Fundraising Consultant: We Train Your Team to Communicate

Posted: November 1st, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: Uncategorized, fundraising consultant | Tags: , , , | No Comments »



Sean Buvala
“You will double or even triple
your fundraising results
for your nonprofit organization
when you spend just two days* learning
the skills and techniques I will teach you.”



To: YOU, the Non Profit Leader

From: K. Sean Buvala (Award Winning Narrative Communications Expert)

Dear Nonprofit Leader,

You want to be effective. You want to communicate. You want your fundraising efforts to pay off.

I see many passionate, focused non-profit leaders fail to communicate clearly about their organization. Are you one of them?

Do You Make the Mistakes in This Story?

This story is based on true experiences. I have changed some details to protect the passionate but failing parties.

Some time ago, I spoke at an event where, also on the program, a leader of a nonprofit organization
(a multi-million dollar charity) stood up to speak. We will call this leader NPL for now.
NPL was speaking to a group of 400 people in a very affluent neighborhood.

Here is what the audience heard, for 15 minutes, as they “unlistened” and fidgeted with their paper programs.

Hi my name is blah blah blah and I would blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah imagine if that was your
child blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah everyone thinks
I blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
need your help blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
I travel to these places blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah and thank you for your time. I would blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah afterwards. Thank you.

Then the leader of the group stood up and said:

Thank you blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah and if each family would give blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. So , thank you again blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah tonight.

The passionate but untrained non-profit leader needed about $10,000 (only $25 each!) from this audience. NPL could have easily received that donation from this group. They probably collectively had that much money in their pockets.

There was a bucket for folks to drop cash and check donations. At the end of the program after everyone was gone, I looked in the bucket to see how much money he had collected.

You would never believe what was in this bucket. From a group that could have easily met NPL’s needs,
there was nothing near the $10K needed. But there could have been. There should have been.

You can be sure that as the group walked past that symbolic bucket at the end of the program, most had no idea why it was there. You can be sure that when that audience left, many of them went out to spend much more money per person on dining-out meals that very same day.

As I drove back to my office from this event, I brainstormed at least four ways this leader could have received every dime he needed (do you understand NPL only needed $25 per person?!) plus more for his deserving, worthwhile and life-giving project.

Why Did NPL (YOU?) Fail?

No matter what your need is ($10,000? $100,000? $1,000,000?) the same principles apply. Always!

NPL didn’t talk to the audience about what they wanted to hear. He only talked about what NPL thought he should say.
NPL spoke only about his agenda, not addressing the agenda of the audience.

NPL thought his background, education and connections and his job resume actually mattered to the audience.

NPL never inspired their hearts. He never tapped their emotion. Look- There is a difference between inspiring and manipulating. I will not teach you how to manipulate anyone at any time.

NPL did not use inexpensive, visceral and hands-on teaching moments to put the reality of NPL’s plea in the hands of the audience.

NPL was not trained in the communication skills of storytelling (mastery of narrative communication) for nonprofit organizations and fundraising.

How You Are Going to Meet and Exceed Your Funding Goals

When we work together, you’ll master my “Interpret. Express. Integrate.”(tm) process for nonprofit leaders. We are going
to teach you the process of storytelling: whole-body, narrative communication for any audience.

Don’t for a minute think this storytelling has anything to do with reading books to children. Wipe that from your mind.
We are about to teach you skills that will change your organization.

We’re not going to
spend boatloads of your precious time studying the theory of
storytelling techniques. We are going to help you immedidately find, understand and implement
new ways of speaking to your audiences. Never again will anyone who hears you walk
past your “bucket” (real or metaphorical)
and not know exactly what to do with that bucket and why they should do it.

How Much Would You Pay to Increase Your Donations by 200%?

I know how budgets operate. I have worked in multi-million dollar non-profit organizations and with groups that had budgets of just $100,000 per year.

Think about your budget. What if you, with just two days of training, could increase your donations, your grants and your nonprofit income? How much is that worth to you and your group?

What if every employee and volunteer, with just two days of training, could increase their fundraising ability by $200, $500, $1000 per year? What type of impact would that make on those that you serve?

What if your board of directors each had the ability to double the amount of funds they could raise after only two days of training?

Others Say

“Sean promised me that when he was finished with the day, our people would have practical skills to
begin their own story telling. Sean was right. Not only did he give folks practical strategies
for forming stories he captivated and inspired us all with stories of his own.”
-Christopher Ashby, Diocese of Baltimore

At this moment, this site is still under construction. However, feel free to contact me with the information below.

