What to Do When Funders Say "No"

Not all “no’s” are equal—and if you’re in fundraising, you know that firsthand.

In this episode, Eric and Jonathan unpack the three types of objections every social impact leader will face: the silent no, the vague no, and the hard no. They explore why each shows up, what it’s really signaling, and how to respond in a way that transforms rejection into relationship. Whether you're navigating donor hesitancy or partner pushback, you'll walk away with practical tools to shift conversations from confusion and avoidance to clarity, trust, and—yes—sometimes even a yes.

Episode Highlights:

[00:00] - The 3 types of objections: Silence, vagueness, and direct no’s
[01:42] - A real-world win: How reframing a donor’s “no” unlocked major funding
[03:03] - Ghosted? Strategies for re-engaging silent prospects
[05:59] - Automated follow-ups that work: Respectful nudging and content-driven touches
[07:19] - Low-effort asks: Using newsletters to reignite dormant conversations
[08:22] - The “breakup email” that gets responses: Permission to say no
[10:43] - Why silence feels personal—and how to shift your mindset
[12:04] - Vague rejections: How to politely mine for clarity
[13:08] - Exact language that invites honest feedback
[15:17] - Is it just the money? A powerful question to uncover root issues
[17:43] - When “scaling down” won’t serve you—or them
[19:17] - Invite donors into partnership: What funders really want
[21:07] - Objections as insights: What “no” reveals about your positioning
[22:19] - Flip your mindset: Think 70% about what they want to hear
[24:06] - Fit-first fundraising: 3 guiding questions before accepting money
[25:19] - Mission creep warning: Why not all dollars are worth it
[27:20] - The takeaway: Always try to get to a direct “no”—and know why it happened

Notable Quotes:

• “Silence is not a no. Don’t take it as enough.” –Jonathan Hicken [04:30]
• “Sometimes people just need permission to say no.” –Eric Ressler [08:22]
• “Two-thirds of my thinking is what they want to hear. Only a third is what I want to say.” –Jonathan Hicken [22:19]
• “You have to become an irresistible fundee—for them.” –Jonathan Hicken [22:32]
• “Funders want to make an impact on something they care about. Period.” –Eric Ressler [23:25]

Resources:

• Article - Want Foundations to Fund Your Work? Speak Their Language. Here's How.
• Article - How to Embrace (and Own) Your Nonprofit's Digital Fundraising
• Article - 8 Reasons Why Donors Aren’t Giving on Your Nonprofit’s Website
• Article - Funders: Your Obligation to Social Impact Goes Beyond Giving Money

Transcript

Jonathan Hicken [00:00]:

Today I want to talk about how to think about the different kinds of objections and some of the ways that you might overcome those things. For those of you who are out there fundraising, try always to get to that direct. No, always try to get the no on paper somewhere or spoken to you and make sure you deeply understand why you got that. No

Eric Ressler [00:22]:

Saying no is hard, right? And I think that sometimes people just need permission to say no.

Jonathan Hicken [00:28]:

And ultimately that is the biggest gift that you can get as a fundraiser or a salesperson or whatever, is deeply understanding why the “no” happened. And if you can separate the reasons for the no in such a way where it's price or something else, that gives you a platform to have a conversation with that donor.

Jonathan Hicken [00:53]:

Eric. Today I want to talk about how fundraisers can overcome funders objections to an appeal for support. And I imagine you actually experienced this somewhat yourself in a different sense in terms of your sales process. And I certainly have. I used to be in sales in tech, and so there's a million books and there's a million podcasts about sales techniques and stuff. But today we're really going to focus on how to overcome an objection from someone making philanthropic support for your organization. How's that sound?

Eric Ressler [01:29]:

That sounds great. This is always top of mind for me. I've never been a fundraiser professionally, but I need my clients to get a lot of money so they can give some of it to us and make their missions better. So I'm going to be taking some mental notes.

