How to Build a Strong Case for Support

Too many social impact leaders step into donor meetings with a bold vision — but an unclear case for why anyone should support it.

Your case for support isn’t just a fundraising tool — it’s a strategic asset that can align your messaging, mobilize your team, and inspire serious investment in your mission. But only if you get it right.

In this episode, Eric and Jonathan walk through a 5-part framework to help you build a clear, compelling case that connects with hearts and minds — and opens doors.

➔ Why most cases for support skip the one question every donor is asking.
 ➔ The five ingredients of a persuasive narrative (and how to use them beyond fundraising).
 ➔ How to tailor your pitch without losing your integrity.
 ➔ Why “bragging” is essential — and how to do it without turning people off.
 ➔ A practical way to turn your case into a year-long content and management tool.

Whether you’re prepping for a major campaign or just trying to sharpen your story, this episode will help you rethink your approach — and give your supporters a reason to say yes.

Don't just ask for support. Make the case.

Episode Highlights:

• [00:00] Vision and belief: Why your case for support must start with clarity
• [01:24] Why this isn’t just for capital campaigns—and why it shouldn’t be
• [02:40] Step 1 – The Why: Purpose, problem, urgency
• [04:27] Step 2 – The Vision: What success really looks like
• [07:44] Step 3 – The Strategy: Big-picture how, not detailed steps
• [10:30] Step 4 – Credibility: Prove you’re up to the task
• [12:53] Brag or stay humble? Striking the right tone with funders
• [14:27] Step 5 – The Ask: Clear, tailored, and donor-centered
• [21:42] Building a forecasting pipeline for major gifts
• [24:13] Mapping donor motivations to maximize engagement
• [25:40] Bonus: Turn your case for support into your content strategy

Notable Quotes:

• “What is the change that you envision, and most importantly, what does it look like if you are to succeed? And if you want your case for support to be compelling, you have to get this part right.” - Eric Ressler [00:00]
• “Sometimes success means recognizing where you’re great and singing it from the rooftops—if you’re uniquely good at something, say it.” - Jonathan Hicken [00:26]
• “The first ingredient is the why—purpose, problem, and urgency; that’s the establishing shot for the narrative.” - Eric Ressler [05:34]
• “My entire approach is to understand exactly what that donor cares about most—then tailor every element so it speaks their language.” - Jonathan Hicken [15:32]
• “If you create a case for support effectively, take this to your marketing team and say, ‘Here’s our content strategy for the year.’” - Eric Ressler [25:40]
• “Cancel that next meeting and spend an hour on this—because it’s worth the time.” - Jonathan Hicken [27:22]

Resources:

• Article - How Your Purpose, Vision, and Mission Can Guide Better Brand Storytelling
• Article - Adopt Rep. Katie Porter's Messaging Tactics to Light a Fire & Get Results
• Article - How to Differentiate Campaign Messaging for Major Donors vs. Grassroots Supporters
• Article - Turning Stats Into Stories: Supercharge Your Social Enterprise’s Proof of Impact
• Article - Your Theory of Change isn't finished until your Grandma can understand it.
• Change you make
• Article - Your Organization’s Credibility Rests on the Shoulders of Your Website
• Metrics or impact storytelling
• Podcast - What to Do When Funders Say "No" 

Transcript 

Eric Ressler [00:00]:

What is the change that you envision, and most importantly, what does it look like if you are to succeed? And if you want your case for support to be compelling, you have to get this part right.

Jonathan Hicken [00:11]:

It's also a management tool. It's a great communication tool, but it's also something to mobilize your team and make sure everybody's rowing in the same direction.

Eric Ressler [00:18]:

If you create a case for support, effectively take this to your marketing team and say, here's our content strategy for the year.

Jonathan Hicken [00:26]:

You said don't brag. I would say brag, and I think sometimes it means recognizing that where you are great and telling people about it, sing it from the rooftops. If you're really, really uniquely good at something, then say it.

Eric Ressler [00:37]:

Jonathan, today I want to talk about something that's very timely for a lot of the work that we're doing right now at cosmic, which is how to craft a compelling case for support for your social impact organization. And this is something that I believe is very important all the time. Often you hear about this in the context of a major capital campaign or donor appeal or whatever, and I think we should actually be looking at our case for support every year and making sure that we have a really strong one. And I don't think that that's always true. So first of all, I'm just curious, do you ever think about this kind of framing this case for support approach?

