Creating, Cultivating and Expanding your Donor Base

1. Creating, Cultivating and Expanding your Donor Base “You can’t make a good pickle by squirting vinegar on a cucumber – it has to soak awhile.” Harold J. Seymour, Designs for Fund Raising, 2nd Edition

2. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick? Nursery Rhyme “Peter Piper proved a pretty pampered pepper picker. Less privileged persons – such as you or I – are expected to pick produce unpickled and process it promptly ourselves.” Joy of Cooking, 1964, p. 781

3. “Pickling can be accomplished in several ways, some of them lengthy, but none of them difficult.” • It is “imperative that vegetables and fruits for pickling are in prime condition and were harvested no longer than 24 hours in advance.” • Be sure of your equipment: • Stoneware, pottery or glass for brining • Stainless steel or enamel for pickling • Long-handled spoons: enamel or glass for stirring • Perfectly sterile glass jars with glass lids for packing • “All equipment must be absolutely clean and grease-free.”

4. “If you are in hard water area, try to get some distilled water or use rainwater.” • “Distilled white vinegar gives the lightest color.” • “To make pickles crisp, use grape or cherry leaves during brining.” • “Since spices vary so greatly in strength, …taste before bottling and correct the seasoning.” Joy of Cooking, 1964, p. 781

5. Most homemade pickles are of the less exacting short-brined type. They are soaked in a salt solution only 24 hours or so.” Joy of Cooking, 1964, p. 781 “Pickles subjected … to the long-brine process and held at 86 degrees from 2 to 6 weeks, turn, after appropriate seasoning, into ‘dill’ types: ‘kosher’ and non-kosher. They may be desalted and further processed in a vinegar solution at 126 degrees for 12 hours to make sour pickles and then in a sugar solution to become sweet-sours. To learn the details for these long and short processes, read ‘Making Fermented Pickles,’ in the U.S.D.A. Farmer’s Bulletin, 1438.” Joy of Cooking, 1964, p. 786

6. What Does All This Mean? • How do we decide where to gather our cucumbers? • How can we focus on only the very best? • How do we turn a promising cucumber into a tasty pickle? • In short, how do we get people to give the first time, and then again, and again, and again?

7. Gather Your Cucumbers/Create a Data Base • Determine your most promising growing conditions • Prepare and cultivate the soil • Fertilize • Prune • Harvest on time: not too early and not too late

8. Focus Your Search • Determine linkages to your organization • a contact • a bridge • a point of access through a peer • Research financial ability • Assess interest in you and your organization

9. Step 1: Current donors are your likeliest donors. Ask them for a gift first, starting with the board. Step 2: Ask the senior staff Ask the board Ask your volunteers Ask your major donors Where to Begin?

10. Step 3: Ask your clients Ask your members Ask your general donors Step 4: Identify donors to similar causes Identify people who might care about you Where to Begin?

11. Focus your EnergyTurn your most likely suspects into prospects • Through conversations with a friend of theirs who is also a friend of yours • Through a meeting with your CEO • Through a personal letter, followed by a phone call • Through a phone call followed by a letter • Through a phone call alone

12. Turn your most likely suspects into prospects (cont.) • Through a special event • Through direct mail • Through telemarketing • Through printed materials • Through the media

13. Refine Your Focus: Turn Prospects into Donors • Move prospects from: • Information to interest • Interest to knowledge • Knowledge to caring • Caring to Giving

14. Signs of movement • Participation in a program/visit • Request for information • Attendance at an event • Information gained from personal contact • A gift • A repeat gift • An increased gift

15. Responses to movement • Appreciation • Recognition • Personal attention • Understanding donor’s motivation/needs • Updated records

16. Narrow Your Focus AgainTurn Prospects to Donors and Donors to Major Donors How? Get people involved… • As participants in a program • As volunteers (use their skills if possible) • As members of a committee • As members of the board • As contacts for other donors

17. Manage Your investment • The more personal, the better – and the greater the chance of a gift, and of a larger gift. • Face to face is better than a phone call • A phone call is better than a form letter • A letter is better than a PSA • Major gifts may take several calls • How to ask?

18. AFP Quotation Select the right person, To ask the right question, At the right time, For the right amount, In the right way, For the right reason.

19. Appreciation should be… • Appropriate to the donor • Appropriate to the size of the gift • Early and often

20. Why People Give? • **Belief in the mission • Interest in program/project • *Community responsibility/civic pride • *Regard for staff leadership • *Fiscal stability of your institution • **Local respect for your institution • Leverage or influence of solicitor

21. Why People Don’t Give* • Not asked • Guilt • Appeal of Campaign Materials • Memorial Opportunity • Tax Considerations • Absence of future plans (the organization’s) • Inadequate communication and cultivation • Wrong solicitors • Not asking for a specific amount relative to organization’s need and donor’s ability • Jerry Panos, Megagifts

22. What Donors Want • To be thanked in a timely and appropriate way • To be recognized and treated as an investor in your organization • To achieve a meaningful impact/outcome on a social problem or cause • To be given assurance that the gift was stewarded properly • To be able to realize their own aspirations through giving Karla A. Williams, Donor Focused Strategies for Annual Giving, Aspen Publishers, 1997, p.74

23. Back to Pickles…. • Determine the outcomes you want. • Do what you need to do to achieve them - follow a plan/recipe • Pay attention to detail • Savor the results. • Don’t get discouraged if you don’t get all you want. • Work hard.

24. Conclusion • In 2004, 76%, of all charitable gifts came from individuals. • Americans over age 50 control 70% of the wealth. • There are 8 million millionaires living in the United States. Thus, if the population of the US is over 270 million and that of Virginia 7 million, Virginia may have as many as 200,000 millionaires. • This generation will inherit $10 trillion from their parents; that transfer is expected to peak between 2010 and 2020. • 8% of charitable gifts are bequests; 85% of Americans die without a valid will. GO FOR IT!