Major Gifts

Every fundraising ask for a gift consists of humans playing various parts to achieve a common purpose. The ultimate purpose of fundraising is to secure large gifts if possible. It is not easy and rather complex. After obtaining a large gift, it always is wise to dissect the ask and seek ways to improve strategy and performance. The next ask always is around the corner...

T. Denny Sanford, the 80-year-old businessman who has appeared on numerous "top philanthropists" lists and whose net worth is an estimated $1.4 billion, has given away more than $1 billion and developed a reputation for philanthropy. Now, he wants to give more than just money. He wants to tell fundraisers exactly how to separate major donors from their dollars...

In an effort to provide grounding for Donald Trump’s claim that he gave more than $102 million to charity in the past five years, his campaign compiled a 93-page list of his 4,844 contributions. The Washington Post analyzed the list and found Trump hadn’t used his own money for any of those donations, many of which were free rounds of golf to his courses, provided for charity auctions and raffles...

If there is one area of "moves management" that never has sat well with me, it’s the word "stewardship." Stewardship is what you are supposed to do with donors after they give you gifts. The reason I don’t like it is that it conveys more of a passive approach to the relationship with your donor...

General Electric Co. (GE) plans to donate $50 million over the next five years to Boston and the surrounding area. The money comes as GE gets set to move its global headquarters and 800 employees to the South Boston Seaport. But there are critics. And they charge the city and state are giving GE a…

If the MGO starts taking care of new donors coming into the organization, he or she will ignore the caseload. And there is nothing worse than that. In fact, this is one of the biggest problems in major gifts—keeping the MGO focused on the good group of donors he or she has committed to...

Take two hours today to increase your fundraising success dramatically. If you are a CEO or chief development officer, take time today to review the list of your top 20 to 50 (depending on the scale of your organization) prospective donors. If you don’t have one, create a draft...

Every nonprofit should have a major gifts program. Because that’s where the lion’s share of the money is. It’s rare an organization has a mailing list large enough to raise $1 million from a million different $1 donors, but most nonprofits do have major-donor prospects hiding in plain sight...

I have a story I want tell you. Recently, I’ve been working with major gifts officer (MGO) Janice (not her real name) in the San Francisco Bay Area to help her get to know her donors on her caseload...

What motivates the ultra wealthy to give? Wealth-X conducted an Attitudes Survey in conjunction with Knight Frank to gain insights into the perspectives and behaviors of the ultra wealthy around wealth management, philanthropy, wealth transfer and more. The survey was based on the views of around 400 of the world’s leading private bankers and wealth…