Frequently Asked Questions

As soon as you complete your registration, you’ll begin to receive a series of brief emails on mindset and framework, so you can benefit from
the program right away — long before we’re together.

You’ll also receive a complimentary copy of What Kind of World Do You Want? to enjoy in the time before the workshop.

All too often, a workshop is just a flash in the pan, quickly forgotten as you return to your busy life.

This one is different. (Very different!)

First off, it’s not “just another workshop.” For most people who attend, it’s a genuine turning point. (Of course, you don’t have to take my word for that, just read what alums have to say by clicking here.)

Second — and more important — you’ll become a part of the global community of Quest alums, both the people in your workshop cohort and the larger community. It’s amazing company to be in.

We’ll also schedule a conference call or two with your workshop cohort, after you’re together, to keep you in touch with one another. And you’ll be hearing regularly from me, to keep your learning fresh.

Since the workshop is for a small, select group, I really encourage you to move heaven and Earth to be there. Still, if something unforeseen happens, you can request a full refund as late as four weeks before the workshop.

After that four-week timeframe, your investment will be applied to the next Quest workshop of your choice.

Time and again, I’ve seen how it can enrich the experience to be joined by someone who you hold in high regard. Whether you work with this person day-in and day-out or you only have infrequent telephone contact, you’ll be able to join in holding possibility and hope — someone who will understand what you’re talking about, thanks to a shared experience.

And you never know what you might cook up together, either at the workshop or in the months or years after.

So I do my level best to accommodate anyone who want to come with a partner. (At some venues, everyone comes with a partner.)

By the way, although people have come in teams of as many as six, you can make the biggest difference in your experience and results by bringing just one other person. (We now limit teams to four.)

Since places are limited — and are first-come, first-served — I would suggest you first secure your registration and then approach your potential partner.

Returning alums are welcomed with open arms. (Sometimes they even take more than half the seats! Most of the rest are usually accompanying an alum or were recommended by one.)

Why do they return? Well, I’ve heard many say they want to immerse themselves again in the inspiring atmosphere — and be with people who share their aspirations and values.

After all, this workshop is much more than “training”—it’s a true retreat where we can restore our batteries, wallow in the mindset with like-minded folks, and leave refreshed and with more energy for the future.

That’s a big reason people return again and again.

There’s something more ... each time, you are different—at a different place in your life. So you pay attention to different aspects (it is a many-layered experience, as I’m sure you know).

And of course, I’m constantly refining the workshop content, introducing new elements and insights. If your last workshop was more than a couple of years ago, you’ll be very (pleasantly) surprised by how different it is today.

P.S. Well, that’s what I said last time the workshop was offered. Now, things are different. I’ve revamped the experience to respond to “these times.”

We’ll prepare to interrupt the conversation of the status quo.

And you’ll have time to plan, if you want, for a future that will subtly or directly (your choice) surprise the folks back home.

We apply the science of the “management of change” to making our re-entry a “change management initiative” ... down to the details of the first steps, who we talk to, and about what.

Whew! I think this has become “Quest 3.0.”

For the past 40 years, I’ve been working with people like you, all over the world, to advance their organizations and causes … and to expand the way they influence, inspire and even ignite people to make a difference at a whole new level.

My work started with the raising of money (and it’s been growing ever since) …

Boy am I glad I went into hiding

More than 25 years ago, I put together The Raising of Money as an “executive summary” of the proven principles and practices of raising large money (and doing so with respect).

At the time, I was consulting for a national firm on capital campaigns, often seen as the pinnacle of fundraising practice, where the stakes are highest and the people the most influential. (In just the last four years before I began to write The Raising, my service took me into living temporarily in a sequence of 28 cities.)

Working in that field gave me such an education.

It taught me about human behavior, about how people become inspired to do things they thought were beyond reach. Those experiences profoundly affected me. I wonder how else, where else I could have learned what I have.

Even early on, I saw the raising of money as a noble and profound endeavor, part of a much larger context of personal initiative.

Then about 15 years ago, I widened my view: to take on the whole system — an organization, cause, or community — and also the desires of individuals to create the society they wanted. I found that “fundraising” was vastly more effective when seen in that framework.

Eager to find better ways to do this larger work, I dug into an extensive learning program, studying with global thought leaders the most advanced ideas in social psychology and organization development, even community development and global social change.

Always looking for what I could learn about what gets people riled up and moving, motivated to work for what they believed in.

And for more than a decade, I stayed away from conferences and invitations to speak, and met only with those who came to my private, by-invitation workshops. Hundreds of people participated in those programs, from more than 50 countries. What an experience.

