Major gifts fundraising involves cultivating donors who can make significant donations of $5,000 or more. It is an individualized process that requires building relationships with donors over many interactions to understand their passions and determine how to align them with an organization's mission. Successful major gifts programs implement strategic prospecting, cultivation that involves learning about each donor, asking for gifts after establishing shared goals, and ongoing stewardship to maintain donor engagement and recognition.

1. MAJOR GIFTS FUNDRAISING
A Strategic Approach
April 17, 2012
Presented by
Mary Saionz, CFRE

2. A Strategic Perspective
Q. What is a Major Gift?
A. A gift that has a lasting and significant impact
on improving the well-being and quality of life
of our community and helping to build a better
world. Depending on your institution, it could
be an investment in the future of anything from
$5,000 to $500 million—or more.

3. A Strategic Perspective
Q. How is major gifts fundraising different from
fundraising through a challenge, direct mail or
events?
A. It is fundraising that is planned and executed
one donor at a time (not fundraising through
group appeals).

4. A Strategic Perspective
Q. Why is major gift fundraising important to your
institution?
A. 80% or more of all the dollars that Americans
give to charity are contributed by 20% or less of
the population in gifts of $5,000+. To achieve
your organization’s fundraising potential, you
must identify your 20% and seek their support.
Here’s how:

5. A Strategic Perspective
“Fundraising is really the process of asking people
to share a dream or a vision. We ask our donors
to consider the possibilities of a better world—
to help us leave the world a bit better than when
we came into it. We ask others to dream with
us, to share our ideals and to help make what
was once only a thought become reality.”

6. A Strategic Perspective
“In good times and bad, we know that people give
because you meet needs, not because you have
needs.”
“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like
wrapping a gift and not giving it.”

7. A Strategic Perspective
“Money is like manure. If you spread it around, it
does a lot of good; but if you pile it in one place,
it stinks like hell.”

8. How can Giving Partner, AF and
events lead to MG’s--Prospecting
• Review gifts daily. Look for patterns—longtime
giving or a sudden jump in gift size.
• Consistently call your smaller donors to thank
them personally and LISTEN to their insights.
(Would 10 calls a week be realistic for you?)
• Wealth-screen consistent and involved annual
givers to ascertain who, properly stewarded,
might be capable of doing more.

9. Prospecting
• Pull a list of donors who’ve been supporting you
for 5+ consecutive years. These are good
Planned Giving Prospects.
• If you are fundraising for a particular subset of
your organization, pull a list of donors who have
supported that area in the past.

10. Prospecting
• Build on your Board’s connections
• Ask them to review lists of capable donors/prospects
you haven’t been able to get close to
• Pull lists of people in your database that live in your
Board members’ apartment buildings and ask them to
review.
• Ask Board members about people they know who may
be interested in being introduced to your organization.
How would they feel comfortable getting this to
happen?

11. Prospecting
• Capture names at events, wealth screen and look
for wealth indicators
• If appropriate, wealth screen lists of the people
you serve and see who comes to the top
• In my view, buying lists is a last resort—costly
and inefficient.

12. Major Gifts Cultivation
• The experts say it can take 18-24 moves to
cultivate and solicit a major gift.
• What the major gifts officer does over the
course of these 12-18 moves is to build a donor-
centered relationship between the donor and
your institution so that you come to understand
the donor as an individual and you can respond
to his/her motivations and needs. Specifically:

13. Major Gifts Cultivation
• Things you should know about the donor before
soliciting a gift include:
• Passions and priorities. What were her formative
experiences and what does she care deeply about,
especially as relates to your institution’s mission.
• Capacity Does this person have the means to make a
transformative gift?
• Affinity What is this person’s assessment of and
commitment to your institution?

14. Major Gifts Cultivation-More things
to know
• Does he have a philanthropic mindset? Were his
parents philanthropic? Has he made significant
gifts elsewhere?
• What are her objections and concerns?
• What should you ask him to support?
• How much should you request?
• Who should be involved in the cultivation and
solicitation?

15. Major Gifts Cultivation
• Moves Management: A system for moving your
150-250 person portfolio of donors forward
through this information-gathering and
relationship-building process:
• Review your prospect list once a month in light
of the questions above. What do you know and
what do you need to know?

