High Impact Philanthropy: How Donors, Boards, and Nonprofit Organizations Can Transform Communities

Economic prosperity and changed perceptions of the role of philanthropy have led not only to an outpouring of generosity but also to a new style of giving that nonprofit organizations, their leaders, and donors must understand, say the authors of this new book.

Today’s donors “are looking for tangible evidence that their gifts are making a difference, and they want to know from the outset what the potential impact is,” write Kay Sprinkel Grace, a faculty member at Indiana University’s Fund Raising School, and Alan L. Wendroff, an associate professor at California State University at Hayward. Such donors practice what the authors call “high-impact philanthropy,” and they expect their gifts to be transformational—to make visible changes in programs, perceptions, or an organization’s future.

Part One discusses the new philanthropy and its influence on the way groups attract and use major gifts. The authors encourage nonprofit organizations to alter their traditional focus on “transactional” giving, in which fund raisers focus all their activities on persuading donors to give. Instead, those groups should encourage “transformational” giving, which focuses on “the impact of the gift and the renewing relationship” with the donor.

Chapters in Part One include a new definition for major gifts and a discussion of the similarities and differences between transactional and transformational giving, how to fit major gifts into a fund-raising plan, how to recruit donors, and how to build support within a nonprofit organization for a transformational-giving plan.

Part Two discusses what the authors call the “new donor-investor.” Chapters cover major-donor motivation, the impact of major gifts on organizations, the identity and desires of the new major donors, and ways to find “transformational” donors.

The chapters in Part Three, “The New Donor/Organization Partnership,” discuss the role of board and staff members in asking for major gifts, using marketing techniques to communicate the values of a nonprofit organization to potential donors, maintaining major donors, and evaluating the impact of programs. Because today’s donors require specific results from their investments, the authors write, “evaluation is the center of the transformational giving loop.”

The book also contains appendixes with a High Impact Philanthropy Timetable, an organizational tool to help nonprofit groups in their efforts to shift to transformational giving, and lists of professional organizations, publications, and books with information about fund raising.

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 1 Wiley Drive, Somerset, N.J. 08875; (800) 225-5945; fax (800) 597-3299; http://www.wiley.com; 186 pages; $34.95; I.S.B.N. 0-471-36918-7.