If you daven in a minyan where people regularly come around collecting tzedakah, you can have five, ten, even fifteen people come past you during one Shacharis. Often, they’re the same people you see day after day or week after week. After a while, you know them a little, and you know how it feels when each one comes over.
You may give each of them a small amount, almost without thinking. But when they come one after another, you notice that giving to each person doesn’t feel the same. With one person, you’re happy to give. With another, you may feel pressured or uncomfortable. And without really thinking about it, you start to see each person a little differently.
Our donors experience that too.
Each time we speak to a donor, it becomes part of how he feels about us and the mosad. And over time, those experiences shape the relationship we build with him.
Before your next donor conversation, take a minute and ask yourself two questions:
How do I want this donor to feel when the conversation is over?
What can I do that might help him feel that way?
You may be carrying real financial pressure. But how are you bringing that into the conversation? Is the donor feeling that pressure from you, or does he still experience your confidence in what you are building?
And what does it feel like to be on the other side of the conversation with you? Does the donor feel that you are really with him, interested in what he is saying and trying to understand where he is coming from? Or does he feel that the conversation is mainly being driven by what you need from him?
The way those conversations feel to him becomes part of the relationship you are building.
That is worth thinking about before you walk into the room.
Hatzlacha raba!
Avraham
© 2026 Avraham Lewis & Co.