You may not want to think about fundraising at all during your vacation, but in case you want to grow as a fundraiser while lounging on the beach, grab one of these books.
I chose these books based on a simple maxim a veteran fundraiser taught me years ago: If you want to raise a little money, send a letter; if you want to raise a little money, make phone calls; if you want to raise a lot of money, ask in person. Now days you could add, if you want to raise a little money, ask online.
Here are five indispensable books to grow as a fundraiser.
Book 1: Ask Without Fear!: A Simple Guide to Connecting Donors With What Matters to Them Most by Marc A. Pitman. This is the first book I recommend because Marc’s enthusiasm for asking for a gift is 10 on a scale of 1-10. I’ve been involved with fundraising for 27 years and Marc’s book gets me excited.
Ask Without Fear! is also practical. Marc shows you how to use four steps to raise funds. He calls it Get R.E.A.L which stands for Research, Engage, Ask, Love.
Book 2: Asking: A 59-Minute Guide to Everything Board Members, Volunteers, and Staff Must Know to Secure the Gift by Jerold Panas. If you want to be the best, learn from the best. Panas is Executive Partner of Jerold Panas, Linzy & Partners—one of the nation’s leading firms in the field of campaign services and financial resource development.
While the whole book can be read in under an hour, it’s full of gems like how to get the visit. Panas offers three sample letters that will help you or your volunteers to get the visit. He says that their studies show that when you secure the visit you are 85% of the way to securing the gift.
Here’s another gem from Asking: how to make your case in eleven minutes when meeting with a potential donor.
Book 3: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. As a fundraiser you are in the business of raising funds to transform lives in your community. To do so you must convince people that your nonprofit knows how to transform lives.
Read Made to Stick because you need to know how to present what your nonprofit does in the most powerful way possible.
Book 4: Influence: Science and Practice, 4th Edition by Robert B. Cialdini. A social psychology professor at Arizona State University, Cialdini has made a career out of studying how we humans influence one another.
In Influence, a book translated into nine languages, he identifies the six universal principles of influence. As a fundraiser you are in the influence business. Cialdini gives many examples of people using these universal principles in less than ethical ways. As a fundraiser you can use the same principles ethically for the good of the people who are served by your nonprofit and for the good of your donors.
Book 5: The Lifetime Donor Attraction System by Pamela Grow. Grow has written a nifty e-book about how to wow your donors through your thanks. You’ll have to print this one out to take it to the beach.
As she says in the introduction to her book, “Any marketer worth their weight knows that it’s far less expensive to market to existing customers than to keep going after new ones.” The same goes for donors.
It’s much easier to get a gift from an existing donor than from a new donor. Study this book because you can build a career by wowing donors through the way you thank them.
Wisdom for the week: A book in hand on the beach is worth two on the bookshelf.
Connect with Us