Major Gifts

Responding to the Preemptive Gift
October 7, 2016 at 11:13 am

“Thanks for the lunch invitation. I appreciating you visiting with me,” the donor said. Before the gift officer could respond, the donor reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a check for $3,000. “And before I forget, I wanted to make sure I gave this to you,” he said. The gift was larger than…

It’s Time for a Nonprofit Reality TV Show
October 6, 2016 at 11:21 am

Earlier this year, my friend Vu Le suggested on his hilarious (yet pointed) blog, Nonprofit With Balls, that we need a nonprofit-themed reality TV show. He suggested titles like: "Dancing With Program Officers" "Hell’s Charity" "So You Think You Can Run a Nonprofit" "America’s Funniest Fundraising Videos" I think Vu was serious. And I had…

It’s Not About the Money—Again
September 29, 2016 at 8:00 am

Fundraising is about people, not money. Not that well-meaning organizations don’t continue to make it about money—all the time. Because they do. This truth was on stellar display recently when The Wall Street Journal reported that Duke University had filed a lien on the estate of oil magnate and Duke alumnus, Aubrey McClendon, for the balance of unfulfilled pledges amounting to about $10 million....

Why You Need to Lead Your CEO
September 26, 2016 at 12:34 pm

Being a major gift fundraiser is one of the toughest careers you could choose. Being a successful one is even harder work. One barrier to being extraordinary in your job is a reluctant CEO or executive director. Conversely, Richard and I have seen amazing CEOs and executive directors who are just waiting on the development team to lead and manage them through the major gift waters, yet the director of development or the vice president of major gifts is not using them properly...

3 Myths of Direct Response Campaigns
September 26, 2016 at 12:11 pm

I’ve just reviewed results from three middle/major donor integrated direct response fundraising campaigns that my teams managed for various social service organizations over the last year. The numbers are astonishing! We’ll get to those in a second. First, I want to share some of the negative myths we’ve dealt with around these campaigns, and why…

Playing the Long Game: 6 Takeaways From Chan, Zuckerberg's Big New Thing
September 23, 2016 at 10:35 am

This keeps getting more interesting. I’m talking about what happens when two idealistic and ambitious Millennials decide to devote tens of billions of dollars to making the world a better place. It almost sounds like a fantasy project—more akin to the augmented reality that Facebook is working on than traditional philanthropy. What would you do…

Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan to Spend $3B to Cure Disease
September 22, 2016 at 11:06 am

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his pediatrician wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, are launching an ambitious effort to spend $3 billion over the next decade to cure disease. The goal is to "work together to cure, prevent or manage all disease within our children's lifetime," Chan said during an event in San Francisco for the Chan…

$7M Wayne State Medical School Gift Contingent On One Doctor
September 20, 2016 at 10:00 am

In 2014, Mike and Marian Ilitch made a $7 million gift to the Wayne State University medical school. But the gift, which is to be paid in five yearly installments of  $1.4 million, came with a condition: If Dr. Donald Weaver, the chairman of the department of surgery, left the university for any reason before…

LinkedIn Co-Founder Pledges to Donate Up to $5M If Trump Releases Tax Returns
September 15, 2016 at 11:13 am

Apparently, LinkedIn's co-founder wants to add "Trump instigator" to his resume. Reid Hoffman, the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, pledged on Monday to donate up to $5 million to veterans organizations if Donald Trump releases his tax returns before the final presidential debate. The pledge follows a crowdfunding campaign launched late last week by…

ICYMI: 8 Ways MGOs Can Gain More Confidence
September 12, 2016 at 9:46 am

I believe there is a crisis amongst major gift officers (MGOs) all over the world. It’s a crisis that is causing good people, like you, to struggle and lose faith in their skills, and causing donors to question the mission of organizations they either support or want to support. This crisis is about a lack of confidence MGOs exhibit in their work...