Have you sought to conduct a major fundraising campaign in the past year? In this post, Leah Lamb offers nuanced insight into the best way to successfully solicit major gifts for your non-profit. If major campaigns aren’t rushed or starved for resources, they can be very fruitful.
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Leah Lamb
If you’re seeking to conduct a big campaign, you’ll need to solicit major gifts. To get major gifts for your non-profit, you should take the following 4 steps, namely:
- Introduce
- Cultivate
- Educate
- Solicit
As well, you should understand this: Major gifts generally take 18 – 24 months to successfully solicit. Expecting to get them in a year or less isn’t wise. Non-profits define a ‘major gift’ differently. However your organization defines it, a non-profit must be willing to make the investment, in time and resources, to receive such gifts.
Major Gifts
The first step is introducing the organization to new people. Allow prospective donors to get a good sense of your non-profit’s mission and impact. Once such individuals have been properly introduced to your organization, seek to cultivate and educate them. This involves making a connection with them, informing them, and then moving to get them engaged and involved. Lastly, after you’ve done these three things, you should be well position to solicit a large gift from the engaged donor. For larger major gifts, this may involve deciding how the donation will be earmarked to have the most impact. A specific program will often be the beneficiary of a generous gift.
Making the Investment without Rushing
Too often I’ve observed non-profit organizations seeking to get major gifts in 12 months or less. Setting such expectations will likely lead to frustration and disappointment. To put it simply, it takes time to get major gifts. If any of the 4 steps described above are rushed or skipped, the results aren’t likely to be good. In some situations, as much as an additional year beyond the first 12 months will be needed.
While smaller donations can be solicited quickly, it takes time to solicit major gifts. Are you willing to make the investment and be patient? Placing unrealistic expectations on your fundraisers isn’t a strategy for success. Be willing to make the investment. Funding large programs (and capital projects) which will have real impact can’t be done overnight. A major investment is required.
Fundraising fundamentals
- Nonprofits need to research their donor lists. Ask yourself this important question: Who is already giving to this organization and what is their giving potential? The answer will help fuel your fundraising in amazing ways. I’ve learned, over the years I’ve been fundraising, a simple truth: Sometimes there are major donors right under your nose. Yes, right under your nose if you take the time to see them. What do I mean? Oftentimes some of the donors who give smaller gifts have the potential to give larger ones. How you treat those donors will determine whether or not they will give a larger gift. A good steward of a small gift can be a good steward of a larger gift.
- The first stage of donor base building is Introduction. There are ways in which a fundraiser can help new donors get to know their non-profit. Invite them in to “friendraising” events, host open houses, or ask current donors to invite their friends to events. Also, making an easy ask is one way to get people involved. Ask for time to interact with that person; then seek to get them to donate canned goods, used clothing or something small.
Again, the four stages in major gifts are, in order: Introduce; Cultivate; Educate; and Solicit. Trying to prematurely solicit an uncultivated person should always be avoided. Take the time. Make the investment. If you do, you’ll be well positioned to raise the funds for your non-profit’s mission-critical, high-impact programs and projects.
LEARN
- Steps to building your donor base: Introduce, Cultivate, Educate, and Solicit.
- Major donors require time, so allowing less than 12 months is typically going to be insufficient.
- Make the investment in time, research, and expense to get those major donors. You’ll need generous givers to grow your organization.
GROW
Your Outcome Wells Team
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Moving into the 21st century with data and your fundraising
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New approaches and ideas for raising funds
There is an emerging group of fundraisers that stand as visionaries when it comes to using data and analytics to raise funds. The reality of marketing today is that the name of the game is micro– targeting. Maybe you’ve seen that term, as it pertains to our current political elections – and their use of data to identify and target voters. In many ways the same processes are becoming mainstream for non-profit fundraising today. These processes allow a leading-edge organization to do two things: Isolate and discover ideal potential donors; seek contributions using data and technology.
It is becoming commonplace today to search public data, mine donor’s social-media activity, and apply data analysis to the fundraising process itself. Here are some of the newest fundraising approaches being used by non-profits:
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Predictive Modeling – Analytical tools that identify and hone in on a statistical model of contributors that have previously made large gifts and models all of their attributes. The resulting model then scours and finds others who share these common characteristics. As well the model ranks the donors based on their ability to give.
Non–profits are achieving positive results with this modeling technique. Some organizations are adding these tools to their databases and dynamically scoring their current and potential donors with these tools – to maintain clean and accurate data. Having reliable data on donors is critical.
Predictive modeling in the end allows fundraisers to better focus and spend their time more wisely on donors with the highest likelihood to give. Results for predictive modeling appear to be best for hospitals and theaters. The common denominator lies with those that have recently received a service or experience from the organization. Generally they are ripe for solicitation in the period just following the experience, rather than months later.
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Using social media activity and analytics to find donors – What may have first emerged as just another way to promote and get the word out is starting to be harnessed for better micro – targeting. Using software tools, a university started notating lapsed donor’s “likes” on their Facebook page. They isolated hot topics, and shortly thereafter sent out an email and crowdsourcing campaign invitation. It yielded $30,000 for what the Facebook feed, and a quick survey, had identified as a hot topic.
Other non-profits have moved beyond predictive modeling and engagement tools to add a social media element to the mix. By analyzing social media activity and notating extremely active users they discovered a whole new category of potential donors who are more inclined to give. Going one step further they can aggregate more donors, and set more appointments, with data gleaned from a diverse collection of sources like Facebook, LinkedIn, Zillow, Google Maps, and Census Bureau data.
These are just a sampling of the newer tools available for fundraising. Leah Lamb told us what is needed and required to properly develop a major donor, step by step. In this section we wanted to allow you to build on what she shared – with a few analytical tools you might want to give consideration.
The art of fundraising involves taking three pre-solicitation steps to get a major gift and not ignoring donors ‘right under your nose’. At times, as Leah Lamb shared, it will also involve making what she calls the easy ask. As Lamb expresses very well, trying to seek a major gift too quickly is a fool’s errand; 18 – 24 months is usually needed. Some new approaches to non-profit fundraising were also explored in this post. To put it simply, if you master the art of fundraising, your organization’s Mission will very likely be fully funded. These funds would position your non-profit to fulfill it’s Mission and have a significant impact. Happy Fundraising.
Better outcomes through Best Practices (Non-profit leaders)
Photo credit: iStock
Your Outcomes Well
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