Werth-It Fundraising Blog

I was in Spooner Wisconsin to teach fundraising to a Faith in Action group there.  I loved the people of Spooner — they were so nice to me.  And what a lovely part of the world.  I would love to go up there some summer just to vacation.

I did something at the meeting that I rarely do — I gave everyone slips of paper and asked them to anonymously write down the amount of money they had in their wallets at that moment.  I did it because I wanted to make the point that if you involve enough people in fundraising, there’s plenty of money out there for the organization.  As it happens, the people in that meeting had more than $1,000 just in their wallets!  For a small organization in Spooner, Wisconsin, that would be a lot of money.

I think many people are afraid to ask others for money.  I don’t know why.  No one’s going to hurt you if you ask them for money.  It’s not like most people are offended by a request.  They’ll consider it, they’ll say yes, no or maybe, but they’re not going to punch you in the face for it.  Yet, so many people are afraid to ask, in the same way they’d be afraid to get physically hurt.  I’ve been asking people for money for decades, and no one has ever been offended yet, and no one has ever thrown a punch at me, either.

A key lesson I learned in Spooner came after the meeting.  A minister and his wife invited me to their home.  They took me out on the frozen lake behind the house and had me walk on it.  (It was February.)  I heard something that sounded like gunshots and said, “What’s that noise?”  The minister replied, “Oh, that’s just the ice under your feet, it’s cracking.”  I screamed “WHAT?!!!!”  He said, “Don’t worry, the ice can’t go anywhere, it’s six feet deep!”  I never experienced anything like that before — I grew up in California, we don’t have ice on our lakes.  Later, the minister sent me a picture of my walk on the lake, labeled, “Katherine Wertheim will walk on water to teach you to ask for money!”  I love that picture.

My lesson was to try out the new thing I haven’t done before, and to trust that others will keep me safe, just as the people I teach trust me to keep them safe when they ask for money.  If I say, “Trust me, no one will punch you out for asking for money” I have to trust them that I won’t fall through the ice in the lake if they take me on a walk out there.

Trust is important in fundraising.  Establishing and maintaining trust makes it easier to ask for money.  I’m glad the people of Spooner trusted me, and I’m glad I trusted them enough to have the experience of “walking on water.”

If you have questions about fundraising training, please write me, Katherine Wertheim, at katherine@werth-it.com.