You Can Only Control Yourself
Typically, a lot of anxiety starts to build up in you this time of year. If your major gift portfolio is like those of most of your colleagues, anywhere from 60-80% of your revenue comes in during the last three months of the year. That brings on a lot of pressure to...
Should You Accept the Gift or Not?
The donor tells you that your organization will receive a sizeable gift from him. But there’s a problem – there are strings attached. What should you do? I’ll get to the answer in a moment. But first, let me tell you what happened last year to a client of ours. The...
How Do You Manage Up?
As a major gift fundraiser, you may be asked to manage the donor portfolio of your manager, CEO or ED. In order to be effective, you have to have the ability to “manage up.” Managing up means that you are working with your CEO, ED or Director of Development to help...
Are You Asking “Why” Enough?
Why does your donor love your organization so much? Have you sat down with your donor and really listened to her answer? If she said something like, “well, I just think you do a great job,” did you dig deeper to find out her true motivation? When I’m talking to...
Promises Made and Broken with Major Donors
There’s a funny thing about a promise or commitment. They are so easy to make and, many times, so difficult to deliver on. As I write this I can think of a small list of promises I made in the last several months. I will keep all of them, because that is the right...TOP RATED PODCAST
Twice monthly, Richard and Jeff address current topics and classic problems in major gift fundraising.
