Major Gifts

If you’re getting ready for a capital campaign, there is something important you need to know. And it may be the difference between a successful campaign and one that falls short of its goal.

At Veritus, we believe that creating strategic plans for every donor in your portfolio is critical. All 240 major gift officers who we directly work with all have a plan that will guide them toward achieving their revenue goals.

The other fundraising programs are not doing too well. Finance is going nuts, wondering how the bills will be paid. The executive director has a brilliant solution: launch a major gift program, and sit back and watch the money pour in.

I was just a decent major gift officer. I’ve always been more drawn to the data and strategy side, and while I value my years working directly with big donors and had inspiring experiences, I learned pretty quickly that it would not be a lifelong pursuit.

In the capital campaign business, the focus is on raising a great deal of money from a relatively few donors. And it’s all too common for staff members and volunteers to focus their attention exclusively on getting those major gifts.

I titled this post “Robots and Major Gift Officers” to get your attention and to make the point that it would be ridiculous to even consider that a robot could be a major gift officer. But I also want to make the point that in your daily major gift work, you have to guard that you don’t do robot-like work.

If you have ever played baseball, you would be familiar with the term “cycle.” The cycle is hitting for a single, double, triple and home run. These hits allow the hitter to end up at first base, second base, third base or home plate, respectively.

Purpose to examine all of your asks and proposals in the next week or so. And look at the “because” in each of them. Does your “because” have something to do with solving a societal problem? If not, you are on the wrong track.

Some people worry that major gifts will suffer in the years after a capital campaign. But it’s simply not true! Remember, very few things move in simple straight lines. That’s true of human motivation, growth patterns and, yes, even the way people give.

A gala is not major gift fundraising, nor does it really have anything to do with philanthropy. A gala is a way that nonprofits bring in cash—and in rare cases, enough net revenue to justify having one.