Don’t Fear the Big Ask

by Brian Saber

I recently made what I referred to as “a big ask” and I was so excited to do so.  A few people asked me if I was nervous about it or if I had any misgivings, and I could honestly say I didn’t.  The same was not true for my asking partner, whose stomach was doing flips in the days leading up to the ask.

I know many people fear any and all asking, but I’ve noticed the fear is often proportional to how “big” they perceive the ask to be.  Why is the thought of asking for “a lot of money” so concerning?  Why do people often say: “I can’t ask for that much money”?

With all the mental hurdles I’ve had to get past as a fundraiser, asking for “a lot” of money was never one of them.  And I think it’s because I make sure to see the gift relative to the donor’s capacity to give rather than my own.

The seven-figure gift I solicited last week was mind-blowingly big from my perspective.  I will never (never say never, right?!) be able to make a gift of that magnitude. That gift is many, many times what I’ll earn this year – or have ever earned in any year.

For my donors, the situation is very different. They make gifts based on their wealth, not their income. They’ve been great savers and investors and now live off the income from the wealth and make gifts from the amassed wealth.  So they’re drawing on a very different source of income than most of us, who give based on what we are currently earning.

But I think there’s a second point that drives me just as much. We often talk about how fundraising should be less transactional and more transformative. The truth of the matter is that we all have fiscal year-ends and have to meet our fundraising deadlines. And that means asking for lots of smaller or mid-sized gifts in the last quarter of the year. How often have we had to make dozens of calls to donors in June because they’re annual fund gifts of $500 or $1,000 or $5,000 haven’t come in?  And those gifts often feel transactional to me.

What’s interesting to me about the “big” asks – whether they are mega, campaign-type gifts or very large annual asks – is they are more transformative and less transactional. When we run a $1 million non-profit and ask someone for $25,000, we can really talk about the impact that gift will have. Often that gift funds a program, a staff position, or something else very tangible.

At that same non-profit, a gift of $1,000 – though important and appreciated – is difficult to qualify or quantify in a convincing way. Of course we can talk about the impact the organization is making on its clients, and ask donors to help us have that impact, but it’s more difficult to set up the direct cause/effect. So. in fact, I find the smaller gifts more difficult to ask for precisely because it’s harder for me to talk transformationally about them!

Give me a “big ask” any day of the week!