Every week I see promotions for major gift fundraising webinars, boot camps, consultant training, courses and articles. Major gifts are a very important part of your overall development plan and a critical component to your revenue stream. Organizations are looking for major gift fundraisers and trying to find who could be a major gift donor. The truth is that it is hard to find someone with the right DNA who is either a great major gift fundraiser or who can become one.
One of our clients once told me that he read everything about major gifts and capital campaigns and that he even got his CFRE (Certified Fund Raising Executive) certificate. I asked him how many calls he had been on and the number was less than 25. So we started the process creating a plan and walking beside him on calls. We prepped what our conversations would be like, what the possible objections were and what the ask would be. We did it over and over again — failing along the way — until we raised $2.5 million for a new facility for homelessness. Now he is a pro, and he can become a teacher.
In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes roughly 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. That is one of the best ways to become a great major gift fundraiser. It also means you need a mentor, coach or someone to walk alongside you as you will stumble. It’s one of the things we do for our clients. We learn from our failures, and we learn from continual practice and improvement.
It is easy to sit in the office and ponder what a donor could do but harder to implement. Now go out with a plan and ask. Don’t be afraid of the “no”. You may be surprised what you learn about your organization, about your style and about what donors want along the way.
Written by Paul D’Alessandro