Jonathan Hicken [01:42]:

So lemme start with a story. Actually, recently I made a relatively substantial ask to a private donor who initially declined the appeal, which surprised me given our history. I invited her down, we sat down, and I came to learn that the number I put in front of her was too big and she didn't understand that she could split her payments up over the course of a couple of years. So it was just like a cashflow thing. It was just a cashflow thing. And so once I made that clear and once I made it clear that we could front some of the cash in order to get the project done, it became an instant yes. And so it was just a recent example of overcoming an objection. Had I just let it go at the initial “No”, the money wouldn't have happened, but I kept with it and we were able to bring in that support. And so today I want to talk about how to think about the different kinds of objections and some of the ways that you might overcome those things. And so in my mind there are essentially three categories of objection. First is silence.

[02:51]:

Second is a vague objection, and the third is a direct objection. So we will break those one by one. Silent objection is you put an appeal out and you literally just hear nothing.

Eric Ressler [03:03]:

Yeah, the ghost approach.

Jonathan Hicken [03:04]:

The ghost. What do you do when someone is ghosting your attempt at a sale?

Eric Ressler [03:12]:

It happens all the time actually. And without getting too into the weeds around how we bring clients on, we will often have initial conversations with clients and then get even to a stage where we put a proposal together, we propose how we would best work with that client. And then crickets. It's this situation that over the years I've learned to accept. It used to make me really angry, just to be honest, because we would take a lot of time and effort to carve out time to meet with potential people. We used to spend a lot of time putting proposals together and we have different approaches to that now. We've kind of hedged against this potential outcome over the years. Learned to do that, which I'll get into. And what I've learned after doing this for long enough is that that silent no is not always a no. Sometimes it's a no, but sometimes it's a not right now, sometimes it's a, oh, I actually had a family emergency and I ghosted you because of that. I'm so sorry. And so I've learned to not take it personally. I've learned to not get angry about it. It doesn't help. You're not going to get a yes just because you're angry. And I've learned that there are usually some steps in my process that I skipped if that happens. Not always, but usually.

Jonathan Hicken [04:30]:

Yeah, and I think actually that applies pretty directly to a fundraising situation too. I think my most concise piece of advice is don't take silence as enough. Don't take silence as a no. And so now you may need to tailor how often you're following up with someone based on how well you know them or what might be going on, or if it's an urgent gift for you or not. There's lots of factors that'll impact how you follow up, but essentially don't take silence as a no.

Eric Ressler [05:04]:

Yeah, I would definitely echo that. And I'll share a couple details. I'm going to give away some secrets here. Yes,

[05:11]:

So we get inquiries on our site through our book of discovery call form, and we used to just respond to everything manually and do all of our manual follow up. And that worked okay, but it was on me and I would forget, I would get busy. It wouldn't happen weeks ago by and finally, we built out a workflow for follow ups on those initial reach outs where we send a basic kind of qualifying email, we try to schedule a meeting, and now our tool is set up so that if we don't get a response after, I think it's three business days, a follow-up is sent. And if we don't get a response after I think five business days, another follow-up is sent. The number of people who booked that meeting after the second follow-up is probably at least 30%. And it's usually just like, ah, I got so busy, I'm sorry.

[05:59]:

Thank you so much for following up. Now sometimes we do a couple and no one responds at that point. We have ways that we continuously nurture folks who've reached out and not hired us. What I've been thinking about a lot, and I think what's essentially best practice is the constant just following up message is not it that is annoying. It can be even potentially kind of rude, especially if it was unsolicited if you didn't even have a meeting or reach out to somebody. But sharing valuable information as a way to follow up is really effective. So a lot of the people who've reached out to us also subscribed to our newsletter. And so it's also interesting to see how many people respond to a newsletter 1, 2, 3 years after they reached out to work with us and never even met with us or ghosted us on a proposal and said, Hey, we're actually finally at a point where we can do this. Now let's go. So I've learned through doing this long enough that some kind of automated follow-up process that's respectful is good, and you can figure out how do you right size this to donor relationships. But I think that it's a lesson I've learned very strongly over the years for sure.

