Laura Fredricks

Press Room

In her updated and expanded version of The Ask: How to Ask for Support for Your Nonprofit Cause, Creative Project, or Business Venture, author and fundraiser Laura Fredricks offers a step-by-step approach to making the ask.

Divided in two parts (What do I need to Know Before I ask? and How Do I Make the Ask?), The Ask outlines the process with chapters on:

  • What Does Money Mean to You?
  • How Do I Know Who to Ask and When to Ask?
  • Asking for a Cause – Small and Large Charitable Gifts
  • Handling the Responses to the Ask
  • Following Up with Each and Every Ask

Fredricks offers sample dialogues to prompt “asking” conversations along and frames the book with her list of Ten Things to Know about Every Ask.

Look for the password protected web resources that include sample case statements and business planning resources.

  • NEW Minges & Associates
    Tuesday, February 9, 2010
    The Ask: How to Ask for Support for Your Nonprofit, Cause, Creative Project or Business Venture    , by Laura Fredricks

    From time to time I am contacted and asked to review books and other materials from other nonprofit consultants, and I am more than happy to do so. I can honestly say that I always learn something new, and it is good to hear other perspectives on topics you know are important to the nonprofit arena.

    Laura Fredricks, JD www.laura-fredricks.com is a New York based fundraising consultant as well as a motivational speaker and best-selling author. Her latest book is titled: The Ask: How to Ask for Support for Your Nonprofit, Cause, Creative Project or Business Venture. Before opening up her own boutique consulting firm for nonprofits and businesses Laura served as Vice President for Philanthropy at Pace University in New York where she helped raise $92 million in six years.

    Her newest book is a fast and easy read which quickly delves into unpacking the steps in great detail on how to not only ask for money for your nonprofit cause but also how to apply those same skills in asking for something for yourself, like a job promotion.

    A key point Laura raises at the beginning of this book is asking you the reader to step back and search inside yourself to reveal:

    "What does money mean to you?" "Asking for money and raising money is all psychology, emotions, and past experiences you have had with money." Likewise this process does not end here but you also have to know how the person you are about to ask feels about money as well.

    This book is broken down into ten chapters with each chapter building on the previous information you read. Chapters also have exercises to help you thoroughly think through the process. You will also find helpful summary statements to keep your mind focused on key points. As an added bonus after you purchase this book you are given web access to a downloadable resource file that has additional helpful information.

    Overall I think Ms. Fredricks did an excellent job giving the reader a detailed roadmap for success in making the ask and getting the results!
  • NEW The Faster Times
    January 4, 2010
    How to Negotiate Just About Anything by Sheryl Nance-Nash

Unlike Time Warner and Fox executives, or Democrats and Republicans, most folks eager to build personal wealth need skill in personal negotiations. Most days bring a boss who won’t approve a project, a store that won’t accept a returned product, or a child who refuses to clean up. And most situations can end with both sides happy (enough). Here’s how.

Ask the right questions

Bill Rosenthal, CEO of Communispond, trains managers to be more effective communicators. “You’ll get better results by asking a question,” he says.

How? A series of easily answered questions will help the other person rethink assumptions. That’s why Socrates rolled with the approach in classical Athens more than two millenniums ago.

“Let’s say an impatient boss says the meeting you led didn’t accomplish anything. Ask what she means rather than tell her about everything it did accomplish. Maybe the boss wanted it to resolve an issue uppermost on her mind that wasn’t on the agenda,” explains Rosenthal. Or say your spouse complains about how you cleaned the room. Rather than talk about how clean it is, ask what your spouse means. “Maybe the problem is that you didn’t put thing in place,” he adds.

Listen up

After asking the right questions, use all your senses to gauge the counter-party’s body language. Posture and movement can signal interest, openness and involvement. For instance, if the other team’s delegate says she wants to move forward with an agreement while she’s staring at her iPhone, it may be time to start over.

Make clear from your own body language that you’re listening. Lean forward, look closely, nod when appropriate. Paraphrase what you’re hearing to show you’re listening, and to be certain that you heard it right.

Determine what’s negotiable and what’s not

Write down principles that you will absolutely not give up and others (in another column) that you “may” consider. For instance, if you want a raise, on the left side you may have that you will not take anything less than a 15 percent increase. On the right, you may put that you get to work from home one day a week, get more vacation time, and a 10 percent increase with the right to review your performance in six months. Laura Fredricks, author of The Ask: How to Ask for Support for Your Nonprofit, Cause, Creative Project or Business Venture, points out that a 10 percent pay hike with those perks get you where you want to be.

Always know, in the background, the best you can do without negotiating. “That’s your worst case scenario,” says Stephen Balzac, president of 7 Steps Ahead, an organizational development and management consulting firm.

Make this a conversation. A negotiation assumes the future remains unwritten: make it about what you need and deserve, not what you will get. “You know what you will take and what is not negotiable, so armed with this preparation, coupled with a calm and confident attitude, you’re already successful,” says Fredricks. You can even, with this attitude, ask the other party for advice.

Take emotion out of the equation

However, says Scott Testa, a professor of business administration at Cabrini College, be prepared to walk away. “When you show emotion, it shows fear,” he explains. On that score, you can prosper by finding ways to disarm the adversary with cool.

Find a way to give to others: offer your boss some hours on a pet project of hers, or offer the car dealer your brother’s trade-in. No matter what the specifics, you should listen and reconsider your talking points. “People who go into a negotiation attached to specific solutions almost never get what they want, because the other side resists from the get go,” says Lisa McLeod, a negotiation skills expert. “But when you make peace with the fact that you can’t script everything, you decrease resistance and increase the likelihood of getting what you actually want,” she adds.

What you don’t want to do, is to leave the table with a win-at-all-cost, says Testa. Be graceful. Go for the win-win.

And be ready to talk about just what “winning” means.

  • Laura endorses book: “Fundraising Law Made Easy” by Bruce R. Hopkins, Wiley 2009
    "With accountability for nonprofits at an all-time high, and the governance rules changing monthly, everyone in this field needs to know the basic legal legal rules applicable to philanthropy. As an attorney, I know how essential and powerful this information can be, especially with closing large gifts.”

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