Any nonprofit that relies on fundraising dollars for a major portion of their budget must also have multiple staff members who are comfortable with various aspects of the fundraising process. Anything less than total participation and maximum enthusiasm will be spotted by potential donors.
Far too often, most people discuss fundraising with terms and phrases that scare other members of their team – words like prospecting, asking, appealing, cultivating, stewarding, etc. This is usually not intentional. However, the result is still the same: we scare people out of the first crucial step of fundraising – building relationships!
Relationship-building is the essence of fundraising. Every single member of your team already knows how to build relationships; with friends, co-workers and family members. Magic happens when we encourage that same kind of behavior with all of our prospects and donors.
Keep in mind where most first impressions come from when any prospect or donor “touches” your organization. They have little to do with any of the scary words I mentioned above.
All of these critical first touches set the tone of whether anyone wants to further build a relationship with our organization or not! Lose them here at step one and they are never brought back into the fold in nearly every case.
Consider placing a moratorium on “fundraising” and instead only using “relationship-building.” Doesn’t it just sound much friendlier?
Could your organization live without any of these?
Anything in life we can make less complicated is, in nearly ever case, an improvement. By renaming “fundraising” to the less onerous “relationship-building” you can empower your team in a whole new way.
If you are building or enhancing relationships with your donors, you are literally moving ahead two vital strategies for fundraising success in the long term.
First, you and your team are improving donor retention. This is essential, because if a donor is not maintained from year to year, it is nearly impossible to facilitate the knowledge and engagement levels needed to upgrade their giving to a major gift level.
Which one or two would you like to not have in place when you make your next major gift ask? I am guessing not a single one!
Maven; a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass knowledge to others.
You already have relationship-building mavens within your organization. You just have to put it into practice with your prospective donors.
If one strives to become or even feel like an expert in this area, think how much stronger the overall fundraising effort will be. Being able to pass suggestions and hints to others in their department will move the progress in relationship-building along so much faster!
How important is relationship-building to your organization? Please let me and others know via the comment area below. Perhaps we can start a new trend and move annual giving to charitable organizations to a whole new level!
I sooo love your article! I have been having some pretty deep conversations with a nonprofit board member about deepening their relationships first and foremost – lead with relationship building. However, some professionals/volunteer leaders still behave with the dollar intent first, cultivating the friendship because of the financial potential they believe is there.
How does one behave into relationship-building vs. fundraising? What’s the difference behaviorally? What values are expressed differently? How does this look and feel different? What does a board member or executive director do differently to lead with relationships? Do they still make a direct invitation to contribute financially? Do they trust that the strongest relationships will give without the need for solicitation?
This is spot on – I was thinking about this the other day. Board members don’t want to talk about fundraising but are comfortable talking about starting and building relationships.