Asking someone for money is one of many people’s greatest fears.
We have a strange relationship with other people’s capital. For some reason we have no problem selling someone lemonade on the side of the road as a kid, but asking a friend to invest as an adult in our business is a horrifically daunting task.
As someone who for years feared, hated, and generally avoided asking people for money at all costs, I’ve had to study what enables great fundraisers to succeed so I could replicate their efforts.
The truth is that some people naturally love to ask others for money. Those individuals are gifted salespeople, but I can assure you they are the exception rather than the norm. If you have concerns about asking people for money, you are in the majority. So here are four essential steps to successfully making a financial ask.
Step 1. Define and Envision The Person Your Ask Will Benefit
The first step is to acknowledge that the mental and emotional reservations in these situations rarely stem from the other person’s relationship with money. You hate asking because of your own relationship with money.
In my case, my parents raised me to be self-sufficient and not be someone who needed a handout. I took great pride in my early entrepreneurial endeavors, whether it was running a March Madness Bracket in middle school or selling burned CD’s on Ebay in high school. So as Pencils of Promise grew, I couldn’t stand the thought of asking people for money because I equated it to personal weakness.
It was only through a course I took called Exponential Fundraising by Jennier McCrea and Jeff Walker that I realized the fundamental flaw in this thinking was that I was putting myself at the center of the equation.
You are not asking for yourself, you’re asking for those you serve (click to tweet)
So Step 1 is to remove your ego from the situation, and define a beneficiary on whose behalf you are making the ask. Maybe it’s a disadvantaged child that your services will support, a coworker whose salary you want to pay, or your own children who your company’s financial gain will benefit.
Either way, until you determine who you are asking for outside of yourself you will never be able to move onto the tactical Steps 2-4.
Step 2. Ask Questions and Listen Actively
Jonathan Powell | Flickr
Now that you’ve got your time together face-to-face, most people go into sales mode. They start pitching how great their organization or product is right away. They talk and talk and talk about the greatness of what they’re offering, and they’re dead in the water before even making any type of financial ask.
People are much more likely to put their money into an area of personal interest than one which doesn’t appeal to their tastes and preference. I don’t care if you have the world’s most beautiful chalet in the Swiss Alps, if I hate cold weather I’m not buying.
So the most important thing you can do for the majority of your meeting is to ask thoughtful questions to understand the other person’s preferences and areas of interest.
Sample questions might include:
- How did you get into your current line of work?
- What ideas and companies are you most excited about these days?
- What matters most to you when investing your money into a new venture?
- Are there certain things that you wish you could solve for?
- What do you want your legacy to be one day?
- What are some of your biggest wins in your career and why do you think they were successful?
Once you understand that person’s motivations, history and way of thinking, you’re ready to make your ask. But it’s all about listening and making sure your values and ideas for the future align. If they don’t align, don’t waste your time or theirs with the ask. But if they do, then in the words of my friend Lewis Howes:
“You are not selling, you are serving.” (click to tweet)
Step 3. Present An Opportunity With Exclusivity, Scarcity, and Urgency
The pressure is now on. Your heart is racing because you know it’s time to make the ask.
Just remember that this is not a one-way value exchange, what you are offering in return for their money is something of true value that will benefit them immensely. If you don’t deeply believe this to be true, you should not make the ask nor even be involved in the company you currently work within.
Make a swift and compelling pitch about how your venture is the perfect opportunity to address the specific things they are seeking to impact based on everything they shared with you. Speak confidently and look them directly in the eye throughout this entire part.
Next, you have to demonstrate that this is an opportunity that is only being offered to a select few (Exclusivity), there is a limited amount that will be available to those investing (Scarcity), and the window of opportunity is finite and will be closing at specific date – make it soon (Urgency).
Paint a picture of what you’re going to accomplish together, once again reiterating both the benefit to them as well as that originally beneficiary you are there to support in the first place and then state the following words, “I would like you to consider making an investment of XX.”
