospects, we would have a friendly chat. I shared a little bit about myself and the mission of the organization I represented, but mostly I listened. What did this person care about? What mattered to them? If our mission mattered to them, then I knew that they might enjoy knowing more about what we did and about how they might help. If our mission didn’t share any touch points with what mattered to them, I might still know of ways to “do good’ that might interest them. I could share those.
Just as important, as learning where the person before me might connect with the organization, was learning who they were as a person. Did the love to travel, hate mushrooms, adore their cat, worry about their oldest child, hold deep religious convictions – or not. All these things would help me show that I cared about them as a person – not just as a pocketbook.
One thing we all have in common, whether we live paycheck to paycheck, have a huge trust fund, or hope a nonprofit can help us find a place to sleep tonight, is that we want to feel valued and understood. We all want to be recognized for who we are – not just because we are pretty or rich or in a wheel chair or struggling to feed our kids. Valued. Understood. Noticed. Heard.
Listening. It’s an art.
Erich Fromm, noted social psychologist, share six steps to mastering this skill in his book, “The Art of Listening.”
- The basic rule for practicing this art is the complete concentration of the listener.
- Nothing of importance must be on his mind, he must be optimally free from anxiety as well as from greed.
- He must possess a freely-working imagination which is sufficiently concrete to be expressed in words.
- He must be endowed with a capacity for empathy with another person and strong enough to feel the experience of the other as if it were his own.
- The condition for such empathy is a crucial facet of the capacity for love.
- To understand another means to love him — not in the erotic sense but in the sense of reaching out to him and of overcoming the fear of losing oneself.
Listening is an art that will pay off in strong relationships and deep support,
First published in 2017.
It’s not an “Ask.” It’s an invitation.
You’ve heard it.
“I hate asking people for money!” “I can’t stand begging!” “I refuse to ask my friends to give.”
Maybe it was a board member. Maybe it was one of the leadership team. Oh, I hope it wasn’t your Executive Director!
Maybe we’re getting this response because of the way we’re framing it.”
Asking brings up images of asking mom and dad for money for the movies. “Please, please, please!” Or trying to get the bank or worse a friend to give us a loan. We felt like they had all the power. We felt little and helpless. Who wants to repeat that?
What if we change that picture? What if we say:
We have something wonderful. It’s what you’ve always wanted. (We know because we’ve been listening to what you value. You’ve told us what you care about. ) We’re doing good: feeding the children, housing the homeless, rescuing kittens, cleaning the ocean. We’re making the world a better place, and you can help.
You’re invited!
Want to be part of this? We’ll deliver meals, pick up plastic, feed the kittens, or build the houses – but we need you. We need your help.
Here’s all the good we can do – together.
Let’s do this!