Jonathan Hicken [07:19]:

Totally. And same thing goes in fundraising. If I am getting silence after a couple of attempts to reach out, still nothing. Usually what I'll do is I'll put out a, Hey, do you want me to send you information? Seems like maybe right now is not the right time. Can I send you information about what we're up to? Just that you're in touch with the work we're doing? And that is usually very successful. Someone will write back and be like, yes, please, or No thank you, I'm not interested. But oftentimes just an invitation for a really low effort way to engage can repark a conversation. So for example, be like, Hey, can I add you to our newsletter? Or Hey, can I send you out my quarterly director updates so you know what we're doing? And that's a really easy yes for someone or a really easy no. But in either case, a very simple yes or no question that someone can react to can keep that engagement going and break the silence.

Eric Ressler [08:22]:

That reminds me of another tool that we have in our toolbox, which is we call it the breakup email. And it's basically in a situation where someone has essentially ghosted us or gone dark, we will send an email that goes something like, because you haven't responded, we're assuming that either you're too busy or your priorities have changed. Please let us know if there's anything else we can do to help. Just something along those lines. That's not verbatim it, but what it's doing is permission. It's giving them permission to say, no, not right now. And kind of taking that social pressure off. Because think a lot of times when people ghost, there's a good reason for it. Maybe there's not always a good reason, but oftentimes there is. But there's that saying no is hard. And I think that sometimes people just need permission to say no even.

[09:07]:

And getting a no is great, getting a no is cool off my to-do list, onto the next thing or even a, no, not right now. Follow up in six months, whatever it is. The ghosting is the hardest part because it's an unknown entity. You're not sure how to show up in that moment. So at a certain point, people who we think just for whatever reason, aren't going to respond, we like to just close the loop there. I think this is a common thing at this point, but I remember it feeling very revolutionary at the time, and the response rate on that email is really high for us.

Jonathan Hicken [09:37]:

Probably a lot of people saying, thanks.

Eric Ressler [09:39]:

Yeah,

Jonathan Hicken [09:39]:

You're right. I'll let you know if something changes

Eric Ressler [09:42]:

Usually. But every once in a while, no, I'm so sorry this thing happened. Please, can we meet next week? So I've learned to just use that tool and it can go a long way.

Jonathan Hicken [09:52]:

And honestly, the social pressure part, especially for those of us who do fundraising in smaller circles in our community, for example, in our space, the fundraising I do, everybody knows everybody. And so taking away the social pressure to say no is probably a gift and probably something that strengthens our reputation when we do that. And as we're talking, I'm like, I should probably do that more.

Eric Ressler [10:19]:

And I think also it shows confidence. It shows that you're not there just kind of chasing the money you, you're in it for the right reason. You care about the relationship. And I think that's another reason why people tend to be kind of attracted to that mode of communication and are more likely to respond. So yeah, it's funny. Before this episode, I had never really thought of silence as a no. But it is a form of no right now or an objection.

Jonathan Hicken [10:43]:

It can be. And I think some of us, especially in fundraising where it's so relationship driven, silence in normal social situations, if someone doesn't text you back, you're like, oh, maybe they're mad at me or whatever. There might be things that come up for you. And I think the same applies in relationship driven fundraising. You don't want to bother them, you don't want to seem pushy. And so you internalize it as a no, and I'm done. But you never really got that. No. Right. And so that brings me to the second form of objection, which is a vague objection where it's just kind of like, no, not right now. No, it's not our priority. No, it's not a good fit. No. Or if you get a canned email response from a grant application, it's like many people applied and unfortunately we did not select yours. So all of us have seen those. And my primary source of advice on those situations is to get to the direct response is to figure out what is the why? And so that can be a number of things that can be a follow-up. Hey, I'd love to understand. No worries. Hey, I totally understand there might be other things going on. I'd really love to understand why would you be willing to write down a few bullet points about what was going on for you? Or would you be willing to spend 10 minutes with me to explain what happened?

[12:04]:

And you can couch it not so much as like, Hey, I want an opportunity to overcome your objection, but rather like, Hey, I really want to learn so that we can do our work better and approach other funders better.

