Get More Funding Without Adding More Donors
There will always be cases where you do need to meet more people to get your funding to grow. I'm not certainly not saying to never add more donors to your organization.
What I am saying is that finding new donors should not be your first line of attack in your strategy against being underfunded. The main idea is to kill the mindset that you're underfunded because you don't know enough (or the right) people.
You may think you need more donors, but in all actuality--what you really need is to be doing the right things with the donors you already have. One of the best ways to handle a relationship with a donor well is to get to know their passions.
GET TO KNOW THEIR PASSIONS
Most donors will assume they already know what they are passionate about, but it's actually likely that no one has taken the time to ask them good questions to identify their passions. They gave to your organization for a reason, and as the recipient, you should want to know why they gave. It is your job to find out. More than that, when you go deeper and deeper into a friendship with a donor, you should naturally continue to ask those types of probing questions in order to get to know them better.
They gave to your organization for a reason, and as the recipient, you should want to know why they gave.
It is your job to find out.
You want to discover, with the donor, what really resonates with their heart and the reason behind their giving. It may be they think they really love education. But when your get down to it, their deepest desire and passion is to help inner city kids from broken families because they grew up in a broken family. The education piece may have attracted them to your ministry, but now, you can help them narrow their particular passion so you can be more specific when asking for your next donation.
When you build an authentic relationship with someone, you will naturally get to know one another and the ways you can mutually benefit each other in life. When you ask good questions, it sets you up to ask for the possibility to ask for another gift in the future - a side benefit to getting to know your donors.
Get the E-Book to learn more about how to steward your donors well.
Russell Cooper, Co-Founder