They want me to do what?!

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More a desperate rant than anything else, but advice is welcome, too.

I work for a Fortune 50 company....my division has a United Way charity golf tournament every year. Somehow, this year, I was put on the committee...I think because they want all my contacts. That's flattering, but they picked the wrong person.

I don't know "how" to ask people for money. It's only in the past two years or so that I've been able to do the social chit-chat thing with my vendors and customers...I hate it because I never know when to shut up, so rather than to be cut off, I'll just stop talking at an inappropriately early time. Now I have to ask companies (including a certain 2nd largest airline in the country) for money?! Do none of my coworkers realize what poor social skills I have?

Anyway, I guess that just goes to show that if you hide your poor social skills well, you're still going to end up in trouble.

groan. . .
I understand

oh, do I understand.

the only way I could actually 'sell' anything is to just gush ( you can 'gush' can't you? ok, then just direct your gushing!) Gush over the charity. How wonderful it is, why it is such a good thing, how we can 'make a difference' and then just ask 'how much can I put you down for?"

hold up your blackberry or note pad and write their name in it and this is the time you shut up. Just wait, if they move follow them, if they don't talk, don't fill in the silence with chatter. Just wait - they can't stand it and will say something pretty substantial just to get out of your intensity!

I made quite a bit for our walk for something or other at work that way.

gush and shut up till they cough it up. And believe me, they didn't chose you because they THOUGHT you cold do a good job. . .

Don't they?

After about 6 weeks of establishing a good relationship with my supervisor, I came out about my AS. I talked about my strengths and weaknesses, what he could expect and what he could do to help. He understands that I can't compose a sentence where I can hear a conversation and might disappear if I need to do so.

I speak extremely well from scripts. Maybe you could work with someone working up a script for soliciting. It's just like selling. Put your schpeal out there and collect the money. People want to give.

yeah! Mark is right. They wouldn't BE there if they didn't want to give. NT get a lot of warm fuzzy feelings from stuff we would melt right down into a puddle about, so you can't judge how they are gonna feel about giving from how we feel about it. They really LOVE that feeling they get from doing it and they wanna do it. Isn't that a kicker!

Are you sure?

Yeah, they know they are gonna be asked for money at a charity event. It makes them feel good about wearing designer shoes and a ridiculously expensive handbag, their Lexus SUVs and titanium golf clubs.


Merle

Okay, but wouldn't it make sense for the person to sit at a table at the entrance and have a nice sign and receipt book and greet the people as they come in and ask for the donation at that stage.

Starr,
Here is some information I found while researching your issue: Good Luck!

http://www.nonprofitexpert.com/asking_f ... bution.htm

this site is a full course on how to set up and run a charity event and helpful hints for soliciting donors with a 15 minute free introductory video on this website
http://www.benevon.com/


One suggestion has been to pass around envelopes that contain some sort of donation form after the presentation. People can then fill in their gift amount and enclose a cheque or credit card details. Has anyone had any experience of this before...if so did it work?/what format did it take?/were amounts suggested?/how strong should we make the ask during the presentation?/should we give people a time limit to make a gift and collect after say 10 minutes or ask people to hand in at end?

I used to work for GE Capital in Australia. They wanted (expected) everyone to do charity work and log it with the company so GE could say what a caring and great company they are because of all the community work its people do. If you didn't do it you could forget about promotions.

I hate GE.

I don't work there anymore.

Thanks for the links, I'm definitely going to look into those.

I think there might be some misunderstanding with others...you have to contribute to come play. So basically I have to ask my contacts if they want to donate and come play golf. I'm really good at the whole "pretending to care about their family" questions, but this I've never done. I can't even pretend I care about the United Way, because I really don't. I donate my money to causes I actually care about, but I guess I can see why companies like to say they donate money.

Obviously I could have said no to the whole thing, but the truth is, I'll meet a lot of contacts by doing this and my specific job depends on my industry contacts. Kind of un-AS-like, but I do like meeting new people...I'm just very bad at it.