Fear of making the ask

Answer:

Fear can come from a number of reasons;

Lack of Skill,

Lack of confidence

Rejection, and more.

From my experience the greatest Fear Shluchim face (consciously or sub-consciously) is not knowing when to ask, how to ask and how much to ask, these are all items which if you prepare yourself properly in advance with a full plan for the year, after you created your budget, most of those items fade away:

1. You know when to ask, because your asking only once a year for an annual commitment, as such the larger the potential donor is the closer to the beginning of the new fiscal year you want to obtain his commitment for the year.


2. You know how much to ask because in your plan you identified all your potential donors and put reasonable amounts next to each as a set goal (this you did based on past giving, potential and relationship), How to ask becomes a little more complicated because even after you have your act together you still need to learn how to ask, my advice would be to read some books on salesmanship, take a Seminar on sales or the like, with time your experience becomes your best teacher on how to make a successful ask.

Read below what a Shliach writes to me on this subject.

Reb Yisroel, I’m sending you this email to thank you because your fundraising principles have made a big difference in my attitude towards fundraising. I started reading your articles in compass magazine, and the idea of an organized annual campaign resonated with me much more than going from program to program.

A friend of mine also quoted your ideas which kept you in the back of my mind. A few months ago, as I continued reading your column in the compass I decided that I was going to implement it and began creating a budget.

In the last few weeks I started calling and I’ve shown the presentation to several baalei battim, some who were already giving and some who I’d never met. So far, I’ve not received a single no. I’ve received commitments of about $6,000 more than I was already receiving from these people, with several more meetings already in the schedule. With a total annual budget of about $65,000, that’s quite significant!

The biggest miracle though, is that I actually picked up the phone and called. I never had the confidence to talk about money, even with people who I knew, Kal vchomer people whom I’ve never met. Now that I have this system, I won’t say it’s the easiest thing but I have the confidence knowing that my presentation speaks for itself. I’m not the one asking, the moisad is doing the ask. And for that I’m really grateful.

 

Rabbi Yosef Rivkin

Chabad of Red Rock

702-217-2170