Jonathan Hicken [01:24]:

All the time, every single day.

Eric Ressler [01:26]:

Okay, so this is not a foreign concept to you,

Jonathan Hicken [01:28]:

Correct.

Eric Ressler [01:28]:

I didn't think it would be, but I just had to check. So, okay, I'm going to go with a little bit of a deep cut here as a metaphor for our listeners. So have you ever seen the movie The Hudsucker Proxy? It's like a 2000 movie or something?

Jonathan Hicken [01:39]:

No.

Eric Ressler [01:39]:

Okay. Bear with me while I try and explain it because it's such a perfect metaphor. The main character in this show has this idea to create, to invent the hula hoop, and he walks around the entire movie holding up a piece of paper with a circle on it, and then he points to it and he says, for kids, and that's his pitch for the hula hoop, which is obviously a horrible pitch sometimes. I feel like that's sort of how nonprofit organizations pitch their work. They get it right. This character totally gets it. He sees the vision, he knows what the impact of this invention could be, but he does a really, really terrible job getting other people to understand that vision. Now, that's obviously an extreme story and example. I don't think most of our listeners are anywhere near that bad at their cases for support, but I'm hoping that today I can walk through what I think are the top five ingredients that you should be combining to create a case for support.

Jonathan Hicken [02:40]:

Awesome. Let's do it.

Eric Ressler [02:41]:

Okay, let's get into it. Now, if you're a longtime listener of our show, there's going to be some repeat themes here. I think that's intentional. We're beating the drum around some of this stuff, but this is in certain ways the kind of master way of combining a lot of the things that we've been talking about into a cohesive narrative. This is, if anything, the meta narrative that is the most important for you to get the first step or the first ingredient for a case for support is the why. And the why is really comprised of a few key things, the purpose, the problem, and the urgency. I believe that if you have a solid answer on purpose, problem, and urgency, those things together create this first step, which is the why.

Jonathan Hicken [03:26]:

I mean, I'm on the edge of my seat wondering what the next four elements are going to be, but to me, each of those questions has a different response depending on who I'm talking to.

Eric Ressler [03:36]:

And that's going to be true. So glad you brought that up early in our discussion. You need to create a case for support that is your kind of boilerplate, so to speak. But absolutely this needs to be somewhat personalized depending on who you're talking to. Now, if you go too far with that, you're not being authentic. You do need to make some decisions around what is the purpose of your organization? What is the problem that you're solving? Why is it urgent? And how are you doing that in a way that's not inauthentic? We don't want to create fake urgency for this issue. That's not honest at the end of the day, but we need to understand, or your supporters need to understand what would happen if your vision did not come true? Why is this an urgent important problem and why is it important as it stacks up against all these other urgent important problems that we're dealing with in the world right now?

[04:27]:

So let's keep going through 'em and then we can kind of get into all of it a little bit more. The second main ingredient for a compelling case for support is the vision. We've done a lot recently about vision. We're going to keep talking about vision because I think we have a vision deficiency in the sector that I'm hoping our show can be a small part in alleviating a little bit. But another way to think about the vision is what is the future state? What is the change that you envision? And most importantly, what does it look like if you are to succeed and if you are going to craft a case for support, and if you want your case for support to be compelling, you have to get this part right. This is kind of a make or break ingredient in the case for support. I know you've been part of many organizations that have strong visions. I know that you are in the middle of a revisioning exercise for the Seymour Center. Speak to just how you're thinking about this right now.

Jonathan Hicken [05:23]:

Well, a question comes to mind immediately, which is could you unpack for us the number one and two a bit, the purpose, the problem, and the urgency and how that differs from the vision?

