By Denise Padín Collazo

When I was a kid, I took piano lessons.  Like most kids who’d rather be outside having fun after school, I’d sit at the piano practicing my scales and arpeggios.  At first, it was hard.  But, the more I practiced, the better I got.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book ‘Outliers’ explains that to get good at something, it takes about 10,000 hours of practice.  I don’t know how many hours I spent on scales and arpeggios, but those early days of piano remind me how much attention it takes to get really good at something.  Take, for example, non-profit fundraising. I’ve had a lot of practice raising money for non-profits.  About $60M worth over the years.

While most people are fearful or anxious about fundraising, it’s actually easier than you think.  You need three things to be successful:  Product, Persistence and Positioning.

Product.  In order to be able to raise money, you need to have a product you believe in that’s bold and beneficial.  Most of the time, in the non-profit world, funds come after the product has been proven to be beneficial.  For example, after the election of Donald Trump, we knew that immigrant families would be under attack.  Lorena Melgarejo and community leaders in the San Francisco Bay Area piloted an innovative rapid response network.  It helped shed light on increased immigration enforcement activity, stopped some deportations and built cross-racial relationships that didn’t exist before.  First they had the idea, then they built the program.  Funding followed.  The best way to raise funds in the non-profit sector is to focus most of your energy building a product that people want to invest in and telling the story along the way.  It’s kinda’ like the baseball movie ‘Field of Dreams’ – if you build it they will come.

Persistence.   Once you have a strong product, you have to get out and sell it.  Like the kid sitting at the piano bench running through scales, you need to be willing to persist if you want to succeed.  Many foundation representatives and donor advisors are exceedingly busy.  So your follow-up needs to be impeccable.  Folks in philanthropy are constantly getting pitched.  You have to be as persistent as a leopard.  According to famed wildlife expert David Attenborough, six out of seven leopard hunts fail.  That’s a lot of failing.  While the mighty leopard fails a lot, we don’t think of her as a failure…she just fails, fails, fails and then wins.  It’s the same with non-profit fundraising.  Figuring out how to be persistent and creative about presenting your work is key.  That’s where the next P comes in.

Positioning.  The most effective way to raise funds for non-profit organizations is to figure out how to effectively position yourself and your work.   Ideally, you are engaging in the world of ideas, not just doing great work.  Calling or emailing a program officer over and over asking for a meeting will not get you where you’re trying to go.  Take time to think about what your unique value add is in the world and then find ways to position yourself and your organization to be seen as the ‘go-to’ group for your area of expertise.  The organization I work for is the nation’s largest faith-based organizing network.  We take time to make sure we are sharing our ideas in a range of faith spaces – with religion reporters, in denominational periodicals, or religious conferences.  Recently, we received a shout-out from Pope Francis.  That did wonders for our standing in the faith community.

Remember when you’re trying to raise funds for non-profits, think about the three P’s:  Product, Persistence and Positioning. After awhile it’ll be as easy as do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do.

 

Denise Collazo is chief of staff of the PICO National Network, a national, faith-based community organizing network consisting of 54 local and state federations in 21 states.