12 tips on making cultivation events work
Events will never be the be-all-and-end-all of major donor fundraising. Whilst they can be delightful, fun and a real talking point at home, they are more often than not an expensive distraction.
3 essentials your major donors want from you
In a recent piece of client work we conducted a survey of the charity’s top donors, in order to better understand what they thought about the work of the charity and what interaction they were looking for. When summarising the donor feedback to pass on to the charity, it struck me that there were three identifiable themes.
What’s wrong with the 7 steps of major donor fundraising?
Many of us will have seen the 7 steps of major donor fundraising outlined at conferences and books. It promotes a chronology of working with major donors from start to finish, beginning with identifying donors and culminates with thanking and stewardship.
6 essentials for a major donor programme
We are often asked what needs to be in place for successful major donor fundraising, to which the answer varies depending on the charity. However, there are 6 generally accepted fundamental factors (I don’t claim to have invented these!), which should act as the core of your major donor programme
Major donor fundraising – what are you waiting for?!!
Most charities seem fascinated by the concept of major donor fundraising, yet very few explore it thoroughly or have everything in place to run a major donor programme effectively. This is totally understandable as most charities are small, don’t have the resources and don’t know where to look for potential wealthy benefactors.
How big is big?
A question I am asked a lot is “how do you define a major gift”? And I always draw this (not always this neatly):
Delighting your Donor
It is entirely possible to start a brilliant major donor programme as a tiny charity without any dedicated staff handling those relationships.
Is a Development Board a help or a hindrance?
I often come across the automatic assumption that a Development Board is the answer to great major gift fundraising. An awesome Board can propel an appeal forward and reach opportunities simply out of reach otherwise. A poorly constituted Board (be that the people, the terms of reference, the assumptions, the staff or anything else) will be more of a hindrance than a help. Any Board is hard to manage and they are always tricky to inherit!