The Psychology of Asking and Giving ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT,

November 1999
- Charles E. Bartling,

1. People give because they feel they have an obligation to pay back their profession, their community, their school, or society in general. Payback is a word you hear more than any other when you talk to donors about why they have given. In a way, there's a sense of guilt, although they seldom use that word, that they are living such a comfortable life while they read daily about the miseries of their fellow man all over the world. In a profession or society, payback comes in the form of doing for others what those who preceded you have done for you. Much of the giving to schools reects the joys and experiences while a student that have affected the life of the giver. "My theory has always been that people have a desire to give back," says Riggin. "It's just born in us." He adds that "you're tapping into the needs of a person really wanting to be a part of a bigger community" when you ask for the gift. In his book, Mega Gifts, Jerold Panas quotes philanthropist Leo Baranek as saying: "I feel that people in my position ought to help society. If we don't, who will? I feel that when I make a gift, I am paying back to society what I owe it." 2. Much of philanthropy is in the genes of the giver. The desire to give tends to be handed down from generation to generation. It's a value that is instilled into a person at birth, reecting the generosity of his or her parents. Green began contributing to his college and his fraternity immediately after graduation "because of the values I got from

my family as I was growing up. You gave back, and the amount of your gift was commensurate with ability, but whether or not you gave was not optional." A similar comment came from Riggin: "Both my mother and dad really brought me up to understand that your life on this earth is about giving back and about serving others, and so service organizations have always played an important part in my life." As a youth, Riggin served as the national chairman of Teens Against Polio, and he approaches fundraising with a vigor that his colleagues relish. 3. Corporate giving is different than individual giving. In the early days of the industrial society, many large corporations were owned or controlled by single families, so that giving by companies owned by the Rockefellers, the Fords, the Pullmans, and the Kelloggs were motivated by the personal whims of those families. As corporations passed into the hands of professional managers, however, corporate giving took on a new dimension. Managers were making donor decisions about money that really belonged to the stockholders, and they had to justify the outlay on the basis of how it served the interests of the corporation. As Richard Magat explains it in his book, Philanthropic Giving, "the desire to do good is being replaced by an investment orientation that not only seeks to fund activities benecial both to company and community, but also seeks to assess the productivity of such charitable investments." Accordingly, corporate giving today is justied largely as contributions, as marketing, as public relations, as enlightened self-interest, as tax strategy, or as social currency, whereby it enables corporate ofcers to participate in the networking that goes on within the social elite of a community. Association boards, because they represent more than a bottom-line orientation, tend to be a hybrid of individual and corporate motivations. In other words, our boards can become as passionate and altruistic about giving as any individual, yet they still retain a duciary responsibility to ensure that the gift is in the overall best interests of the membership. Raynes's association has announced it is making what he calls "a fairly substantial

contribution" to ASAE's Partners for the Future campaign because the research carried out by the foundation has a bottom-line impact upon his association. The president's budget proposal for taxing investment revenue for tax-exempts, for example, has a direct effect upon the nancial viability of his association. Research conducted by the foundation that can support arguments pertaining to such legislative initiatives are well worth the cost of the contribution, in the view of his board members. But there was another factor that counted in APICS's decision, and that was that the contribution would help bolster the association's image as a full player in the association marketplace, which could help it attract staff and resources that will be important to it in the future. 4. The quality of the organization's management is a signicant factor in making the gift decision. First, sell the organization and the mission. Then talk about the specic project. Donors tend to favor organizations with strong staff management, under the theory that a strong staff will attract a strong board, which will attract the big bucks. Donors seek the condence that the contributions they make will be effectively used for worthwhile projects. Before Marriott made its decision to donate $500,000 to the ASAE Partners for the Future campaign, a meeting was arranged between Bill Marriott and ASAE President and Chief Executive Ofcer Michael S. Olson, CAE, not to talk about a gift, "but to make sure that they had a solid relationship and that Bill Marriott was comfortable with the new direction of ASAE," according to Green. Although donors need to feel passionate about the project they are funding, the organization sponsoring that project, and its staff, are of considerable importance to them. The stewardship of the funds you raise is an important factor for future giving. 5. The solution is a more powerful motivator than the need. While the strength and credibility of the organization is an important factor, and the needs for the funds can be well justied, the big donations are generally attracted more by the solution than by the need. "Clearly," says Panas, "the mega givers are not motivated by dire need, but rather are

