Before you pick up that phone to call someone to ask them for a donation before you set that meeting, to meet face to face with someone, you've got to figure out what is your message? Why is this particular organization you're trying to raise money for so valuable? Why do you personally value it? Why should anyone value it if you're trying to raise money for the United Way? What specifically is better in your community because of the United Way? If you're raising money from your university, and you don't enjoy your university and didn't think it was that great, why are you raising money for it?

Now, presumably, you'd love your university or you wouldn't have volunteered to raise money for it. You've got to figure out of all the causes in the world and there are millions of them. What's unique about this one, what's special about this one, what is the message that you have that's important to you, that's going to resonate with the person you're talking to now? Obviously, if you're raising money for a particular health care, charity, and the person is directly affected by that someone in their family, you can talk about that. So for example, if someone called me trying to raise money for ALS, if they knew that, in fact, my father had ALS, my grandfather died of ALS. If they know that and talk about it in a gentle way, it's gonna be very, very hard for me not to give them some money.

It's just pulling on the heartstrings a little too strong. So, before you get into that meeting, or before you pick up that phone, you've got to have a general message as to what this organization does well that anyone would say, Okay, that makes sense. That's legitimate. But then you have to figure out what messages do you have that are uniquely of interest to this person. Everyone has certain issues, family members with needs friends Children who have special needs. And yes, some people give entirely based on being noble and what's good for humanity.

But a lot of people do like to mix their charitable giving with self interest. So if they're giving money to your boy scout organization and their son is going to be or their daughter is going to be in scouting a couple of years from now, and you're helping with some sort of infrastructure meeting facility that could be of use to them, that may make the difference. So you've got to come up with messages about what's good in your organization, what's good for society, how its benefited you, and specifically how this is going to benefit the individual. Now, if you're raising money for a political campaign, you've got to talk about the issues that person cares about and how there is an alignment between the political figure of the candidates you're working With and the person you're trying to raise money from. So don't try to think of this off the top of your head, you need to have a clear cut sense of what your message is, before you pick up the phone before you meet with that person face to face.

So that's your homework, I want you to think of a target donor. And then think of a message something you can say in about 30 seconds to that person. Go ahead and write it down something that you think reflects why you see this organization is valuable and why you think that person would see it as valuable to you