Slight Edge Fundraising: Success Through Daily Habits (2024)

(With Tips From 2 Top Fundraising Experts)

"Motivation gets you started; Habits keep yougoing!" - Jim Rohn

Do you find thatyou're always busy "fundraising" but just not getting anywhere?

Do you get frustratedthat others are succeeding with their fundraising, but you just never seem toachieve the same success?! Well maybe it's time for a BIG change?

Actually, no it's not...

What it is time for, is to start applying the Slight Edge toyour Fundraising!

So what exactly is theSlight Edge?

In Jeff Olson's book, "The Slight Edge," he describes it as a principle which states that success (inany aspect of life or industry) is not achieved through huge singular actions,but rather small consistent daily actions and habits that compound over timeinto huge success (or failure if they're the wrong habits).

And the Slight Edgecan work for, or against you, depending on what daily habits you develop. Theright habits will increase your success and the wrong habits will do theopposite.

For Example...

Doing 20 minutes ofexercise today is not going to make any drastic change to your health or helpthe scale drop. It's easy to do - and easy not to do. Even after a week of 20mins every day you may not see much of a difference.

But compound those 20mins every day over time, and in a month or two you now start noticingsignificant changes to your fitness and your weight.

Or on the Adverse Side...

Eating a greasy fast foodhamburger today is not going to give you a heart attack or damage your healthin any significant way. But consistently eat them, and over time all thatprocessed fat compounds into a dangerous situation for your health.

So How do you Apply The Slight Edge to Your Fundraising?

Firstly you need towork out if the Slight Edge is currently working for you or working againstyou?

Ask yourself, "What are my daily habits and actions? What do I repeatedly do everyday that contributes to the growth and strengthening of my cause's fundraising,and to my fundraising knowledge and ability? And what am I doing that is notcontributing to growth and is in fact wasting time?"

Identifying what doesbenefit towards your fundraising success and what does not, is the first steptowards improving your fundraising ability and success. Continue and improvewhat is benefiting, and discard what is not.

Then you need to startidentifying and developing actions and habits that you don't currently have,that will contribute to your fundraising success.

For example...

What about reading onearticle on fundraising, from a top expert or blog, every day? Or what about 15minutes of reading from a quality fundraising book every day? Easy to do - Easynot to do. Then compound all that reading and learning over a year, and there'sno ways you won't have significantly increased your fundraising knowledge andability!

Or...

3 Donor Calls Every Morning:

What about as you getinto the office every morning, you pick up the phone and call 3 donors. Thankthem for their donations, ask them what made them donate, how they think yourorganization could better serve its purpose, and how you could bettercommunicate with them.

And honestly, how hardis it to make 3 calls to 3 donors in the morning before anything else... Notvery hard! But it's also just as easy not to make those calls.

So you make 3 callstoday and now you have 3 more donors who feel appreciated, heard, and importantto your cause - And who are now more likely to donate again and stay loyal toyour cause.

Wow... 3 whole people?Not an incredible amount right?!

But... do that consistently for a year. Now you've connected with an additional 750 plus donors (depending on how manydays you work a week), simply by taking a few minutes every morning to make 3phone calls before you start doing other work!

Easy to do, easy notto do... but with a huge difference in the long term!

So what other actionscan you do, that will contribute to your fundraising's slight edge success?

Let's ask some fundraising experts...

Slight Edge Habits & Actions to Develop - From 2 Fundraising Experts:

Pamela Grow:

Create a habit ofcelebrating every little success. When you reach 100% board participation,celebrate it! Perhaps with a pizza party at your next board meeting, or bybreaking out a bottle of champagne.

A board member has brought in three newdonors? Send them a thank you gift or present a token of your gratitudepublicly at your next board meeting. One of your donors upped her monthly $35gift to $50? Cupcakes for all!

Every day, celebratewhat you want to see more of. It willcreate the habit of gratitude and generate camaraderie.

Chris Davenport - On Nonprofit Storytelling:

Somepeople have said that giving one's hard earned money to a charity isirrational behavior. After all, what does a donor get in return fortheir money? Unless they are "buying" something at an auction, or aregiving a certain dollar amount to get a "free" gift, do donors reallyget anything of value equal to their donations?

Absolutely.

Donorswalk away with a story. Stories are currency. When you can match up astory to a potential donor, then getting a donation is much easier.

Somethingyou can do every day, or several times a week, that will help youconnect more deeply with more potential donors is to build up your storylibrary.

Rightnow you may be thinking; "Where do I find stories that will resonatewith potential donors?". I get that question a lot. My answer is;"Stories are all around you, but you may have to track them down, andeven be a little sneaky at times."

Thereare three main wells out of which you can draw stories...

1. The first oneis your staff.
2. The second is your volunteers.
   
3. And the third one is yourcurrent donors (after all, they donated to you because of a story theyheard, or because of the story they told themselves about yourorganization).

So,each day...

Just talk to one staff member, or one volunteer, or onedonor. Ask them to tell you their favorite story about the impact yourorganization has in the community. If you start to do thisconsistently, you'll end up not only building up a robust story library,but you'll also gain insight into which types of stories resonate withdifferent types of people. This way you'll be better able to matchstories up with potential donors.

Now here comes the sneaky part.

You may run into staff members who say they don't have time to relate astory, or perhaps they say it's not their job to give you stories. So,instead of trying to educate them as to why stories are needed for youto go out and raise money, just ask them about a success they had thisweek. People will brag if you ask them.

For example, let's say you areat an organization that teaches hard of hearing children tocommunicate. You could ask a staff member who works with the kids abouttheir day. "Did any of the kids smile today?" "Was there one child inparticular who's smile seemed extra special? What happened that madethe child smile? Could you see a spark in her eyes?"

So,instead of asking "Can you tell me a story?", be a little bit like areporter and ask specific questions that will draw the story out. Thisalso works well with volunteers and current donors.

If you take two or three minutes to track down just one story each day, three things will happen...

1. You'll build a robust story library.
2. You'll discover what stories resonate with different people.
3. You'll end up feeling more energized each day because of all the impact you're hearing about… that you are helping to create.

How about you? What's your Slight Edge tip?

What daily habits do you do that contribute to your fundraising success? Let us know in the comments below...

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