Eight tips for training effective fundraisers
Howard Lake | 30 September 2016 | Blogs
Training the people who are going to make fundraising calls or other forms of direct ‘asks’ to your supporters is key in assuring that your brand values and your organisations’ ethos are correctly represented.
My experience, developed over twenty-three years of fundraising on behalf of not-for profit organisations for telephone fundraising, F2F, legacy campaigns and middle and major donor campaigns, demonstrates that training is not just about imparting facts and figures, but that it is more about instilling an ethos and a way of thinking in fundraisers who need to represent your organisation in the way you want it represented.
Over the years, I have seen the results of many client trainings, both good and bad, so here are some tips and pitfalls to get the best results when training out of house.
- Be clear about your brand and values. Demonstrate; how do you talk to your supporters; clarify who they are (not just age and demographics, this tends to be fairly similar across many organisation), but what are the values that you represent that have attracted a particular type of person to your cause?
- Be clear about the tone and the content of the conversation you want them to have with your supporters so that they sound like you.
- Training involving a PowerPoint presentation of facts, figures and history may have its place, but if you were employing a nanny to look after your child, would this be the way you’d choose to impart your values to someone you were entrusting with something so precious? Below are some ideas that might help you to do this.
- Bring along multiple copies of the mailings and magazines that you have crafted for your supporters to the training session. Ask the fundraisers to study them in groups and present back to you what they think the contents says to them about the brand and the values portrayed in them. In that way you can find out who they are, and how they are going to deliver your message.
- Role play different supporter scenarios with them and see how they respond; then show them how your organisation would respond in the correct manner.
- Don’t talk about internal politics; why you think the campaign won’t work; how your donors don’t like fundraising. It’s not very inspiring, and if this is the case you probably shouldn’t be conducting the campaign anyway.
- Remember, no amount of sweets; branded pens; t-shirts and coffee coasters can inspire a fundraiser as much as hearing your passion for your cause and the respect and gratitude you have for the supporters that make your work possible.
- You will learn more about the types of people who have been employed to make calls or other forms of direct fundraising ‘asks’ to your donors, on your behalf if you listen, observe and see how they communicate in a live situation.
Sometimes people think that being a good fundraiser is about having a nice voice, a particular background or a neutral or even posh accent!
But in reality, my experience shows me that the people who support you come from a wide variety of different backgrounds and experience, and above all else, that they will appreciate a conversation with someone who shares their values, who’s polite and respectful, and has the emotional intelligence to listen and respond appropriately.
Regardless of the financial outcome of the ask – like us all, they will remember kindly an interaction that made them feel good.
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.