Step 4. Allow Silence to Determine The Response
This is often the most difficult part of any fundraising ask, especially for those who haven’t done this much and are uncomfortable with the process.
You finally make the ask, and immediately want to stuff it back in your mouth of out fear of rejection. You fill the air with jumbles of words so it’s not so obvious that you just asked for money, and the horrific encounter can hopefully be over soon.
This is the most important thing you’ll ever learn when fundraising. Once the ask is out there, you have to shut up. Don’t say a word.
Nothing.
Absolute silence.
More often than not the other person will take several seconds to respond. The dreadful silence will hang there like a thousand tiny daggers into your nervous system. Anyone who has been through this knows exactly what I’m talking about.
“In moments of truth, you need to give space for the truth to emerge.” (click to tweet)
What will inevitably happen, is for the next five minutes the less you talk the more the other person will fill the space. They’ll feel an inherent need to justify whatever their response is, whether yes or no.
If it’s a “No,” they’ll explain all the various reasons for their logic and you should continue to provide silence so they can share insights as to why it’s not a fit for them right now. Pay special attention to those words right now. Learn from why they’re not saying yes in that moment, because they’ll often give you clues as to why this could be a better fit at a later date or in a different incarnation.
“Every ‘no’ is really a deferred ‘maybe’ in disguise.” (click to tweet)
If they say “Yes,” then your short responses followed by silence will allow them to fill the space with their excitement about the opportunity and once again will give you ample learnings to apply to your future pitches.
Whether you get a yes or no, the truth is that the more times you step up to the plate the less daunting this process will become. Eventually you might even look forward to it.
If you have your own fundraising tips please leave them below so others can gain from your knowledge and experiences. Thanks so much and good luck out there.
Before You Ask For Money, You Should Read This…
Now that you’re equipped with the knowledge on how to successfully ask for money, you should make sure you’re taking the right steps to successfully start and scale your idea. I’ve compiled a 100% free resource that details how to do just that.
To grab you copy, just click below:
markspencer
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Alan Lee
Thanks for that my dear guys!!!
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I do not know if it’s just me or if everybody else experiencing problems with your blog.
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This may be a problem with my browser because I’ve had this happen previously.
Cheers
Albert
Dear Adam. I got to your website by chance. Ours is a small for profit college in Mombasa, Kenya. Am looking for ways to make the business pull through and to save 12 jobs after Covid devastation.
I managed to pay my staff until July after selling some personal property in April.
This is my situation: I have a demand notice for rent arrears $8,500 by 30th Sep. We need to raise atleast $10,000 to re-open, to recover and to save livelihoods. How do I navigate out of this? How do I raise the amount?
Thank you for your time.
Maman
Hi..it’s quite good steps to ask for help to a philanthropy. Thank you
Gabriella Lowery
The article was instead grabbing and intriguing enough to get all probable nuances to recall.
I do get pleasure from studying the content and the composing manner of the writer, etc..
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It’s great to read something that’s both enjoyable and provides pragmatisdc solutions.
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They should just ban CDS trading if it goes against "financial stability" that way, oh wait, they are looking into it. You cannot make this stuff up anymore.
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Well put, sir, well put. I’ll certainly make note of that.
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This is process of Britain "attacking its own roots" is something that's been going on for much longer than Cameron's 2 years in charge. Cameron may be a sell-out who'll do anything for a vote – including smear his own supposed ideological allies – however "absurd Britannia's" ball was set rolling by Tony Blair's government way back in 1997. Blair having also once declared his wish to "defeat the forces of conservatism". For more on this, see my recent post , also covering some of the stories covered by Paul Weston.
Victoria Schweizer
Thank you so much for this article. I am just now putting together a fundraising campaign so I can continue to paint and donate the oversized paintings to charities around the world. I’ve been doing it because it brings me incredible joy but it’s expensive to continue to buy all the supplies associated with creating them. I have never asked anyone for anything – especially money – because I was taught to be very independent so asking people to assist with these expenses is so difficult.
