We are absolutely living in strange times. Many have coined it the second “Gilded Age.” We see power in the hands of extremely wealthy billionaires and the gulf between the wealthiest and the poorest continues to widen.

This has also played out in your donor files. What used to be the 80/20 rule where 20% of your donor base gave 80% of your total revenue, that is looking more like 95/5 today.

This is dangerous territory. If only 5% of your donor file is contributing 95% of your total revenue, it leaves you extremely vulnerable if just one or two very large gifts go away. I guess one way to look at it is, “Well, this is just the way the world is going, so this is our new reality.”

But I don’t think it has to be that way.

I believe part of the reason we have gone from the 80/20 “rule” to 95/5 is that we have not been cultivating, stewarding, and serving our donors well.

Either we have put our resources on small-dollar donors over the years and created such a high volume of them that you have been able to fund your programs (until now), or you have only focused on the very high-net worth donors in your donor file.

This gives you the same result: not enough major donors to adequately fund your mission, or at least not fund the expansion of your mission.

The solution to this problem is NOT to run out and join the Rotary or get a membership at a country club so that you can introduce yourself to donors with capacity, like many non-profit executives believe.

It’s to focus on your current donor base and start cultivating those everyday donors who are giving mid-level gifts.

If you want to expand your major gift program and thus create more net revenue to carry out and further your mission, it will require you to expand your idea of who your future major donors are.

Many organizations I talk to have the silly idea that major donors only give 6, 7, or 8 figure and above gifts. I’m going to be honest with you. In a typical portfolio of 150 donors, there are only about 5-10 donors that have that capacity.

In the donor files that we do our data assessment on, we typically find hundreds, and many times, thousands of donors who are giving anywhere between $500-$9,999 cumulative per year. These donors have typically been treated like a $25 donor, meaning you’re just sending them direct response solicitations.

Well, hopefully you are doing that.

But there is much more to do.

If you are serious about creating a relationship-based fundraising program and your concerned about the low number of major donors and how reliant you are on them to meet your budget, developing your mid-level program now will give you immediate results for major gifts.

How does that work? Because one of the strategies for mid-level is to start identifying, cultivating, and soliciting donors to move them into your major gift program and create an ever-expanding base of them. I’ve been reviewing results of our clients this week and I’m astounded by the huge numbers of mid-level donors moving into major gifts.

And, once they move into a major gift officer’s portfolio, we see donors who are giving at the $10,000 level move to $15,0000 and $20,000. Over time, they continue giving at higher levels of $50,000 and eventually some move into 6, 7, and 8 figure gifts.

But it really goes back to that mid-level program that moved a donor from $1,000 to $2,500. Then, from $2,500 to $5,000.

How did this happen? Because leadership invested in their donors by creating that mid-level program, which introduced donors to someone that wanted to know who they were. That, in addition to the solicitations they were receiving, also got a call from a human being, who thanked them, wanted to find out why they gave, and introduced them to inspiring offers that matched their passions and interests.

If you want a larger base of major donors, invest in a mid-level program. Once established, every month you will see more and more donors migrating to major gifts.

Don’t waste your time at the country club (unless you like golfing). Focus on the donors right under your nose in your database.

Jeff