Expanding Your Personal Contacts

The first and most important Strategic Resource is your list of personal contacts. While we noted that everyone will approach fundraising with a different strategy, everyone should begin with their list of personal contacts. Everyone knows at least a few people who will help them in this effort.

Your personal contacts, friends, family members, coworkers and neighbors should be the first people you ask for a contribution. However, don't stop there. Once you have explained what you are doing and received their commitment of help, go on and ask for their help in introducing you to others whom they know that can help you.

A few years ago, someone jokingly postulated that we are only separated from any other person on the planet by "six degrees of separation." The theory was that each of us knows someone, who knows someone, who in turn knows someone else... and the most "some ones" you have to list in that chain is six before you eventually can get to any person alive on earth. And this is how your list of personal contacts and The Secret can be turned into leverage that will take you to and past your fundraising goals.

The key to getting help is to ask. So as you meet with those closest to you and ask for donations, also ask for their help. The help they give you can come in a variety of forms.

1. Names. They can give you names of other people they know who might be willing to help. It will help further if they are willing to have you use their name when you call the people they suggest.
2. Make Introductions. Better yet, they may be willing to actually go with you and introduce you to people who can help.
3. Solicit. And in the best of all worlds, they may be willing to become fundraisers for you. If they do, be sure to give them the information and materials they will need.

Professional fundraisers and marketers refer to this as "warming up the call." A "cold call" is a contact with someone you don't know. So you could just take random names from the phone directory and call them. That's about as cold as a call gets. At the other extreme is someone such as your lifelong best friend or your mother - someone who knows you, likes you a lot and wants you to succeed. Each contact will fall somewhere in between these extremes. And the warmer the call - the more personal the relationship - the more likely it will succeed. That is, the more likely they are to say "yes" and the more they will donate when they do. So asking those close to you to help you warm up your calls may be an important tactic for you.

We said earlier we would talk about how to improve your chances in the arena of raising corporate donations. Recalling what we said at the outset, that all fundraising is personal, the only way to have a "personal" relationship with an impersonal corporation is to have one with the right person in the corporation. And though you may not have one, someone who does can help you develop one by making an introduction.

Some Guidelines

• Ask your own contact to come with you as you make the call. And have a brief conversation about how the meeting should go. What's the best time to meet? Where? How should the introduction go? Who should do the "ask"?
• If your personal contact isn't willing or able to actually go along to make an introduction, ask them to call ahead for you or to get on a conference call and make the introduction over the phone.
• In some cases all they may be able to do is give you a name in which case, ask if it's ok to use their name when you call the prospect. "Mr. Smith, my name is Jane Brown. Mike Jones suggested I call you..."
• But, never use someone's name without first getting their permission.
• Be clear what you are asking the new contact to do. Do you want them to make a personal donation? Help you understand their company's policies on charitable giving? Introduce you to someone else? Again, a good conversation with the person who gives you the name will help you know what this person can do for you and therefore what to ask for.

The section on specific fundraising ideas will give you some ideas to explore for creating your own fundraising tactics, and the sample letters will help you get started drafting your own letter to your contacts.