Is now a good time to invest in major donor fundraising?

Are you trying to persuade your charity to invest in major donor fundraising?

One of the biggest reasons major donor programmes fail is that organisations try to grow it without investing. Some charities increase fundraising targets by £50,000, £100,000 or £500,000 largely based on hope, without the right skills and roles internally to develop a successful major donor programme, and without a solid pipeline.

The sooner charities start investing in their major donor staff and teams, and therefore in their relationships with existing and potential supporters, the sooner they will see a return.

It has been 18 months for some charities we’ve worked with, and then they’ve got their first £100k+ gift. Yet I realise, for many charities it’s harder than ever to invest, so read on for some perspectives and facts to help you influence.

1. Return on investment

When I was at Unilever we wouldn’t have dreamed of planning for growth without investing in a product line.  So why do some charities think it’s possible to grow without investment?  If you’re going to raise more large gifts, which can be transformational for your cause, you need to invest.

Return on investment for an established major donor programme can be 7:1 within 2 years and you should be able to break even or return 2:1 in the first year. However, one of the biggest reasons I see for the failure of non-profit to raise large gifts from major donors is a lack of consistency with investment because the expectation is that it can be an “add-on” to someone’s role or that there are lots of “quick wins”:

• Fundraisers are there for 12 months and then their post is cut when they haven’t raised £500k.
• Charities send a donor a thank you card for their £25k gift but the resource isn’t there to do anything else (and the donor unsurprisingly stops giving).
• Someone is tasked with some network mapping and major donor development, fitting it around their already stretched role; and then major donor income doesn’t grow.

2. Major donor wealth in an economic downturn

I’ve come across some staff and trustees who maintain that with cost of living increases “wealthy donors are also going to be struggling.”  Although uncertainty, and there’s a lot of it in the world right now, can impact how secure people feel financially, let’s look at some evidence:

• Giving by the wealthiest is often elastic.  Research by Dr Beth Breeze, Director, Centre for Philanthropy at the University of Kent, shows that major donors often add new charities to their portfolio of giving (rather than have a ‘one in, one out’ policy and a fixed giving budget).

• Giving increases despite global shocks. The Beacon Collaborative’s 2024 work has show giving from the wealthiest in the UK has increased. After the Global Financial Crash in 2008 major donor income held up, and some donors increased their giving. The global pandemic shook some major donors’ investments and industries yet other industries have flourished over the past few years. Similarly currently some high-net-worth individuals are feeling increasingly financially secure (see below) even as it seems many in the country and the world are feeling more vulnerable.

• Many of the richest are getting richer. Oxfam International’s 2022 Report “Profiting from Pain” evidences how wealth has soared since the COVID-19 pandemic as companies in the food, pharma, energy, and tech sectors grew rapidly. We need to understand that even in a cost-of-living crisis, not everyone is going to be affected the same, and some people are going to be better off. And this wealth creation is not incompatible with major donor fundraising – I’d recommend In Defence of Philanthropy by Beth Breeze for anyone who struggles to make sense of society’s inequalities in the context of philanthropy and major donor fundraising (as I have at times).

3. “Donor’s aren’t supporting new causes at the moment”

At times of uncertainty, donors can stick with the familiar and the trusted – The English National Opera highlighted that this was the case with their US donors at the 2025 Fundraising Convention. But if a donor says no to supporting a cause, there are lots of contexts:. “I’m not supporting new causes at the moment,” is one of them. What’s important in that sentence is, ‘at the moment.’ They didn’t say that they aren’t interested in supporting causes like yours, just that now is not the right time to expand their giving. Keep in touch, build the relationship in a way that works for them and next year could be very different.

4. If you build relationships, major gifts will follow on your donors’ timings.

If you’re not having conversations now, why would a donor give to you in 6 or 12 months time? The one on one relationship building in major donor fundraising gives us a tremendous opportunity to develop these relationships for lifelong giving, at high levels.

A CEO I’ve been working with phoned a major donor and realised how uncertain the donor’s business was, so they didn’t speak about giving. However, he did ask to keep in touch and six months later the donor gave £20,000. Major donors give at a time that’s right for them.

We don’t know what the future holds for the economy, but we do know how vital the work of charities is. With a consistent focus on spending quality time with existing and future donors, charities will see a return on their investment in major donor fundraising.