Occasionally I will get a new philanthropy book or report from a publisher to review. The most recent was The 11 Questions Every Donor Asks and the Answers all Donors Crave by Harvey McKinnon. The book covers questions like:
*Why me?
*How much do you want?
*Will my gift make a difference?
*How will I be treated?
*How will you measure results?

For those of you that fundraise professionally or as a volunteer know intuitively that you should know the answers to these questions but knowing you should know something and actually preparing to answer the questions is a completely different thing. From the standpoint of being “professional donor” these are the same questions that I want answers to during site visits.

*Why me? Does our foundation provide an added benefit of name recognition or leverage if we fund this project?
*How much do you want? Is the ask size appropriate and match our foundation’s giving capacity?
*Will my gift make a difference? Will you do this project with or without our foundation’s funding? How would our gift increase your nonprofit’s ability to do good work in the community?
*How will I be treated? I pride myself on not being the program officer that tries to leverage their power to get all star treatment but it is important to treat individual donors and foundation representative with courtesy.
*How will you measure results? Will this program positively impact the community and how will you measure that impact?

11 Questions Every Donor Asks is a back to basics fundraising approach but sometimes the most simple techniques are the most effective.