# ‘Asking Properly’ reprinted

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2005/03/16/039asking-properly039-reprinted/
- Published: 2005-03-16T00:00:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**White Lion Press has reprinted George Smith’s ‘Asking Properly: The Art of Creative
Fundraising’. Ken Burnett explains why this excellent book has reappeared unrevised
and not updated.**

“This is an exceptionally important book”, explained Ken Burnett, author, consultant
and founder of White Lion Press, the book’s publisher. “Not only is it perhaps the
best book ever written on the subject of fundraising creativity (a short list to
head, perhaps, but a distinguished claim nonetheless), its content also is in many
ways timeless and it is, still, years ahead of its time.”

He explains: “within these pages you can find not only an unmatched analysis of 
what makes for real creativity when communicating a cause, but also a raft of clues
to the future of fundraising, a future that the bulk of today’s practitioners are
only just beginning to appreciate”.

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The book distils at least three decades of George Smith’s experience in fundraising.
He and Ken had worked together for many of the world’s most adventurous fundraising
charities. “From way back George and I were both dedicated evangelists for monthly
giving and legacy marketing, fundraising staples now but which, back then, were 
innovations not widely practiced and universally unsung. In 1994 we were given the
task of implanting these philosophies into Greenpeace’s offices around the world.
This, ‘the best job in the world of fundraising’, as George called it, transformed
Greenpeace’s fortunes everywhere and led directly to Greenpeace Austria’s development
of ‘Dialog Direct’ and the incubation of what’s now known almost everywhere as face-
to-face fundraising.

“At the time of writing, after just five years, Greenpeace has recruited more than
1,400,000 new monthly donors worldwide through face-to-face, raising an annual income
of US$130 million. That for just this one organisation, from one good idea.”

When stocks began to run low Ken says that it wasn’t a difficult decision to reprint.
However, “given that it first appeared in 1996, our first thought was to revise 
and update it, and issue it as Asking Properly, the 21st Century edition. But on
closer look that proved to be both impractical and unnecessary.”

“So please don’t be distracted by examples from the recent past or by statistics
that may now have been surpassed”, asks Ken. “Just enjoy the brilliant words, the
well-chosen illustrations and the instructive anecdotes. And benefit from this fine
depiction of the art and craft of fundraising which time has shown to be not just
instructive and enduring, but quite remarkably prophetic.”

Find Asking Properly on UK Fundraising’s bookshop.

 * **[Asking properly: the only sustainable way to do fundraising](https://fundraising.co.uk/2015/07/22/asking-properly-the-only-sustainable-way-to-do-fundraising/)(
   22 July 2015)**