Mindset of a Fundraiser

In this section you can find information around mindset and attitude, setting goals, communication and rapport and using the law of averages.

Mindset

There are many things that affect how many signups you will get. One of the key elements is your mindset.

Mindset

Attitude and mindset is key to the job. Most fundraisers will know that if you are ‘positive’ you will have a better day than if you are not. However being positive is easier said than done, but there are ways to make yourself a more positive person.

The way to habitually promote a positive mindset is to try to leave a small gap between an event and your reaction to it. This gap allows you to evaluate different ways you could react. E.g. supporter rolls their eyes and comes out with a ‘chugger’ comment – you can respond in 3 ways...

Get annoyed and mutter under your breath about what you think of them (response choice A)
Smile, shake it off and consider that they must be having a tricky day (response choice C) or
Repeat that chugger comment to yourself all day (response choice B).

Pick the most positive option and you will have a more positive attitude to the day.

Adaptability

Another key principle to an optimal mindset is to embrace flexibility.

Flexibility in thinking and in working

A rock is dense, hard and un-flexible. You can't bend a rock. So what happens if a rock encounters a gap it can't fit through? It gets stuck and is essentially useless. A rock can only ever be one thing and useful in only a few situations. It will also usually be in the same place in a hundred years’ time.

Or you could be like water. Water is amazing; it can destroy buildings, break down rocks or clean dirt away from a baby's face. It can be powerful or gentle. Water flows and adapts to what is around it. Water can slip through the smallest gap or be a tidal wave. Place water in a jug it adapts to the shape of the jug, place it in a bowl it adapts to the shape of the bowl. Water can be used in many ways and can adapt to many situations, and rarely stays in the same place.

Adaptability as a fundraiser can be one of your best tools. When a member of public hits you with a unique question or concern, or the conversation goes off topic, you can use these opportunities to be adaptable, find solutions to the problems, build rapport with the individual and then come back to the pitch or ask when the time is right.

Goals

Breaking your day up helps short term goal setting, you can also ‘reset’ if you have had a bad first part of the day.

Like eating jelly beans – if you eat a bad one to start with doesn’t mean you don’t try another one later. You just learn from your mistake and pick another colour next time.

In the same way as fundraising a new chapter to the day is like a reset, and if what you did in the first part didn’t work, try something different.

When setting goals for yourself remember to make them SMART.

Luck

It may be easy when you start the job to believe there is a lot of luck involved with what sign ups you get. However, the fundraising industry could not be founded on luck. There are fundraisers that day in, day out must be extremely ‘lucky’ as they always do well wherever they are. In reality, we have the ability to make our own luck, by making use of the law of cause & effect, law of probabilities, law of averages and skill at reading people.

The people that you come into contact with every day are like a pack of cards – at the start of the day you know generally what the pack will contain, however you can't tell which one is which until you turn it over. Like a pack of cards, you know that every day you will meet nice people, not so nice people, people already giving, people that cannot afford to give, those that give to lots of other charities; those that will be easy signups and those that you have to work hard to persuade. Unless you turn them all over it is impossible to know which one is which.

Turning over every card will mean you get to see the full range of the deck. Same with fundraising; you will get to see the Aces – the easy signups, the Kings – where a passionate pitch is needed to persuade them, Queens who will take more persuasion, and the Jacks, that will only be persuaded if you have really worked for it!

Spades of the deck are those who are too busy to talk as they’re off to work.

Clubs are those not in a great mood today

Hearts who are lovely, and already give to lots of charities

Diamonds who have the money to give but need good clear facts to be persuaded.

You will never persuade a number 2 to sign-up, and it is not necessary to, for those people you should not waste your time. For those number 4s or 5s that you didn’t sign up, your aim is to bring them up closer to becoming Jacks or Queens, so next time they encounter Greenpeace they may be more open to signing up.

If you only turn over a tenth of the deck your chances of all aces or all royals are unlikely. The more people you speak to the higher your chances of getting someone with the potential to sign up.

Law of Averages

Averages = the more people you talk to, the higher the chances of a sign up.

Sometimes it is possible to achieve 10 supporters from speaking to 20 people, with very little effort. For all other days you need to apply the law of averages. This means making sure you speak to enough people and get to give enough pitches to give yourself the best possible chance of having a good day.

To give yourself the best chance of getting at least 2 or 3 sign ups a day, aim for the following:

Knock on between 100 and 150 doors per day. That is 20-30 new doors per hour on average between 1PM and 6PM. After 6pm, you’ll usually be completing Not Homes and Callbacks.
Have a full conversation with a strong ask with around 12-20 people a day

On average 1 person from every 4 to 6 people that you pitch will donate. This means you need to give a full presentation to at least 12-20 people a day in order to be achieving at least 3 signups.

Use Active Knocker reports to know your number of doors knocked, pitches, etc. and know your conversion rate; it will aid your trainer to know what to help you with.

The law of averages is exactly as it says – an average. This means that if you don’t achieve 1 supporter from the first 10 people you present to, the average means you can achieve 2 supporters from the next 10 people

Fast pace
Spend time with people who will listen
Manage your time effectively
Plan your route effectively
Don't waste time with people who are not interested

Communication and Rapport

In any engagement with the public the aim is obviously to have persuaded them to become a Greenpeace supporter. If this doesn’t happen, it is important not to view this as a failure, but instead to see it as feedback.

When you talk to a supporter, their reaction is largely governed by what you say or do, and the way you say and do it. Resistance to recognising this feedback reflects a lack of flexibility as a fundraiser, and will limit your success. You can adapt the way you talk to people so that you make perfect sense in their views of the world.

The outcome of communication is the response you get; take full responsibility for the results you want. If what you are doing is not working – do something differently.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"

Rapport

Rapport is the natural connection between people – when you feel you ‘click’ with someone usually enhanced when you feel you have something in common with someone and results in a high level of trust. It is vital to success in fundraising.

This chart shows what is known as the Mehrabian principle. It is the breakdown of communication when someone is deciding whether or not they like something/someone. As you can see the content of your pitch is minimal compared to your body language and tone of voice. People tend to get an intuitive or ‘gut’ feeling as to whether or not they like someone. This is basically their unconscious reading the other person’s body language and tone of voice and deciding if it matches the words that they use. If it doesn’t all align, or if it is very different to their own, you will not gain rapport, and the person is unlikely to sign up. This is the basis of intuition, and what most people go by when they decide to sign up there and then.

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