Major Gifts

These six factors make up a remarkably strong foundation and lever for major gifts: 1. Success starts at the top. 2. The board must be 100 percent in. 3. Results matter. 4. Experience and infrastructure make a difference. 5. Endowments count. 6. Reputation and publicity assist.

If you are a newer organization please do not be disappointed if not all six are currently in place.  In my opinion, being recognized as having all six is a game changer for your major gift aspirations.

Big gifts made a comeback in 2013, with America’s wealthiest philanthropists donating a total of more than $3.4 billion to charity, according to a new tally by The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

The largest donation came from Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. The couple announced in December that they had provided 18 million shares of Facebook stock, valued at more than $990 million, to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

So many nonprofit leaders come to me searching for “big donors.” They seem to think that there’s a pool of donors pining around at some cocktail party, wondering where they can give all the wealth they’ve amassed!

When I ask them why they want “big donors,” they tell me they want: funding, financial stability, less stress and the ability to focus on their mission.

The ugly truth is the best place to find more big donors is by asking your current big donors.

While many nonprofits value small donations from givers, the data shows that up to 75 percent of an organization’s revenue comes from major donors, or individuals who give $1 million or more. But acquiring these types of donations can be challenging. It takes considerable time and effort, and many nonprofits still find it difficult to execute correctly. The Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) received a $500 million donation from Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg last year.

Here are five top strategies gleaned from SVCF that fundraisers can use to land major donations and keep their nonprofit afloat.

A lot of fundraisers hand-pick the donors who are most responsive to their fundraising programs — and put them in a radically different program. And it’s probably costing them significant revenue.

To get donors to ask the magic question, "How can I help?" you need to be asking questions of them.

Andy Robinson, author of "How to Raise $500 to $5000 From Almost Anyone," recently spoke with his publisher about major-gifts fundraising. GuideStar has published an excerpt from the book, and we're pleased to be able to share Robinson's additional thoughts with you.

All of us in major gifts know that there are different stages in the major-gift process. Many brilliant major-gift people have written about it. Words like identification, cultivation, solicitation and stewardship come to mind as descriptors of some major stages or phases of major gifts.

But we often encounter some confusion in major-gift officer communication to donors around the use of “ask” language vs. “results or reporting back” language.

In some regards, the very nature of these two languages are polar opposites.

The first international Million Dollar Donors Report (MDDR) was released by Coutts and the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. It analyses $1 million-plus giving by donors in 2012 in six regions around the world: the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, the Middle East (Gulf Cooperation Council nations), China and Hong Kong.

The data in the new international report was collected by institutional partners in each country from a combination of publicly available sources and, in certain contexts, from surveys of prominent donors and charities.

Like it or not, the majority of our major-gifts prospects simply are not impressed with our technical knowledge. Instead, they want a birthday card, a phone call or a heartfelt thank-you.