Available for your use are the Mike Dunn Straight Talk DVD and the Terry Headley Advocacy at Work DVD. There are also scripts that go with each DVD available upon request. You should prepare yourself by reading the scripts and rehearsing your presentation. Show the DVDs to as many local chapters as possible throughout the year. Anyone or all of these meetings are appropriate venues to show the DVDs: annual state convention, Legislative Day, Sales Congress, ALC, and state board meetings. A clear and direct solicitation for IFAPAC contributions should follow each showing of the DVD.
The phon-a-thon kit is available from NAIFAPAC HQ. Read it from cover to cover. Organize a team of volunteers to call members of your local chapter to solicit support for IFAPAC. Make sure your callers read the phon-a-thon kit. Follow the guidelines, pick a date and place to make calls, get up-to-date Contributor and Inactive Contributor lists.
Ask each of your current contributors to find one non-contributor to match his/her donation. On average, only 23% of the chapter’s members contribute to IFAPAC, yet everyone, whether they contribute or not, receives the benefit. Instead of asking for a current contributor to give more, ask that contributor to find a new donor.
Get the latest list of key contacts for members of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate from NAIFA National. The list is marked with the last dollar amount and the date of the contact’s IFAPAC contribution. Call the people who haven’t contributed in over a year and encourage them to join (or re-join) IFAPAC. This should be an easy “pitch” since key contacts already understand the need for maintaining supportive relationships with elective officials. Similarly, obtain a list of key contacts for your elected state officials from your state chapter office and review that list to see who needs to contribute to IFAPAC. Enlist the help of your Grassroots and Government Relation state and local chairs to make the solicitations.
Get a list from IFAPAC HQ of all former contributors in your chapter — those who used to contribute, but who have not done so in the last 14 months. These are prime prospects. Follow up with each, and get them back on the IFAPAC team! (Sometimes the non-renewers haven’t given in a while because no one has asked them personally.) Have your IFAPAC fundraising committee or your chapter Board select the names of people they know and schedule time for them to call the lapsed givers before the next meeting. Make sure you coordinate who is calling whom—no need to have three people all call the same person and, conversely, it would be a shame that someone on the list wasn’t called because no one on your team was assigned to do so.
Ask your chapter’s president to devote at least one yearly meeting to IFAPAC. Explain what IFAPAC is and does. Show the Dunn or Headley DVD. Arrange to have various contributors attest to the group to why they give. Invite a political figure to address the group (be mindful of the legislative calendar). You should issue invitations to legislators who already receive IFAPAC support. Consider hosting a private meeting with the legislator for Ambassador and higher contributors before the general meeting. Have a photographer take pictures of the legislator and the high-dollar contributors for their personal use and for your chapter’s newsletter or website. Show donors and non-donors where their funds are going and why being involved in governmental decision-making are important. Include an issues briefing during the meeting. Collect contributions and “pin” the new and newly upgraded contributors on the spot. (Be sure to order lapel pins in advance of the meeting.)
Contact the individual in charge of your chapter’s newsletter/magazine and request space in an upcoming issue for an IFAPAC article. (Call NAIFAPAC HQ for samples.) List the contributors and thank them for their support. Remember to get an up-to-date list of donors for the publication and put the date range of the list at the bottom of the page. Some chairs list contributors for the last 14 months so they can ensure that no one is inadvertently left off the list. Please specify a date range when requesting a contributor list for publication from IFAPAC HQ.
Approach your state chapter leadership and ask them to work with you on a formula for an additional contribution to IFAPAC based on the dollars contributed by local chapters towards the IFAPAC administrative fund. For instance, your state chapter could match dollar for dollar or 50 cents on the dollar every local chapter contribution in “soft money.” If your state chapter is amenable, be sure to keep track of the local monies contributed so you can get the state match. No sense in getting the funds approved and budgeted if they aren’t spent.
Increase IFAPAC’s visibility by setting up a booth at your chapter’s Sales Congress and/or Convention. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy— just a skirted table with a supply of ribbons to thank donors and a supply of contribution forms to recruit new ones. (Or, you can borrow IFAPAC’s tabletop exhibit—call 703-770-8162 or email ifapac@naifa. org.) Be sure to get a current list of contributors from NAIFAPAC HQ and order your booth supplies well in advance of the chapter event. You should also make sure that the people manning the booth are familiar with IFAPAC and can answer basic questions. They should also be well versed in PAC solicitation law. (Also see Booth Rules) Ask your chapter’s Grassroots Chair to co-host the booth and solicit Legislative Contacts.
Draft biographies of NAIFA members who upgrade to the Capitol, Emissary, and Diplomat club levels and have them inserted in your chapter’s publication or on your chapter’s website. Ask them to provide a “testimonial” about why they support IFAPAC. Add a photo of the contributor if possible.
Create a poster board of current IFAPAC givers with their lifetime amounts — and in order of the amount from highest to lowest — and display it at widely attended members-only association meetings. As givers increase their aggregate totals, during the meeting, update the poster with the new dollar amount & use arrows to move contributors up the board to increase competition.
