By Bob Demont, CFRE, President
A growing amount of professional attention is being devoted to how to make the best ask of major donor prospects. Insights have emerged into who the best prospects really are, what their motivations for giving are, when to approach them, how much you should ask them for, and even prescribed language to employ when making the ask. Equipping volunteers and staff with this information, especially those inexperienced solicitors working on their first or second campaign, will help them make more successful asks of their assigned prospects. These prospects typically fit the “Loyalist” donor profile and comprise up to half of the prospect pool for any campaign.
But what about the other half?—those prospects for whom the best ask, at the right time, for the right amount, by the best solicitor STILL misses the mark and lands you somewhere between "No" and "Maybe," or worse yet gets you a "no response." In these challenging times, your campaign must look beyond your “Loyalists” and your organization must do a better job with not only your best prospects. However, the margin of success may lie with ask within a number of very narrow segments of an expanded prospect pool.
To offset the "Simple" straightforward asks of your Loyalists, Demont has identified at least eight other types of asks you can employ. These asks are geared toward the 10-30% of prospects who are not currently giving to your organization (Newbies or Uncommitted), as well as five narrowly defined donor prospect profiles, each accounting for less than 1% of the campaign prospect pool. These would include: Igniters, Enlightened Friends, Bargain Hunters, Investors, and Contrarians.
Are these narrowly defined prospect groups worthy of your attention this month, this year, or this campaign? Absolutely. Experience shows that most campaigns are won with 33-65% (Catholic churches being the lowest and cultural organizations the highest) of the goal given by ten prospects. This means that while accounting for perhaps no more than 1% of your total prospects, one gift from each of these five relatively narrow segments could yield 10% or more of your total campaign goal. The complete profile of each prospect in the context of both their relationship to the organization and/or the campaign, not just his or her motivation in general, should be carefully considered in discerning the type of ask that fits each of them in real-time.
Download our guide to making SMARTASKS© to see a description of nine types of asks (including the Non-Ask) available to you. Explore the applicability of each to your campaign and prospects to help you craft a more effective ask of one of your top prospects in your current or next campaign. In these challenging times, we cannot simply go to our current donor pool, we must invent ways to do more with fewer resources.