Eric Ressler [05:34]:

Yeah, sure. So I mean, to me to summarize number one, the why, the purpose, problem, and urgency, to me, that's kind of like the establishing shot for the narrative. The circumstances. The circumstances. So when you see a movie, oftentimes when there's a new scene, there's some kind of establishing wide shot where it's like, okay, where am I? When am I? What's going on in this? So to me, the first ingredient, the why is kind of that context setting. What's the purpose of the work? What's the problem that we're solving? Why is it urgent right now? So sort of another way to think about it would be relevance. Why is this relevant? Why should I care about this? And to me, the vision is in certain ways the response to that, well, you should care about it for all these reasons, and what if instead the world looked like this? That's how I think about vision.

Jonathan Hicken [06:23]:

Yeah, beautiful. And I love the way you've parsed it out because I certainly think of it in those terms, and I use this other communication framework with a terrible acronym, but a very powerful result, which is called sab.

Eric Ressler [06:36]:

Oh, that's right. Yeah. I love this. 

Jonathan Hicken [06:37]:

We've talked about situation, challenge, implication, problem, action, benefit, and so you're setting this up in a way that I'm familiar with where it's like, okay, first we're setting the situation and now we're going to talk about the challenge or the position ultimately is where we're going with this.

Eric Ressler [06:56]:

Every time you bring that up, I'm always impressed. Do you remember each of the steps? I would definitely forget at least one of 'em. It's the worst acronym. Yeah. Okay, so that's number two is the vision. So we've got the why, purpose, problem, urgency, we've got the vision. What does the world look like if you were to succeed as an organization? The third one, and this is one that I think maybe some organizations spend way too much time on. Some organizations don't spend nearly enough time on what's the strategy, how are you going to actually do that? Because if we can convince people that the problem is relevant, that there's true urgency and that your vision is worth pursuing, the next logical question is going to be like, well, how are you going to do that? And this I think does not need to be a detailed schematic level diagram.

[07:44]:

I think that's a mistake, but we do need to touch on this in a way to create credibility and some appeal to the logical side that people are going to have. Because as much as we do want to tap into emotion in this overall approach, we still need to have a logical foundation so that it doesn't come across as being this kind of pie in the sky idea that doesn't have any logical rooting to it. So we don't need to go deep on this, but what's your theory of change? What's unique about your approach? Why is your approach particularly effective? What's your plan? Right? Tell a story about your plan. Don't get too detailed on it, but definitely don't omit it from this because if you omit the strategy, then people might be motivated, but incredulous that your organization can actually pull it off.

Jonathan Hicken [08:34]:

Two things come to mind for me. First, I'm glad you were kind of coaching us. Not to get too deep into the details here, because I think especially as an executive director, a lot of times I'm thinking literal steps. What is the actual work that we need to do to get to the desired future state? But what you're describing here is strategy in the most purest of terms, right? It's the big picture, how

Eric Ressler [09:00]:

Yes,

Jonathan Hicken [09:00]:

Right? It's not, we're doing these steps in this order. It's more, and it's almost like not even about you as an organization, it's almost like it. There's some liberation that comes with strategic thinking here where you kind of separate yourself from the equation entirely. And if you're like, okay, if this problem existed and I wasn't working on it, or my organization doesn't exist, what kind of work would need to happen in order to get there? And that's the flavor of the work, and that's what you're calling the strategy here as opposed to here are my tactical steps.

Eric Ressler [09:35]:

Yeah, I think it's like I agree with that, and another way to think about it is you should be able to answer the question well, how are you going to do that? And I don't think the way you should answer, how am I going to do that? Should be this super tactical step by step schematic answer. I think it should essentially describe your approach, like a simple theory of change, simple theory of change. What's your approach to the how? And if you do have something unique, what is unique about that approach that helps set it apart or that sets you apart, or why are you uniquely qualified to do it that way? So that's not a requirement, but if there is some kind of special sauce to your approach that sets it apart, that makes it especially effective, this would be a good time to include that. So that's step three is the strategy. How are you going to do it?

[10:30]:

Step four is really can be distilled down into the word credibility, and this is how do you prove that you can do it and that you have done similar things and that essentially you're up to the task. So there's a million ways that you can accomplish building credibility. Some of that starts before you even introduce, and maybe you could even argue, most of that starts before you even introduce this to a funder or a supporter or a partner or whatever. But what have you accomplished in the past? So past wins, what special partnerships do you have? We could get into social proof, we can get into impact metrics, we could get into impact storytelling, and I think depending on who you are approaching with this and what their motivations are, do they give more from their heart? Do they give more from their brain? Is it a mix of the two?

