As fundraising consultant Nancy Bocskor puts it, “You may have an engaging message and a brilliant campaign plan, but if you can’t pay the bills, your campaign will fail.”
Here are 6 quick tips from a column Nancy wrote for Campaigns & Elections Magazine to help boost your fundraising success…
- If you don’t ask for a contribution, you won’t get one!
- You have just 21 seconds to make a good first impression…so you better be prepared
- Convert dead driving time into productive fundraising call time
- Don’t try to sell donors on your philosophy; sell them on how you’re going to win
- Mix a little emotional appeal in with your intellectual reasoning
- Before talking or meeting with a donor, check them out on Google and Facebook. Just about everything you need to know about somebody can be found there.
All great tips, but I think too many candidates miss the boat on #4.
No matter how much a potential donor agrees with you or likes you, unless you can show a CREDIBLE path to victory, his or her wallet is likely to remain shut.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible.” – George Burns