BIG ASK GIFTS PROGRAM
I like big asks and I cannot lie...
You are a person of high ideals, beautiful ideas, ambition, and hope.
When you stepped into the role of ED or DoD, you were ready to take on the world, be an agent of change, a force for good. It was all within reach, theoretically.
But reality doesn't care about your idealism.
To create the change you hope to see, you have to pay for it.
That’s why I created…
Enter THE BIG ASK GIFTS PROGRAM!
It’s a 6-month, multi-faceted fundraising training course packed with actionable tools, templates, resources, laughter, camaraderie, and coaching that will demystify fundraising and help you refocus your energy on the work that really matters.
The Big Ask Gifts Program will give you a roadmap to lead your organization through highly effective relationship-centric fundraising that invites partners on a journey with you to create the world you want to see.
"Rhea's fundraising accelerator helped me gain a new perspective on fundraising--one that is centered on authenticity and connection. I came away from the program equipped with stronger sense of focus and confidence, and an arsenal of tools to take my fundraising to the next level. Indeed, the actionable steps helped me achieve stronger results from the very first session. I can't recommend the program enough." --Lily Chang
Big Asks = Big Results
Get access to weekly online lessons that you can view at your convenience. Participate in a 90-minute weekly group coaching session to review work and workshop your specific challenge.
By the end of Fundraising Accelerator, you’ll have a clear plan of attack to boost your individual fundraising, Your also get lifetime access to our alumni community, and lifetime access to course materials, ongoing free monthly drop-in sessions with me and masterclasses with experts in the field.
We meet online weekly for 90 minutes for 9 weeks. Participants also have access to a Slack channel to ask questions throughout the session, lifetime access to the content and all updates, lifetime access to our Slack channel and lifetime access to monthly drop-in sessions.
The program is designed to give you tangible wins that produce unstoppable momentum for your organization.
By the end of the program, you WILL:
Understand your donor avatar so you can stop chasing down leads that just aren't that into you.
Do at least 1 Big Ask so you can take safe action while having the ongoing support of your peers and coaches.
Complete your donor workflow. I'm talking SOPs and automations mapped out so you can confidently acquire and cultivate donors.
Plan a community dinner so you can stop the excuses and start building rapport! It only takes one successful dinner to set up a repeatable recipe for all the dinners to follow.
Increase donor giving. Yes, you will see real, monetary gains when you stick to the program and complete the actionable steps.
Big Asks = Big Results
Understand your donor avatar so you can stop chasing down leads that just aren't that into you.
Do at least 1 Big Ask so you can take safe action while having the ongoing support of your peers and coaches.
Complete your donor workflow. I'm talking SOPs and automations mapped out so you can confidently acquire and cultivate donors.
Plan a community dinner so you can stop the excuses and start building rapport! It only takes one successful dinner to set up a repeatable recipe for all the dinners to follow.
Increase donor giving. Yes, you will see real, monetary gains when you stick to the program and complete the actionable steps.
8 KEY MODULES TO ACCELERATE YOUR FUNDRAISING
#1 Money Mindset
• Identify the emotional and mental blocks that hold you back from
being an effective fundraiser.
• Learn strategies to overcome
your anxiety about fundraising.
#2 POWER + MONEY
• How race, class, gender and power
influence fundraising.
• How to reframe fundraising as partnership, not as supplication.
#3 MESSAGE
• Assess your current marketing
materials for effectiveness. Do your
website and materials truly convey
the excitement of what you do?
• Learn the keys to what makes a
remarkable brand so you can stand
out from the crowd.
• Tell your compelling story to move
and inspire.
#4 MARKET
• Who are your donors and why do
they give?
• Specifying a major donor threshold.
Identify and pinpoint the values that
motivate donors to your cause.
Organize and segment your donor
list to develop targeted strategies.
#5 STORY TELLING
• Learn how to tell a compelling story
to engage potential partners.
Understand WHY stories trigger
• Empathy. Practice and fine-tune
your story using a proven framework.
#6 Methodology
• Create basic workflows and
processes for acquiring, cultivating,
soliciting and retaining donors.
