It’s the last week of October. Once you hit mid-December, it’s almost impossible to get a meeting with donors, with all their holiday activities. This means you have about 4-5 weeks left to meet with donors.
I’ve talked to many discouraged major gift fundraisers recently. They feel the pressure of their revenue goals. And their donors aren’t getting back to them about meeting together.
This may be happening to you as well.
My advice is not to let yourself get discouraged by this. I know what you’re going through. I’ve been in your situation. The way I persevered while “hearing crickets” from my donors was to just keep working my plan.
And this is what our Veritus Client Experience Leaders are telling all of the major gift officers they’re working with right now: “Keep working your plan.”
Breakthroughs don’t come in some big magical moment. They come through all the small little nudges and steps along the way until finally, something opens. For you, that will mean a donor finally answers their phone or returns an email, or they agree on a time to meet with you.
I know you may be sitting there reading this thinking, “I just can’t seem to get my donors to engage.” Or you’ve been working on one particular donor for a while now and they never reply to you.
This is all normal stuff.
What separates out the average major gift fundraisers from the really good ones?
Good major gift fundraisers know three things:

  1. If I work my plan correctly, usually something breaks through.
  2. I can’t take a donor’s non-responsiveness personally.
  3. I can’t allow myself to create negative stories about my donors if they’re not responding to me.

That last one is key.
Too many times you allow yourself to develop a negative narrative about your donors or a particular donor when they go silent on you. Most of the time when this happens, it’s nothing more than life going on for the donor. But if you allow this narrative to take hold of you, it will affect your work and lead you down that path of discouragement.
Always remember – your donors love your mission. They find meaning, purpose, and have experienced joy through giving to your organization. (Tweet it!) If you’re doing your work well, they will continue to find that joy. Stick with your plan and don’t lose sight of that.
Jeff