In my video Tip, Highly Successful Fundraisers Get Donors Excited To Meet With Them, I emphasized the importance of remembering your role as a fundraiser is to earn a visit with a donor. I strongly encourage you to watch the previous Tip if you haven't done so before reading this one. I've included it directly below:

Let me be clear right here. I am not writing about trying to make a “cold call” on a prospect that may not know of your nonprofit. I have written many Tips on getting an appointment to see prospects, making cold calls and trying to make cold calls into “warm calls.”

I am talking about a visit with a donor.

I see this more and more often, with long-time donors, and even with mega-donors I work with. Fundraisers I help talk about donors who give through an annual appeal but won’t connect for the rest of the year. There are donors who give regularly but never pick up the phone when you call.

The fundraiser wants to thank the donor and cultivate the donor to make another...