Fundraiser supreme gives invaluable master class

IF you don’t ask, you don’t get. This is the one-line summary of a master class in philanthropic fundraising given by the leader of the largest benevolent organisation in the world, the president and chief executive officer of the Worldwide Ireland Funds, Kingsley Aikins.

Boston-based Mr Aikins’ discourse yesterday on fundraising, at the Cork Chamber of Commerce Business Breakfast, in association with the Irish Examiner, was described as a master class by chamber president Robin O’Sullivan.

Mr Aikins made light of raising and disbursing €100 million in just five years under the funds’ Hope and History Campaign. However, the Dubliner has his own style of asking and he can take at least two years before he puts the squeeze on a benefactor.

“People don’t give money to strangers,” he noted. One of the hardest things to do after asking a potential donor for a lot of cash is to keep your mouth shut, according to Mr Aikins, but he believes this is one of the secrets of successful fundraising.

“Let them go through it in their mind,” he advised.

Mr Aikins stressed the benefits of nurturing of potential donors.

Mr Aikins has a mantra for the treatment of donors: “Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I won’t remember. Involve me and I will fully understand.”

Mr Aikins also revealed that the funds’ annual conference will be coming to Cork for the Year of Culture in 2005.