What to Do When Funders Say ‘No’

This article is a summary of Episode 45 of our Designing Tomorrow podcast. Each episode is a conversation between Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center, and Cosmic’s Creative Director, Eric Ressler.

Today we want to talk about how fundraisers can overcome funders' objections to an appeal for support. We're really going to focus on how to overcome an objection from someone making philanthropic support for a Social impact organization. This is always top of mind for us. We've never been fundraisers professionally, but we need our clients to get a lot of money so they can make their missions better.

Let's start with a story. A relatively substantial ask was made to a private donor who initially declined the appeal. The ED sat down with the funder, and it turned out that the number put in front of the funder was too big. They didn't understand that they could split their payments up over the course of a couple of years. So the ‘No’ was just a cashflow thing. 

And once it was clear that the social impact organizations could front some of the cash in order to get the project done, it became an instant ‘Yes”. That's a recent example of overcoming an objection. 

Had the organization just let it go at the initial ‘No’, the money wouldn't have happened. But they kept with it and were able to bring in that support. So, let's talk about how to think about the different kinds of objections and some of the ways that you might overcome those things.

In our experience, there are essentially three categories of objection:

1. Silence. 
2. A vague objection. 
3. A direct objection.

Silence: Don't Take It as a ‘No’

The first form of objection is silence — you put an appeal out and you literally just hear nothing.

The ghost approach.

It happens all the time. Without getting too into the weeds around how we bring clients on, we will often have initial conversations with potential clients and then get to a stage where we put a proposal together that spells out how we would best work with that client — and then crickets. 

It's a situation that, over the years, we've learned to accept. It used to be really frustrating, because we would take a lot of time and effort to carve out time to meet with potential people. We used to spend a lot of time putting proposals together — and we have different approaches to that now. We've come to hedge against this potential outcome over the years.

What we've learned after doing this long enough is that a silent ‘No’ is not always a ‘No’. Sometimes it's a ‘No’. But sometimes it's a ‘Not right now’. Sometimes it's, ‘We had a family emergency and ghosted you because of that — I’m so sorry’. We've learned to not take it personally, to not get angry about it. Because it doesn't help. You're not going to get a ‘Yes’ just because you're angry. And there are usually some steps in our process that we skipped if that happens — not always, but usually.

You may need to tailor how often you're following up with someone based on how well you know them, or what might be going on, or whether it's an urgent gift for you or not. There are lots of factors that'll impact how you follow up. But essentially: don't take silence as a ‘No’.

Building a Follow-Up System

We get inquiries through the Book of Discovery Call form on our site. And we used to just respond to everything manually and do all of our manual follow up. That worked okay. But it was easy to get busy and forget. 

Finally, we built out a workflow for follow-ups on those initial reach outs where we send a basic qualifying email, try to schedule a meeting, and now our tool is set up so that if we don't get a response after three business days, a follow-up is sent. And if we don't get a response after five business days, another follow-up is sent. The number of people who booked that meeting after the second follow-up is probably at least 30%. And it's usually just, “Ah, I got so busy, I'm sorry. Thank you so much for following up.”

Sometimes we do a couple of follow-ups and no one responds. At that point, we have ways that we continuously nurture folks who've reached out and not hired us. What we've been thinking about a lot — and what's essentially best practice — is that the constant just-following-up message is not it. That is annoying. It can be even potentially kind of rude — especially if it was unsolicited and you didn't even have a meeting or reach out to somebody. 

But sharing valuable information as a way to follow up is really effective. A lot of the people who've reached out to us also subscribed to our newsletter. And it's interesting to see how many people respond to a newsletter one, two, or three years after they reached out and never even met with us — or ghosted us on a proposal — and said, “Hey, we're actually finally at a point where we can do this. Let's go.” 

So we’ve earned through doing this long enough that some kind of automated follow-up process that's respectful is good, and you can figure out how to right-size this to donor relationships. But it’s a lesson we’ve learned over the years.