Along with me, they conducted thousands of interviews to uncover the conditions that are behind people stepping forward and investing themselves in the future. (Isn’t that what philanthropy is, when at its best?)

Retreating pays big dividends

I was searching for the “secret” to the largest success — how we can best bring our ideals to life. Well, that might sound like hype, or at least it does to me. But that’s what I was looking for: the “secret power” that could unlock a whole new level of possibility.

A curious thing happened along the way.

More and more, I found myself working directly with civic leaders, and with the philanthropically-inclined (“donors”), to support them in what they wanted to do, creating the kind of world they wanted to see.

You might think I was searching for ways to achieve optimal fundraising performance. But in a way it was the opposite: In the intimate setting of private programs, I was inside the experience of civic leaders and donors, walking with them … even laying the roadbed for them and with them … so they could exercise their ideals and create a new tomorrow.

Well, perhaps that actually is the key to extraordinary results in the raising of money — or indeed any kind of influence: understanding, at a deep and personal level, what people are about, what they’re thinking, what they care about, what they want. (Oh yes, and the strengths they have to get there, whether they’re aware of them or not.)

This all started way back when I was still doing “fundraising consulting.” I had a gig with national 4-H — you know, the folks who teach kids about agriculture. They were giving their local fundraising staff top-notch training on all the “best practices.”

But when the staff went home to put their shiny new techniques to work, they couldn’t get their boards and volunteers interested. So instead of the great success they’d been expecting from their training, they hit a brick wall.

There was a piece missing, a key to getting results that nobody was teaching. Something mysterious — about what makes people tick when they’re investing themselves in a social cause.

Well, I’m all about peak performance, and I do love a puzzle. So I sort of went into hiding … to give myself time to figure out what truly inspires people to give their all for the causes they believe in. I even dropped off the lecture circuit and started turning down consulting clients.

Little did I know this would turn into a decade-plus quest. In fact, what I ended up doing was so extensive I could call it my “Ph.D.” … but it was way more practical than any academic program.

I invested in dozens of courses and workshops on change management, social psychology, personal development, organizational behavior … and paid dearly for one-on-one learning with some of the best minds on the planet. Even though I had a consulting practice of my own, I humbly “apprenticed” myself to other top consultants who were doing work I could learn from.

At the same time, I tested everything I learned — in consulting with a few carefully chosen clients, and with students in my own workshops (who went home to do things that amazed even me).

In the end, I saw results beyond anything I’d ever expected … results that went far beyond just raising money.

And that’s when I realized that raising money wasn’t an end, but is the key that — when a cause does it the right way, the authentic way — can really unlock its prosperity ... and change the world.

That’s when I began to find donors, civic leaders and board members wanting seats in the experience.

Mind you, not everybody has the time, the wherewithal, or the sheer obsession to do what I’ve done. But now you can tap into what’s taken me years to discover … and propel your cause forward.

(By the way, board members who’ve participated have used what they’ve learned in their businesses, with great results.)

The good news is that you can learn this, just as I have. That’s what “The 2010 Quest” is all about … your turn to get this shot in the arm.

This workshop is the place to be if you want to reframe the “impossible” into the do-able — and then the achieved. And the goal of getting-to-the-workshop is exactly the same.

So the way I see it, it’s good to have a question about the money. It’s an opportunity to create an immediate reframe of our lives — in a part that often seems beyond our influence.

Let’s put aside for a moment the workshop, and talk about the very idea of making choices to bring our desires alive.

If I look at my own experiences, I see that I’ve had powerful breakthroughs whenever I’ve decided to do something I truly wanted to do, despite apparent limits — and then used my will and resourcefulness to find a way to bring it about.

The moment at which you make any audacious choice is a rite of passage, moving you into a future of more promise. It means you’ve just taken a stand that says Yes to the future.

When you do that, everything changes for you. And around you.

Likewise, a bold decision to invest in yourself, whether in dollars or in energy invested in securing dollars, will move you into a new place, well before you step through the door to the workshop.

(Besides, when you can lick this “money thing,” you’re really on your way.)

Still wondering about this question? Send us a note and we’ll send you some creative ideas that others have found useful.

If you live in a country with an economy that offers few resources for this opportunity, I want you to know that there is some scholarship suppport available (made possible by alums of the program, as well as by my own choice to invest in global social change.)

My expectation is that a scholarship applicant will be a civic leader (or one who is emerging as such) from a country where the economy is such that the tuition seems absurdly out of reach, and where familiar sources of support, such as foundations or philanthropists, are scarcer than in places such as the U.S.

