Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

<p>Bernard Ross is co-director of The Management Centre (=mc), an internationally based management consultancy working exclusively with charities and other not-for-profit organizations.</p> <p>Clare Segal is co-founder and co-director of The Management Centre. She has played a leading role in building =mc to become a leading player in the consultancy and training world.</p>

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<p>The Influential Fundraiser</p> <p>With the explosion of uninspired e-mail solicitations, dull fundraising dinners, and cookie-cutter direct mail campaigns, donors are demanding a new, personalized approach when being asked for money.</p> <p>Drawing on the authors' practical experience and the most current psychological and neurological research, The Influential Fundraiser offers a wealth of approaches that will help fundraisers make significant and successful creative "asks" for money from donors . . . in person. Written by Bernard Ross and Clare Segal&#151;two leading experts in the field of international nonprofit fundraising&#151;the book offers step-by-step guidance for gaining confidence and learning the necessary skills and techniques fundraisers must have to build successful relationships and raise substantial amounts of money.</p> <p>Written in a accessible, engaging style, The Influential Fundraiser will help you to be both highly effective and very flexible. The 5 P model outlined in the book&#151;Passion, Proposal, Preparation, Persuasion, and Persistence&#151;will help fundraisers and volunteers learn invaluable skills needed for fundraising success including how to:</p> <ul> <li> <p>Meet specific donor challenges</p> </li> <li> <p>Shape ideas into effective, memorable messages</p> </li> <li> <p>Decide what can be gained from a particular situation</p> </li> <li> <p>Build rapport with "difficult" or "different" people</p> </li> <li> <p>Handle a "no" response</p> </li> <li> <p>Create an impact with large groups</p> </li> <li> <p>Learn from failure</p> </li> </ul> <p>The Influential Fundraiser is international in scope and includes helpful suggestions for dealing with a wide range of cultural and diversity issues.</p> <p>In addition, the book explores the importance of influence more generally and offers techniques for persuading your board to invest in your ideas, engage a powerful advocate to speak for your cause, and motivate teammates when their confidence is low.</p> <p>With this toolbox of different approaches, any nonprofit professional can be transformed into an influential fundraiser.</p>

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Praise for The Influential Fundraiser

"The Influential Fundraiser is dazzling! This is the most original piece of work I've seen in the field of fundraising in years—yet it's down-to-earth, wonderfully readable, and eminently practical. If you're involved in fundraising, whether major gifts, legacies, direct mail, telefundraising, or just about any other specialty, do yourself a favor: buy this book! If you follow Bernard Ross' and Clare Segal's advice, you'll be sure to raise more money."
—Mal Warwick, author and president, Mal Warwick and Associates

"How curious are you? Curious enough to dive into the most recent work of Ross and Segal as they apply their vast insights and intuition into developing professional fundraisers? Packed with common sense, intellectual rigor, and practical steps, The Influential Fundraiser explores the psychology of twenty-first century philanthropy and provides key tools for the fundraiser to succeed in this challenging charitable environment."
—Sue-Anne Wallace, CEO, Fundraising Institute Australia

"Ross and Segal bring fresh perspectives and a host of new ideas to the fundraiser-donor relationship, and The Influential Fundraiser itself is an easy and fascinating read that will be useful on many levels. They have pioneered a new approach in fundraising that will be used for decades to come."
—Paulette V. Maehara, CFRE; CAE; president and CEO, Association of Fundraising Professionals

"Fundraisers at every level will find Ross' and Segal's ideas on how to improve the ways they talk to—and win over—high-value donors both exciting and stimulating."
—Lindsay Boswell, CEO, Institute of Fundraising UK

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The Influential Fundraiser

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

Influence is a special kind of communication skill you probably already have. But it's a skill that you can, and must, improve to be the outstanding fundraiser your cause needs.

In this chapter we'll

Explore how you and your improved communication can be critical to your organization's success Explain why high-level influence skills are particularly relevant and important to fundraisers and fundraising now

Our straightforward definition will help you understand exactly what influence is and what its key elements are. Arising from this definition are three implications. We identify how, if you work through these implications, you'll have long-term rather than short-term payoffs.

Finally, we help you understand the two main reasons why attempts at fundraising influence so often fail-and how our tried-and-tested 5Ps framework can help.

You Are the Success Secret!

