Major Gifts

He was driving around for almost half an hour. He was lost. He had no idea where he was. Even his GPS was no help. There was no way he was going to get to his destination. There was no source of information he could tap into. Does this scenario sound familiar? Have you ever been with someone who was lost who keeps driving around saying things like, “Seriously, I think it’s right up this street,” or, “We’re pretty close,” but he or she will not stop and ask someone for directions?...

I want to let you in on a secret. Almost every day Richard and I get notes and emails from major gift officers, who, like you, are readers of our blog and lament that their bosses, executive directors or boards are making it impossible to do their jobs. Richard and I have a ton of empathy for your situations....

Donald Trump wanted a small veterans charity to be his political prop. It said "no." Liberty House—one of the 22 organizations chosen to benefit from Trump’s multimillion-dollar fundraiser for veterans—is a scrappy veterans group in New Hampshire, with a small, $300,000 annual budget. On Friday, Liberty House Executive Director Keith Howard received a call from…

The reasons for major gift officer (MGO) failure, other than the person not having the skills to do the job, are pretty basic. What I find interesting is that MGOs can simply decide to not let any one of these points be a reason for their failures. They can, literally, flick switches in their minds and make the decision to head in another direction if they want.

Julie reached out to me a few weeks back to share a situation at her health-related nonprofit. She began by telling me an initial blockbuster success her organization recently had experienced with its first attempt at seeking “major” gifts....

U.S. colleges and universities raised a combined $40.3 billion in fiscal year 2015, with Stanford and Harvard universities each surpassing $1 billion ($1.63 billion and $1.05 billion, respectively)....

Caring for, nurturing and developing relationships with your donors is what major-gift fundraising is all about. If you do that well, the money will follow. Providing your donors with amazing service will set you apart from all the other charities that are clamoring for your donors. Make no mistake; as much as you may not want to think about it, you are competing for the attention of your donors with dozens of other organizations.

Here we go again. Another GOP debate, another Donald Trump demand for a donation to charities in exchange for his presence. We can’t say we were surprised. We had hoped this “strong-arm philanthropy,” as we called it, was done with. But, we knew better. This time was a little different, though. And other candidates played their own roles in the debacle...

In my experience, major donors have a reputation for being untouchable. Communication with this group is often a delicate dance in which few risks are taken due to the high-dollar annual contributions that are at stake. Not surprisingly, there are a few issues with this ultra-sensitive approach to managing your major-donor relationships. The first is…

I was talking to a very talented major gifts officer who had a long track record of success prior to his current assignment. I could tell he was very frustrated. And he felt misunderstood. To put it plainly, he could not get management to understand that without program information he would not be successful....