How New Organizations Can Ask for Donations Without a Track Record (yet)

“Show me the money!” -  Cuba Gooding Jr., Jerry Maguire

The most difficult subject to talk about is the one everyone wants to hear about, and this is the subject of money, which many idealists will feel frightened about even if they desperately need it to further their causes and organization’s mission. When you are starting out, there is a tendency to try and do everything all at once, whether you attempt to be a one-man army or are trying to force everything to work out whether it’s in a proper sequence for development or an ongoing crunch. 

The truth is, all of these approaches affect not just your ability to solicit for donations, but impacts your expenses, causing you to spend more time, money, and resources than you need. Furthermore, having money but no structure may cause you to overestimate what you need and underestimate what you’re wasting. 

Here are a few ways to restructure your approach to make sure that you don’t just earn the donations you ask for, you deserve them. 

Know yourself, your organization, and your mission

It goes without saying that if you are uncertain of who you are as an individual, who and what your organization is, and what and how you hope to fulfill your organization’s mission, then you will never be able to answer the question to each prospective donor “Why should I give you my money?”

If you have all these answers ready, then you have 90% of what you need to satisfy prospective donors, since they can detect nonsense, poor management, and lack of focus immediately. 

The questions they will follow up with will often give you an idea of what you should also know before approaching them for donations:

Know who you are asking and adjust how you ask based off of that

Whether you are asking private individuals such as wealthy retirees, foundations, government agencies such as AusAid and USAID, or other organizations in similar fields like Kiva, you will need to adjust your proposal and your presentation for each of them.

A good way to think of it is like a job search: if you use the same CV and personal statement that is generic each time, you are almost guaranteed a rejection. If you tailor your proposal and grant request to each individual–not just the organization itself, but the individual reading your proposal who is in charge, say for example Mary the Grants Manager whom you know from board game night, you can appeal to both the organization and the individual to strengthen your request.  

Spend some time researching each individual, organization, or foundation before sending that request. Don’t focus on sending messages to 100 organizations each week–if you can spend a few days collecting information and forming a battle plan, you can figure out how to convince them to support you

Look at the crowdfunding models for inspiration

If there’s one thing Kickstarter and Indiegogo have shown us about crowdfunding models, it is that if an idea is good, people will come and support it. Projects may not get enough money to meet the minimum amount requested, but you will see that some people are drawn to a good idea–or even good humor and witty writing, such as the infamous example of the guy who wanted $10 to make a potato salad. 

So yes: a good idea with focus as mentioned earlier in the first point can get the right people interested. In terms of a proven track record, how these projects get funding also includes individual members of a project talking about their own background before they joined the team to make a documentary, a video game, or a microfinance project in Uganda. 

If you don’t have a proven track record as a new organization, leverage your track record as individuals before coming together for a dream and a cause. 

You can also put incentives for early supporters–many of whom are happy simply to be acknowledged and named. Some ideas for incentives don’t need to be fancy: you could make a special video for early donors giving a certain amount or even just do it the old fashioned way and mail them handwritten thank you cards.

Have more faith in people’s love for idealism than dread for their cynicism

It’s easier to think of people as Ebeneezer Scrooge than it is to think of them as actual individuals who are just like you with their own dreams of being part of something greater and doing some good in the world in whatever little way they can with what they have and what they know. 

If you come again with the mindset of faking it to make it, you come across as not just insincere or a fraud, but as desperate and begging. When you approach others as a human being and a friend, people are more likely to help out a friend with a dream rather than a used car salesman trying to hit quotas. 

Be open to both positive and negative responses initially that can change later

There is a tendency to take the first response as final, which is actually almost never the case. When you receive a response, you may enter a stage of negotiations, where you can potentially get more than you asked for, or people can back out and it has nothing to do with you but because they may discover that they don’t have the funds available at the exact time frame you request. 

Likewise, just because someone says no doesn’t mean that they’ve thought things through–often, they’ve given a knee-jerk response and haven’t even read what you wrote nor were they in the frame of mind to listen to your proposal over coffee because of personal problems. Some people may have had an intern write a response to you when they never even saw your message, and upon meeting you, are eager to support you contrary to what the intern assumed. 

Don’t burn bridges based on rejections and don’t count chickens before they hatch just because someone pledges money to you until the money is firmly in your operating account. Remember that impressions and relationships are always evolving and changing, and someone who rejects you in the beginning may become your biggest sponsor later on, just like someone who supports you initially may not be someone you’re willing to accept money from later if their political agendas do not align with your organization’s values! 

Conclusion

Ask and you shall receive–but always remember it’s how you ask and whom you ask, when you ask, and what you ask for.