Major Gifts

In an effort to find and fund a cure for cancer, billionaire Sean Parker, founder of Napster and founding president of Facebook, announced a $250 million initiative, called the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, that will bring together 300 leading scientists from 40 labs and six cancer centers...

You might have just read this headline and said to yourself: “I can tell this is going to be really boring stuff—I really don’t need to read or do this!” If this is your story, let me tell you a story. I have had two situations in the last few months where the major-gifts officers have refused to do the kind of planning and prioritizing I am suggesting here...

A Michigan couple on Wednesday announced a $1 million donation to Livestrong, the Austin-based cancer nonprofit. It is the biggest single donation the group has received since 2010. Jeri and Jeff Mulder, longtime Livestrong supporters, will pay out a $1 million gift to the group over the course of five years from their nonprofit the…

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...