captivated by the opportunity, the challenge, the magic of being able to do something special, something others may not be in the position to do." In fact, he declares, donors run away from needs. "They hide from the institution that is not nancially stable. Large donors give to heroic, exciting programs rather than to needy institutions." 6. Fund-raising is really friend-raising. The secret to successful fund-raising over time is to build a personal relationship with the giver. Riggin, arguably one of the most effective fund-raisers in the business, makes no bones about the need to develop personal relationships with your donors. "You may start out giving $100," he says. "But if you see that I'm using your money to really achieve the mission of the organization, then I continue that relationship with you, and the longer I have a good relationship with you and the more I cultivate that relationship, the larger that gift will become." Not only will those gifts grow year after year, he adds, but the ultimate gift is naming your organization in the donor's estate plan. While he's not a fan of relying on letters and cold calls for fund-raising, Riggin acknowledges that those two devices can be useful in getting a relationship started, "but until you've formed that relationship, you will not get that sacricial gift." 7. The attitude of the ask will result in the quantity of the gift. Panas tells the story of the Methodist minister who visited a wealthy widow regularly as she lay on her deathbed, condent that her estate would be left to the church. After all, he reasoned, she had no living relatives, and the church had been her "family" for many years. But when she died, she left her entire estate to the alma mater of her late husband. When the shocked minister inquired of the woman's attorney, he was told that a few weeks before her death, the college president visited the woman and asked for a gift to the university. It was as simple as that. The college president had asked for the gift. The minister had assumed, but had never asked. To a novice fund-raiser, there is something inherently distasteful about asking for money, but if you don't ask for the gift, you will be less likely to receive it. Raynes's advice: "Don't apologize for asking." A big fan of Riggin, Raynes maintains that "watching Don Riggin raise funds is one of the most incredible things I have ever seen. He's not embarrassed to ask, and he's not embarrassed to ask big, and he doesn't apologize for the ask."

About Riggin, Dolan adds: "I have the highest regard for Don, and he really believes in what he does, and I think that's contagious and makes me want to go the extra mile with him. I can't always go as far as he wants, but his condence and enthusiasm is contagious and makes me want to do as much as I can." 8. Maintain optimism in your approach, but reinforce the good that will come from the gift. When you're successful, I asked my mentors, should you hide that fact from your donors? Otherwise, they might not think you need the money. Not at all, I was told. Dolan expressed it this way: "People want to be associated with a winner. In fact, people might be hesitant to contribute to a cause that they think hasn't been successful in the past, because the last thing people want is their hard-earned dollars to be used inappropriately. So I personally think you should trumpet those victories. But then you should follow up in the next paragraph to say that the challenges continue. 'We had a wonderful effort last year, but the challenges are the same, if not greater, this year. We count on you to support us again.'" Riggin agreed. "Yes, we did overachieve," he would tell them, "but we overachieved because we had a story to tell. Sure, we set a goal, but that goal was not what the need is; it was a goal of what we thought we could do, and because of the commitment of the people involved in it, and because of the community's desire to give, we were able to do more." "I think people like to attach themselves to a winning cause," maintains Raynes. "They want to be a part of something that is successful, and the constant beating of the drums that 'we're dying here and that if you don't help us we're done,' suggests to me that you're already gone. I'd much rather be connected with something that is successful and positive and will produce results." 9. You can never embarrass a potential donor by asking for too much. You can only embarrass him or her by asking for too little. Riggin truly feels that you are insulting your prospective donor if you aim too low. "If I ask you for $25,000, and you say, 'Gosh, he really thinks I can make that kind of an investment and I can really only make $15,000,' that's OK. But if I ask you for $100, and you could really make a $15,000 investment, you're going to say, 'Does he think that that's all I can do? Does he really not know me? Does he really not know what my passion is?' So that's the whole theory that I go on is that

