In their 20-year journey as philanthropists, Jennifer and David Risher have had both good and not-so-good experiences with nonprofit fundraisers.
Once, they were asked for a gift by a nonprofit leader who was having a hard time raising money for his organization. He was struggling to find a compelling story about how the group’s work helped people. He kept telling the Rishers, whom he had known for years, how hard it was to raise money. They gave a donation but attached a stipulation: The director needed to come up with a simpler message and a clear story to tell donors.
“He was making it so complicated and getting in his own way, and we’re like, ‘Dude, simplify,’” David Risher says. “Get to the point so we can say yes or no.”
Fundraisers need to keep that advice top of mind, the Rishers say, when asking donors for money: Clarify your message. In a wide-ranging conversation with the Chronicle, they provided advice for major-gifts officers trying to attract the attention and support of affluent donors.
Among their suggestions:
- Be straightforward when approaching a donor for a gift, David Risher says. Explain what your organization needs and how you think the donor can help.
- Donors want to be treated like something other than an ATM machine, Jennifer Risher says. “I don’t have a problem saying no to people, but I much prefer to say yes. When people approach me like a human being, that’s when I step forward.”
- Donors want to do good in the world, so fundraisers should think of them as their partners in doing good together, Jennifer says. “When fundraisers approach donors with the idea that they’re going to help the donor do what the donor wants to do, that’s what works.”
- Fundraisers who have done their research on how much money a donor might be able to give should not assume that “big capacity equals big gift,” David says. “Big capacity might lead to a smaller gift or even nothing” when the organization’s priorities or values don’t align with the donor’s. He says gift officers should also consider what issues and causes a donor cares about.
- When a major-gifts officer asks a donor for a $100,000 donation but receives $10,000 instead, Jennifer says, it’s important to be appreciative and keep the relationship going. “It is key for fundraisers not to anchor their thinking in the net worth of a person, but to anchor their thinking in what the donor has given in the past and then move that relationship forward,” she says. “Over the course of two, three, four, five years, that donation could become 10 times the amount of that first gift.”
