Kim Anderson, Muhlenberg College's Annual Fund Director, said it best: "You need buy-in from key groups."
This is important to realize because friends respond to friends, classmates respond to classmates, etc.
When I worked with Muhlenberg College to plan their 24-hour "Day of Giving" campaign (which raised $150K in 24 hours), we went through a very extensive process of sourcing volunteers, and we broke this process into two main steps:
Identify Key Volunteer Groups:
We targeted key individuals across several different groups-alumni
boards, class fund chairs, reunion leaders, parents council,
etc.
This process of social graphing allowed Muhlenberg College to cluster alumni into groups and optimize its reach.
Segment Volunteers into Two Tiers:
We took the top 200 volunteers and categorized each one as a
"Primary Influencer" or a "Secondary Influencer."
This classification was based on a combination of individual commitment and the size of their potential impact.
Primaries had more responsibilities, while Secondaries were only asked to make a small gift and share.