Non-Profit (For-Social-Profit) Management

" The lifeline of any organization is the people that give their money and their time to support it. You have to find those people, keep them around and encourage them to finally take action. An easy way to find your best qualified prospects are to look at the three P's: priorities, programs, and projects. Who are the people involved with them and who would be most interested in helping those causes? Set your priorities and have a master prospect list ordered in importance. Importance can be based most readily on two main traits: capacity and relationship. What capacity do they have to help you and what is their relationship with you? Ordering a prospect list alphabetically won't do you much good if your best prospect's last name begins with a "z." You may have heard of the 80/20 rule, but what you need to realize is the rule is actually 97/3. As in, 97% of your money is going to come from 3% of your constituency. So you need to focus on them, those ideal prospects rather than spending all of your time on direct mail campaigns geared towards racking up $10 at a time. Another rule: the rule of 3-10-20. Do you know who the top three champions of your cause are? What about the 10 best prospects after that, and the 20 best after that? Finding your best prospects and focusing on them can have an unbelievable impact for your organization. Who fits the ideal profile for your organization and your cause? Find the people who you really need to target. Perhaps somebody older and wealthy, who has had success and now wants to make an impact and leave a legacy. If you're an adoption agency, he or she was adopted, or adopted their own children. Find the ideal profile of somebody who will want to help you. Manage your energy, not your time. Have you identified those ideal prospects, those few people who may be able to underwrite near everything you want to do? Work the pyramid from the top down and put your best effort into getting those people to help you. Stop thinking about "d