There’s a reason so many major gift programs feel busy but are underperforming. It’s not a lack of effort. It’s not a lack of talent. Most of the time, it comes down to what you’re measuring.
The metrics you use to evaluate your gift officers are shaping how they spend their time, how they approach donors, and ultimately what kind of results your program produces. If those metrics are centered on activity instead of relationships, you’ll end up with a team that looks productive on paper but struggles to generate meaningful growth.
That’s the tension playing out in a lot of organizations right now. Leaders are looking at dashboards full of movement—calls made, visits logged, proposals sent—and wondering why revenue isn’t following.
Meanwhile, gift officers are doing exactly what they’ve been told to do, even if it doesn’t feel connected to the kind of fundraising they know actually works.
Think about it like this. If you tell a gift officer they need to log 15 visits this month, what are they going to do? They’ll find a way to get 15 visits. But are those conversations meaningful? Are they moving a donor toward something they care about? Not necessarily.
You can hit the number and still miss the point.
Where These Metrics Came From
A lot of the metrics still used in major gifts today come from a different kind of fundraising: direct response and annual giving.
In these environments, volume really does matter. More calls, more emails, more touches. Those things can drive results in those models.
But major gifts is different. It’s slower and more relational. It requires depth, not just motion.
Still, many organizations are holding onto the same basic KPIs: dollars raised, number of visits, number of contacts, number of gifts closed. On the surface, those seem reasonable. The problem is how easily they can be misunderstood or misused.
Take face-to-face visits. Sounds like a great metric, right? But you and I both know you can sit in a room with a donor, have a pleasant conversation, and leave without learning anything new or moving the relationship forward.
Now imagine doing that 40 times in a year. The spreadsheet looks great. The donor relationships? Not so much.
What Happens When KPIs Miss the Mark
When your metrics push activity over intention, a few predictable things start happening.
First, gift officers begin to focus on getting a gift rather than understanding the donor. The goal becomes securing that annual check instead of uncovering what the donor really cares about.
You’ve probably seen this in your own data. A donor gives $5,000 every year like clockwork. Year after year. And everyone’s happy because the donor is “loyal.”
But here’s a question we’re always asking. Could that donor be giving $50,000 somewhere else to another organization that took the time to really know them?
In many cases, the answer is yes.
Second, teams start protecting donors instead of serving them. If your KPIs reward keeping revenue in a specific department, people will hold onto donors even when it doesn’t make sense for the donor’s journey.
That creates bottlenecks, limits growth, and ultimately frustrates everyone involved.
And over time, the culture shifts. Gift officers stop thinking like relationship managers and start thinking like task managers. The checklist mentality takes over.
What the Right Metrics Actually Look Like
So what should you be measuring?
At Veritus, we focus on a different set of indicators: total dollars raised, meaningful connections, stewardship touches, asks made, whether the donor plan is being executed, and how each donor is performing over time.
That shift from “contacts” to “meaningful connections” matters more than it might seem.
A meaningful connection is a conversation where something actually changes. Maybe the donor shares a new interest, or they ask a deeper question, or they move closer to making a decision. There’s movement, not just motion.
When you start measuring that, you give your team permission to slow down and go deeper. In that way, you stop rewarding busyness and start rewarding progress.
Then there’s working the plan.
If a gift officer has a clear plan for each donor and is consistently executing it, they’re doing their job. Not perfectly. Not predictably. But faithfully. And that’s what leads to long-term growth.
This Is a Leadership Call
Changing metrics is a real leadership decision about what kind of behavior you want to encourage.
You have to ask yourself: are we measuring what actually leads to strong donor relationships? Or are we measuring what’s easy to count?
And if you’re being honest, you also have to look at how you’re managing your team.
If the only way you know what’s happening is by looking at a report, the issue is both the metrics and the lack of real conversation. Regular one-on-ones, where you talk through donors, plans, and strategy, will tell you far more than a dashboard ever could.
The metrics should support those conversations, not replace them.
Change the Metrics, Change the Culture
When you change what you measure, everything else starts to shift with it.
Your team pays attention to different things. They prioritize differently and they engage donors differently. And over time, you build a program that has learned not to chase numbers, but growing relationships.
That’s where the real opportunity is.
You’re hitting this year’s goal and building something that lasts.