Collected advice on building a career
Let’s say you are working on a project that would benefit from the engagement of people you don’t know. These may be people who have a speciric subject matter expertise that you lack. They may be people who can give you feedback on your project. Or they may be people who are working in a related area. You want to reach out to them and get a response. How do you do that?
This is a problem we face all the time at my job. We work with clients and community members to source problems and desing potential solutions. And we want feedback on both parts and we want it from people we don’t know because that’s how you get a rich and diverse population engaging. And I’ve found doing this – emailing strangers – is so hard for so many reasons. These are the steps we’ve put in place to identify people who might be interested in engaging the work that we do and then sending them an email that has a hope of generating a response.
1. Make a the list.. We call this landscape analysis. We identify different groups who may be interested in our work. Because of the kind of work we do these are often: nonprofit organizations, foundations, academic institutions, government agencies, individual activists and community members. We most often start wiht a list of institutions and groups. Then we dig in to find the people. We make lists of hundreds of individuals whose work and instrest area may be relevant to what we are doing. Then we review the list to see what perspectives may still be missing and then we try to find those perspectives.
2. Write the content.. Notice I didn’t say email. Not yet. That part will come later. This is the content that is necessary for people to understand what you are doing. We might write it a PDF that we post online, a google doc, or a public web page. It all depends on what the work is and the kind of input we are after. We may make sure the content is as clear as we can make it, looks professional, and provides the resources to let someone really dig in, if they want to.
3. Write the body of the email. I think of this kind of email as a 5 paragraph note – where some of those paragraphs are very short. The body is middle part – the specifics of what you are asking someone to look at and do. This is likely to be very much the same for almost everyone on your list.
4. Review your list, with the body of the email and the content that you produced in mind. Can you imagine people receiving this and understanding what you asking them to do? Can you imagine on them checking on your legitimacy? Can you imagine them responding to you in a clear and helpful way, based on the content you have put in front of them? If the answer is “no”, work on the content and the body of the email some more and repeat this step until you think “yes, I can imagine someone receiving this and being able to respond.”
5. Now read you email one more time and ask “what am I giving them?” The best thing, something in your content and request helps them meet some of the requirements of their work. This can be easiest when you are talking about people who hold government position and academic positions. It can be harder for people who may be working in the field or who might see your work as threatening in some way. Based on this, sort your list into two groups – the people you think will get something of tangible value from your request, and those where you think “I really am asking a favor.”
6. Start with the people who you believe are getting something out of this too. It’s recipricol in some way for these folks. Now you are wrting your eamil. Paragraph one is two sentences: your name, affiliation, and specific reason for writing; why you think they might be benefit from engaging with your work. Then you boiler plate body content – but read it to see if anyting needs tweaking – and then a close which should always – always – give them an opportunity to ask you for some time if that is an easier way for them to engage.
7. Now look at the list of people who would be doing you a favor. Can they afford to do it? Like literally? If so, ask them. If not, figure out to give them compensation for their time. And not a Starbucks gift card. Ideally, it’s something associated with the work you are doing and the work they are doing. It could be a small donation to their org, it could be something else that you have that could benefit them. And really really if nothing comes to mind – no related thing you can offer – set them aside. Email is not the way to there.
8. Be prepared to send a lot of emails. We will usually send a 25 cold emails before we start gettting responses. The first time we get one we ask “Who else should we be talking to?” and “Would you be willing to do an introduction.”
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