Six Surprising Attributes of Extraordinary MGOs

When you’ve been coaching and working with major gift officers for as long as I have, you meet a lot of good ones and, unfortunately, some pretty bad ones. But throughout my career, I’ve also had the privilege of working with a handful of extraordinary MGOs.

During my conversations with them, I’ve uncovered six attributes (which I explain even further in this white paper) that make them so unique. They might seem a little unconventional and sometimes counter-intuitive, yet they are key if you want to be extraordinary at this work.

Maybe you’re looking for new talent to fill a big role, or perhaps you’re trying to develop your own skills as a major gift officer. Well, I want you to keep an eye out for individuals who consistently exhibit these six attributes—or foster them in yourself.

The extraordinary MGOs...

1. Set Goals You Can’t Reach
   
   If setting unreachable goals sounds like setting yourself up for failure, think again. Some MGOs occasionally resort to sandbagging, which means they never aim for any goal they might not achieve. I believe they’re setting themselves up for failure, because it sets mediocrity as the standard.
   
   Now, I understand the urge not to set an impossible goal. But there’s a trick to this. Set a goal with your manager—one that’s reasonable and which you can achieve with hard work. Put a healthy percentage increase on top of last year’s income. Then set a top-secret, private goal. Tell one other person, so you have some sense of accountability. But don’t let your manager in on the secret. Think hard. What could you achieve from your caseload if you really kicked it up a notch? Thinking like this is a great internal motivator that really helps you stretch yourself. And 9 times out of 10, I’ve found when a higher goal is set… it’s achieved.
   
   
2. Embrace Rejection
   
   The best MGOs are pretty fearless in the face of rejection. Why? Rejections are an indication that they’re out there doing the work. A lot of time that fear manifests in unnecessary behavior, like looking for new clients instead of spending time with their full caseloads, or staying at their desks and making plans, as opposed to talking to members of their portfolio.
   
   Now, that doesn’t mean extraordinary MGOs like rejection. They just know that the more they ask, the higher the likelihood that someone will say yes. That’s how they view their work and their caseloads. The best baseball players in the world fail about 7 out of 10 times. A success rate of 30-40% can make you a hero. As long as you’re constantly learning from these rejections, asking good “why” questions, and getting back out there, success will come.
   
   
3. Make Mistakes
   
   Tons of them! You might be thinking this doesn’t make sense. If MGOs were really good, they wouldn’t make mistakes, right? Wrong! Think of the most respected political figures in history. They might look invulnerable on first glance, but dig a bit more deeply and you’ll probably find they have made colossal errors and have experienced significant failures. But at other times, they got it right in a very big way.
   
   But similar to rejection, extraordinary MGOs are never afraid to try new things, test unconventional ideas, and go above and beyond for donors. They learn from these experimental moments and rarely repeat the same error twice.
   
   
4. Ignore Traditional Timekeeping
   
   If you’re a manager, the worst thing you can do is demand adherence to punching the clock and working from the office every day. Talk to enough extraordinary MGOs, and you’ll quickly find that their biggest accomplishments didn’t occur within the confines of their 9-to-5 work hours. These are fundraisers who see their job as a vocation, a calling, and schedule their time around a donor’s needs.
   
   When a donor asks for a late meeting, or a weekend catch-up, the MGO makes sure they’re there. The best major fundraisers aren’t concerned about hitting their 40-hour work week quota—they’re worried about knowing their donors, deepening relationships with them, and creating great offers that will inspire transformational giving.
   
   
5. Don’t Have All the Answers
   
   We’ve been trained to feel like we should know everything in our profession, but extraordinary MGOs know that having all the answers isn’t possible. Instead, they resort to curiosity.
   
   Curiosity is powerful tool because it can drive you to solve problems, ask important questions, and catapult you to come very complex situations. Extraordinary MGOs understand this, so they don’t get stuck for long or delay things without solutions. They’re eager to learn things and fun to be around. When you leave a meal with them, you should feel great because they’ve expressed interest in you and listened to what you’ve said.
   
   
6. Never Get Comfortable
   
   The ideal caseload for an MGO includes 150 qualified donors, but among those, you will always have at least a dozen different situations that are problematic, complex, or difficult to solve. If you’re doing your work well, you’ll continually be hustling and working out solutions to problems. Challenging? Yes. Rewarding? Of course. Fun? Often. But it’s rarely comfortable.
   
   Meetings are a good litmus test. Extraordinary MGOs tend to have ones that fly by because they’re super animated or brainstorm creative and complex projects that have all kinds of twists and turns. They’re engaging because they know how to connect.
   
   Look, you’re always going to run into problems, but being an extraordinary MGO isn’t supposed to be easy. This job requires you to get out there and go to every length you can for your donors. The extraordinary MGOs do it because it’s worth it.

Jeff