Here are some typical fundraising challenges you might identify with. You're a committed, intelligent fundraiser working hard to secure resources for your organization and its important work. You accept the reality that you don't have the biggest marketing budget, or the most-recognized brand, or the best donor list, or the best board, or maybe even the "easiest-to-explain" cause. But you also accept that there's no point in complaining about the unfairness of it all-and you recognize that you have to raise funds in competition with organizations that may have those budgets, brands, donors, boards, and causes.

So if the question is, "How can I succeed in the competition for funds and what's my organization's success secret?" we believe the answer is you. Specifically, it's your ability to communicate your cause in a way that persuades donors and others to take action and offer you support. The competitive edge is your ability to influence. This book is about developing and improving that competitive edge so that you become a powerful and effective influencer.

Why Influence Now?

You could argue that fundraising has always been about influence. And in many ways that's true. But there are three pressing reasons why influence is a more important skill than it has ever been:

First, today's donors and supporters are more sophisticated and demanding. So our grasp of techniques for persuasion also needs to be more sophisticated and targeted. It's not enough anymore just to ask people to help "the poor" or "the sick," or "the lame." Today's donors want to feel they are making informed choices and definite impacts, which means they demand better communication. But they don't necessarily want more information. They want it faster and in a way that they can readily understand. That puts extra pressure on us to deliver. Influence skills can help us provide information to donors in a targeted and appropriate way to secure the result we need.

Second, we're all aware of the negative publicity certain types of mass fundraising are getting-wasteful direct mail, intrusive telephone fundraising, and spam-like e-mail and viral approaches are all attracting significant criticism. (Whoever thought viral marketing was a good name? Since when have viruses been thought of as something good?) As donors we don't want to feel we're part of a mass-marketing initiative. We want to feel special and important. So we like communications that are obviously about us and involve and engage us-but not in a way that just looks like a search-and-replace-key-field-in-a-database. Increasingly, there's a higher value placed on one-to-one and person-to-person contact, or at least what feels like such contact. Even if we're making one of fifty phone calls we should be able to change and adapt a basic message, using influence skills, to make the individuals we're contacting feel important and valued.

Third, influence skills can help you engage an exceptional individual donor in a way that enables him or her to make a transformational gift to your cause. The reality is there are now more wealthy people in the world than there have ever been. And the great news for fundraisers is that more of these wealthy people are philanthropic. Okay, we won't all meet the megagivers like Bill Gates, Ingvar Kamprad, Mo Ibrahim, Tom Hunter, or Carlos Slim at the dinner table. (If you only recognize Bill in this list, try Googling the others. Wealth and philanthropy are worldwide phenomena.) But we can and do meet people all the time who could make an exceptional gift. If you are introduced to potential high-value donors-whether it's Ingvar Kamprad or a local furniture store owner who wants to "give something back"-they'll want to deal with you one-to-one. It's in these one-to-one very-high-payoff situations that you'll also need access to influence skills to engage and enthuse the megadonor.

Defining Influence

So we know why we might want to influence. But before we explore how we influence we need to define what influencing is. There are a number of definitions. Our own definition-which has proved useful to clients and others we've worked with-is shown in Figure 1.1.

As you can see from the notes accompanying the main definition, simple doesn't mean simplistic. The key ideas in this definition will become important later in the book as you develop your understanding of influence. Let's look at them in more detail.

Managed relationship: To achieve a specific outcome with an individual or group, you need to be clear on the result you want and have a flexible plan about how to achieve it. The book explores how to develop a specific kind of relationship.

Helping others: Influence is different from negotiation or coercion. In influence you're trying to help someone change their mind or to come around to your point of view. Your prospect or donor should never feel manipulated. Much of the book stresses the different ways you can help people to choose to change their minds.

Understand, accept, and act: Successful influence has to have these three elements. We want people to really know what the challenge is, agree that they have a responsibility to tackle it, and finally do something concrete. We don't want them just to think about it! The book emphasizes the importance of action-especially when the first response you get is a "No."

Points of view: Throughout the book we reinforce a key issue-the way we see the world or feel about issues may not be the same for others. The really skillful influencer begins by being curious about people and framing ideas in a way that will help individuals or groups change their minds. We offer you ways to gain that skill.

Try to keep this definition, and the elements embedded in it, in your mind as you work through the book.

Why We Sometimes Can't Influence

Why do so many fundraisers go wrong in their attempts to influence? In...