By using scholarships in this way, we’re now able to have people participate from Russia, Brazil, Siberia, Malawi, and many other countries. Hope grows when the world is in the room.

And what does someone like Sahadev end up doing? He puts into the scholarship fund for others what he can. One American who works with homeless folks recently sent a check for several hundred dollars from him and his wife (clearly responding to opportunity, rather than need).

Another alum gave air miles to make it possible for someone to attend. And another used vacation days — instead of taking them, using the money to fund a scholarship.

If you would like to explore giving or receiving a scholarship, please contact us. (And please understand that most scholarship participants are recommended by alums, and there is a waiting list.)

If ever there were a time for large learning, for creative ways of facing what’s going on, it is now. Now is the perfect time to learn to reframe, to see possibilities where others only see what’s impossible.

Why is learning so important?

For me, I think it began with my father’s advice, “Son, that’s one thing they can never take away from you — what you learn.” (My father dropped out of high school and finished only after I was born, rocking me in one arm and a schoolbook in the other.)

He also used to say, “Your best investment is in you.”

I know that the only way I could be doing the work I am today is thanks to his advice and the power of his example.

(OK, so I had something to do with it. I’ve personally funded every workshop and every course I’ve taken.)

The point is, my learning is the one place where an investment can assure a return (one that always goes beyond the financial).

And especially today, learning is your biggest point of “leverage” — the largest opportunity to multiply your effect on the world.

But is now the right time for you?

Someone was telling me yesterday about people who have all the right resources for what they want to do, but rather than activate them, they’re opting to draw back and wait.

What you are doing is too important for that. And too many people look to you, for direct messages and even more for subtle signs of resolve (or retreat).

That means now is the time to strengthen your identity as one who leads from authentic personal power. (You couldn’t do it in calm times like you can now.)

So it’s more important than ever to read, think, and talk about ideas and practices that enliven you and expand your sense of possibility. (I sure hope you’re doing that, regardless of whether you choose to be with us.)

Even more important — because it’s more effective — is to spend time with people who actively work with those ideas and turn them into action. And that’s exactly what we’ll be doing in the workshop.

Will you look back on this year as a time of growth and creativity? A time when you moved forward on what mattered to you? (Or will you look back on it as something else?)

P.S. If something is already on your calendar, you might like to know that many people who will be there will have made drastic changes to their plans to take advantage of this chance.

And if you’re still convinced this would be the wrong time for you to make an extra-ordinary commitment like this, then I don’t want to convince or persuade you otherwise. This experience is only right for some, and somehow the right people always end up in the room.

If you’ve taken a good look at the information on this site (especially the notes from past participants) and you’re still wondering whether this is right for you, here are two questions you might ask yourself.

Am I the kind of person who does well in the workshop?

If you’ve read this far, I have a hunch you share the qualities I’ve come to admire in those who have participated:

• A genuine desire to learn, which may extend to questioning the conventional wisdom.
• High aspirations, even a hint of idealism (usually combined with a sense of humility).
• A large view of the world. (If you are a professional, you see your work as a calling, rather than just a career — and seek to contribute to society beyond your organization.)
• Sincere respect for others — and a desire to influence people to bring forth their best and highest values and potentials.

As well, many who participate are poised for a major advance for their cause or for themselves. (Often that advance is only revealed during the course of the workshop, so this is not a “prerequisite”! These are extra-ordinary people, but often my job is to get them to own up to how great they are.)

Can you imagine your life with this thrust added to what you already have going for you?

One of the reasons I hear from people that the workshop is so powerful is because of the lengths to which people go to be part of it. It’s wonderful to have folks like this along on my (and your) path of life.

I think these people have found a rite of passage for themselves when they make this investment in their power to fortify confidence and inspire action. It’s an act that speaks volumes about your faith in the future, in others — and in yourself. And it sends that message to those around you who you most want to encourage and influence.

You’ve gotta believe this workshop is a lot more than a chance to get away and recharge your batteries. You’re going to do something you couldn’t have done without it.

P.S. While writing this note to you, a Cat Stevens song came up on my Pandora station. (No kidding!)

      If you want to say “yes,” say Yes!
      And if you want to say “no,” say No!

To which I might add,

“And if you say “later,” then realize you’ve said No.

That sounds tougher than I mean it. After all, you know what’s best for now for you.

Oh, one more line from that tune struck a chord with me:

      ’Cause there’s a million ways to go.