Laura Fredricks sits down with Katie Couric!

Laura Fredricks recently just sat down with Katie Couric to talk about how to ask for what you want. Click here to watch the full interview. Below is more about Laura. Fredricks, LLC, is a boutique consulting company that provides hands-on expert philanthropic advising and best practices to a select number of non-profits, businesses, and entrepreneurs to raise significant money, efficiently and effectively from a variety of existing and new sources.

Laura is the leading authority in making The ASK. Her best-selling books, “The ASK: How to Ask for Your Nonprofit Cause, Creative Project, or Business Venture” and “The ASK: How to Ask Anyone for Any Amount for Any Purpose” have been the go-to guide for any in any size organization to apply its practical and successful techniques. Laura has trained CEO’s; boards; retired Army Generals; international bank financiers; theater producers; as well as development teams globally with outstanding results.

Laura is one of the most “sought after speakers,” nationally and internationally. When you hear Laura speak, there is no doubt you will be entertained, energized and well educated. She applies her own winning business model to all her presentations – raising money for nonprofits and businesses requires organization, focus, structure, and follow through.

Laura’s ability to draw upon her experiences in philanthropy, law, business, communications and the media gives her the unique edge to speak about local as well as world issues affecting broad sectors, while providing solid suggestions to put into practice immediately.

She is the leading authority in making The ASK and delivering standing ovation presentations on THE ASK. Her best-selling books, “The ASK: How to Ask for Your Nonprofit Cause, Creative Project, or Business Venture” and “The ASK: How to Ask Anyone for Any Amount for Any Purpose” have been the go-to guide for any in any size organization to apply its practical and successful techniques. Laura has trained CEO’s; boards; retired Army Generals; international bank financiers; theater producers; as well as development teams globally with outstanding results.

For the past 18 years, Laura has been teaching nonprofit business management; leadership; fundraising trends; annual, major gift, planned giving, special events; and capital campaign courses on a certification and master’s degree level for New York University, Columbia University, Duke University, University of Pennsylvania and the Smithsonian Institution.

As a writer, Laura has the unique ability to take a well-known concept, asking for money, and making it practical, effortless, exciting and successful for anyone who needs money. Her ground-breaking book “The ASK: How to Ask for Your Nonprofit Cause, Creative Project, or Business Venture” has been used by thousands internationally with resounding success. The ASK covers it all, from non-profits that need restricted and unrestricted money; to businesses that need their sales and marketing forces to craft their asks that results in enhanced sales: and to the individual who has dreams, and goals, and a strong desire to have the best and most fulfilling personal and professional life possible, it all begins with the right ASK.

With her 20+ years raising millions of dollars for nonprofits, together with her practical approach as a civil litigation attorney and her communications background, Laura is branded as the Expert in The ASK.

“The ASK: How to Ask Anyone for Any Amount for Any Purpose”, Laura’s second book, offers a complete resource for teaching anyone—no matter how much or how little fundraising experience they may have—how to ask individuals, in person, for money. These two books on The ASK gave Laura the platform to apply her concepts to make any ASK in everyday living. Her interviews in SELF, Women’s Health, and Shape magazines showcase how her practical steps can be used to ask for a raise, promotion or time off; ask friends and co-workers for money; ask as an empowerment to increase good health; and ask for the essential and important things in your personal life. “The ASK: How to Ask Anyone for Any Amount for Any Purpose” was so popular that in 2010 it was translated in Russian!

Laura’s first book “Developing Major Gifts: Turning Small Donors into Big Contributors” was the first of its kind to use a step by step method of identifying the best people to ask for money in priority order; formulating individual cultivation strategies; deciding when to ask and how much to ask; selecting the right following up moves tailored for each person until there is a final answer; and stewarding each person until it is time to ask for new money. This book written in 2001 is still the timeless, most practical and useful way anyone, in any size nonprofit can turn an annual donor into a major gifts or planned giving donor, and a major gifts donor into a leadership and campaign supporter. It has also been used as a guide for companies that need their sales people to conduct more in-person sales calls as well as to increase the size of each sales order by making the right ask and follow up with each sales call.