A kinder, back-to-basics approach to donor relations amounted to a 30 percent increase in contributions for D.C.’s Heritage Foundation.

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

The check was for $250,000. But that’s not the end of the story:

“He comes to our next event, where we were talking about gifts and pledges. He comes over and asks me, ‘What’s a pledge?’ So I told him, and he says, ‘I was gonna give this $250,000 for the next three years; if I pledge a million dollars right now, would that help you?’