• Figure out the metrics that matter.
Codify your practices so that you
can train and delegate to other
members of your team.
#7 management
• Enable your team to engage in fundraising in order to create a culture of philanthropy.
• Activate and mobilize your board to get involved in fundraising.
#8 Major Gift Ask
• Avoid the most common mistakes when you land the meeting.
• What to say and how to say it in order to build relationships and partnerships with major donors.
8 KEY MODULES TO ACCELERATE YOUR FUNDRAISING
#1 Money Mindset
• Identify the emotional and mental blocks that hold you back from
being an effective fundraiser.
• Learn strategies to overcome
your anxiety about fundraising.
#2 POWER + MONEY
• How race, class, gender and power
influence fundraising.
• How to reframe fundraising as partnership, not as supplication.
#3 MESSAGE
• Assess your current marketing
materials for effectiveness. Do your
website and materials truly convey
the excitement of what you do?
• Learn the keys to what makes a
remarkable brand so you can stand
out from the crowd.
• Tell your compelling story to move
and inspire.
#4 MARKET
• Who are your donors and why do
they give?
• Specifying a major donor threshold.
Identify and pinpoint the values that
motivate donors to your cause.
Organize and segment your donor
list to develop targeted strategies.
#5 STORY TELLING
• Learn how to tell a compelling story
to engage potential partners.
Understand WHY stories trigger
• empathy. Practice and fine-tune
your story using a proven framework.
#6 Methodology
• Create basic workflows and
processes for acquiring, cultivating,
soliciting and retaining donors.
• Figure out the metrics that matter.
Codify your practices so that you
can train and delegate to other
members of your team.
#7 management
• Enable your team to engage in fundraising in order to create a culture of philanthropy.
• Activate and mobilize your board to get involved in fundraising.
#8 Major Gift Ask
• Avoid the most common mistakes when you land the meeting.
• What to say and how to say it in order to build relationships and partnerships with major donors.
That’s the big picture, but here are the details….
The Big Asks Gifts Program is a 6-month, group-coaching training program with video-based modules and live coaching sessions.
You'll have exclusive access to:
The community group (with current attendees)
The Total group (with everyone who has ever been in the program!)
As well as an intimate Cohort Group where you'll build lasting friendships and partnerships to activate transformation.
Plus, you'll get:
1 group call a month with Rhea
1 group call a month with Marvin, our head coach
1 expert training per month
2 one-on-one calls with Marvin, to be taken anytime throughout the program
6 modules (videos, replays, workbooks, templates, and more)
1 coworking call/month with Shay our Expert Community Manager
Weekly check-ins and accountability with our team
2024 pricing is $8,497 or $1497/m for 6 months
I'm confident that this program is the answer to your late-night ED prayers of desperation. (Believe me. I've been there too.)
But, here's the thing…
A lot of coaches make pretty promises about rainbows and unicorns and all sorts of intangible things. They sprinkle in some nice words about mindset and play on your deepest desire to change the world.
They make you feel good and hopeful and happy. But when it's all said and done, the numbers don't add up.
The Big Asks Gifts Program is different.
When we offered this same program as an 9-week accelerator, our participants reported incredible results.
84% said they feel more confident in fundraising.
100% feel that they have acquired new skills to help them fundraise.
94% said they would recommend the program to a friend.
96% said that the strategies they learned are actionable.
91.8% rated this program higher than other programs that they have done.
But that's not all they had to say...
testimonial
Here’s what my clients have to say…
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Rhea's class was tightly run, well-organized, interactive and extremely informative. She gives you the information, the tools, the blueprint, the practice and follow up. As a brand new organization with little experience in non-profits, it was an invaluable course. I'm in a completely different place than I was before this class."
-Yukari Kane, co-founder and co-executive director of the Prison Journalism Project.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"The Fundraising Accelerator provided me an opportunity to workshop ideas in an educational and productive way with colleagues. The asynchronous content supplemented with our live sessions pushed my thinking about how to do this work differently. The experience was not about theory; it was about taking action and implementing new practices that will best support our organizations and the communities that we serve as nonprofit leaders."
