Asking matters – a short story

I was working with a board this weekend, helping them start the journey for an upcoming fundraising campaign.

At dinner Friday night, one of the board members told me one of those wonderfully encouraging stories about volunteer involvement in fundraising.

The story goes like this:

My client’s dad had been a salesperson all of his life. So he was very comfortable with reaching out to people and asking them for something, even folks he didn’t know well.

The church to which his father belonged had started a major fundraising campaign. As they were reviewing their members for whom to approach, there was one person on the list that was not a large donor and also not well-known to the other congregants, but had been a long-time member of the church.

My client’s father decided that he wanted to go and meet this gentleman.

To shorten the story, when they met, this older gentleman asked “What took you so long? I’ve been waiting for years for someone to come to ask me.” Then the gentleman left the room and came back a few moments later with a check for $50,000 as a contribution to the campaign.

Enough said.