August 23, 2001 | Read Time: 1 minute
Developing Major Gifts: Turning Small Donors into Big Contributors
by Laura Fredricks
Development officers should stop waiting to find that “magic layer” of top prospects they dream will make large gifts, and instead pursue their existing direct-mail and annual donors, writes Laura Fredricks, senior director of major gifts at Temple University, in Philadelphia.
The book is designed for executive directors, development officials, board members, volunteers, nonprofit staff members, political fund raisers, and entrepreneurs who want to raise major gifts or large capital-campaign gifts from an existing pool of donors. Ms. Fredricks provides strategies for turning $1,000 donations into larger gifts, methods for cultivating different potential donors, advice on how to judge a prospective donor’s readiness to increase his or her gift, ways of thanking donors and keeping them involved with the organization or cause, and techniques for tracking relationships with “easy” and “difficult” prospective donors.
Chapters cover the definition of a major gift; how to start up a major-gifts program, including identifying the most-promising prospects and gathering information about them; how to approach donors the first time; meeting with major donors; preparing a gift proposal; asking for major gifts, and how to handle it when a prospect says “no”; recognizing major donors; cultivating long-term relationships; and managing a prospect list.
The final chapter, which Ms. Fredricks says is designed to “motivate, encourage, and energize,” contains success stories about donors who increased their gifts from between $250 and $2,500 to between $50,000 and $5-million. The book also contains checklists, forms, and examples of gift policies and other documents from major campaigns.
Publisher: Aspen Publishers, Distribution Center, 7201 McKinney Circle, Frederick, Md. 21704; (800) 638-8437; fax (800) 901-90750
