Major Gifts

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…

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…

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...

Aubrey McClendon graduated from Duke University in 1981 and was the co-founder of Chesapeake Energy Corp. He became wealthy as a Colorado wildcatter in the oil industry, and he and his wife (also a Duke alum) provided significant financial support to Duke over the years. Unfortunately, McClendon died suddenly in a car crash in March…

A librarian who quietly saved a $4 million fortune passed away and left his entire estate to the university where he worked for nearly 50 years. Robert Morin, who graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 1963 and worked as a cataloger in Dimond Library, was known to live simply and loved books, according…

Amid his national anthem protest, Colin Kaepernick feels his patriotism has come into question. "The media painted this as I'm anti-American, anti-men-and-women of the military, and that’s not the case at all," the San Francisco 49ers quarterback told reporters after his team defeated the San Diego Chargers on Thursday. During the game, fans repeatedly booed…

The City University of New York is investigating whether a recent $500,000 donation intended to bolster the humanities and arts at its flagship school may have been improperly diverted. The inquiry was prompted by senior faculty members at the school, the City College of New York, who learned that an account that should have contained…

The better you get at asking for major gifts before you plan a capital campaign, the more successful your campaign is likely to be. And, of course, the more money you’ll raise year-in and year-out. Here are three tips to keep in mind when approaching a donor for a big gift...

When a major campaign begins to languish, it is inevitable that some keys to campaign momentum were either never in place, or have been forgotten or neglected. Here are eight keys to ensure your campaign maintains momentum and achieves its goal!...

It’s hard to watch $38 million melt away. But that’s effectively what Marian University in Indianapolis has had to do. The small Roman Catholic university on the city’s west side secured a very public $48 million pledge from a wealthy donor at the beginning of the decade as it sought to expand with a new…