Your important nonprofit or exciting startup will help the world be a better place. But now you’ve got to raise money. You’ve created a terrific pitch deck; have a highly competent management team and terms; have access to good outreach lists; are sending out slick marketing missives that show your professionalism and integrity; and have identified donor prospects with major gift potential. You’ve designed a multi-channel approach to build relationships with small investors and donors to excite them to give more.

Why aren’t you raising all the funding you deserve?

• It’s not you, your message. or your organization;
• It’s not the strength of your relationship or who you ‘know’;
• It’s not the market, your competition, your return potential or your marketing materials.

It’s a decision issue. Somehow your investors must choose between giving their money to you or putting it somewhere else that seems equally promising. With a finite amount to donate, they must decide where to put their funds.

CRITERIA VS. CONTENT

Ultimately, people choose to donate based on their own choice criteria and beliefs. While your purpose is undoubtedly important, unless folks know how to choose one worthy beneficiary over another, they will do nothing, regardless of how compelling your goals, marketing, market share, or growth potential.

In reality, funds are not sitting there waiting for you to show up. You may be requesting money that

1. is earmarked for something/someone else;
2. needs stakeholder buy-in;
3. may be outside their stated goals, relationships, strategy, beliefs or agreements.

Knowing we’ve got an important offering, we assume a great marketing piece or a great pitch will engage, excite, and explain, and entice a donor’s better angels. So why aren’t we attracting more funding?

We forget that, for the most part, decisions are made unconsciously, before content is even considered; we have no access to the hidden or historic arrangements, political mind-fields, or unconscious biases that dictate someone’s choice criteria.

The more successful choice is to help people or groups discern their decision/choice criteria and then offer the exact pitch to match it.

HOW PEOPLE CHOOSE

Since most decision-making criteria is unconscious, raising funds must assume:

1. Outsiders (sellers, fundraisers, etc.) can never understand the behind-the-scenes, idiosyncratic criteria used to decide. Each person, each group has their own unique sets of rules, beliefs, values, vision they choose from;
2. Until the idiosyncratic choice criteria are factored, until it’s determined that donating or investing in one group vs another does not put the investor at risk, no decision to donate will be made regardless of the marketing or outeach efforts;
3. Our information is only relevant after it fits into defined idiosyncratic initiatives and parameters.

In other words, just because we’ve got a worthy cause or important product, people won’t give us money unless it meets their unspoken criteria.

While we don’t have access to anyone’s personal decision-making strategies, we do know: unless it’s a small donor, there’s usually a decision team who decide together – several people or just a spouse; there’s a set of criteria that govern their choices – political, humanitarian, profit, trust, etc.; there are personal standards that must be met; and content details are only useful once primary choice criteria are met.

I suggest we begin with questions to lead people directly to their unconscious choice criteria, such as:

• How will you choose between causes to give money to? What criteria will you use? What flexibility do you have?
• How will you and your decision team decide on the amounts and types of groups or organizations to invest in?
• What would you need to see from a group you’re considering investing in to be certain our group meets your criteria?

These questions (a form of question I invented [Facilitative Questions™]) enable the Other’s discovery and make it possible to expand their criteria beyond their automatic choices. So if I never contribute to causes that involve for-profit business, if a big-box store is fundraising to give their employee’s children better healthcare and I recognize I must go beyond my unconscious criteria, I might have greater choice.

At my suggestion, one of my clients posed an initial Facilitative Question™ when seeking Round B funding, before pitching. As a woman, she understood she had less than a 4% chance of getting funded and hoped to trigger the investor’s better angels:

What would you need to know about me, my level of skill and professionalism, and my ability to manage a start-up, to trust that as a woman I was worthy of your investment?

Two of the ten potential investors walked out. The other 8 actually applauded, saying they hadn’t realized they had an unconscious bias against women before they even walked in. She had no problems getting funded.

WHEN AND HOW

There’s a difference between sending out marketing content or speaking with someone personally: in one-to-one conversations it’s possible to continue questioning, for example, or provide further information. And of course sharing the details of your organization is necessary.

But both vehicles share the same rules: offer content after helping the donor/investor understand their unconscious criteria for giving you money. Obviously, in personal conversations, use the uncovered criteria as the focus of your pitch.

For people who have donated or invested previously, the focus should be on how they’ll decide to invest or donate again. These folks seem to be obvious patrons, but unfortunately not all recommit.

While we assume we can encourage them to donate or invest more, we might not know what they need to hear from us to do so: What do they need to know about what we’ve accomplished in the meantime? Are they looking for some sign of ‘success’ or to know if we’ve made the change or addition they were hoping for? Do they still trust us? Again, we can assume, but we don’t know for sure.

Good questions might be something like:

• What would you need to see from us to be willing to donate/invest again this year?
• Due to the political climate and our dedication to an agenda that supports equality, fairness, and food/shelter for all here in Portland, we are asking our current patrons to increase their contribution this year if possible. How will you know that we will use your funds to meet the goals you espouse?

Ultimately, investors and donors need to know they’re giving money to groups that match their goals and beliefs, and your content and marketing must be creative and representative.

But don’t rely on the details of your organization to be the only selling point: either do market testing to discover the beliefs and goals of your population, or rely on questions that help them recognize their unconscious biases and then offer content that meets most criteria.

Giving money is a choice that involves personal criteria: don’t assume people will invest or donate merely because you’ve got a great idea.

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Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.