you really look at a person, you listen to a person, you establish a relationship when you nd out what their desires are, then you match up the needs of the organization with what they want to make an investment in." Riggin emphasizes that for this technique to work, you have to do your homework and have a pretty good idea about that individual's capacity to give. But once you have that target in mind, he advises to go for what he calls the "sacricial gift." 10. When asking for money, it's as important to listen as it is to talk. Riggin wants to nd out who you are and what your life is all about. "You'll be surprised at what people will share with you as far as what they really value in life." Suppose, for example, you were talking to an association executive about the Partners for the Future campaign and you connect on the proposition that people don't really understand what the association management profession is all about. Taking that cue, you would then say something like this, according to Riggin: "'What we're proposing to do in this Partners for the Future campaign is to identify perceptions in our research so that people will better understand what the association management profession really does and how it impacts everyone's life, not only in this country, but in this world, and the important role that we play, whether we be a trade, a professional, or a philanthropic organization.' So you begin to talk in terms of that with them. And then you're not afraid to make the ask." 11. Find a champion to set the bar. One of the best ways to persuade a donor to increase his or her usual contribution, my mentors told me, was to nd a champion in the group who will agree to tell how much he or she gave to the campaign. The donors will then try to come close to that amount, as they feel that is what is expected of them. 12. Say "thank you" again and again. When Panas was raising money for Princeton University, his alumni chairman was adamant that big donors be thanked repeatedly, in different ways, for their donation. "'When we get a gift that we think is special,' she insisted, 'let's nd a way to thank the person at least seven times before we ever ask them again for another gift,'" Panas says. In addition to the usual thank-you note that is sent at the time the gift is received, you can

communicate with that person many times in the ensuing year by giving them periodic updates about the status of the project that motivated them to give. There are many other ways to thank a donor, depending upon the nature of the gift and the use to which it is put. If the donation was for scholarships for attendance at your schools or conferences, for example, a note from the student receiving the scholarship would be an appropriate way to express thanks. By the time the next year's campaign gets under way, this donor is thinking about how much higher he or she can go. When he was a chapter president with the Arthritis Foundation, Riggin would give his board members lists of names and telephone numbers of donors around Thanksgiving and ask them to call to tell how much the organization appreciated their support and how much good it did. The call was not coupled with a request for money. "What you want them to really understand," says Riggin, "is that you do value them and you do value their gift." 13. The most important motivator of them all is . . . The nal and perhaps the most important lesson I learned from my mini-research project was that the biggest motivator of all is the simple joy of giving. There is perhaps nothing as satisfying to an individual as knowing that he or she made a difference in someone else's life. As a consequence of taking my customized crash course in fund-raising, I made a list of changes that I would propose to my United Way board for increasing the effectiveness of our upcoming campaign. First, I would generate a list of the top 100 donors and organize a calling campaign by my board members, assigning, where possible, calls to donors who are personally known by a board member. I would ask them, in their phone call, to thank the donors for their past support, mention some of the specic projects that their contributions funded, and ask them to consider doubling their gift for next year. I would also suggest that they make the point that our board rigorously examines the operation of our agencies to ensure that we are channeling their donations where they can be most effective. Second, I would re-evaluate our thank-you strategy, to develop numerous opportunities during the year to thank our donors, in addition to the usual thank-you letter that is routinely sent to them upon receipt of their donations. I would build into our strategy a feedback mechanism that would enable us to understand the concerns and "hot buttons" of

our donors. Third, I would request from our United Way agencies a list of projects that the United Way money has helped to fund so our campaign literature can emphasize the good that comes from donor contributions. I recognized that in the past, our appeals have focused on need, rather than on the projects that have been developed to meet those needs. Finally, I will strive to overcome my own fears of asking my neighbors for contributions by recognizing that their donations will not only do a great deal of good for our community, but that the very act of giving will bring great joy and a sense of pride to those who give. In fact, I'll put this concept to the ultimate test by increasing my own contribution.
Charles E. Bartling, CAE, writes, speaks, and consults on association management from his base in Evanston, Illinois. The former president and chief executive ofcer of a national association in the nancial services industry, he is the author of Managing Association Turnarounds and Strategic Alliances for Nonprot Organizations, both published by ASAE.