This should sound straight forward. I mean who wouldn’t do some research before venturing to raise funds, or so we think. You would be surprised to know how many of us just get to fundraising with nothing but pure belief. While belief is very essential for somebody trying to raise funds for some reason, it just might not make the cut when it comes to serious fundraising. Chances are that the person you talk to already knows something about what you are talking or they think they know something. You should either know enough to make him/her feel that you know more about it than them or you should at least be able to convince them enough into believing so. Otherwise, more often than not you might have to leave empty handed from such meetings. Of course there are many other factors that are in play simultaneously but not doing enough research will go a long way in ensuring that you remain unsuccessful with your fundraise.
So next time you think about fundraising for an idea or a cause, start by reading about the topic. Do some googling, possibly using various keywords around the core topic. The more time you spend doing this, the better your pitch will get. In fact, you would also know answers to most questions that might come your way during the fundraising meetings. The most successful of fundraisers will be good at what they do and one of the most important things they do is research about the topics they are going to talk about. Possibly also about the various sub-topics and other related topics. Always go into a prospect meeting with a holistic picture, so that you are always driving the conversation and not the other way round.
As I said, there are no sure-shot methods to succeed with fundraising but there are definitely sure-shot methods to fail with fundraising and not doing enough research is definitely a sure-shot way of failing at your fundraising effort…
Hope you found this short article useful. Happy to discuss further, should you feel like discussing further. Have a nice day, people.
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