In fundraising, if you're getting silence after a couple of attempts to reach out and still nothing, you can put out a message along the lines of, “Do you want me to send you information? Seems like maybe right now isn't the right time. Can I send you information about what we're up to, just so you're in touch with the work we're doing?” 

That is usually very successful. Someone will write back and say, “Yes, please.” or “No thank you, not interested.” But either way, just an invitation for a really low-effort way to engage can respark a conversation. “Hey, can I add you to our newsletter? Hey, can I send you out our quarterly director updates so you know what we're doing?” That's a really easy ‘Yes’ for someone, or a really easy ‘No’. But in either case, a very simple Yes, or No question that someone can react to can keep that engagement going and break the silence.

The Breakup Email

Another tool in our toolbox is what we call “The breakup email.” In a situation where someone has essentially ghosted us or gone dark, we send an email that goes something like: “Because you haven't responded, we're assuming that either you're too busy or your priorities have changed. Please let us know if there's anything else we can do to help.” 

That's not verbatim, but what it's doing is giving them permission to say “No — not right now.” It takes the social pressure off. A lot of times when people ghost, there's a good reason for it. Maybe not always, but often. And saying ‘No’ is hard. Sometimes people just need permission to say ‘No’.

Getting a ‘No’ is great. It’s cool. It's off the to-do list, onto the next thing. Or even a "No, not right now, follow up in six months." The ghosting is the hardest part because it's an unknown entity. You’re not sure how to show up in that moment.

So, at a certain point, people we think just aren't going to respond, we like to close the loop. This is probably a common approach at this point, but it felt very revolutionary when we first started doing it. The response rate on that email is really high — usually it's a, “Thanks, you're right, I'll let you know if something changes.” 

But every once in a while it's, “No, I'm so sorry, a thing happened. Please, can we meet next week?” So we've learned to just use that tool, and it can go a long way.

The social pressure part is especially significant for organizations that do fundraising in smaller circles within their community. In those spaces, everybody knows everybody. So taking away the social pressure to say ‘no’ is probably a gift, and something that strengthens an organization’s reputation when they do that. 

It also shows confidence. It shows that you're not just chasing the money — that you're in it for the right reason. You care about the relationship. And that's another reason why people tend to be attracted to that mode of communication and are more likely to respond.

Some of us, especially in fundraising where it's so relationship-driven, may internalize silence the way we might if a friend didn't text back — wondering if they're upset, not wanting to bother them, not wanting to seem pushy. And so you might internalize it as a ‘No’ and we're done. But you never really got that ‘No’.

Vague Objections: Find the Real Reason

The second form of objection is a vague ‘No’. Not right now. It's not our priority. It's not a good fit. Or the canned email response from a grant application: Many people applied and unfortunately we did not select you. All of us have seen those.

Our primary piece of advice for those situations is to get to the direct response — to figure out the Why. That can be a follow-up message: No worries, I totally understand there might be other things going on. I'd really love to understand Why. Would you be willing to write down a few bullet points about what was going on for you? Or would you be willing to spend 10 minutes with me to explain what happened?

You can couch it not so much as, “Hey, I want an opportunity to overcome your objection, but rather: I really want to learn so that we can do our work better and approach other funders better.”

The parallels between fundraising and winning clients apply. Because we do something very similar if we get a ‘No’ on a potential new client. We usually get an email very similar to the grant application version: “You guys were so great, we loved so much about you. Unfortunately there was just another direction that was better for us this time.”  — something that's essentially vague, trying to soften the blow a little bit — which is fine, but it doesn't help us learn anything.

Our response is usually something along the lines of: Thank you so much for letting us know. We completely understand. We’re glad you've found a good partner for this. As a learning-based organization, we would love to understand a little bit more about what your thought process was in making that choice. Would you be willing to hop on a quick call, or just give us a couple bullet points around what led you to make the final choice? 

