In talking with the group it was instantly apparent that the message was trumped by a really bad story. While the org had a powerful, simple message on paper, the story I heard from several staff and board members was one about a long history of ‘not fundraising’, ‘yeah buts’ and program stigmas. “We are still very much a little charity that deals with something most people are uncomfortable talking about. Donors aren’t used to giving to us and they think we have all the money we need.”

I heard this again and again.

Let me tell you a different story about the same organization… all true.

• This ‘little charity’ generates $15M/year through several funding streams – including fundraising.
• It impacts over 8,000 families each year and completely changes… even saves the lives of scores of children who have been subjected to some of the worst atrocities imaginable.
• People come from all over the world to work with this team of inspired and innovative leaders, counselors and program managers.

Your story is what you are. YOU tell your story. It can be eyyore-ish or awesome.

Action:
Write down, in bullet-point-form, the things that get you REALLY FIRED UP about your organization. Connect the dots (literally) and you have the start of a pretty good story.

We did this exercise with the organization mentioned above. They were the ones to generate the compelling storylines. The process illustrated that they already owned both stories. We didn’t come in from the outside, for instance, and try to write a new story.

Special Note: I’m talking more about message and story in a teleseminar this afternoon.

Teleseminar: How to Simplify your Message
When: Thursday, Sept 02 @ 1:00 ET – 2:00 ET / 10:00 PT – 11:00 PT
Investment: $40.00 — free for first 30 to register (paying attendees get a copy of the audio and example tool-kit)
More info and registration

A primary reason for call reluctance is that we can’t communicate our message.  This is also a primary reason for prospect reluctance — our champions intuitively love us but they are reluctant to make introductions because they don’t understand the message that would be shared.  What we see in the field every week is that when we clarify the message (using the frameworks we’ll explore in this call) we overcome many of our funding challenges.  

Stories and Teaching Points will Include

• The Power of a Simple Message.
• How to simplify message with your team.
• How to use story to overcome objections.
• How to create an engagement tool to share your message and story — a tried and tested technique inspired by Walt Disney.
• How to apply message to engage the board
• How to apply message to identify new prospects
• How to apply message to maximize funding relationships
• Examples including 3-5 sample funding plans and engagement tools

This happens in hundreds of meetings everyday. It’s not fruitful. What board members hear is this question, “Who do you know that has money that you could go ask?” There is no context for the names… we don’t have a grasp on what will happen with the names (story, process, etc) and we’re not sure what a prospect really looks like.

At a higher level, we need to think in a more strategic way about all prospects… about maximizing relationships… the definition of a prospect and how to generate more qualified prospects.

For prospecting, think about how you can use these big questions internally and externally.

1. Who are our top 10 best prospects?

   Before you think about new prospects the most important thing you can do is write down you top 10 beest prospects (in descending order of importance). Most organizations… most businesses… don’t do this. Having a top 10 is fundamental. Then we can ask the next strategic question…

2. Have we maximized our best relationships?

   If not, why?

   As For Impact coaches we’re adamant about getting you a working story and process before adding more names. More names won’t do any good if you’re not maximizing the names you have already. If orgs aren’t not maximizing relationships it’s usually because

   • They don’t have a clear message or compelling story.
   • They’re not asking.
   • They’re not follow-up up… closing.

3. What would it mean to maximize this relationship?

   Take any prospect, new or existing and work to answer this question. It’s very different from asking, “How much should we ask for?” It’s strategic and looks at the RELATIONSHIP in a bigger context.

4. “Can you think of 2-3 names that match our IDEAL PROFILE?”
   

   This is the single best question you can ask to IDENTIFY new prospects.

   Action: Create an Ideal Profile with 6-8 characteristics of an ideal funder. For example,

   i. Female entrepreneur
   ii. Age 55-65
   iii. Grew up in North Carolina
   iv. Loves mountain climbing.

