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Rely on the Basics

© Wayne E. Groner

The basic process of successful fundraising has served me well, from my first stumbling attempts to my last multi-million-dollar national campaign. It will work for you, too, under any circumstances. Whether you are a one-person shop or a manager of a twenty-five person staff. Whether you are in New York City or in Newberry Springs, California. Whether you are trying to raise $50,000 a year or raise $50 million over five years. If you rely on the basics you will always be ready for anything.

The basic process of successful fundraising is to identify, cultivate, and ask. This is often expanded into the Five I's: Identify, Investigate, Inform, Involve, and Invite. Although you usually will go through all of the steps in that order, there is nothing pure about the order. You will not do one of the steps, stop, do the next step, stop, and so forth. There will be many starts, stops, and overlaps along the way to success. It could take months or years before a major-donor prospect says yes. Do not be discouraged. Stick with the basics.

Let's look at each step briefly.

Identify those individuals and corporations you think might be interested in giving to your organization. Start with yourself, your staff, other employees and board members, and work outward. Those closest to your organization are the ones most likely to give because they have ownership in what you do. No need to be concerned at first whether they will give, just whether you think they should and could give. Place them in giving categories such as $5,000, $10,000, $25,000, or $100,000. You decide. These are your suspects.

Investigate the suspects to determine their potential and willingness to give. Start file folders on them. Develop a profile sheet of their major community interests, family members, relationship to your organization, professionals who serve them such as attorney, accountant, financial planner, and broker. Place magazine and newspaper articles, letters of contact, and other bits of information about the suspects into their respective file folders. After a while, several suspects will float to the top as being more likely donors than the others. Gradually develop these into prospect lists of your Ten Most Wanted, the Next 25, and the Next 100. As you learn more about those in the Next 100 and work with them in the following steps, some of them will move into the Next 25 list and then into the Ten Most Wanted list. Spend most of your time in the following steps with the prospects on your Ten Most Wanted list. There are those who will fall out each of the lists over time and you should look for replacements.

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