We have a pretty good response rate to that. It’s not 100%, and we're not pushy about it. We’ll do maybe one follow up. But the things we've learned from sending that email or having those short calls are just so crucial. They can make such a huge difference. Sometimes it's something we did wrong — we didn't actually understand the problem as well as we thought we did. Other times it's just that they found some other agency that specialized in a specific thing that was a better fit. The learnings can soften the blow a little bit. Sometimes not. We’ve had feedback that comes back that's like, “Yeah, you kind of blew that.” And we take that seriously, and then we improve the processes. But that learning is so important.

Keep the Door Open

After doing a little bit of mining — after you've asked for more information about what went wrong — find a way to keep the door open. 

Now, that may not always apply. Sometimes an objection makes it clear this is just not a good fit, and you're out. But you may walk away feeling that if only you had approached this a little differently, maybe this would've worked out. So at that moment, it's really important to keep the door open.

So, the advice we gave in the Silence objection applies here too — basically, ask permission to stay in touch. Hey, do you want to stay in touch with what we're doing and the impact we're having? Can I send you stuff? More often than not, in our experience, the answer is yes — if you really want to pursue that grant in the next cycle, or in the next end-of-year giving cycle. So make that invitation to stay in touch.

One question that we’ve been thinking about is — Is it just the money? Is there anything else besides the amount that's a problem for you? Separating the problem into its parts. Because many times, the money and the fit all blend together and are hard to separate. And that can be a really illuminating question. Sometimes the answer is, “It is just the money. It's just more than we can afford to invest right now.” Great, then you know that. But other times it might be, “Yeah, it's kind of the money, but it's also that we're not aligned on this area, or we're not so sure you're the best fit around this specific part.” It's a really pointed question that can elicit more detail and help you separate the money part of the problem from the other alignment elements that are also important.

Direct Objections: The Gift of a Real ‘No’

Getting to the direct objection — getting to the direct reason for the ‘No’ — is ultimately the biggest gift you can get as a fundraiser. Deeply understanding why the ‘No’ happened gives you something to work with. And if you can separate the reasons for the ‘No’ in such a way where it's price or something else, that gives you a platform to have a conversation with that donor.

Price Objections

If it is price — in fundraising, sometimes organizations can be more flexible with dollars and cents. It's actually fairly rare to get a hard ‘No’ just because the number put out there was too big. Donors are often savvy enough to say, “Well, I can't do that, but I can do this.”. A donor might say, “You asked for a million bucks. I can't do that, but would two-fifty help you right now? ”The conversation in fundraising tends to be a little more fluid than in sales.

Where Nonprofits and For-profit Organizations Diverge

Let's dig into that a little bit, because it happens to Cosmic too. It can be a challenge, because when we're putting a proposal together — this is dependent on the type of work we're doing and whether it's a one-off project or more of a partnership model — sometimes it can be hard to scale something down. But sometimes a project that you’re doing is a million-dollar program. That's the true cost of doing the work right. People will come to us often with an idea around a project in mind, or a scope in mind, or an outcome in mind, and it essentially necessitates a certain level of work or effort or budget or expertise that you can't just cut in half and expect the same outcomes.

But sometimes that's what people want to do. They'll say, “Hey, we want this, but we can't afford the budget you've put in front of us. Could we do it for less somehow?” That puts us into a creative problem-solving mode. And sometimes we find ourselves going down a slippery slope where the realization hits — wait a minute, no, we actually can't. You would be better served by waiting and budgeting for this properly and doing it right, versus kind of piecemealing it. That's case dependent, but it does come up.

In fundraising, when someone wants to scale down — say, when you're raising funds for a specific capital project with a fixed cost — you know you can't complete that project unless you raise a specific amount. If you ask for the full amount and the donor comes back and says, they can't do the full amount, but they can do something less — those are actually great moments. Because that provides an opportunity to engage with that donor as a partner rather than just a financial transaction. Now you can say, “Okay, thank you for whatever you're willing to put in. That contribution alone won't get the project across the finish line, but it makes a huge difference. Help us. Let's do this together.

The main difference between fundraising and sales here is that in fundraising, you can collect income from multiple sources. That’s not true for us at Cosmic. 