   These are a few characteristics from one project. Everything on the list is objective… making it easier to form associations.

   Tip: Much better to have 1:1 conversations with board members and champions around the ideal profile than a group discussion with an open call for names. More successful on an order of 100:1.

5. How do we put together a $1M funding plan with prospects we’ve visited in the past six months?

   Most of us (maybe all of us?) have ‘money on the table’. This question creates a constraint for thinking.

   Obviously, insert your number.

6. Who are the LEADERS around our CAUSE?

   The CAUSE is the WHY. It’s the PROBLEM. It’s the MOVEMENT. Identify the top leaders in your CAUSE or FIELD. You need to be with them for two reasons.

   • It’s impossible for you to maximize your impact if you’re not in conversation with (maybe even partnership with) those LEADING the CAUSE.
   • By virtue of being LEADERS they may be funders OR they would have a network with the top funders.

   More: See Incongruent that not with top funders to your cause.

7. What does our diaspora look like?

   Diaspora is a greek term meaning ‘the scattering of seeds’. You often hear it in conjunction with nation-states and heritage. Eg. The Jewish Diaspora… the Irish Diaspora.

   Diaspora is a frame to expand the identification process when an entire team generates only a handful of names. Typically the team has a very limiting definition for prospect, such as ‘those that have a lot of money and said they want to help.’

   Diaspora expands the conversation to ‘all relationships’ but it can be a great frame if the team is stuck with a limiting definition of ‘prospect’.

   We’ve facilitated sessions where switching from ‘prospect’ to ‘diaspora’ has moved the list from three names to 65,000… literally. Then the challenge is prioritizing, which is generally more favorable than identifying.

8. How can we use projects to drive prospects?

   QP <-> QP3

   The process goes both ways.

   Through this point we’ve only thought of identifying Qualified Prospects (QP)… so that we can match them to Qualified Projects, Priorities and Programs (QP3).

   The inverse also works. Use the Qualified Projects, Priorities and Programs to drive your list of Qualified Prospects.

   • Have a transportation project? Who’s in the transportation business?

   • Transforming education? Who are leading business innovators in this space?
   • One of the spaces in your new building a kitchen? Who does kitchens?

Can’t say enough about the opportunity for the ‘Old Guy’ to be around this kind of passion, energy and attitude.

Here are some pictures from the Friday/Saturday/Sunday Memorable Experience.

P.S. I got to check off one of my goals (dreams) by spending the entire day Friday at the d.school at Stanford!!! IDEO, David Kelley, Hasso, Plattner’s gift… and Amish Erika’s amazing facilitation and coaching.

EVERYTHING (and I mean everything) is about DESIGN and DESIGN THINKING.

This organization doesn’t have a very extensive fundraising history or culture. It was beginning to think about some major needs in the coming years — and possibly a campaign. Our goal was to go from the starting line – a discussion about the need for funds – to have the entire team on board with a story, a strategy and an action plan.

Download the PDF

This framework is mash-up of our Sales Process and POV. It could be used with ANY BOARD.

The Framework served as our agenda for the day. We started with the Impact -> Income napkin and worked our way to mapping out the story. Conversations about the WHO and the HOW are completely different after everyone see’s the compelling story and how a case-for-support could be exciting.

We then moved to the WHO. Prospects and Team. Before laying the groundwork there were lots of questions about prospects. AFTER we had a story and message the number of prospects seemed to triple (as it always does).

Finally we moved to identify the HOW. There was no way to launch this org into a campaign at the end of one day. Instead we defined success as getting the organization started with a sales process. That is… the ability to identify prospects, engage them with a great story and get some really big gifts for projects.

Teleseminar: How to Identify, Prioritize and Strategize Qualified Prospects
Date: Tuesday, August 24 @ 1:00 – 2:00 ET / 10:00 – 1:00 PT

We now have Campaign Week Audio available for download. But you must hurry because these downloads will expire on Wednesday, August 25 at Midnight. Get them now and share the For Impact message with your team, your board or others in your network.

