When Richard and I ask nonprofit leaders to tell us what they think the role of a major gift officer should be, their immediate response is “asking donors for money.”
This is typical and tragic at the same time. And you probably know from the title of our recent book, It’s Not JUST About the Money, that we don’t agree.
But readers of this blog will hear Richard and me regularly imploring MGOs to get out there and ask. This is because we witness so many MGOs doing everything except asking donors to invest in their organization.
So we’ve got this tension going on. Nonprofit executives who only think MGOs are about “getting the money,” and MGOs who do everything but ask donors for money. It’s a little crazy, but we walk this strange line when we go in to help nonprofits with their major gift programs all the time.
If we can boil down what the MGO’s role is really about, it’s as simple as this:
A Major Gift Officer’s role is to cultivate and steward relationships with donors in order to help donors fulfill their passion and interests through investing in your organization.
Let’s break this down. An MGO’s role is to:

Cultivate and steward relationships. Being an MGO is all about getting to know donors. Why do they give? Why are they passionate about your mission? What brings the donors joy? Who are they, and what do they want to accomplish in life? What are the donors’ fears that keep them from having joy in life? A really good MGO knows the answers to these questions.

It also takes a tremendous amount of work and time to know the answers. This is what many nonprofit executives and board members do not understand. They think MGOs are just supposed to have lunches and dinners, and magically they get checks. It’s possible, but you will just get a check. You will not get a real investment in your mission. That is what you want.

Help donors fulfill their passion and interests. This is everything, folks. The ability to help a donor fulfill her passion is one of the greatest things you could possibly do for another human being. This is powerful, and it’s something not to be taken lightly. If you truly love and care for your donors, you are spending a lot of time figuring out how to make this happen. This means hours and hours of spending time not only with your donor, but with your program staff as well, to understand everything your nonprofit does.

Understand this – an MGO spends all this time hunkered down into programs not because it’s nice that they know what the organization does, but because they are really the outward expression of the mission to the donor. If the MGO is not passionately involved in the what and the how of your mission, she cannot possibly represent the nonprofit to a donor. But, wow, when an MGO really does this well, it’s amazing to hear her convey the story to donors. If she is really good, she leaves the donor inspired and ready to act NOW.

Investing in your organization. This is where the asking comes into play. It’s just 1% of the entire relationship with the donor, but it’s the thing that brings the whole relationship together. Without the ask, there is no fulfilling a donor’s passions and interests. Without the ask, all that cultivation and stewardship is just being nice. A real relationship is two-way. Without the investment of the donor, there really is not a full relationship. So I don’t buy it when an MGO says he has a good relationship with a donor and has never asked the donor for a gift.

I want to be very clear: MGOs need to ask for gifts for specific programs or projects. Don’t give me this, “well, the donor just decides what they want to do” stuff. That is not helping the donor fulfill his passions and interests. You have to help cast that vision for the donor. I’ve heard donors talk passionately about MGOs who have helped them find their passion through their giving. I love hearing those stories because that, to me, is the ultimate type of MGO/Donor relationship.

This is what an MGO should be doing, broadly speaking. It’s all about the asking and the NOT asking for money. Great MGOs find the right balance and can live in this tension. Can you?
Jeff