Review: Funding your Vision by Gerald Twombly

a millennial view on Funding Your Vision by Gerald Twombly

Emotional Givers vs Rational Givers

            I equate the emotional giver with that of the camp “high”. When we come home from summer camp everyone is on fire and wants to tell their whole school about Jesus this year, or when we go to concerts sponsored by Compassion or see the television ads for sad, abused puppies: everyone wants to signup right then but especially for students/millennials the next month there is a sadder, better project to be a part of. Rational givers know that Rome was not built in a day, and that it takes constant support and nurturing of a project for it to succeed.

Relationships: More than who you know but who you could make influence paths with (sphere of influence).

Take ten: Critical Groups: as discussed we would like to reach the millennials (20 to 30 somethings). Impacted Groups: Our mission fields and the projects that they have

            Not all prospects sit at the same place on your listings.

Take ten: Categorize Linkage: I do not of yet have nuclear, affinity or fringe break downs. Other Ways: generational connection with previous donors to our org

Relationships are give and take, and require upkeep. From the tracking stand point, we must keep as much detail as possible to help when we “upkeep” the relationship with a note or call: too much is not enough or more is better. If we are chatting with a new relationship: how is the best way to accumulate the general information that we want for tracking? Are there fields in our datebase that we are lacking?

            The process of ask takes time, and shouldn’t be jumped into- just like an engagement. Do not take a D to an A over night, it takes gradual steps for them to learn over time and truly encompass what an A is (chapter 8).

            I think chapter nine brought up a good point that relationship building shouldn’t be over thought. You are really just going back to the elementary school yard and offering to share peanut butter jelly sandwiches which probably looks a lot more like purchasing someone a Salted Caramel Frappuccino at Starbucks. Every time you interact with your customer/friend you are becoming closer to them, learning more about them, and relationships regardless of how they started (work, church, school) matter all the same and should be kept up more than a “hi, how are you?”. So that means places you will be, and people you will see are turned from accidental to intentional at HELLO.

            Package your ask, give it a name and make it personal. Overcome the society of not caring to show them WHY they should care because we cannot be the little boy at conference that just asks for money without specifying why it is needed and where it is going and how it will affect the bigger picture.

            Set goals, metrics, benchmarks: celebrate when you have met and share with those around you

as follow up: Twobley is still around and kicking, when following up about buying more of these books I acutally got an nice email by from Twombly himself. Here is his website: http://jerrytwombly.typepad.com/