Patrick: Week 5 (February 14-18)

This week, I got to try my hand at donor outreach. Coming into the week, I was not aware that such outreach would be my primary focus. I happened to be talking casually with my boss about some "big name" donors he was thinking of reaching out to. Knowing that a particularly influential family from my town had an established track record of donating large sums of money to free-market organizations, I asked if he had heard of the family. He said that he had indeed heard of the family through his work at a previous job but that he was not connected to it via personal or business relations so as to justify attempting to reach out to any of its members. He asked if I knew anyone to whom we could reach out in hopes of then having that person reach out to the "target family" on the pretext of that person being one of the "target family's" personal acquaintances. He explained that if we could encourage one of the "target family's" acquaintances to support our work we could then hopefully encourage the "target family" to support our work via a donation as well. This was the "person-to-person" contact strategy with which our organization operated regarding potential donors. Although I was aware of some mutual friends who might be able to put us in in touch with the "target family" in question, I was uncomfortable reaching out to them because reaching out to them meant that I would need to approach them about becoming monetary donors to our organization. To me, there is nothing more uncomfortable in business than asking a friend or family member for money! So, not wanting to jeopardize any of my personal relationships as a result of having to distastefully ask them for money, I averted any potential conflict by offering to author a letter to the "target family" myself. While I was not acquainted with the family personally, I did work as a volunteer on the campaign of one of the family members when he chose to run for political office. Using this distant connection as my angle, I drafted a letter informing the gentleman of our organization's existence as well as my thoughts on why our organization's goals aligned with his personal philanthropic mission. Before writing officially, however, I spent a few days researching the ins and outs of drafting donation letters to potential donors. This experience--as well as the actual writing of the letter itself--proved to be an enlightening one. Overall, while I remain squeamish about asking friends and family for money, I learned that individuals and organizations who possess an established history of philanthropic activity are going to give money regardless of whether it is given to you or not. As such, in attempting to secure a donation for one's cause, one must not view the process as simply "asking for money." Rather, one must act as if he or she is simply a "broker" helping to direct a donor's money to a cause in which the donor might be interested. This piece of wisdom has helped to calm my nerves continually in soliciting donations. I will continue to use it if I end up making a career out of this early experience in non-profit organizational management. Who knows? Using the above "brokerage" line of thinking, I may even be able to one day shake my distaste for asking friends and/or family to monetarily support a cause for which I am working.