Finding Money and Raising Funds 89 and the recent retirement of Professor Johnson. Smith asked about students going to law school and expressed an interest in meeting with the Pre-Law Club. I thanked Smith for her gift of $500 to the Annual Fund. She volunteered that she could never have gotten through college had it not been for her good professors and the scholarship support she received. We should consider her capacity to endow a scholarship focusing on English, pre-law or gender studies, given her stated interest in wanting to see more women in the legal profession. Next steps: Invite Smith to a campus lecture; consider nomination for alumni of the year or possible commencement speaker. Devise scholarship proposals for her consideration. Date for next contact: July 1, 2013. The contact report will guide you and any other development offi- cers or deans that come in contact with your alum. The information per se is useful, but it also helps avoid repetitive visits that cover the same ground, and guides future steps in Smith’s cultivation. It is also a “hands off” message to other deans or development officers: they should not be approaching Smith for any reason without your prior knowledge. Once you have determined that your ask will be for a scholarship for the English department, you don’t want another from an individual requesting support for a theatre production. A donor who has agreed to provide a major gift, and soon after is asked to support another project, will be confused and see disorder in the institution’s fundraising operation. No clear cut guidelines exist for when and for how much to make the ask. This is the art of fundraising; it all depends on perception, feel and a sense of readiness. This is why we describe the process in terms of a continuum. It can take six to eighteen months and anywhere from five to ten visits or encounters. Donors with an established giving history likely will expect to be approached about their next gift within a year of the expi- ration of their current pledge. Your visits to such individuals should have given you a good indication of what they are interested in supporting and to what extent. For others, the road is longer, built carefully step by step, moving from one spot on the giving continuum to the next.