The Great Fundraisers Practice the Principle of Ready, Fire, Aim

Some in our field are guilty of spending all of their time preparing for an ask or a campaign. Or they spend all their time analyzing the most effective way to call on a prospect— instead of making the call.

I know some who keep asking for more research and information. “I need more analysis, more exploration. I need to know more.”

These folks never seem to have time to actually go out and make the call for a gift. They are joyously busy spending their time analyzing and assessing. I call this grave disease Analysis Paralysis.

There is only one cure. Leave the office and make the call.

There are some you call on who are ready to make a gift now. It’s your job to determine the state of their readiness. There are times that you may end up with a gift of $10,000 because you hadn’t done sufficient cultivation. You were hoping for more. But with the proper stewardship and celebrating the gift, that $10,000 is the first step in getting a much larger one next time.

I call on a lot of development people who tell me that they still need to make a couple more cultivation calls. And it’s true.  You can’t sell a vision in 45 minutes. But I find that the successful ones practice the principle of ready, fire, aim.

I believe Emerson had the answer for us. “Be filled with zeal, fired with enthusiasm, then proceed with haste. Go beyond what you feel is impossible.”