This past fiscal year I made a big effort to get my fundraising team to make more asks. More asks means more dollars, I thought. So I pushed it all year, tracked every ask by type, and even ran a monthly recognition for the fundraiser who made the most asks. Now I wanted to know, with real numbers, whether the activity I was pushing was actually translating into success. A year later, the answer is yes, but some trends showed that I might coach my team differently than I did when I started. If you’re a fundraising manager considering whether to push your team harder on asks, here’s what I learned.
When I broke the year down by ask type, the relationship between asks and dollars raised wasn’t one relationship. It was three.
Mid-level asks ($25,000 – $99,999) were clearly driven by asks. Fundraisers with higher mid-level ask volume reliably brought in more dollars. The relationship was simple: more asks, more closes, more gifts. Shorter decision times and a higher ask volume meant less of the distractions that make major gift work harder.
Leadership asks ($1,000 – $24,999), our entry-level, relationship-building asks, were a strong leading indicator, though a little less direct. Fundraisers who led in leadership asks also tended to lead in pipeline movement and closes. But the gift sizes are smaller, and many leadership asks are really starter gifts toward something bigger. The trend I’d flag for any manager: high leadership ask volume without strong closes is activity without efficiency. That’s a red flag for a gift officer who needs help with their asking/closing strategies.
Major gift asks ($100K+) were the surprise. Here the correlation of asks to production was not as strong. Some fundraisers made moderate numbers of asks and still posted low totals, while a single major gift close could swing a year. So more major gift asks did not reliably predict more major gift dollars in any single year. Major gift asks are a pipeline-health indicator. They’re necessary, but not a direct predictor of dollars coming in.
If I had to summarize it into one line: at mid-level and leadership, asks drive outcomes. At major gifts, asks drive pipeline movement, but closes (close percentage) drive outcomes.
The more useful finding wasn’t about ask types at all. It was that my fundraisers sorted into three categories.
1. High ask / high dollar: My most consistent producers, had strong asks across mid-level, leadership, and major gift participation. For them, asks were clearly driving success. No help needed here.
2. High ask / low dollar: Plenty of activity, but lower-than-expected close rates. This is the group that a focus on ask volume was probably rewarding the wrong behavior. The effort is there. The questions are: are the asks well-qualified? Sized correctly? Is the follow-up done correctly? This group is where I’d been misreading activity as progress.
3. Low ask / high dollar: Few asks, outsized dollars booked, usually driven by a single large gift, fortunate timing, or a legacy relationship coming to fruition. Even the milder cases are worth recognizing but dangerous to hold up as the standard: it isn’t something you can scale or repeat across a team.
Overall, encouraging more asks was the right strategy that created a culture where asking is normal and expected. The monthly recognition for most asks helped reinforce it. But I learned that rewarding on ask volume alone can sometimes encourage the wrong behavior in your high-activity, low-close people. This group needed to be encouraged to “make better asks, and have the confidence to make the ask when the moment is there.” If I did it again, I’d pair any ask volume recognition with a close percentage recognition (conversions), so I’m celebrating the right things.
The best way I’ve found to say it to my own team: Our biggest opportunity isn’t more activity. It’s a better close rate and more confidence in making the ask.
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