Make sure to get your free copy of ‘The 10 Commandment of Catholic Fundraising’. It’s a book that highlights the ten tasks you should do to keep you focused on your mission and hit your fundraising target, every time.

Transcript

Today, we will be looking at how to not annoy people when you are asking for donations. That’s a big topic these days and I’m going to offer you three pieces of advice on how to avoid annoying people but, before we dive in, let me introduce myself. I am Brice Sokolowski, founder of CatholicFundraiser.net. The website, YouTube site, and podcast t completely dedicated to helping Catholics with their fundraising. 

Now, before we dive in, I just want to make sure that you download — absolutely for free — my timesaving guide, The 10 Commandments to Catholic Fundraising, outlining 10 steps that every Catholic apostolate should be doing right now. Whether you are an apostolate, religious community, parish, Diocese, hospital, school, or university, I really recommend that any and every nonprofit should be doing these 10 actions. Find your free link below to The 10 Commandments to Catholic Fundraising. 

Okay, here are my three rules for how not to annoy people when fundraising. Because this is a big topic! A lot of people ask me, how do you ask while not annoying people? you could annoy people because maybe they don’t. They don’t wanna be asked about their limited budgets. There’s not. There are a lot of people asking, so there’s a lot of stress on your part. I recognize it because, well, I fundraise and I recognize it. Fundraising is stressful, so you want to make it less stressful. So one of the ways that you could do that is by figuring out Well, how do I not annoy them? How do I not annoy people when I asked him, Here are my three rules number one. 

The first rule is, you have to ask the right people. This means, don’t ask strangers; don’t ask people who aren’t  Catholic. If you think about it, asking the “right people” means more than likely that you’re going to have to ask the people around you, that know you and regularly come into contact with you. Now, I know this has its limits. If you don’t want to annoy people, and you still have to live around many of them! So if you don’t want to annoy people, make sure you target asking the right people. 

My second piece of advice is, be clear why you are asking.  If you’re raising funds for, let’s say, a boiler or roof for your parish, do you actually have to explain to people why you need a roof? Why a boiler is important? Obviously, a roof keeps rain from coming in and a boiler keeps people warm. It seems like common sense, but you really do have to state these things. Because you are asking to use someone else’s money. You can’t just say, hey we need a new roof. Hey, we need a boiler or something that you think is obviously practical. Whatever it is that you are looking to fundraise for, you have to explain it in the context of how it connects with your donors, with their community, and with their faith. I know it should sound like a no-brainer, but if you explain it in the context of the faith you reduce the possibility of annoying people. So my second tip to you today is, you’ve got to be clear about why you are asking. 

My third point today is that you want to make sure that you’ve donated yourself. It’s really important that, when you are asking somebody to give, that you can clearly state that you’re not asking them to do anything that you haven’t done yourself. I meet a lot of people who tell me, well, I give my time. I give my advice and my wisdom. It’s not the same thing. If you don’t want to annoy people when you approach them, then you’ve got to be able to say look, I’m not asking you to do anything I haven’t already done myself. 

These are my three pieces of advice for how to annoy people less when you are asking them to give.

I hope that you found this video helpful. Make sure you share it with a church or nonprofit group that you think might need assistance. If you have questions, reach out to me. Leave a comment. Please go to my website, CatholicFundraiser.net, and reach out to me there. I’m here to help you. I’m here to help Catholics with their fundraising. May God love you until next week and I look forward to speaking with you again then – bye!