16. Major Gifts Cultivation
• Reach out to each individual in a personalized
way. Whatever move you make it must be
appropriate to the donor and your current
relationship and be about some point of overlap
between the donor and your institution.
Meetings, tours, notes, calls, articles etc.

17. Major Gifts Cultivation
• Establish a development goal for each
encounter. Goals can include:
• --Building a feeling of good-will and trust (this is
a goal every time).
• --Incrementally increasing the donor’s exposure
to your institution
•

18. Major Gifts Cultivation-More goals
• --Listening People sometimes think that
effective fundraisers talk, when it’s much more
important that we know how to listen. We find
out what we need to know about our donors by
gradually and gently posing open-ended
questions and listening to the answers. (See
listening test.)

19. Major Gifts Cultivation
• --Before completing each encounter, try to
articulate an appropriate next step and ask the
donor’s permission to do it.
• --Tickle the next step on your calendar and
follow through by doing what you said you
would do
• --Record what you learned about your donor in
your database and review it before you meet
again

20. Asking for the Gift
Before you can solicit a major gift, you must know
the following specifics:
• What project will you seek support for?
• How much money will you ask for?
• What VIP’(s) should be in the meeting?
• Do family members/advisors need to be
involved?
• Where should the meeting take place?

21. Asking for the Gift
• Get the meeting on everyone’s calendars and
arrange for a room and light refreshment
• Prepare an agenda and assign everyone the
points they will cover. A generic example could
be:

22. Asking for the Gift-Agenda
• Pleasantries
• Thank donor specifically for past giving
• Brief, pithy description of the project you a re currently
seeking support for and its significance. (None of this
should be news to the donor.)
• Ask for a specific amount to support it. Mention that
the gift could be paid over as many as five years with
cash, securities etc, with possibly a deferred component.
Mention how meaningful and important their
involvement would be. (None of this should be news
to the donor.)

23. Asking for the Gift-More Agenda
• Stop talking and LISTEN to the donor
• Address objections
• Define a next step
• Pleasantries

24. Asking for the Gift
• Meet with VIP solicitor(s)
• Review the agenda
• Ask the solicitor which points he/she would like to
cover
• Reiterate that LISTENING to the donor is essential
• Anticipate the donors objections and talk through
possible responses
• Give the VIP a pep talk

25. Asking for the Gift
• Meeting with the Donor
• Confirm everyone the day before and briefly
review the VIP’s role and listen to concerns.
Give another pep talk.
• Be early, relaxed and ready
• Follow your agenda

26. Asking for the Gift
After the meeting:
• Send a thank you note to the donor and the VIP
solicitor
• Note what happened in the meeting in your
database
• Do whatever was promised as a next step
• Stay in touch with the donor regularly until the
matter is resolved one way or another.

27. Stewardship
• Thank
• In letters, calls and in person. (Some say to thank donors 7 times
before re-soliciting.) Tell what their gift accomplished.
• Acknowledge gifts with appropriate tax language within 48 hours
• Update acknowledgement letters annually and specifically
enumerate what has been accomplished with their help
• Create slight variations of your acknowledgement letter for
different sub-groups of donors
• Establish gift clubs or levels to recognize donors for cumulative
giving

28. Stewardship
• Recognize. Some ways include:
– Naming opportunities
– Plaques and donor walls
– Publications, including annual report
– Web site
– Ribbon cutting ceremony

29. Stewardship
• Involve
• Let donors know what their gifts are accomplishing
• Stay in contact with donors when you’re not asking
money in ways that can include calls, notes, newsletters,
e-formation etc.
• When you get a corporate or foundation gift, tickle the
report due date right away and submit it when it is due.
• Identify volunteer opportunities that are good fits
• Ask donors for input and advice

30. Goal Setting
• See handouts for tools for evaluating your
effectiveness

31. Observations and Q&A
• Please share one thought sparked by our
discussion today about Major Gifts Fundraising.
• Questions?

32. Notes
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33. Contact Information
Mary Saionz, CFRE
Director of Major Gifts
Sarasota Memorial Healthcare Foundation,
Inc.
1515 South Osprey Avenue, Suite B-4
Sarasota, FL 34239
(941)917-1286
(941)917-2270 Fax
Mary-Saionz@smh.com