Recruiting & Fundraising

"Recruiting is like shaving, if you dont do it everyday it will show."  I dont know if it could have been said any better than that, and yes the same goes for fundraising.  Recruiting and fundraising must be done over time in order for them to have positive results.  Both certainly take a lot of management and nurturing over time.  The article referred to other various similarities which included

1. A pool of prospects - finding students or donors that will help you reach your goals

2. Qualifying the pool of prospects - determining height and skills vs affluence with an institution

3. Ability & Fit - a walk on vs someone that may want to donate but not have the funds

4.Contact with the prospect - sending recruiting letters vs sending fundraising information via mail

5. Research on your prospect - evaluating a prospective student athlete vs checking resources on how to communicate for funds (networking, alumni, etc.)

6.Personal contact with the prospect - In both cases this would be calling and talking wanting to play for the school vs donating to the organization

7.Personal connections- finding references that confirm the skills or the donation potential of the prospects

8.Personal visit to make the hit - prospective student athletes taking an official visit and being offered financial aid vs meeting with donors for a verbal agreement

9.Final Stage - Signing a national letter of intent (NLI) vs getting the check

10. Stewardship - maintaining relationships is always crucial in keeping consistency within any program.  In this case sending positive information about the team to a prospect vs sending tangible clips for donors to see what their money is going towards

11.The continuous process - students involvement during their academic year at an institution vs donors who may have unlimited commitment

I have never really thought about the comparison as it pertains to retaining but it does make sense for the general selection and retention process to be similar.  Just as a coach wants to build a strong team with smart kids that improve over the years so does an organization that is raising money.  Only in this case you look for donors that can be entice to want to give more over time for an infinite amount of time.  In both cases they are building programs that will be consistent in their success, which would ideally attract other to want to be involved.