The Importance of Cultivating Your Major Donors
By Sandy Rees 
How a major gift is defined depends on your organization. It might be $500 or $5,000 or somewhere in between. Typically, we think of a major gift as cash, but it could be an annuity, stock or something else. The defining characteristic is that it is a “Stop And Think” gift. The donor has put some thought into it.
Create a cultivation plan for your major donors and work it. Examine the ways you are communicating with them. Do you send them a newsletter of some kind? Do you provide them with a name and phone number and invite them to call you? Have you invited them for a tour of your organization? Have you learned all you can about them including their interests and their reasons for giving? Knowing all you can about a potential major donor will help you develop the best strategy for cultivating them and asking for the next gift. The better prepared you are when it comes to the Ask, the more likely you are to get the gift.
Build a relationship with your major donors by getting personal. Get to know them. Send handwritten note cards or better yet, call them just to thank them! Find out about their families, their hobbies and what other charities they support. And, most importantly, find out why they support YOU!
Involve your Board. Do any of your Board members know any of your major donors? If so, they can likely provide valuable information or assist in cultivation.
Make sure you have some kind of tracking system in place to keep up with all this data.
Beware of cultivating a donor for too long. Don’t spend so much time trying to gather every possible bit of information that you never get around to making the Ask. You’ll know when you have enough information and the time is right. Don’t procrastinate about it either. If you get scared and put it off, you are losing an opportunity. What’s more, you are denying your donor the chance to participate in your organization’s mission.
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Sandy Rees is a nonprofit fundraising coach and speaker who shows small nonprofit organizations how to raise more money, gain more supporters, and strengthen their Boards.
(c) Sandy Rees, CFRE
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