Major Donors Aren’t Just Identified. They’re Developed.

​One misconception I encounter in both teaching major gift fundraising and fundraising consulting is the idea that building a major gifts program begins with finding wealthy people.

​When an organization wants to raise more money, the instinct is often to look outside its existing circle for people with greater financial capacity. But some of the strongest major gift prospects may already be connected to the organization. They may be donors, volunteers, event attendees, board members, program participants, parents, alumni, or others who have shown the mission matters to them.

​The opportunity is not simply to identify who has the capacity to give more. It is to recognize which relationships have the potential to deepen, understand what motivates those individuals, and create an intentional process for engaging them.

​Teaching Major Gift Fundraising at Northwestern School of Professional Studies gives me an interesting vantage point. In the classroom, we explore the principles and practices behind successful major gift fundraising. In my consulting work with TWB Fundraising, I see how those same principles play out inside organizations with real goals, limited staff time, and competing priorities. Certain lessons come up again and again.

1. Capacity Does Not Make Someone a Prospect

Knowing that someone has wealth can be useful. It tells you something about what a person may be capable of giving. It tells you very little about why that person would choose to give to your organization.

​A strong prospect has more than financial capacity. You need evidence of connection, interest, or alignment with the mission. A person with significant wealth but no relationship with the organization may be a much weaker prospect than someone with more modest capacity who has demonstrated sustained interest and engagement.

​This is one reason major gift fundraising cannot be reduced to wealth screening or building lists of affluent people. Those tools can help prioritize research and even provide clues about their philanthropic priorities. Still, they cannot tell us where a genuine philanthropic relationship exists for your organization or where one has the potential to develop.

2. A Major Gift is Usually Developed, Not Discovered

​Most major gift prospects are hiding in plain sight.

​A future major donor might begin as an annual donor making relatively modest gifts. They may attend an event, volunteer, serve on a committee, or become involved because a family member has benefited from the organization. Over time, the organization learns more about what matters to that person, while the donor learns more about the organization’s programs and initiatives, stewardship, and the impact donor support makes possible. Developing those relationships requires intention and follow-through.

​In the classroom, we talk about qualification: determining whether a prospect has the interest, connection, and capacity that justify deeper engagement. In consulting, I often see what happens when that step is missing. Organizations may have extensive donor databases without a clear sense of which relationships deserve greater attention, or they may place people into major gift portfolios based primarily on past giving or estimated wealth.

​Qualification is not about deciding who deserves attention as a person. It is about making thoughtful choices about where limited fundraising time is most likely to lead to a meaningful philanthropic partnership.

3. The Ask Gets Disproportionate Attention

When people think about major gift fundraising, they often think first about solicitation: How do I ask? When do I ask? How much should I ask for? Those are important questions, but they usually come much later in the process than people expect.

​Much of the work that determines whether a solicitation will succeed happens before you ever make an ask. It happens through listening, learning what the donor cares about, understanding how those interests intersect with the organization’s priorities, creating meaningful opportunities for engagement, and allowing enough time for trust to develop.

​Students understandably want to practice making the ask. Organizations can become similarly focused on reaching that moment. Yet when a solicitation feels particularly difficult, the problem sometimes begins much earlier. The relationship may not have developed far enough, the donor’s interests may not be well understood, so the organization may not yet have identified the right opportunity. The solicitation should be a natural next step in a relationship, rather than an isolated fundraising event.

4. Good Major Gift Fundraising Requires Organizational Discipline

This may be the lesson I see most consistently in consulting.

​An organization can have strong prospects, talented fundraisers, and a compelling mission and still struggle to build a successful major gift program. The challenge is often creating the structure that allows relationship fundraising to happen consistently.

​Who is responsible for each relationship? How are prospects prioritized? What is the next meaningful step for each person? Are development staff spending enough time interacting directly with donors? When should the CEO or a board member become involved? How is information captured and shared? What happens after a gift is made?

​Without a disciplined approach, major gift fundraising can easily become something an organization intends to do whenever there is enough time. There is rarely enough time.

That may be the most important distinction between knowing the principles of relationship fundraising and actually building a relationship-based fundraising program. Most organizations understand the basic principles. Putting them into practice consistently requires focus, structure and organizational commitment.

​That is also why we developed TWB Fundraising’s Relationship Fundraising Accelerator. The workshop is designed to help organizations assess where their fundraising program stands today, identify what may be getting in the way of stronger donor relationships, and begin building a practical framework they can bring back to the office. ​Because finding the right prospects matters. What happens next matters more.

The Relationship Fundraising Accelerator: Beyond Events is being held on Monday, September 28. For more information on this Chicago executive workshop, click here.