Your suggestion to stay silent and let people explain to you their reasoning is great advice and I will try that. I’m sure it will be very difficult but I will try. Looking forward to reading the 6 Vital Steps to Start and Scale Your Idea next!
Kindest regards,
Victoria 🙂
Kadi Kenk
Hi Adam! Reading your book now, happy to have been suggested by a volunteer of ours. The thing always is with fundraising, that unknowingly people leave themselves alone and don’t allow for the donor to feel that they can be part of the mission just as well. So in addition to what you say – that you ask for what you serve, i advise people, when asking, not to think as if they are the only last people who still understand and are there fighting for the cause, but instead, this cause is naturally something anyone should support. And even if not financially, definitely guve their beat to provide a support in their other means.
Good luck, and hope to bump into you one of those days!
K
Sascha Heller
It is hard to set your mind on the fact that indeed you’re asking for the people that benefit from your organization and not for yourself.
So thanks for highlighting this key insight.
Adam
My pleasure Sascha, good luck!
Robert Girling
Hi Adam
Thanks for your generosity in sharing these valuable lessons. Your message of listen and serve others is so powerful. I especially like your point about providing silence for others to talk and learn from what they say.
This is powerful information.
Thanks
Robert
Adam
So glad it was helpful Robert, lots more to come!
Mark Johnson
Thanks Adam, great points to learn. It is as you said, not easy asking for money.
My project is building clean cookstoves in remote areas of Uganda and Nepal. To start we did most of our Fundraising through small gatherings with friends as well as through Rotary Clubs. Now we are getting support from two larger organizations, one from a foundation founded by a owner of restaurants and the other is from a large church in Westchester County. The church became very excited to help and got their whole sunday school program, kids from 6-14 to make this their main fundraiser for the year. In the first 5 months these kids have raised enough money to build over 180 clean cookstoves. Of course the funds are important and needed, but for me the most exciting part is the benefit these young kids will gain from learning how much of the world still lives as well as learning the value of helping others. I went their two weeks ago and showed all the children pictures from our recent trip to Uganda and photos of the newly built cookstoves they funded. Their response and look on their beautiful faces was priceless.
Here is our website: http://www.cookstoveproject.org
Adam
Checkout http://www.thenonprofitplaybook.com Mark. I’m sure it’ll be helpful to you when it launches.
Eric
I look forward to asking people for money. THAT’s what God made me for. SPIRITUALLY I love asking people for money. I am a naturally gifted salesperson just like Jesus, my best friend and constant companion. It’s not about me. I’m asking for the poor who have not the skill nor the voice, my co-workers and all the children in the world because I serve God. (James 1:27). It even helps the person who gives (Proverbs 11:24). Give and 40,000 people in my network will know about your generosity. I ask first thing when I go in for the meeting and remember the 50¢ lesson from Think and Grow Rich. The rich do a lot of things trying to make themselves happy when all you have to do is keep one foot in the house of the poor (Psalms 41:1) Thanks Adam 😉
Adam
Appreciate you sharing your insights Eric.
Tyron Janse van Vuuren
Really practical advice Adam, thank you! That tip about letting the silence hang is scary but gold. 🙂
Adam
It takes a while to get comfortable with Tyron, but it’s truly essential.
Will
Ah yes, nicely put, evoyeenr.
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Bless him, he looks all sad in the pics with the cast. Have to say though, the cast is pretty funky! Hope he gets better soon, I'm sure he will with all the TLC you are giving him.
Daniel Decker
Good stuff. Love it. Putting things into perspective, the WHY, makes a lot of sense.
Adam
Glad it resonated Daniel, now go out there and make it happen 🙂
Jimbo
Call me wind because I am ablotusely blown away.
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Takk for sist! Var kjempekoselig Ã¥ hilse pÃ¥ deg! Jeg spisset jo ørene ekstra godt da jeg hørte en annen bergenser 🙂 Ikke sÃ¥ ofte jeg hører den dialekten her borte :)Fortsatt fin søndag!Klem Lene
Alan Lee
Thanks for that my dear friends!