Major Gifts

Today, I’m asking you to consider becoming a mentor to someone in our profession. As you know, major gift fundraising a tough job. It’s incredibly emotionally draining. There is a lot of second-guessing and wondering if you’re doing the right thing. This is where you come in. Unless you are absolutely new to major gift fundraising, you have experiences, mistakes and successes to help guide someone who desperately needs it...

For small and midsize charities, stewarding their big-gift donors pays off more than soliciting new prospects, concludes a new study. Surveying charities with less than $10 million in donated annual income to find out which factors enhance major-gifts fundraising, researchers found the groups lost an average of $300 for every prospective major donor solicited. By…

Brown University announced Monday that is has received a $50 million gift from a consortium of donors to fund construction of a new building and hire new faculty to expand the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International and Public Affairs. About $25 million will be used for a new 20,000-square-foot building to accommodate additional faculty…

Back in July, Joan Weill, the wife of Citigroup billionaire Sandy Weill, announced she and her husband would donate $20 million to a small, cash-strapped school called Paul Smith's College in New York's Adirondack Mountains with one big string attached: She insisted that the school would have to be renamed in her honor, to forever be…

Back in September, Donald Trump demanded CNN donate the proceeds of the GOP debate to charity. Now, the high-end dress shoe is on the other foot as “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert recently challenged Trump to donate $1 million to The Harlem Children’s Zone in the wake of Trump's remarks that he received a "small loan" of $1 million from his father early in his career...

A week after donating $10,000 to a group opposing HERO ordinance, the Houston Texans owner wants his money back. In a tersely worded statement, Texans owner Bob McNair recently asked the Campaign for Houston to return his donation. McNair claims the group attributed statements and beliefs to him without his authorization. The donation was first…

Wellesley College in Massachusetts has announced a $50 million gift from two alumnae who wish to remain anonymous in support of a campus-wide initiative aimed at creating greater opportunity for women and empowering the next generation of women leaders. The gift launches a $500 million fundraising campaign—the largest ever undertaken by a women's college—and will…

Brown University has formally undertaken what it calls the largest comprehensive fundraising push in the Ivy League school's history. The $3 billion "BrownTogether" campaign began Oct. 23, during a celebration at Pembroke Field. The university says the campaign will support education and research, campus infrastructure and student life. Brown president Christina Paxson says the fundraising…

Over the years, Richard and I have evaluated dozens of major gift programs from a wide array of organizations. When we look at these files, we often see a ton of donors who give the same amount every year. But we see very few gifts in the high five, six or seven figures. Why? The problem is that over time, development directors and their major gift officers seem to come to the conclusion that this is how their donors always behave...

A $100 million offer from the founder of natural products company Burt's Bees to create a national park in Maine faces local opposition driven in part by distrust of the federal government, The Associated Press reports. In 2011, Roxanne Quimby offered to donate 70,000 acres of woodlands at the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail…