If a prospective donor agrees to meet you, it’s a remarkably positive sign. It means they are willing to consider supporting your organization. That’s increasingly difficult to do these days, especially for those with no apparent history with your organization.
If, in getting the appointment, you have misled them or been unclear as to who you are and how you work, you have to continue in that role. That’s why those who befriend donors find it so difficult to turn the conversation toward support.
If you’ve played it straight, the first meeting should be about finding out why they took the meeting. Chances are, there is some history with your organization or some affinity with its mission or those it seeks to support.
You can do that by establishing yourself as a philanthropic facilitator rather than a transactional fundraiser. In your own words, you make clear:
- I’m here to hear what’s important to you.
- I’m listening for a match between your interests and our service aspirations.
- If I can, I’ll follow up with some ideas to suggest what that potential match could look like.
- If an idea resonates with you, I will offer you ways of learning more about the project and the people who will bring it to life, or do my best to respond to yours.
- I’ll preview my purpose before each visit and ask permission to take the next step.
- If you propose something we can’t do or isn’t strategic for us, I will let you know. I don’t want to take your money, then disappoint you.
- If you lose interest, please let me know why and what I can learn from it.
- If you’re enjoying the process and becoming more enthusiastic about the idea, I will ask permission to put a draft proposal in front of you, and we’ll enter into a negotiation that will produce an agreement satisfactory to both.
Written agreements show we seek a partnership, not just a gift.
The agreement will specify:
- The use of funds
- The projected impact
- The timeline for implementation
- The means of monitoring progress
- How we will keep you informed
- Your ongoing role with our organization
What can go wrong?
- You go into pitch mode
- You overstate what your organization has done or can do
- You don’t demonstrate respect and interest by your failure to listen
- You fail to hear what is being said because you are listening for what you hope to hear
- You don’t have a process like the one outlined above, so you just wing it
- The prospect wonders or worries, “What’s going on here?”
- You cause the prospect to conclude, “I wouldn’t enjoy working with this person.”
- The prospect begins to think less of the organization because of the way you conduct yourself
- You raise the hopes of the prospect, hoping to go back to the organization to see if it can back up what you made up
- You realize you are representing an organization that wants money but can’t demonstrate how it will produce impact, and isn’t really interested in building community
Jim Langley is the president of Langley Innovations. Langley Innovations provides a range of services to its clients to help them understand the cultural underpinnings of philanthropy and the psychology of donors and, with that knowledge, to develop the most effective strategies and tactics to build broader and more lasting communities of support. Jim has authored numerous books, including his most recent book, The Future of Fundraising: Adapting to New Philanthropic Realities, published by Academic Impressions in 2020.
