Major Gifts

Make the most of the first date. With practice, your comfort zone and confidence will increase.  Who knows where the conversation will lead! 

If you allow yourself to let someone who knows how to manage keep you accountable and focused on your plan and goals, you simply cannot fail.

How are you going to approach fundraising? From the Magnificent Side or from the Dark Side?

If Mark Twain was your major-gifts officer (MGO), he might amble into your office, lean his surprisingly slight frame against the doorway (he was just 5 feet 8 inches), brush a fleck of cigar ash from the collar of his rumpled white suit and drawl: "A round man cannot be expected to fit into a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape."

What's more important, a relationship with a donor or the money the donor can give? It's both. And here are the operating principles for major-gifts officers ...

Your major-gifts prospects are right in front of your nose. They are languishing inside your donor files — as small donors.

Are you qualifying the donors on your major-gifts caseload? If you aren't, you should be.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you had an angel in your back pocket? An angel who stands ready to top off your fundraising so you meet your goal?

Just because you have a great cause and a good-hearted and even talented major-gifts officer does not mean your major-gifts program will be successful.

The reality is that if we are truly donor-focused and are building deep, genuine relationships, the ask really takes care of itself. It takes care of itself in terms of some people self-identifying and in terms of some people removing themselves from the process or from a timeline you had hoped for.