Also, back by popular demand, an encore presentation of  “How to Identify, Prioritize and Strategize Prospects” with Tom Suddes, this Tuesday, August 24th at 1:00 ET. More Information and Registration.

(QuickTime is required to play audio files.)

How to FUND your Vision (Intro)

MP3 File | Call Notes

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How to Jumpstart Your Campaign

MP3 File | Call Notes

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How to Ask: The Language of the Ask, the Close and Follow-up

MP3 File | Call Notes

WOW!

Mark Parker, in a great cover story for FAST COMPANY magazine (September), says this is his new Mission Statement. Compare it to the previous one. “To be the #1 sports and fitness company in the world.” Ugh!

3 Simple Things:

INNOVATION AND INSPIRATION… TO EVERY ATHLETE… IN THE WORLD!

You’ve probably read or heard my soapbox ranting on No More MISSION STATEMENTS!

Parker/Nike’s INNOVATION and INSPIRATION is a great VISION STATEMENT. It’s a MESSAGE. It’s got PURPOSE. It can MOTIVATE and INSPIRE not just athletes, but the 33,000 employees!

I love it.

The action: Tell us your For Impact Story in under two minutes..

The background: We engaged with some 300 organizations last week via Campaign Week’s teleseminars and coaching calls. Regular readers will know I am a reader/follower of VC Brad Feld. Several years ago Brad talked about ‘Random Days’. These were days filled with random meetings and calls in an office-hours-fashion. Over the years this has led to some exciting connections, some business opportunities and also really expanded Brad’s thinking about the world in which he lives (technology, VC, Boulder).

Brad’s Random Days offers the inspiration for our annual week of free seminars and open coaching hours.

More than other years we were blown away at how people were using FI. We heard from people that were leading trainings using the For Impact sales model, innovating on the engagement tools and some that were now using napkins everywhere. In previous years I had a pretty good lead on these folks. There were several times last week I heard previous strangers say things like, “I’ve been following you for three years. Came from a sales background and now sit on a board. I have everyone in our organization using your system…”

In a word: AWESOMENESS.

It’s time to start a system to capture and share these stories with others. If you’ve used anything from a boot camp, seminar, blog entry… take a moment to let us know using this form.

I have no idea where this project will go but I’m pretty confident you will make it pretty remarkable.

Phenomenal cover story in Fast Company on THE WORLD’S MOST CREATIVE CEO.

I love my FAST COMPANY… and I LOVED this article. Parker is an athlete, an artist, a designer… and, oh yeah, a CEO of one of the most iconic brands with $19 Billion in 2010 revenue!

Just a couple of quick nuggets to encourage you to read this article.

• Parker’s a designer. Gets to hang out with creatives and eccentrics. Attracted to people who are “intense and maybe even obsessed”. (Great line: “Obsessed people make messes. It goes with the territory.” Now I can use this as an excuse for my messes.)

• Nike BHAG’s!

  Increase sales by more than 40% by 2015.

  Meet a set of equally ambitious sustainability benchmarks.

  Grow earnings at 7% a year.

  Keep 33,000 employees thinking as nimbly as possible.

• Struggles to mix his right and left brain strengths! “It’s about balance.”

• Quoting Margaret Wheatley, “The energy in an organization is a product of the RELATIONSHIPS between the PEOPLE! Not about creating an ORG CHART and then putting people into BOXES!” Parker: “I think that is exactly backward.”

So much more about skunkworks, the ’speed group’, relationships with artists, authenticity, innovation, creating a platform, metrics, corporate responsibility, creative tension.

Say what you want about big, big companies. This article and profile of Parker shares that it’s possible to be creative, innovative and even nimble… no matter how big you are.

*Parker reorganized the company into “small units… a conscious decision to sharpen each piece of the business so we’re not some big fat dumb company.”