Linda Lysakowski

Many times in smaller organizations, executive directors and development directors will bemoan the fact that they don’t have the “movers and shakers” on their board and, therefore, won’t consider a major-gifts program or capital campaign that relies heavily on leadership-level gifts. Before writing off your board, consider doing some brainstorming on major-donor prospects. You might be surprised at the connections your board has in this regard. Brainstorming is best done in the form of a screening and rating session. There are basically three ways to conduct screening for major-donor prospects. For all three methods, the screening committee could include: * board members * staff