One of the most important tasks for the NFP chairperson or for any persons responsible for the fundraising at the organisation is finding new prospective donors. This may sound a hard task to undertake and sometimes people give up even before they have tried, believing that no-one will be interested in donating to their cause. However, this is not the case – finding new prospective donors may be easier than you think. Below, you will find three important steps which will bring you to new donors by using the connections of the network you have already built. Read through them and give the process a try – you may be amazed by the results!

Step 1: Identify who can introduce you to new prospective donors

Your organisation has board members, stakeholders, volunteers, friends and supporters, current donors and other connections. You may even have the support of public figures or celebrities – if not, you can try securing it. All these people have connections on their own outside the organisation. Your board members may know other people who are involved in volunteering and would be willing to support you. Volunteers have friends, family and other relations that could be willing to donate to your cause. Celebrities and public figures, if convinced to help, can bring a lot of public attention to your cause. For example, many UK charities seek the help of Stephen Fry, whose Tweeting power sends 3,000 users per second on a tweeted website, sometimes resulting in a system crash. The key point here, however, is to make a list of all those you believe (or know) can introduce you to some of their connections.

Step 2: Time the introduction request appropriately

Approaching a person from the list and asking if they know someone who will donate will not have great results. On the other hand, approaching someone and explaining that there are significant changes in the organisation, including new campaigns, events and strategies, can attract their attention. You can then ask the person you are speaking to if they know someone else who will be interested in the changes and may like to be involved with the NFP. That’s when your ‘target’ will probably list a few names that may have potential interest.

Step 3: Ask for the actual introduction

You have two options for this. You can either ask for the introduction there and then, or you can first spend some time researching the names on the list. It may be better for you to see if the people on the list have appropriate gifting capacity, and if yes, whether they will be potentially interested in what your organisation do. Once you have selected 2-3 names from the list, you can go back to the person who mentioned the names and ask for an introduction.

As you can see,  it is not that hard to find new connections using your existing network. You just need to determine who can bring you these new connections and then just ask to be introduced. Once that happen, you will have to convince the prospects that your cause is worth investing in – which is the topic of another post. Good luck!