Major Gifts

What would you do if your organization received a sizable donation from an individual who, months later, was charged with a federal crime? Would you keep the donation or give it back? That’s the question facing Hunter College High School in the wake of Thursday’s arrest of Martin Shkreli, a 32-year-old multimillionaire pharmaceuticals executive who once attended the school...

Several of the biggest and richest names in Silicon Valley have collectively put $1 billion behind a new artificial intelligence research organization called OpenAI. "Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return," reads the introductory…

New Diamondbacks ace Zack Greinke will donate 1 percent of his annual salary to the team’s charity each year, reported Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. With Greinke, 32, set to make at least $31 million in each of the next six seasons, the donations will be sizeable. After leaving the Dodgers for the division rival Diamondbacks, Greinke’s new contract…

To give is to gain a heap of grief if you're a mega-rich donor these days. In recent months, a hedge fund billionaire was denounced for his $400 million gift to the already wealthy Harvard University, David Geffen took flak for gifts that plaster his name on a Manhattan concert hall and a Los Angeles…

Fran was a major gifts officer (MGO) who had great relationships with his donors. Then, in October 2008, a disaster struck for a donor he greatly respected that left the donor unable to make his usual gift. Many MGOs might have given up on this donor and moved on. But Fran was adamant about not giving up this donor. In fact, Fran did the opposite...

Two days after announcing plans to donate $45 billion over time to his family foundation, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded to criticism about his philanthropic ambitions. In a Facebook post on Thursday, he pushed back against accusations that he had structured his foundation, not so much as a charity, but as a vehicle for evading…

A formalized major-gift proposal, whether mailed in a letter or delivered in presentation format, has to hit certain beats. These written major-gift proposals are the conclusion of all of your cultivation efforts. They are informed by everything you have learned about the prospect in preceding meetings. If you've researched major-gift asks, you likely have seen…

Mark Zuckerberg will put 99 percent of his Facebook Inc. shares, currently worth about $45 billion, into a new philanthropy project focusing on human potential and equality, he and his wife said Tuesday in a letter to their newborn daughter. The plan, which was posted on the Facebook founder and CEO's page, attracted more than…

A check made out for $500,000 was dropped in a Salvation Army kettle over the weekend in Rosemount, Minn., a startling act of generosity that a couple said was their way of saying thank you. The Salvation Army said the donation made Saturday at the Cub Foods on County Road 42, just east of Shannon…

You could argue that a nonprofit needs money, talent, publicity, gifts in kind, etc. But why does it need these things? To get its mission done. And that’s a point that most people on the inside of the nonprofit forget, that the whole effort is about the cause, not the organization. This topic is one that every major gift officer and every manager related to major gifts must get straight in order for major gifts to be successful. Here are the major areas where this goes wrong...