Great (Major Donor) Fundraising Organisations

The book, Great Fundraising Organisations, by Alan Clayton rang true for us at Summit Fundraising in so many ways. Alan focuses on overall fundraising growth in this book, and when charities come to us needing help to start/ expand/ improve their major donor programmes, the elements we put in place and our approach has a real crossover with Alan’s. The book focuses on individual giving and acquisition examples so here are our 3 top takeaways with a philanthropy lens:

1. A focus on growth, it’s chicken and egg

Many organisations are so focused on the next 12-18 months or sometimes just the immediate quarter – they are thinking about how to get by and not thinking about the long-term.
In Alan’s words “In a growth framework the focus is very clearly on the problem the organisation wants to solve in the next 10 years and spending as much money as possible to solve that problem…it is an audacious and ambitious choice but it is also necessary.” 

Major donors can help make that transformational step change for charities. But when we start working with charities, a lot don’t know what they’d spend an additional £500k, £1million or £5million per year on.

“Transformational income depends on transformation ambition“, says Alan.

And who has the means to create this transformation? Your major donors and potential donors!

Without this ambition and long-term view, your major donor fundraising won’t succeed or will stay relatively small with 4 and 5 figure gifts.

2. Emotion is the key

There are many different ways emotion runs through successful fundraising- internally, externally and within each fundraiser and fundraising leader. All are explored in the book. With philanthropy we see additional barriers to bringing the emotion to conversations and to the work with high-net-worth donors. The cultural “prejudice against emotions” that Alan perceptively highlights can be more acute with major donor fundraising than other streams.

Is it that we’re worried about being “unprofessional” in front of successful high-net-worth individuals?  I’ve reviewed proposals providing all the facts and figures to city contacts, but they are cold, technical, unfeeling, and devoid of emotion.

Every one of us makes our decisions based on emotion in the first instance. And then we rationalise with logic afterwards –  trust me on this one, Nobel prizes have been won evidencing this! And so your major donors are no different.

So yes you may have a logical, finance major donor, who wants to see all the fact and figures but we shouldn’t overlook the need to provide inspiration, ambition and hope too!

 “Your job is to give them something to believe in.”  Yes Alan!

Increasing your own and your leadership’s understanding of philanthropic psychology, why people give   – we do regular training on this – and changing the culture  – we do team and trustee workshops – is key.

3. Lifetime value

Some organisations see major donors as filling their budget gap for that year. I know fundraisers who’ve been made to call up lapsed donors asking for a gift to an under-performing Christmas appeal. This is often the first time the donor’s been contacted in years! 😭😭😭

The opportunity to rebuild a relationship that could lead to hundreds of thousands over the donors’ lifetime, is destroyed because of the short-term money grabbing approach.

Repeat giving and retention in major donor fundraising programmes is regularly overlooked  – the “magpie” approach, focusing on shiny, new things and donors,  rather than the relational, long-term approach.

I’ve seen many charities assume that because a donor gave £10k last year,  that  donor will and should give the same this year, regardless of what communication, connection and experience they’ve received from the charity.

We always recommend that organisations look at retention figures – and growth  – from existing major donors. Retention gets measured in IG as standard, but rarely does it feature in major donor programmes. Alan discusses in depth in the book, the need for future facing KPIs that track progress for the medium term, not just focusing on getting a return within one year.

But how do you “hold your nerve” before those big gifts come in? What KPIs can be tracked to give leadership the confidence that a major donor programme is moving in the right direction? This is something we help clients with all the time.

This book is filled with sharp insight and practical approaches for fundraising leaders, CEOs, fundraisers and trustees. There are examples from some big charity brands, which if you’re from a smaller charity might make you feel it isn’t for you. But there’s so much in this book for all charities, regardless of size and cause area – much more than the three points above.