Practice Your Support Raising

Support raising is a skill. It is a business skill that must be learned, practiced, and developed. Before you think of me as "unspiritual," let me assure you your trust and obedience to Lord is essential, but with poor skills, you will get poor results. Even though David was anointed by God to kill Goliath, his practice of his trade was an essential component of the victory. Here are some support raising lessons from the story of David & Goliath.

#1. Be presentable. In other words, be sure you look nice. Comb your hair. Smell nice. Freshen your breath. May sound silly, but this can make a difference. It doesn't mean you have wear fancy clothes that you normally don't, but dress for the occasion. If it is a business lunch with a business person, don't show up in shorts and flip-flops.

#2. Check your tools. If you are going to use a computer or other equipment in a presentation, be sure everything is working right. Dead batteries or defective tools can reflect badly on your work.

#3. Use proper language. Try to avoid casual slang and jargon that might be OK with friends or team mates. Avoid acrostics that only mean something to your organization. Also use "we" when presenting your work, not "I" - as the saying goes; there is no "I" in TEAM, and a team mate is what you are hoping to find.

#4. Proof read. Have any and all written material on paper, computer, or internet, looked over. I am personally horrible at overlooking typos, etc. Be sure to spell check and have someone else review your work before you print or go public. (I practice what I preach, but if you find any typos in this site that I or my proof reader missed, let me know :-)

#5. Record and listen to your voicemails. As you call to set up appointments, get back to people, follow-up and follow-through, you will be leaving a lot of voice mails. Practice your scripts on yourself to critique them. How is your volume, tonality, energy, etc.?

#6. Practice your presentations with someone. You will want to practice your one-on-ones, small group, or large audience presentations. Do it "live" using your tools all the way to asking for a commitment. Do it for someone who will give you constructive criticism. Also, time yourself, so you can learn to keep within the time frames you are to respect whether that be a lunch hour or a set time at a church function.

#7. Role Play. If you have someone that knows you and your work, you can greatly sharpen your skills by doing some role-play. Have them ask questions, interrupt you, etc. so you can experience handling such things, because they will happen!

#8. Record yourself on Video. The first time I saw myself on video doing a presentation was at the United States Air Force Academy in 1977. I was so surprised to see my countenance - Who was that grumpy guy?!? You may pick up on small things that can be improved upon.

Practice rarely makes perfect, and that is not our goal. Practice does bring improvement though, and will improve your results. We do this in every other area of our work, why not with our fundraising?