Managing Major Gift Fundaisers; A Contrarian's Guide

by David Lively

In an era where 95 percent of the money comes from just five percent of the donors, securing major gifts is paramount for educational institutions. And yet, major gift fundraising programs are often managed using practices and rules of thumb that have not changed much since the 1980s. Moreover, the typical metrics used to gauge fundraiser performance are more indicative of raw activity than actual gift outcomes (that is, the number and size of major gifts).

David Lively wants to “tip sacred cows” and open a new conversation about how to best to incentivize fundraisers in this new title from CASE. Lively asks probing questions about how best to measure outcomes instead of activities, and how to end counterproductive prospect management practices that actually keep some of the best prospects from getting touches or moving toward a proposal.

In twelve concise chapters Lively offers insights on:


• Who should be solicited for a major gift and when is the best time to ask
• New ways to manage prospect portfolios
• New methods to incent fundraisers to get to a gift proposal instead of endless touches or visits that don’t result in an ask
• Organizing the major gifts work and the management calendar
• Hiring and onboarding new major gift fundraisers
• Better ways to make fundraising projections that are accurate and make sense to advancement leaders
• Improved metrics that make outcomes matter more than activities


With engaging story-telling and illustrative case studies, Lively shows how new ways of managing the major gift enterprise can lift fundraising practices and yield greater results for your institution.

122 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

More of 3 stars for me personally, because it doesn't particularly apply to my work right now, but I bumped it up to 4 stars because it does contain some great ideas for frontline fundraisers and their managers. The main takeaways are:
1. Reduce the size of development officers' portfolios, because bloated portfolios contain many prospects who are rarely/never contacted.
2. Development officers need to have a specific plan to cultivate/solicit a major gift from each and every prospect in their portfolios over the next 1-3 years.
3. Development officers should be evaluated mainly on the number of gifts they close in a year, not the overall dollar total or the number of prospects they visit. Everything should be streamlined toward closing major gifts.

[Valerie Sherman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent practical tips for how to look at your organization's overall donor portfolio to best organize fundraisers' outreach. I don't know that every shop could implement all of the recommendations, but any shop would find tips to maximize our limited time and attention. As it's written by an old colleague from Northwestern, I have been meaning to read this for years and have come to it at just the right time.

[Kristy Rousseau · Rating 5 out of 5]

A re-read for me. Highly recommend this to anyone leading MG fundraising teams.