Should your nonprofit fundraising focus on high-net worth individuals? Absolutely. Here is what you need to know from Rhea Wong.

#037 - Today I am speaking with Rhea Wong.  Rhea is a New York based nonprofit consultant who trains nonprofit leaders to fundraise more money from high-net worth donors.  At the age of 26, she became the Executive Director of a nonprofit with a $250k budget.  The first day on the job, she Googled 2 things - 1)  what does an Executive Director do and 2) how to fundraise?

Rhea did something right - very right.  In her 12 years as the ED of that nonprofit, she grew that $250k budget into over $3 million through private philanthropy.

“So I'd figured out the foundations, the corporations, the events, the individuals and the one area that I thought had the most potential for growth were the major gift individuals.  When we look at the pie of philanthropic gifts, nationally, the biggest chunk of the pie are individuals.  They're responsible for upwards of like $350 billion or something.  So many nonprofits focus on, you know, the grants and like corporate sponsorships or whatever. It's really about the people.”

After working on projects for her ED friends, she decided to focus on major gift fundraising because that is where people had the most anxiety.

Be sure to stick around until the end to hear all of Rhea’s great dating analogies for fundraising.

Check out Rhea at - https://www.rheawong.com/

The key takeaways from my discussion with Rhea are:

#1 Think of fundraising like a party and you just want to see who wants to come to your party;

#2 Don’t think you are taking something away from donors - you are inviting them to be part of something special;

#3 Fundraising is just a math problem - offers minus no's equals yeses. So the more you ask, the more nos you're going to get, but the more yeses you're going to get;

#4 If everybody's your donor, then nobody is your donor.

Check out Groupfinity.com for the show notes and links for this episode.