Eric Ressler [12:24]:

The parallels here are very, very spot on because we do something very similar if we get a no on a potential new client, and I have some language even I can suggest for this, that's worked really well for me, which is if I get a no from a client, we usually get an email very similar to the one you just mentioned about a grant application. It's like, you guys were so great, we loved so much about you. Unfortunately there was just another direction that was better for us this time. Something that's essentially kind of vague, trying to soften the blow a little bit, which is fine, but it doesn't help me learn anything. And so my response is usually something along the lines of, thank you so much for letting me know. Completely understand. I'm glad you've found a good partner for this as a learning based organization.

[13:08]:

I would love to understand a little bit more about what your thought process was in making that choice. And would you be willing, similar to what you said, to hop on a quick call or just give me a couple bullet points around what led you to make the final choice that you did? And I get a pretty good response rate to that. It's not a hundred percent, and I'm not pushy about it. I'll do maybe one follow up on that one, but the things that I've learned from sending that email or having those short calls are just so crucial. They can make such a huge difference. And sometimes it's something we did wrong, Hey, we didn't actually understand the problem as well as we thought we did. Or other times it's just like, you know what? We actually probably weren't the best fit. They found some other agency that specialized in this thing that was a better fit for them. So the learnings, they can soften the blow a little bit. Sometimes not. I've had feedback that's come back that's like, yeah, man, we kind of blew that and that I take seriously, and then we improve the processes, but that learning is so important. So hopefully that approach and even some of that specific language could help some of the fundraisers out there as you guys are going after revenue.

Jonathan Hicken [14:14]:

The step I would also say for someone who gives you a vague objection is after you've done a little bit of mining, you've asked for some more information about what went wrong. So you can learn or whatever, is to find a way to keep the door open. Now that may not always apply. You're going to get some objections where you're like, whoa, this is not a good fit. I'm out. But a lot of times we walk away feeling like, shit, if only I had approached this a little differently, maybe this would've worked out. And so it was really important at that moment to keep the door open. So actually the advice we gave and the silence objection applies here too, of basically asking permission, Hey, do you want to stay in touch with what we're doing and the impact we're having? Can I send you stuff? And more often than not, in my experience, the answer is yes, if you really want to pursue that, maybe that grant in the next cycle or the donor the next end of year giving cycle. And so making that invitation to stay in touch.

Eric Ressler [15:17]:

Yeah. This reminds me, and I hope I'm not getting ahead of our conversation here, but another thing that I've been thinking about a lot and using a lot actually is basically a question around is it just the money? Is there anything else besides the amount that's a problem for you? So kind of separating the problem into its parts because I think so much or many times, the money and the fit all kind of blend together and are hard to separate. And that can be a really illuminating question. Like, oh, you know what? It is just the money. It's just more than we can afford to invest right now. Great, then you know that. But other times it might be like, yeah, it's kind of the money, but it's also we're not aligned on this area, or we're not so sure that you guys are the best fit around this specific part. So it's a really pointed question that can elicit more detail. So it's, I don't know if it's in number one or number two necessarily, but it can help you get a little bit of clarity around separating the money part of the problem from the other kind of alignment elements that are important too.

Jonathan Hicken [16:22]:

Absolutely. And that is a segue into the third bucket of getting to that direct objection, getting to the direct reason for the no. And ultimately that is the biggest gift that you can get as a fundraiser or salesperson or whatever, is deeply understanding why the no happened. And if you can separate the reasons for the no in such a way where it's price or something else, that gives you a platform to have a conversation with that donor. So if it is price, now in our world, oftentimes we can be more flexible with dollars and cents. So if really truly the ask was just too big, granted, it's very rare that I'm getting a hard no because the number I put out there was too big. Oftentimes donors are savvy enough to be like, well, I can't do that, but I can do that. So that doesn't come up as

Eric Ressler [17:12]:

Often. So you're saying the donor will just kind of immediately do a counter offer instead. So it's not often that it's just a hard No, just because of the money.

Jonathan Hicken [17:19]:

That's right. That's right. They'd say, I ask for a million bucks, and they're like, well, I can't do that, but would two fifty help you right now? Or something along those lines. So the conversation and fundraising tends to be a little bit more fluid than my experience in sales.

