December 15, 2010 | Nick Fellers
Teleseminar Thursday: For Impact 101 – How to Fundraise
Teleseminar tomorrow – free for first 50 registrants.
This is a high-level strategic look at jumpstarting fund development. It’s geared towards executive directors and board members.
1:00 – 2:00 ET Thursday, December 16
Info & Registration
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“Every organization is perfectly designed to get the results it is getting.”
- Tim Kight
Using this quote as a framing device we’ll explore the design you need to change or drive results… we’ll reference stories and practical nuggets you can implement based on 25 years of in-the-field experience, $1Billion+ raised directly and $1Billion raised indirectly through our coaching clients.
We’ve prepared this free training opportunity to augment the For
Impact workshops and WOW emails. It’s a great way to review the For
Impact message and share the workshop experience with others.
In this seminar we share:
- How to communicate your return-on-investment
- Ways to leverage the board and champion support
- How to simplify fundraising
- Ideas to help you ask for $1M
- How to generate more (qualified) prospect names
- How to answer the three double questions of every major investor
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December 14, 2010 | Tom Suddes
Dr. Oz of Oprah fame and his partner Dr. Roizen have an article every month in Success magazine.
It always starts with the same opening paragraph (in bold type).
Our basic premise is: Your body is amazing; you get a do-over; it doesn’t take that long, and isn’t that hard if you know what to do.
I love it. Great reminder to reinforce and STAY ON MESSAGE. (Even if you are a little tired of seeing and reading your Message… your audience isn’t!)
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December 14, 2010 | Nick Fellers
Commit to Sales: It’s about Fire in the Belly!
You are in sales! Not everyone wants to hear that but it’s the truth.
What is sales? Sales is the responsibility… the calling… the opportunity to carry the story of your organization… how it’s saving, changing and impacting lives… and share that story with people… 1:1… to build relationships with them to ASK them to help save, change and impact lives.
Sales is about ATTITUDE!
A great salesperson:
- Feels empty when he or she’s not OUT OF THE OFFICE engaging with people one on one.
- Is always trying to rationalize why timing is PERFECT, not what timing is poor.
- Values DIALOGUE and ENGAGEMENT over monologues and power points.
- Understands the BALL’S ALWAYS IN HIS OR HER COURT.
- Is NEVER AFRAID TO ASK… because he or she wakes up every morning with some neural connection… some visceral understanding that not asking means saving, changing or impacting fewer lives.
- DOES NOT FEAR REJECTION because he or she knows the act of rejection because it’s simply a stepwise function of the ability to have MORE IMPACT.
- Is always GROWING and LEARNING to reinforce every point above.
- NEVER COMES OFF AS A ‘SALESPERSON’ because he or she is simply moved by the fire in the belly…. and see’s ‘the sale’ as the transfer of that fire.
- Is EXCITING TO BE AROUND because he or she is an important CATALYST NEEDED TO CHANGE THE WORLD!
So…. Commit to Sales! Have some fire in your belly! Change the world!
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December 13, 2010 | Nick Fellers
“There’s no culture of giving on our board.”
If I had a dollar for every time I heard that… I could FUND your annual operating budget.
Typically, I ask these three questions.
- Have you shared the story and the math (read: funding rationale)?
- 1:1 (not in a group – impossible to ENGAGE a group)?
- and have you ASKED each board member (for specific funding help as it relates to a project or program)?
If you haven’t done these three things then it’s probably not about the board, the culture or [insert other challenge].
When we do these three things — Have the STORY, ENGAGE 1:1 and ASK — then the ‘culture’ seems to change.
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December 10, 2010 | Tom Suddes
Five years or so ago, I spoke at a fairly large gathering of ‘Public Educators’, mostly principals of public high schools and some district superintendents. (Nick claims I ranted like Tom Peters on serious medication. He also says they all looked at me as if I were ‘crazy’. Who would have guessed?)
Essence of my message was:
• Change or Die.
• Abandon Almost Everything.
• Re-Imagine… Re-Design… Re-Invent.
Almost every public high school is having FUNDING CHALLENGES. Levies passed or not passed. Cutting budgets. Dropping co-curricular activities. Pay to play, etc.
The Big Idea: PUBLIC education vs. public EDUCATION. It’s all about the students.
I do not understand why a public high school or a public school system is any different than a Private School, a Catholic School or a Charter School.
In our world, when you need more money (INCOME)… you go out and present your IMPACT (Story and Message)… and JUST ASK!
Twenty-five years ago, public colleges and universities received almost 100% of their money from government (the State Legislature). Here’s the ‘need’. Appropriate the funds. Operate.
Today, Ohio State University just finished a multi-billion dollar ‘campaign’… and every ‘public’ college and university has a development operation and raising a lot of money. ‘Development’ is just as integral and critical to the success of a ‘public’ institution as it is to ‘private’ education.
Which brings us to public high schools and elementary schools.
Raffles. Chocolate bar sales. Car washes. Advertising on the fence or scoreboard at the stadium. This is not a way to fund huge ‘GAPS’ in delivering or improving the quality of education for the students.
Almost every public school district I’m familiar with has created a (name of school system) EDUCATION FOUNDATION. No staff. No plan. No money.
Why are public educators and supposed leaders not implementing a Funding Model and Funding Plan that includes the ‘private sector’???
If you’re familiar with a local public system and have any thoughts on this, let me know.