[11:23]:

Usually it's a mix of the two. You can combine some of these things that I just mentioned into a section in your case for support or your narrative about building credibility. And you have to be careful about this because we don't want to brag, right? We don't want this to turn into we're so awesome, we're so special. But you do have to build some credibility for yourself or celebrate past accomplishments, and essentially you need to be able to answer, well, why do you think you can do that? So we've talked about why is it important? We've talked about the vision. What's the desired future state? What does it look like if you succeed? We've talked about, well, how are you going to do that? And then now we need to answer, well, why do you think you can? Or you need to be able to convince someone that you are up to the task is another way of thinking about that. And so credibility building becomes important here.

Jonathan Hicken [12:13]:

Why you?

Eric Ressler [12:15]:

Yeah,

Jonathan Hicken [12:15]:

Why not somebody else? What are you bringing uniquely to the table that's going to help solve this problem?

Eric Ressler [12:23]:

To put it bluntly, why should I believe you should do it, right? I mean, I think that is ultimately to put it bluntly, what a lot of people are thinking in this situation. If they're about to make a major contribution of time, energy, money, whatever it is, or even sharing your vision with someone else who might be doing those things and putting their reputation on the line, they need to believe that you're able to do this and that you're a credible organization who's capable of doing it. So number four, credibility is important.

Jonathan Hicken [12:53]:

You said don't brag. I would say brag. Okay, fair. I'd say brag. I think, honestly, I think in our sector sometimes we don't do enough of that, and I think a lot of the premise of our show here is to help social impact organization be more effective and be great. And I think sometimes it means recognizing that where you are great and telling people about it. So I obviously don't want to be an asshole about it and throw shade at other people or other organizations along the way, but I would say sing it from the rooftops. If you're really, really uniquely good at something, then say it.

Eric Ressler [13:31]:

I'm glad you brought that up because I agree, and I do think that we do tend to lean way more towards being overly humble than bragging too much, and this is maybe if you are concerned about bragging too much, which is uncomfortable, maybe that's where the social proof comes in. You let someone else brag for you, or maybe it's where your impact metrics come in, just show them facts, right? That's not bragging, that's just information sharing. So yeah, I am glad you made that suggestion and maybe even correction. I think it's more about how you do it, but yeah, we want to build credibility. We need to build credibility. So the last, and one of the most important steps in this framework is the role of the donor or the supporter and the ask. How do you frame that? Ask? A big mistake I think that happens is you do the first four steps maybe even really well, but the ask is vague or absent from the case for support, and it's just like, what do you think?

[14:27]:

What do you think about all that for kids? So the ask has to be clear, but flexible, right? So we want to show that there are multiple ways to support, and hey, of course the best way is to a multi-year general operating gift or grant that it's six figures or a million dollars or whatever. But it could also be, if this isn't for you, totally get that. Who else do you know that maybe this is for? So there's a huge spectrum of what the ask could be. So I know you do a lot of major donor fundraising. I'd love to hear about how do you think about the ask and how do you frame that when you're meeting with potential donors or existing donors?

Jonathan Hicken [15:10]:

It's all about what that individual or that organization's priorities are. My entire approach to building my case support, yes, I have the boilerplate, I have some things that don't change, but when I go into room, it's incredibly important to me that I understand exactly what that person or that group cares about most,

[15:32]:

And I'm going to tailor every single component of that framework you just laid out to make sure I'm speaking their language. So if I don't know that going into the meeting, my first priority is to uncover that in the moment, and sometimes that means I have to improvise. Sometimes it means I don't know what this person cares about, but I kind of know the tools in my tool belt. So depending on what they say, I'm going to pitch them a different angle. So just to make this more concrete, if I go into a room with a donor and I don't know what they care about and I learn that they really care about STEM education for kids, then what I'm going to do is orient this entire case for support on why their participation is going to drive STEM education for kids in our community. If I find out that what they really care about is our community and the environmental resources that are in our community, which are second to none in the world and they want to protect them, then I'm going to position Seymour Center as an environmental organization with that donor.