Eric Ressler [17:43]:

We should dig into that a little bit because that happens to us too. And it can be a challenge when we're putting a proposal together. I mean, this is dependent on the type of work that we're doing and whether or not it's a one-off project or it's more of a partnership model, which we do both right now, sometimes it can be hard to scale something down, right? I'm sure you deal with this too, where let's take your whale skeleton project, you can probably piece that out and probably are piecing that out amongst many donors. But in the case that you couldn't do that or you're spinning up a new program or whatever, and it was a million dollar program, sometimes it just needs to be a million bucks. That's the true cost of doing the work. And for us, it's kind of similar, especially because people will come to us often with an idea around a project in mind or a scope in mind or an outcome in mind, and it essentially necessitates a certain level of work or effort or budget or expertise that you can't just cut in half and expect the same outcomes for.

[18:44]:

But sometimes that's come what people want to do. They're like, Hey, we want this, but we can't afford the budget that you've put in front of us. Could we do it for less somehow? And that to me, I get into this kind of creative problem solving mode, and sometimes I find myself going down a slippery slope where I'm like, wait a minute, no, we actually can't. You would be better served by waiting and budgeting for this properly and doing it right versus kind of piecemealing it. And that's case dependent, but does that something that you run into in the fundraising world?

Jonathan Hicken [19:17]:

No, because when someone comes to me and wants to scale down, and let's take the whale skeleton, we know that we can't get these whale bones back into the air unless we raise X amount of money. And if I ask for the full amount and they come back and they're like, we can't do the full amount, but we can do this much. I actually really love those moments because that is giving me an opportunity to engage with this donor as a partner rather than just as a financial transaction. So I can say, okay, great. Alright, thank you for whatever the a hundred K that you're willing to put in, thank you. That's not going to get us the whale back up into the sky, but makes a huge difference. Let's work together on getting the other 200 or whatever. Help me. Let's do this together.

Eric Ressler [20:03]:

And I think the main difference is you can collect income from multiple sources.

Jonathan Hicken [20:07]:

Exactly.

Eric Ressler [20:08]:

Whereas that's not quite as easy for us, although sometimes we've been able to do that with partnerships, but it's not as common in our space. That makes sense.

Jonathan Hicken [20:16]:

And so honestly, it's a gift when someone's willing to be so open with me about what they can or can't do because when they let me into that space with them, that gives me the opportunity to connect.

Jonathan Hicken [20:28]:

Well. And oftentimes just getting even that first donor is a huge win because no one wants to be the first to donate and that social proof of like, oh, we've got this funder on board already, even the psychology of like, oh, we've got a funder he's willing to match. And that happens in small and large ways. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But yeah, it's a little different when it's just for one org, the funding kind of has to come from them or from a funder, which has happened before where we'll say, Hey, okay, you can give us a hundred, but we need another a hundred or whatever it is. And then they'll go get a grant from a foundation to cover the second half of it. So it does sort of happen in that way.

Jonathan Hicken [21:07]:

So this is all about responding to a really direct objection and what we've been talking about is a price objection, but there are other forms of direct objections. It could be like, Hey, really our philanthropic priorities are not really aligned, or, Hey, we have some questions about the size of your organization, or we have whether or not it's going to be sustainable impact, or there might be a bunch of different reasons that someone might not be confident in giving to you at that moment. But again, that's a gift because it's data for you to learn about how to strengthen your own organization and an insight into how your funders are thinking about you. So always start with a thank you gratitude. Hey, that is so helpful. Thank you for sharing that feedback. But it also gives you a chance to overcome the objection. And what I say is start with a lot of questions. If that funder is willing to engage with you in this conversation, then what I'm thinking more than anything is what are the questions I need to ask them? And also I'm thinking two thirds of my thinking is around what do they want to hear? And only a third of my thinking is what do I want to say?

[22:19]:

So I'm completely orienting towards how I am positioning myself to be an irresistible fundee for this particular individual or foundation.

