Crass as it sounds, this is the question that each of your Point of Entry^® guests is asking, almost subconsciously, as they attend your one-hour get-acquainted event: "Help me understand why I should care about your organization's mission—what is so compelling about your work or the people you serve that I should get involved with you?"

While these questions are easy to answer if the guest has a pre-existing connection to your mission (such as a child with a disease your organization is seeking a cure for), they are more difficult if your mission doesn't affect your guests directly.

Let's take the case of a program for street youth—young people living on the streets. The organizations that work with street youth will be the first to tell you that the youth they serve are not always easy for people to sympathize with. Their clothes, hair, grooming, habits, or state of health may not exude that warm and cuddly feeling that opens donors' wallets on the first visit.

So, there you are at your Point of Entry, that critical opportunity to showcase your compelling work right in your own office. You have ten guests, mostly middle class working folks and perhaps one or two business executives.

Your job at the Point of Entry is to connect each of those ten people to an inside glimpse of what motivates a young person to leave home and live on the streets. You've got to humanize the problem so that your guests have an "a-ha" moment, learn something new, and simultaneously realize that these youth are normal kids who have experienced some tough circumstances and are desperately looking for a pathway back to stability. Because of what they suffered in their own homes, they need a great deal of support and guidance to be able to trust again and restore their self-esteem.

We have worked with several groups who serve street youth. Oftentimes, the staff themselves were once on the streets. They have a very deep compassion for the youth, having "been there" before. That alone can be compelling for your Point of Entry guests: to realize that these young people can turn their lives around, just like the staff members did.

I recommend having a testimonial from a staff member (even if this person never lived on the streets) about the insights they've gained through working at your organization, listing some of the frightening circumstances that the youth found themselves in, or perhaps reading a letter of thanks from a young person who has come through your program.

If at all possible, have a live testimonial where a former client tells their story firsthand. Have them talk about the kinds of things they did to survive on the streets—stealing cars, breaking into homes, selling drugs, or prostitution. Then have them tell how this affected the other people in their lives—other kids in school, their teachers, family members, and friends.

Your Point of Entry guests will make their own connections. They will realize that this could have been their child, or the child of a friend or family member. They will realize that this could have been someone who threatened their own child at school. They need to see the cost to taxpayers of having these young people living on the streets, the costs to educate or incarcerate them, the costs to offer treatment to them versus leaving them to join the ranks of the disenfranchised underclass.

It's fine to go that extra step to help your guests connect the dots. In the Visionary Leader^™ Talk, the executive director can speak about some of his own stereotypes before he started working with street youth and how it was easier for him to look the other way when he would encounter these young people, presuming they were "bad kids" deserving of their circumstances. Have him give statistics about the number of youth that come from fancy neighborhoods and "good" homes. Have him talk about the number of crimes committed by street youth and the long-term cost of incarceration. Perhaps he can talk about the impact that this issue has on him every night when he goes home to his own family, wondering how his clients will fare that night out on the streets. Have him tell why he cares, why this population is important to him, and why he feels others should care.

Then take a few questions from your Point of Entry guests. Let them share some of their stereotypes and misperceptions.

Your goal at a Point of Entry is not necessarily to have each guest move your organization up to be one of the top three charitable organizations they give to each year. While that certainly would be nice, and no doubt some people will do that, you want each and every person to leave your Point of Entry having had their eyes opened to something new, some of their myths busted, and their hearts opened to the plight of those less fortunate than themselves. You want them to leave with their own personal answer to the question "Why should I care?"

For more information on this topic, listen to Terry's newest podcast. (Note that this audio file is large and may take some time to download.)