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December 10, 2010 | Tom Suddes
Today Is The First Day of Your Life
Reading one of my favorite magazines (SUCCESS) early this morning. Great article on Entrepreneurship. Quick profile on Jeff Bezos and Amazon. I guess he did a video on “Everything I know, and it’s a short list.” (I need to do the same thing.) He concludes with this:
“The final thing I know, it’s always DAY 1.”
This is kind of a running joke with my youngest son, Taggart. Every morning when dropping him for school, the last thing I’d say was:
“Remember. TODAY is the FIRST DAY of the rest of your life.”
[He would look at me like any other 14-year-old and say, "Huh?"]
First Day. Day 1. Today. This is a great time of the year to move forward with this kind of attitude. Re-Invention… Re-Design… Re-Imagine… begins TODAY.
This Eskimo proverb provides a great metaphor.
“Yesterday is ASHES.
Tomorrow is WOOD.
TODAY is FIRE.”
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December 10, 2010 | Nick Fellers
The leap to sales is improved through trial, not time.
In general, organizations spend way too much TIME prepping for fundraising. We’ve seen organizations take TWO YEARS to create systems, hire the right people, put together plans.
Two years later, they’re ‘ready to start’. In that time they’ve made ZERO visits. As an organization, they’ve built a culture of ‘getting ready’… not making any visits. Unfortunately, this never translates into action in the sales arena.
Sales is about speed. It’s about being in the field and modifying your way to perfection. It’s about ALWAYS growing/learning/building – as an individual and as an organization. Sales is about relationships. You don’t build relationships by planning. You build and maximize relationships by talking to people.
As you COMMIT TO SALES we would urge you to ‘Engage. Then Plan!” in the words of Andy Grove.
Or, it it helps, give yourself TWO WEEKS to simplify your message and clarify your plan. Then start making visits. The only way to better the plan, get better at sales and (through both) raise a lot more money for your impact is through more TRIAL, not more TIME. It shouldn’t take you two years to build momentum with a sales plan. It should take you 20 visits. Do the 20 visits… THEN build a model around what’s working. Oh, and as a bonus, you’ll actually HAVE FUNDS to help you build your model because you’ve been in the field selling along the way.
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December 7, 2010 | Tom Suddes
“Boards Often Disappoint in Fundraising…”
Recent article in Chronicle of Philanthropy led off with this sentence: “Chief Executives of nonprofit organizations gave their Boards grades of D+ in fundraising…” (MANAGING, Page 18).
‘FUNDRAISING’ was rated the absolute lowest of 14 categories that were graded for Board Performance… and the highest/top rating for most important areas for Board Improvement.
Board Source prepared the 2010 Nonprofit Governance Index. Among its many findings showed that many organizations are still struggling from the recession: 41% cut or froze staff salaries, 29% laid off staff members or eliminated positions and 28% dipped into reserves or endowments. (Survey responses from 978 Chief Executives and 780 Board Members.)
60% of Chief Executives identified money – or the lack of it – as the most pressing challenge.
Everybody that we work with has major challenges around the BOARD and FUNDRAISING. Here are 3 great questions (from Nick) when people tell us their Board is not ‘giving’ nor ‘getting’.
- 1. Have you SHARED YOUR STORY (your Impact, your Vision, your Message) at the highest level?
2. Have you ENGAGED (truly engaged) with your individual Board Members?
3. Have you ASKED? (No, really ASKED?)
When the vast majority of people answer “No” to one, two or all three of these questions… it’s pretty clear that the current results are a function of the organization… not the Board Member.
Remember: YOUR BOARD IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR FUNDRAISING!
Note: Order/download our Guidebook: ON BOARDS for solutions to this BIG issue.
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December 6, 2010 | Tom Suddes
“Design is more than a VALUE-ADD… it’s a fundamental VALUE.” Alberto Alessi
DESIGN is a huge driver at For Impact | The Suddes Group.
DESIGN… of our actual WORDS
DESIGN… of our VISUALS
DESIGN… of our FRAMEWORKS
DESIGN… of our FI.O WEBSITE
DESIGN… of our BRAND, POV, etc.
DESIGN… of our CONTENT
DESIGN… of our PUBLICATIONS – and much more
*In many ways, we think of ourselves as a ‘DESIGN STUDIO’.
With our clients, we help them RE-DESIGN.
Their ORGANIZATION
Their MESSAGE
Their MODEL
Their TOOLS/MATERIAL
Their TEAMS
Their PROCESSES
Their CULTURE – and much more.
As the end of the year approaches, it’s a great time to think about: DESIGN/RE-DESIGN.
P.S. Remember:
“You are PERFECTLY DESIGNED to get the RESULTS you are getting.” Tim Kight
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December 6, 2010 | Nick Fellers
Sales Attitude: How to think about December
“Should we plan on doing fewer visits with prospects this month, because of the holidays?”
or
“Should we keep pushing because people give at year’s end?”
We get a lot of questions about this every year. Our coaching advice:
Keep working your list. It’s a great time to be engaging (1:1) with your prospects/relationships.
- If they can’t meet due to the holidays you can setup a time to connect in early January. Better to do that now than to come back to the office and call – at which time everyone would say, “I’m just getting re-oriented from the holidays… let’s wait a few weeks.”
- Speaking from my own experience, for every person or family that can’t meet now, there is another for whom there will be no better time to meet. Some of my best visits + asks have been in December.
Whatever you do… don’t make excuses for not making visits.
Cheers!
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About For Impact
We help "nonprofits" fund their visions through training, coaching and consulting based on 25+ years of experience and $1Billion+ raised directly and $1Billion via coaching/training. For Impact is also our message, our commitment and a movement.
