Cultivating Former Donors Helps Small Charities Raise Major Gifts

For small and midsize charities, stewarding their big-gift donors pays off more than soliciting new prospects, concludes a new study.

Surveying charities with less than $10 million in donated annual income to find out which factors enhance major-gifts fundraising, researchers found the groups lost an average of $300 for every prospective major donor solicited. By contrast, the organizations raised an average of $2,200 for every existing major donor they were stewarding.

The takeaway, says Amy Eisenstein, a co-author of the study: Small nonprofits need to pay more attention to quality, not quantity, when cultivating donors.