Major Gifts

While we focus on the main prospects, we tend to forget or disregard the importance of others in the prospect's life that could influence a gift or possibly the size of a gift to your organization. You never know the impact others have on your potential donors.

After the gift is received, announced and celebrated, where does a nonprofit board and its management go from there? And whose job is it to see that the donor remains engaged and involved in the organization? These are questions that I have been thinking about after a friend brought facts of his donor experience to my attention.

My friend, a business consultant, was suffering from donor's remorse, more formally known as cognitive dissonance. He has not remained in touch with the nonprofit and knows little about any innovative activities.

The $1 billion major gift to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, is the capstone of a long-term strategy to reinvent the foundation in a way that makes it as cutting-edge as the ventures of Silicon Valley’s high-tech donors. Similar calls for modernization are being made across the country by community funds.

In the January 2013 issue of FundRaising Success, Jeff Schreifels, senior partner at Veritus Group, asked the question: "Major Gifts — Just a Tweet Away?" And while he admitted that, no, simply sending a tweet or two more than likely will not lead to a major gift, social media can be an important part of a fundraiser's major-gift strategy.

Here are five common fundraising mistakes. If you are making any of these, correct them today! 1. Thinking your major donors want to hear less from you. 2. Not calling foundations to find if there's a match before submitting your proposal or letter of intent. 3. Putting off your e-newsletter because no one is making you get it out every month. 4. Not starting your spring appeal in February because, hey, you have two months, right? 5. Being afraid to ask questions.

Major giving may be the pinnacle of professional fundraising. Cultivating and closing a major gift is both an art and a science, and those fundraisers who are good at it become valuable in the charitable sector. But it’s not easy, especially when your time cycle is a mere 365 days long, when we fail or succeed at achieving our targets based on an arbitrary line in time called “the year-end.”

The bottom line is you must develop a major-gift program to increase fundraising revenue, reduce expenses and increase your ROI.

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.