Getting Donations

The Two Types of Donors

There are generally two prongs that need to be managed - the whale hunting prong and the engagement prong. Whale hunters go after a small target list of well-heeled, ideological prospects, in our case fishing for five and six figure donations. This is a highly private, face-to-face process. These are the donations that actually move the needle. The engagement prong is all about activating interest in the broadest possible base of members. Even trivial amounts are fine because it's not about the money, it's about gaining mindshare and attention. This is a public, highly visible process. The messaging to both target groups is different, and the kind of people that are good at each prong also tend to be different. We need to build a team here - a chairman who writes a big check then hustles his colleagues to match him (but other than that is not burdened with tasks) and a busy-beaver communicator who issues a steady stream of solicitations spewed out to the masses across multiple media with crisp, simple, stand-alone messages related to our mission. Both require a good "use of funds" story.