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 money 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 invest, they must decide where to put their funds. How will they decide?

CRITERIA VS. CONTENT

Ultimately, people choose to invest based on their own choice criteria and beliefs. While your purpose is undoubtedly important and your pitch deck substantive, unless a startup matches an investor’s criteria and they know the risks involved with investing in you, they will do nothing, regardless of how compelling your goals, marketing, market share, or growth potential.

Funds, after all, are not sitting there waiting for you to show up. You may be requesting money that

1. competes with other investments in their portfolio;
2. represents some sort of risk to them;
3. is earmarked for something/someone else;
4. needs stakeholder buy-in;
5. may be outside their stated goals, relationships, strategy, beliefs or agreements.

For the most part, decisions are made unconsciously before content is directly considered, not to mention you have no access to the hidden or historic events, political mind-fields, or unconscious biases that dictate someone’s choice criteria.

By including some new thinking, it’s possible to enable prospective investors to uncover and share their criteria within your session, providing you the opportunity to discuss any objections right away, then offer them the exact pitch to match their needs.

HOW PEOPLE CHOOSE

Sadly, regardless of your worthy cause or important product, people won’t give you money unless it meets their unspoken criteria. It’s here you unwittingly lose investors.

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 personal choice criteria are factored and resolved, until it’s determined that donating or investing in one group vs another does not put the investor at risk, no decision to invest will be made regardless of the importance of your offering or your marketing or outreach efforts;
3. Our information is only relevant after it fits into the potential investor’s defined initiatives and parameters. And when you offer it before they’ve recognized their choice criteria. They can’t even hear your pitch accurately.

There’s one more factor to consider: Who decides?

While you won’t have access to anyone’s personal decision-making strategies, it’s obvious that unless it’s a small ask, there’s usually a decision team who decide together – several people or just a spouse – and may not be in the room with you.

These people also have unknown criteria that govern their choices – political, humanitarian, profit, trust, etc.; there are personal standards that must be met; and there’s a risk to each choice that must be ascertained. Content details are only useful once primary choice criteria are met.

FACILITATE CRITERIA DISCOVERY BEFORE PITCHING

Instead of assuming the compelling solution you believe details investors should know and developing pitch decks based on these assumptions, begin by leading people directly to their unconscious choice criteria.

I’ve developed decision facilitation models used by many sales professionals to facilitate buying decisions called Buying Facilitation®. It includes the elements involved in how buyers decide, using a form of question I invented [Facilitative Questions™] that enable unconscious criteria to emerge for discussion. Here’s a few to use for fundraising:

• What investment risks do you seek to avoid? How will you know upfront that investing with us would avoid these risks?
• 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?

Sample

These questions make it possible for potential investors to find their unconscious criteria beyond their automatic choices. So if I never contribute to causes that involve for-profit business, if a small software group is fundraising to give their employee’s children better healthcare I might go beyond my unconscious criteria and invest.

At my suggestion, one of my clients posed this Facilitative Question™ as her first statement 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.

REPEAT INVESTORS

For people who have donated to you or invested with you previously, begin your meeting with a discussion 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. 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.