[16:35]:

Now granted all of the work that we do, and I think the one thing that stays the same in my case for support is how we're getting it done, the work that we're doing, and I'm just connecting the dots between the work that we're doing and their priorities and then making a clear ask for how their participation is going to make it all happen.

Eric Ressler [16:54]:

Yeah, I think that's a great tip because I do think that if the way that we do the ask or even the entire case for support feels too, we focused, right? We and not a lot, and this is a test I use all the time in messaging in general, but it's a really good test I think in a fundraising standpoint as well. Are we using more we language or more you language and really we want to center the donor, we want to center the supporter and at the same time connect the dots between how their support can make a transformational difference for this issue that they care about. So yes, personalization, understanding their priorities, authentically connecting the dots between their priorities and the mission and the impact that your organization has. All these are great tips. I think a lot of times a case for support is in service of fundraising, in service of a capital campaign, et cetera, et cetera.

[17:50]:

So maybe let's spend just a little bit of time if that's why you started listening to this podcast and you're wondering how can I take this framework and put it to use in a fundraising standpoint? Let's maybe just go there for a little bit and then I want to talk a little bit more about how you can use this more broadly, but let's do a little thought experiment. Let's say we are running a nonprofit organization that is trying to raise two and a half million dollars and they're generating a new case for support. How would you think about breaking that down into a capital campaign in terms of do you think about trying to find a primary donor who's going to maybe do some matching? How do you think about the levels of asks that you're doing, and obviously that gets personalized, but I want to tap into your fundraiser brain a little bit here on this one, and how would you structure that case for support in a major capital campaign situation?

Jonathan Hicken [18:45]:

Yeah, so I mean, I think having clarity on a lot of the ideas that you presented just now is the starting point, right? You need to know the problem you're solving, you need to be passionate about that. You need to know what the vision is. Those things need to be rock solid before going into a capital campaign of any kind or any sort of major fundraising effort.

[19:05]:

So that I would never compromise on that because the risk of what I said a moment ago about personalizing the ask, the risk is that unless you're authentically looking for feedback to make the project stronger or the organization stronger, the risk is this scope creep thing where I'm like, now I'm starting to pitch something that we don't actually do yet, and that's a danger. So certainly there needs to be a certain level of confidence and assuredness in the problem and how you're going to solve it. So that's number one, a hundred percent. Then the next thing I'm starting to do is I'm starting to socialize that with basically I am going out for feedback and I'm asking donors who I think might be willing to participate and help hearing from them what they need to hear, what they need to see, and starting to build this roster and taking account and taking note of all of the different interests, all of the different angles or all of the different lenses through which people are going to view this project. Because I'm always going to see, let's just say we're building housing. Maybe a donor is going to be really excited about building housing because they care about homelessness. Another donor is going to really care about housing because they care about affordability.

[20:25]:

Another donor might care about it because they want more teachers to live in the neighborhood, and this is very family friendly building that we're constructing. So all of these donors are going to have different interests, different lenses, different priorities as they approach us, and I want to understand what all of those things are before I really start pushing the agenda. I'm going to factor those things into the case for support, but I'm also going to be ready at a moment's notice to meet someone where they're at in terms of the peace that they care about most and invite them into it on their terms.

Eric Ressler [21:08]:

That all makes a lot of sense, but I'm going to push a little bit on the brass tacks of this still given all that, let's say we have that solid case for support, we've got a really strong confident point of view around that. We've got a pool of potential major donors who we think have aligned priorities, maybe different priorities, but aligned priorities that are going to, we think they're a roster of folks that are going to have a good fit. Do you think about breaking this down by gift size at all? How does that or potential number of donors to meet your goals? Yeah, let's get into it. Let's

[21:42]:

Yeah, so I build a fundraising pipeline, much like for-profit sales companies might build theirs, and actually I learned the scale Intacct when I was doing renewal sales and other sort of types of sales for a B2B company I worked for, and so basically the technique is, it's a name by name technique. So I'm literally listing every single name on a spreadsheet or whatever software you're using, and I'm associating a couple of numbers with that name. One is the amount I want to ask them for the, and maybe it's a million bucks, maybe it's 500,000, whatever. At first. I'm not super worried about making those numbers add up. I'm just like, just gut level, think gut level. What do I think? Then I put a percentage, the probability that I think I can get that number from that person. So I'd be like, okay, I know John Smith. I'm going to ask him for a million bucks. I'm like 99% sure he's going to give me that gift. I'm going to put a 99%. Then I multiply those two numbers to get a forecast.