So honestly, it’s a gift when a donor is willing to be open about what they can or can't do. That's an opportunity to connect.

Even getting that first donor on a big project is a huge win. No one wants to be the first to donate, and the social proof of having a funder on board already — even the psychology of having a funder who's willing to match — that happens in small and large ways. 

Other Direct Objections

A direct objection doesn't always have to do with price. It could be: our philanthropic priorities aren't really aligned, or we have some questions about the size of your organization, or we're not confident this will have sustainable impact. There might be a bunch of different reasons that someone might not be confident in giving to you at that moment.

But again, that's a gift — it's data to help you learn about how to strengthen your own organization, and an insight into how your funders are thinking about you. Always start with a Thank You. But it also gives you a chance to overcome the objection.

Start with a lot of questions.  If that funder is willing to engage with you in this conversation, then what you should be thinking about — more than anything — is what are the questions you need to ask them? Two-thirds of your thinking should be around what they want to hear. Only a third of your thinking should be what you want to say.

The goal is to orient completely toward how you are positioning yourself to be an irresistible fundee for this particular individual or foundation.

Fit and Alignment

There are parallels in what we think of as fit alignment. Really, it comes down to a lot of questions — not even necessarily at the objection stage — but even more importantly in the early stage of understanding their motivations. Because ultimately, even people in the altruistic space are making decisions based on their priorities. That's just how we're wired at some level. And that's not incompatible with philanthropy or altruism — it is just human psychology. As a funder, you have priorities, you have opinions, you have concerns. You are vetting organizations.

A funder has to decide — however that happens, whether you convince them or they convince themselves or it's just a natural fit from the beginning — that it fits them. What that is — for a good funder — is that they believe you're going to be able to help them make a material impact on something they care about. It can really be boiled down to something that simple. And it can be emotional. It can be from the heart. It could be that they want to support you because they believe in what you're doing. That's fair too. But even that is a form of giving them something they want.

Asking a lot of questions and really understanding what makes this person tick — that translates to major donor fundraising. 

At Cosmic we have plenty of opportunities that could be really lucrative for us but when we look at them we realize: This isn’t us. This isn’t what we do. This isn’t a fit for us. I’m not confident that we’ll be able to come through. 

We’re putting everything through a few different lenses. For any opportunity that comes our way, we look at:

1. Is there mission alignment? — Do we believe in the work this organization is doing, and can we really get behind it? Will our team really get behind it?
2. Do we understand the problem they're trying to solve?
3. Can we actually help them solve that problem — some of it or all of it? Do we have a track record of doing it, or are we confident that even if we haven't done this exact thing, there's enough alignment with what we've done before that we can do it?

Those are the three big questions we need a ‘Yes’ on before we even get into the logistics.

When Money Comes With Strings Attached

This comes up more when someone's willing to give a social impact organization money with strings attached. That’s really where these questions come up more. And what a wonderful problem to have — to have enough funders that you can be more selective with whose money you're willing to take. Most organizations probably don't have that problem. 

And so the risk is taking money in such a way that might evoke mission creep or might get you off your main track. Any organization of any size, in any fundraising capacity, needs to be really, really aware of those offers from funders who are looking for something that is outside of your scope.

That actually happens pretty commonly. There will be a funding opportunity or a grant opportunity that an organization might apply to and it’s 80% aligned. But there's that 20% that’s not aligned. There isn't always an absolutely perfect alignment between a funder and an organization. There's always a little bit of push and pull. That's just the nature of relationships.

Remember, ‘No’ is an Opportunity and a Gift

For those of you who are out there fundraising — you're going to get these objections. You're going to get silence. You're going to get vague ‘No’s. You're going to get direct ‘No’s.

Always try to get to that direct ‘No’. Always try to get the ‘No’ on paper somewhere — or spoken to you — and make sure you deeply understand why you got it. Because either it's going to help you do better next time, or it's going to help you overcome the objection in the moment.

Check out the full conversation on our Designing Tomorrow podcast.