Building Relationships with High-Value Funders Through LinkedIn

The competition is asleep! The second you hit that like button, you are in the top 5% of LinkedIn users! There are over 100 million people worldwide. If you hit like, you’re ahead of 95% of the gang!

In studying techniques used by successful fundraisers for many years, I’ve found there’s a tool that many people don’t take full advantage of to build relationships with high value funders.

This is especially true if you raise funds through high value supporters – Corporate Partners, Major Donors and Trusts / Foundations. That surprisingly effective tool is LinkedIn.

But even if you have a sense that you could be using it more effectively, what’s the best approach?

To answer the question, I was delighted to talk to fundraising and LinkedIn expert Michelle Benson on the Fundraising Bright Spots podcast. Her perspective is informed not only by her experience as a fundraiser, but also by how she operates as a funder.

If you want to go straight to listen to the full conversation, which is jam-packed with shrewd insights, here is the link:

High Value Fundraising Using LinkedIn, with Michelle Benson

In the podcast we discuss a strategy which is different to what most people usually do! ie Rather than you chase them, a better way is to attract your ideal funders and partners to seek you out and want to develop relationships with you!

Here are two mistakes I realised most fundraisers make with LinkedIn

• Most fundraisers, if they use LinkedIn, are mostly connected to other fundraisers. This is understandable – not least because LinkedIn prompts you do to this – but it does not help increase the chances you will be found by funders.
• Most people drastically underestimate the power of LinkedIn, to raise your profile with people you want to find you.

Here are four insights I gained from my conversation with Michelle and have been sharing with fundraisers on our training courses for fundraisers.

1. Funders (Trusts, foundations, companies, major donors etc) know each other, much more than we realise. People who are trying to make a difference to problems to do with a particular disease, or literacy or the environment etc are usually well connected to lots of other people who care about and are trying to solve those particular problems. And most of them want to connect with charities that are effective at solving problems in these areas.
2. On LinkedIn the algorithm notices who you connect with and interact with. And it actively recommends to you other people similar to them you could connect with.
3. The algorithm also notices if you are active. This makes your interactions more visible (to people similar to the person you are interacting with.)
4. It really doesn’t take much to be more active than almost everyone else! Michelle said that only 5% of LinkedIn users, even use the like button, let alone comment (3%) or post / reshare (only 1%). Knowing this has really helped me because I know that in any given day, if I spend 5 – 10 minutes in the morning doing these things, I am making myself far more likely to be found.

Try these two changes to how you use LinkedIn…

Fundraisers who have listened to the podcast have told me they’ve been doing these two things more deliberately than before:

• Deliberately Link in with the kind of funder / company / trust in your space.
• Interact proactively – like, share, comment!

I’ve been taken aback by how quickly this approach has been making a difference. Here are a couple of examples:

One corporate fundraiser for an environmental charity received invitations to have an informal coffee from two different funders that had been on her list, within ten days of starting the strategy.

Another, the CEO of a small / medium education charity emailed me this morning about the podcast:

‘Prompted by a colleague I listened to this and set about actioning it. Within a couple of hours of commenting on posts I had personal responses from key staff at two foundations I had on my list, and within a few days a meeting with one in the diary.’

Of course, the results may not happen quite this quickly for you, you may need to be a little more patient. But the fundraisers on my programmes have fed back that since listening to Michelle’s advice on the podcast, this has become one effective element of their growth strategy.

And there are other benefits. Obviously, an important challenge for many high value fundraisers happens in your early conversation(s). One fundraiser told me that after he had been doing this, he had the chance to meet a potential corporate partner in person for the first time.

As he was introducing himself, she told him that she felt she already knew him from LinkedIn. He felt this was one reason the meeting got off to an especially positive start. Can you see how helpful this ‘pre-frame’ of familiarity through your LinkedIn presence, would be to how you build relationships with funders?

There is lots more valuable information in the podcast, (including tips for making your profile more visible and effective). Most importantly, Michelle brings the ideas to life in an engaging and down-to-earth way that you’ll find makes good sense.

If you’d like to listen, click the button below:

LISTEN NOW

Or for more information about our in-house training days, Corporate Partnerships Mastery and Major Gifts Mastery Programmes, follow the links.