Jonathan Hicken [22:51]:

Sure, a million dollar ask with a 99% probability gives me a forecast number of $999,999, but I run through that all the way down. So maybe there's someone, I'm like, I'm going to ask him for 10,000, but I'm only 25% sure that forecast sell is going to give me a $2,500 number,

[23:11]:

And really it's the forecast column that I'm using, and I need the forecast column to equal the total. I need to raise the two and a half million that you brought up. Then as I go through these conversations, and if I'm evaluating how these conversations are going, I adjust my probability and I adjust my ask amount, and so this is a living, breathing pipeline and it tells me at any given time, where do I need to spend my time? Do I need to add more people to the list? Do I need to drive the probability higher on a certain number of gifts? Do I need to make the ask higher? It gives me these levers to pull on to make sure I'm getting to the total number.

Eric Ressler [23:52]:

Perfect. I mean, we're going to do a whole episode on this one day in the near future, I think because that was gold in my opinion, and hopefully give some listeners a sense of if you do this and you have a case for support, what are some very just foundational next steps around how to build a campaign around it for fundraising?

Jonathan Hicken [24:13]:

Dude, I'm so fired up that the other thing I do is I attach the sort of the lens or the angle that donor's going to respond best to. So I'm basically like I'm doing two things at once. I'm helping me or my team be more prepared to go into these meetings, but I'm also evaluating where are the dollars? Are the dollars coming from lessness interest? Are the dollars coming from affordability? Where is the real root of the interest?

Eric Ressler [24:44]:

And I could just see the power of this framework because you learn as you go and you can start to fill in, okay, first of all, how accurate are my forecasts? That's one insight you can get. Oh, spotting trends around our donor pool is most interested in this angle. What is lighting people up? Was I right about what I thought would light them up? All these are just juicy insights, so there's a lot of learning that can happen there. We can go deeper on this, but I also want to get one last important point across about the case for support. The case for support is traditionally used for fundraising and it should be, but also I think these five steps or pillars or ingredients could also be really good content pillars. All of these, and we've talked about this in previous episodes, but in certain ways, this is kind of like a cheat sheet or like a playbook you could use that's going to help you with fundraising and not coincidentally, also help you with storytelling.

[25:40]:

So if you take the time to build out a solid case for support, don't just use it for direct outreach for fundraising. You should be planting these seeds in your general strategic communications as an organization, which is also going to elevate the effectiveness when you do get to the fundraising side of things. So talking about the why, talking about the purpose, talking about the problem, talking about why it's urgent, talking about the vision, telling stories about that, what does change look like if and when you succeed, talking about your strategy without getting too in the weeds on it, impact storytelling, building credibility, talking about the role of the donor. All this is storytelling gold, man. So if you create a case for support, effectively take this to your marketing team and say, here's our content strategy for the year.

Jonathan Hicken [26:28]:

I mean, it's also a management tool, right? I mean, you just said, right? It's a great communication tool, but it's also something to mobilize your team and make sure everybody's rowing in the same direction and asking people to show you how is your work fitting into one of these components?

Eric Ressler [26:44]:

Yeah, so the takeaway I think for our listeners is that the case for support, if you do not have this dialed, do it. Now. This is not, don't wait around because this is a fundamental issue as an organization, if you can't say, I have a strong case for support, there's a million ways to do this. This is one framework. I think it's a solid one. It's one that we use and are using and have seen successfully used for fundraising, for communications, et cetera. So hopefully this is helpful for listeners, but the big takeaway is that this is going to create all kinds of good opportunities and results for you as an organization. So if you don't have this dialed in, let's fix that, and then from there, let's see what it can do for you.

Jonathan Hicken [27:22]:

Seriously, this is a good one. Do this exercise, cancel that next you have on your calendar and spend an hour on this because it's worth the time.

Eric Ressler [27:30]:

Awesome. Thank you, Jonathan. This is good. 

Jonathan Hicken:
Thank you.