Giving Away a $50k Donor

In the early 2000s, a friend and mentor gave me some simple yet profound advice. He suggested that prior to inviting people of affluence to give to my cause, I consider these two questions:

1. What is God doing in their lives?
2. Is the cause I’m inviting them to aligned with what God is doing in their lives?

At first I was skeptical. I was trained to approach fundraising with a transactional mindset, believing people had to be convinced to give. However, I deeply respected my friend and decided to follow his advice.  Here is what I experienced.

Two years later I met with a major gift donor who annually contributed to our organization’s cause. I was prepared to ask for a gift of $50,000. However, my approach was different this time around.  I decided to first invite him to update me on his family and business. Then I listened carefully to his response.

This donor told how God was doing something in his wife’s heart, prompting her to be more interested in their charitable giving. He wanted to come alongside her and support the causes she was drawn to.  This is exactly what my friend and mentor intended for me to discover. God was doing something in their lives that didn’t align with my plan. So, I set aside my strategy and responded by saying "this might sound a little odd, but I’m not going to ask you for a gift. Instead, I’d like to connect you with some of the organizations your wife is interested in.”  He became emotional and said “I would love for you to help us”.

As you can probably imagine my boss wasn’t too thrilled about my newfound tactics.  However, his mood quickly changed when he heard from the donor who began the conversation by saying, “I want to tell you what J.Paul did for us”.  Over the following years this family donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to our cause.  For more than twenty years I have continued to experience the joy of moving from transactional to transformational interactions with donors.

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Whether you're looking to raise gifts of $5,000, $500,000, or more, I want to help you experience joy and success in major gift fundraising.

Over the past 30 years I have developed strategies that are now built into an efficient and affordable online content system.  Depending on your needs there are 2 options you can choose to energize your efforts in fundraising:

• ‍The Catalyst Course - a major donor fundraising course for those who are new to the task.‍
• The High-Performance Course (coming soon) - a major donor fundraising course for experienced professionals.

Both courses are affordable at a cost of $500 and can be done in a schedule that fits best for you - taking anywhere from six weeks to three months to complete.  Everything I have learned (successes and failures!) is packed into these courses for your benefit and enjoyment. I have taken hundreds of folks through this content, helping them with fundraising strategies and empowering causes all over the world.  

Now is the time to take advantage of these resources!  

I look forward to hearing about your good work.

Blessings,

— J.Paul Fridenmaker