Do not wait another day. Call me or Email me now. We can have your training underway in no time at all.
My fees are based on your orgranization’s fundraising goals and I work with both large and small non-profit groups.

Kind regards,

Sean Buvala
sean@storyteller.net

(623) 298-4548

PS. Are you really going to wait to call me and risk speaking to another group without my focused training? How much money will you lose? Call me today, please.

PPS. Yes, you can afford this. My rates are sliding-scale based on your budget. You must talk to me to learn more.


*Your results are going to vary. I can actually teach these skills to you in less time, but many folks just can’t wrap their thinking around that idea. So, we created a skill-polishing, organizational-changing two-day intensive coaching and training event for you and your staff.

Video: 5 Tips for Nonprofit Fundraising

Posted: November 1st, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »


Nonprofit Storytelling Starts on the Inside

Posted: October 31st, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Your nonprofit organization will grow both the financial bottom line and staff satisfaction when you incorporate storytelling into your organization’s internal communications.

As a leader of a nonprofit organization, it might be easy for individual staff and volunteers to be focused just on those who receive the services of the organization. However, does your group remember to talk to each other about your own work? Nonprofit storytelling is not just for the outside customers, it is for our very own staff members.

Stories can inspire your staff, improve staff retention and grow job satisfaction. You will see greater nonprofit fundraising. In turn, a happy organization generates deeper satisfaction among clients and benefactors.

Learn to use the power of nonprofit storytelling in your business communications with these five tips:

1. Leaders should know and speak the stories of everyday successes.

Do your nonprofit’s leaders only speak to everyone when there is a problem? Stories are everywhere in an organization and they can be easy to find. I teach several methods for story gathering, but whatever method you choose to use, do something to solicit and find the stories of your company. When using storytelling for nonprofit organizations, the leaders must be the first to demonstrate this communication technique and they should seek to do so for every level of staff.

2. At least once a calendar quarter, have a single department share in-depth stories about their role in the organization.

Are your staff meetings limited to cursory sharing of agendas?

My wife is a gardener. Among other things, I have learned from her is that plants not only need the surface watering on a regular basis, but that they benefit from a “deep” watering occasionally. Much like these plants, your company needs to be “deep” in sharing their stories.

I have been on staff for many nonprofits. In our busyness, our staff meetings were reduced to around-the-table updating, doing not much more than checking in. To grow your staff cohesion, make a monthly gathering where one department shares both the success and challenge stories. As the deep watering that my gardener wife does for her trees, let these monthly or quarterly gatherings feed the roots of the entire organization.

3. Be sure volunteer training includes stories from other volunteers.

Do you assume your volunteers (or those seeking nonprofit jobs) are present because they really understand your group? As a nonprofit leader, I have seen how quickly some volunteers can burn out, especially in jobs requiring a great deal of face-to-face interaction. It is easy to assume that volunteers completely understand your mission statement. Of course, that is false. When your volunteers know the joys, challenges and reasonable expectations of your group, they will be more inspired to stay longer with your group. Mixing in a generous portion of stories (fun and serious) to your training will have long-term benefits.

4. Invite, rather than require, staff to create stories of the organization.

Mandatory story sharing results in low quality stories. Gathering stories is a natural process but sometimes your staff needs to be reminded how to do so. Rather than mandate to a group, teach them skills. Your stories will be much more genuine as they grow out of desire to share and not a requirement to meet a quota.

5. Never be afraid of negative stories.

I have found that negative stories (complaints) are a more effective gauge of staff satisfaction or job issues than any comment box will ever be.

In any organization there will be moments of success and sometimes challenge. Learn to listen carefully to all stories you hear. What are the trends and patterns? Before a staff issue becomes a major problem, it first appears as a few whispers. Are you listening to these stories? In thinking about your own work history, what problems might have been avoided if management had been carefully listening rather than defending or suppressing issues?

Strive to implement these “internal customer” tips for the health of your nonprofit group. Thinking of starting a nonprofit organization? Make these steps an integral part of your initial plans.

***
K. Sean Buvala is a national leader and fundraising consultant in the communication skill of storytelling for business. An award-winning veteran of nearly two decades in storytelling, he uses his experience in the non-profit industry to help you grow your bottom line and increase staff satisfaction. His website for nonprofit organizations is at http://www.fundraisingconsultant.org . For daily tips, follow him at Twitter @storyteller .

Fundraising consultant coming soon

Posted: October 30th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

We teach storytelling techniques for nonprofit fundraising. Don’t start a capital campaign without our training, even if you have already hired a big company to help you. Our fundraising consultants focus on skill and results for all members of your team.