Your Friday FansRaise Tip – The Hardest Thing About ANY Fundraising (that you don’t have to worry about)

It’s simple.

It’s so obvious.

It’s the thing that humans hate possibly more than spiders, snakes, the dark, clowns, and elevators (my wife REALLY hates elevators)…

Got it yet?

Here’s another hint – it’s the one thing that probably holds back your group fundraising effort more than anything else, yet nobody talks about it.

…and its the same thing that kept you from “shooting your shot” with the cute kid in 8th grade for the Homecoming Dance…

Fear of REJECTION

 

In fundraising, there is an unspoken fear of rejection. In regular commercial sales, managers call it “Call Reluctance”, or the fear of reaching out and possibly hearing “NO”.

 

Most of the time, group participants play it safe with fundraising by only asking those close by to “Buy the thing”, or “Do the thing”…

 

Here’s some cold reality for you:

 

If you DON’T ASK —  you DON’T GET…

 

Luckily, FansRaise takes the fear of NO away from you and your campaign participants. There’s nothing to sell and no money to physically transact. All your students/participants need to do is simply build a contact list of people that (mostly) fit the following criteria:

1. They know the participant by first name (that way we’re not spamming the innocent)
2. They have some sort of savings or income from which to make a donation (no kids or peer students – it doesn’t help your campaign, and is a time waster)
3. They have “some” sort of knowledge about the activity, and your student’s involvement in it

 

So if I’m asked (via personalized email) to support my neighbor’s son’s marching band…

1. Yes, I know Johnny (he cuts my grass)
2. I’ve got a few bucks to throw his way for his band’s capital campaign (I was in drumline, by the way)
3. I hear Johnny cracking high notes on his trumpet over the back fence trying to play the impact hit from “Appalachian Spring” – I know what he’s up to.   🙂

 

By asking, you might get a yes OR a no, but by NOT even taking the time to ask – it’ll always be a NO.

 

FansRaise is taking the STING out of fundraising for hundreds of ensembles around the United States with the first-of-its-kind crowdfunding system developed specifically for the arts.