Major Gifts

History books and our current culture like to tell stories of success of the “self-made man.” We all grow up thinking that if we become the lone wolf and just do something on our own it is more noble than having someone help you. I think that is a pile of garbage...

Our donors are such a wonderful gift to us. And they, collectively, are doing so much good work in our world. Let’s agree to take a look at ourselves, as major gifts officers, to make sure we are doing everything we can to honor them and lift them up...

A few years ago, I was meeting with a major gift officer I was helping to manage and work on her strategic plan for all of her donors. We started talking about touchpoints for her donors...

Over the years I have trained myself to focus on the need. Why? Because the right fix on the need drives everything you do in major gifts fundraising...

It happened several years ago. And I haven’t forgotten it. And when I heard about it I thought, really? Can anyone be so stupid? Now, I know stupid is a strong word and usually I don’t use it. But really, this was one of the worst twists of logic I have ever seen...

Jeff and I very strongly feel that authenticity is one of the key attributes of a successful major gift officer. And one key to authenticity is that the words coming out of a MGO’s mouth are believable and true...

I’m going to describe for you the state of one organization’s major gift program that we worked on a few years ago that will highlight what’s going on with thousands of other organizations' major gift programs... and quite possibly yours...

Over the course of a year, I would guess that Richard and I speak with over a hundred different leaders and managers of nonprofits. Every one of them desperately wants to grow their major gift revenue, but they, in turn, race to nonprofit mediocrity...

We are often asked if a degree or CFRE certification is necessary to be successful in major gifts. And this goes to a much larger question of the role education plays in preparing a person to do the job...

I think I’m going to lose it. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve talked to the leadership of three different organizations that have created a belief in their heads that “their” major donors will not give big nonprofit gifts...