picture of woman reading book must-read resourceAs you know from our previous blog posts, Richard and I are always trying to give you solid content in order for you to become the best you can be as a major gift fundraiser. We believe that steering you to good (often free) resources – whether it’s something we produce or written by someone else – is beneficial to your professional growth.
Well, we have landed on a gold mine of information and inspiration for you.
There is a massive new series of reports put out by The Commission on the Donor Experience. It’s comprehensive in scope. It has been sponsored by the Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration or SOFII; and while it’s directed toward the UK fundraising sector, everything in it can be applied to the U.S. and other countries.
The Commission has created 22 “projects,” each focusing on some aspect of fundraising. Its beauty is that everything is focused on the donor. Quite frankly, I’ve never seen anything as exhaustive as this work.
I want to turn your attention specifically to “Project #9—Major Gifts.” It alone is 52 pages long! I read through it, and it’s absolutely fantastic. And we’re grateful that Veritus Group is quoted and cited often. You can download this section here.
I have to say this again – this report is tremendous because it really brings the donor to the front of everything. It’s stuff that Richard and I have been talking about for years and years about major donors, and it’s really nice to see an international community embracing a similar philosophy about major gift fundraising.
If you are looking for the argument against transactional fundraising, this is it!
As a major gift fundraiser, this is something you can share with leadership and your board on best practices in major gift fundraising. Richard and I get emails and calls from our subscribers to the blog all the time, telling us how they use the blog to help educate the executive team and board on how to do major gift fundraising. This report is another great resource to use.
What’s cool about this report is that they have come up with 10 different conclusions that all major gift fundraisers and their managers will find helpful in growing their major gift program.
For example, one conclusion is “You need to be really clear about what a major donor to your organization really is” and “You need to see the relationship from the donor’s point of view.” Then under each conclusion are a number of recommendations for you to implement, and those recommendations are spelled out in detail in the full body of the report.
I’m telling you, it’s a must-read.
Richard and I want you to be the best major gift fundraiser you can be. It gives us great joy to steer you toward resources we believe will help you. You can download the full report here.
Jeff

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