Landing the Big Major Gift Now
Major Gift Success Tips In Time For Year-End Success
Major Gifts Success
With only 90 days left in the year, do we still have time for major gifts? Of course! But you need to start now.
Your annual giving program is the primary source of major gift prospects. Five to twenty percent of all donors who give by direct mail really have more than $1 million in liquidity and gift capacity. This means there is a treasure trove of prospects right there on your mailing list. You just need to find them and start cultivating them.
A great source of major gifts information is the book Rainmaking, the Fundraiser’s Guide to Landing Big Gifts by Roy C. Jones and Andrew Olsen.
Here are the steps you need to take now to have major gift success this year:
Step 1: Review
First, review last year’s numbers. Who were your biggest donors? Are there donors on your list who could be giving more?
Step 2: Prioritize
Now you can decide who your best suspects for becoming major donors are. Move these individuals to prospects. This is called moves management.
Step 3: Get on the phone
The next step is to make phone calls! These calls must be important, scripted, and purposeful. Make a calling plan and stick to it. Your goal for these phone calls is to secure a meeting. Likely, it will take a lot of time and phone calls to reach this goal. To simply talk to 10 people, you have to dial the phone over 50 times and leave over 20 voicemails. Talking to those 10 people will yield you about three meetings. Yes, it’ll take you 50 phone calls to get just three meetings. So start calling!!!
Step 4: Meeting preparation
Now that you’ve got some meetings set up, the next step is to attend the meetings, right? Not so fast! You need to seriously prep and plan for the meeting first. Put a customized cultivation plan together for every donor you are going to meet with. Make sure you know what you are going to talk to them about, which of your programs interest them most, and what you are going to ask them for. The more prepared you are, the more likely you are to have a successful meeting.
