How to Raise Money for an Unknown Nonprofit

What it is

One in four children in our county reads below grade level. The sentence is true, it is serious, and as a fundraising instrument it is close to worthless. It describes a condition and stops there, which leaves a reader two possible responses, neither of which is a gift.

The book opens with what research on charitable behavior has established, much of which the sector disregards, and rebuilds the case for support from there. Then your first fifty donors, who are not strangers, are not wealthy, and are largely people you already know. Then the conversation itself: the request is four sentences, and the silence that follows is where the skill lies.

After that: monthly giving as infrastructure rather than a tactic. Grants, and why they are the slowest and least reliable money available. Government contracts, and what they cost beyond money. The fundraising event nobody costed. And a donor record another person could take over, which determines whether the donors belong to the organization or to you.