Picture this (or maybe you don’t even need to): Your Monday morning calendar is stacked.
There’s an event to plan, a grant deadline to meet, an appeal that needs approval, a board member asking for numbers, a program team that needs something, a staff issue to solve, and a revenue goal that isn’t getting any smaller. Somewhere on that already-full list is also the thing everyone agrees is important: building relationships with major donors.
And yet, because everything feels urgent, major gifts can quietly become the thing your team will get to when there’s time. The problem is that there will never magically be more time.
If you’re a Director of Development, you have probably heard your organization say that major gifts is a priority. But saying it is and actually making it one are two very different things. Major gifts becomes a priority when your organization gives fundraisers the time, structure, data, tools, and leadership support they need to build meaningful donor relationships consistently.
That matters more than ever right now. As I’ve shared in various posts, funding sources can change, grants can end, and government support can shift from one year to the next. Meanwhile, the needs your organization is trying to address don’t disappear just because the funding environment becomes more difficult.
The good news is that there is something that doesn’t change quite as quickly as the funding landscape: people still care. There are donors who want to make a difference, and many of them are already somewhere inside your organization’s donor file.
The question is whether you are creating the conditions that allow your team to find them, know them, and build relationships with them.
Why Directors of Development Should Be Prioritizing Major Gifts Right Now
There are a few reasons I think this deserves your attention.
First, the funding environment has become less predictable. That doesn't mean major gifts can replace a lost grant overnight, but the more unpredictable your other revenue sources become, the more important it is to start building sustainable individual donor relationships now. A healthy major gifts program can reduce dependence on any one grant, contract, event, or government funding stream. It just takes time to build.
Second, your existing donor file may contain more opportunity than you realize. We sometimes assume that growth means finding more people, when the better opportunity may be sitting right in front of us. You may already have donors with greater capacity, increasing giving, strong affinity for your mission, or an interest in a deeper relationship who simply haven't been identified and qualified properly. Your job is bringing in more names and making sure you're recognizing and developing the donors you already have.
Third, new revenue can hide donor losses. You might look at your year-end report and see that revenue increased eight percent and think, "Great year." But what if existing donors stopped giving, other donors reduced their gifts, and a handful of new donors or one unusually large gift simply replaced the revenue that disappeared elsewhere? This is why I encourage leaders to look at both donor attrition and donor-value attrition. In a difficult funding environment, you can't afford to spend all your energy replacing the donor value you've already lost.
And finally, major gifts creates something that many short-term fundraising strategies don't: compounding relationships. An event happens and then you have to plan the next one. A campaign ends and eventually you have to build another one. A strong donor relationship is different because every meaningful interaction can build on the one before it: trust leads to understanding, understanding leads to engagement, engagement leads to giving, and good stewardship creates the foundation for deeper trust and future giving.
The real promise of major gifts fundraising is building relationships that can become increasingly valuable to your organization over time.
So Why Aren’t More Organizations Prioritizing It?
I think the answer is often less complicated than we make it. Major gifts struggles when the organization hasn’t created the conditions for fundraisers to do the work well:
Your fundraisers don’t have enough time. They’re buried in events, meetings, administrative work, and urgent requests, while leadership still expects immediate revenue from relationships that take time to develop.
Your fundraisers aren’t working with the right donors. Caseloads can be filled with names rather than qualified donors, and without strategic qualification and tiering, it becomes difficult to know which relationships deserve the most attention.
Your fundraisers don’t have the system or support they need. They may not have compelling donor offers, individual strategies, or enough guidance from Program, Finance, and leadership. A talented fundraiser can do a lot, but talent alone can’t compensate for a weak system. The answer isn’t simply telling your MGO to spend more time with donors. It’s removing the obstacles that keep them from doing the work in the first place.
What Prioritizing Major Gifts Actually Looks Like
So what does that look like from a leadership perspective?
1. Understand your donor file and prioritize the right relationships. Start by looking at donor and donor-value attrition, pipeline performance, and where future opportunity exists. Then qualify and tier your caseload so your fundraisers are spending their time with donors who actually want a deeper relationship and have the capacity, inclination, and potential to grow their support.
2. Protect donor-facing time and give every donor a clear strategy. A major gifts priority should be reflected in your MGO’s calendar, with less time spent on unrelated meetings, events, and administrative work and more time spent with donors. Every qualified donor should also have an individual goal and strategy based on their interests, giving history, communication preferences, cultivation needs, and the right opportunity for an ask.
3. Create meaningful opportunities for donors to support. Fundraisers need compelling offers that connect what a donor cares about with a real need, a believable solution, and clear impact. That requires Development to work closely with Program, Finance, and executive leadership so MGOs have meaningful opportunities they can confidently bring to donors.
4. Give your fundraisers the management and support to succeed. Your role isn't simply to hold fundraisers accountable for revenue. It’s to coach them, remove barriers, protect their time, provide training and feedback, and help troubleshoot donor strategies so they have the environment and support needed to execute consistently.
Give the Strategy Enough Time to Work
There's another important responsibility that falls on the Director of Development: setting expectations. At some point, an executive director or board member is going to ask, "When are we going to see the money?"
You need to be able to answer that honestly.
Major gift fundraising is not overnight. Qualification alone can involve an average of seven donor touchpoints over three to four months, and while organizations can certainly experience early wins, the first few months shouldn't determine whether leadership believes in the long-term strategy.
Relationships take time. That's also why the revenue those relationships generate can become more sustainable. If you abandon the strategy because it didn't replace a lost grant by next Thursday, you haven't given the strategy a chance to work.
Major Gifts Will Not Prioritize Itself
There will always be another event. Another email. Another meeting. Another urgent request. Another short-term fundraising opportunity that feels more pressing than a donor conversation scheduled for six months from now.
This is the reality of being a Director of Development.
But the work that feels urgent today isn't always the work that will have the greatest impact on your organization's future. Major gifts is relationship work, and relationship work needs time, structure, consistency, and leadership support.
If you want major gifts to become a true organizational priority, you have to create the space for your team to actually do it.
Build the System Your Team Can Actually Follow
Major gifts shouldn't depend on your team figuring it out as they go. Our Certification Course for Major Gift Fundraisers gives fundraisers a repeatable framework for qualifying and managing the right donors, creating individual strategies, building meaningful relationships and offers, making effective asks, and increasing net revenue.
Our next cohort begins in October. Give your team the training and structure they need to stop reacting and start building a major gifts program designed for sustainable growth.