Eric Ressler [22:32]:

Yeah, I mean there's definitely parallels there in just I think fit alignment in general is the way that I think about it these days. And to me, it's really to your point, just a lot of questions, not even necessarily at the objection stage, but even maybe more importantly in the early stage of just really understanding their motivations. Because ultimately, people even in the altruistic space are making decisions based on their priorities. It's just how we're wired at some level. And some people are, and that's not incompatible with philanthropy or altruism. It is just human psychology. And as a funder, you have priorities, you have opinions, you have concerns. You are vetting organizations. And we can argue about if that's always done constructively or not. But at the end of the day, that's the reality is you have to not convince a funder that you're worth it.

[23:25]:

But they have to decide however that happens, whether you convince them or they convince themselves or it's just a natural fit from the beginning, they have to have something that feels like it fits them, in it for them. And what that is for a good funder is that they believe you're going to be able to help them make a material impact on something they care about. It can really be boiled down to something as simple as that. And it can be emotional. It can be from the heart, and it could be, Hey, I just want to support you, Jonathan. I believe in what you're doing. And that's fair too. But even that is kind of a form of giving them something they want. They want to support you as a friend or as a colleague or whatever. So I think asking a lot of questions and really understanding what is it that makes this person tick?

[24:06]:

You tell me whether or not this translates to major donor fundraising, but it's certainly how I think about it when, and really even more broadly, are we a good fit? We have plenty of opportunities that could be really lucrative for us, but I sit there and look at it, I'm like, this isn't us. This isn't what we do. This isn't a fit for us. I'm not confident that we're going to be able to come through. So I'm putting everything through a few different lenses, any opportunity that comes my way. One is their mission alignment. Do I believe in the work this organization is doing and can I really get behind it and will my team really get behind it? For me, it just doesn't work, especially for an organization like ours. Two, do I understand the problem that they're trying to solve? Just even that, right? Three, can we actually help them solve that problem, either some of it or all of it. And have we done that before? Do we have a track record of doing it, or are we very confident that even if we haven't done this exact thing, that there's enough alignment with what we've done before that we can do it? Those are the three big questions that I have to have a yes to all three of those answers before I even get into the logistics.

Jonathan Hicken [25:11]:

What you're bringing up actually comes up more when someone's willing to give you money with strings attached.

Eric Ressler [25:18]:

Yeah, for sure.

Jonathan Hicken [25:19]:

That's really where these questions come up more, and I think what a wonderful problem to have to have enough funders that you can be more selective with whose money you're willing to take. I bet most of our listeners don't have that problem. And so the risk is taking money in such a way that might evoke mission creep or might get you off your main track. And so I think you do any organization of any size in any fundraising capacity needs to be really, really aware of those offers from funders who are looking for something that is outside of your scope.

Eric Ressler [26:00]:

Yeah, I mean, my sense is that that actually happens pretty commonly that, I don't want to say it's rare, but it's quite common maybe that there will be a funding opportunity or a grant opportunity that you might apply to as an organization and you're like, yeah, this is like 80% it, but there's that 20% that we're going to, similar to when you're applying for a job, right? You're going to spruce up your resume, use some of the same keywords, whatever. So I don't know, is there even ever an absolutely perfect alignment between a funder and an organization? Yeah, I think sometimes, but always there's a little bit of push and pull. I think that's just the nature of relationships at some level.

Jonathan Hicken [26:38]:

Yeah, absolutely. We could probably do another episode on how to navigate gifts with strings attached, right? And how to sort of build strong, trusting relationships with funders. But nevertheless, I mean, for those of you who are out there fundraising, right? You're going to get these objections. You're going to get silence. You're going to get these vague nos. You're going to get direct nos. Try always to get to that direct, no, right? Always try to get the no on paper somewhere or spoken to you and make sure you deeply understand why you got that no, because either it's going to help you do better next time, or it's going to help you overcome the objection in the moment and actually bring in that gift.

Eric Ressler [27:20]:

Awesome. Well, this has been super helpful, even for me just to kind of riff on this. I have some mental notes that I'm going to be taking back and sharing with some of our clients who sometimes have questions about how might we fundraise for this, and I have some thoughts on that, but I'm not a major donor fundraiser. So yeah, Jonathan, thanks for sharing the tips today. 

Jonathan Hicken:
Thank you, Eric.