My favorite fundraising story
Why anyone can succeed at relational fundraising
I once hosted a “Political Giving 101” event to which large funders could invite their friends. One of the funders involved had a recognizable name; let’s call her Richie Rich.
Once the event was planned, I started calling the funders to let them know it was time to invite their friends.
The first funder said, “I’ll invite some people, but I don’t have a big-money network; I’m not like Richie Rich.”
The second funder said, “I’ll invite some people, but I don’t have a big-money network; I’m not like Richie Rich.”
Over and over, I heard the same thing. (You probably see where this is going.)
I called Richie. And she said the exact same thing; “I’ll invite some people, but I don’t have a big-money network.”
Why you can be a great relational fundraiser
The story shows that almost nobody thinks of themselves as having a wealthy network, even if they do. (All the people quoted are six- or seven-figure annual donors.) It’s very human to look up at the next level of wealth and imagine that those people can do something that we can’t. But usually that’s not the case.
It gets better; you don’t need a wealthy network to be a successful fundraiser. The most common thing I hear from volunteer fundraisers is, “I can’t believe how much I raised.” I recently figured out why; from data on a few hundred volunteer fundraisers, on average they raised half their total from just one donor. Sometimes the surprise was that the big donor had so much giving capacity; other times, the large donation came from a friend-of-a-friend who the volunteer didn’t even know.
Better still, you can be a great fundraiser just by inviting friends to events, rather than asking them for money. This is the model of the most successful relational fundraising projects.
The time to start is now
A group of 100 foundations and donors recently launched a campaign to highlight the much greater effectiveness of early funding.1
Fundraising is very likely the most impactful way you can volunteer.2
To learn more about getting started, reply to this email or schedule a quick call with me.
More details on early funding, and the AllByApril.org campaign, are in my prior article here.
Fundraising is the most impactful volunteer activity for anyone who can raise about $250/hour.