- Marvin Vilma
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"This program helped me to reflect on how my own baggage around money plays a major part in how I see my work as a fundraiser. Be prepared to unlearn a few things and have a positive mindset shift around fundraising that enables you to see the work differently and have greater success. Having a cohort of other professionals who are open to being vulnerable and learning from one another is just another bonus to what makes this program so awesome."
- Drine Paul
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Money mindset, story-telling, and relationship building are the three lessons that have stuck with me the most. I'm a nerd and obsessed with competent management, so the CRM, the donor cultivation cycle, the board management pieces, I loved those. But it is what I learned the most from was the lessons on how we even think about money - our beliefs! That paired with the Jeffersonian Dinner, which made me reflect critically about how I build and maintain relationships. Our thinking and identity impacts the way we tell stories; and what stories we tell."
-Michael Partis
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Accelerator participants. See, I had read books and taken trainings on fundraising before, but none of these resources have come close to the support I now have from a community of people who understand what it takes to succeed and who I can rely on from now on to become an even more effective agent of change."
-Deborah Chang
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“The word "unlock" comes to mind when thinking of how much I learned in Rhea Wong's fundraising accelerator. The capacity and the willingness was there for all of us, and Rhea was able to create a space to get over our money baggage and make way for more confidence in process and purpose. The coaching plus the peer-to-peer learning was the perfect combination to make things stick."
-Kerri Hoffman
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Rhea's fundraising accelerator program had the right amount of kick in the pants; resources and tools; laughter, camaraderie, and hope to make you feel like not only do you NEED to follow her patented fundraising plan, but that you CAN. Thanks Rhea!”
- Christine Harley
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"The chance to develop a community of fellow nonprofit leaders was so valuable. It gets lonely at the top and this cohort has been - and continues to be - a much-needed supportive group."
- Karen Sippel, Managing Director, African Women Entrepreneurship Cooperative
Why should I join The Big Ask Gifts Program now?
To put it simply? This opportunity won't come along for another 4 months.
But more than that, it's the most practical step you can take as a struggling ED to put your organization's best foot forward in 2024.
The Big Ask Gifts Program will help you love fundraising more than you ever thought possible. It's the answer I wish I'd had for the same nervousness, overwhelm, loneliness, and confusion I felt as a baby ED in my first fundraising role.
We all know it's lonely at the top, but it doesn't have to be.
Get your community, your focus, and your confidence all in one place.
Sign up for the 2024 Big Ask Gifts Program today!
FAQ's
When is it?
We will meet virtually every Thursday at 12pm-1pm EST from Feb 15 through August 1. Between calls, you have access to our Slack channel which is monitored by Rhea and other coaches to provide ongoing support.
Is it virtual?
Yes. We will meet on Zoom so you can be anywhere in the world.
Will calls be recorded if I can’t make it?
Absolutely. Every call will be recorded and posted within 24 hours so you can review it if you missed it or replay it at your leisure. We will also provide transcripts and audio recordings so you can listen on the go.
How big is the cohort?
We will cap the group at 15 people so you can develop close relationships with your cohort
The timing doesn’t work for me right now. Will this be offered again?
We will offer this every 12 weeks, but if you need to raise more money now I would suggest joining sooner rather than later.
How do I know this will be a good use of my time and money?
Ultimately, this will only work if you implement the strategies and do the work. We’ve created content, frameworks, templates, and accountability to help keep you on track. If you do the work, we have seen our students regularly 2x-10x their current fundraising.
Who’s this for?
This is designed for Executive Directors and Development Directors of organizations that are ideally between $250K-$3M per year in private revenue and are looking to establish a major gift program. You should have individual gifts already. This program is specifically designed for individuals and major gifts so we will not cover topics such as grantwriting, event fundraising, or corporate sponsorships.
Why?
The numbers show that 73% of all philanthropic giving is given by individuals and that 80% of budgets are given by 20% of donors. Therefore, I focus on the 20%.
Do you have a refund policy?
If you enroll and you find that this is not for you, you can receive a full refund within the first two weeks of the program. I just ask that you communicate early and often about what’s working or not for you.
