Finding Major Donors: How to Identify & Secure Major Gifts
Is your nonprofit struggling to reach your funding goals despite managing multiple fundraising campaigns at once? This is a telltale sign that you need to dive into major donor fundraising. No nonprofit fundraising strategy is complete without a plan for identifying and building relationships with major donors: those who provide your nonprofit with its largest, most impactful gifts.
In fact, research shows that 80% of individual donor fundraising revenue comes from the top 20% of donors—so finding and building relationships with these donors should be a priority.
If you’re new to the major giving landscape, this guide will help you build out a thorough strategy for cultivating a network of major donors who are invested in your cause. We’ll cover:
Even if you have years of experience connecting with major donors, these fundamentals will still be useful if you’re looking to fine-tune your skills. Let’s dive in to start improving your strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions About Major Donors
Ready to secure more support for your organization by building long-lasting relationships with major donors? First, brush up on the basics by exploring these frequently asked questions.
What is a major donor?
Major donors are the supporters who give your nonprofit its largest donations. What constitutes a major donor is relative, depending on the size and current fundraising capacity of your organization. For one nonprofit, a major donor might be an individual who gives $5,000. For another, it might be a donor who gives $20,000 or $2 million.
Not sure what your organization’s major giving level is? No problem. Follow these two simple steps to determine your unique major gift threshold:
Use your CRM to create a list of all of the largest donations you’ve received from individuals in the past year. Examine the range of those donation sizes and eliminate any outliers that might set your threshold too high. You don’t want to waste time chasing after unrealistically high gifts or underestimate your fundraising abilities!
Estimate a major gift threshold based on the range you’re seeing. For example, if your five biggest gifts in the past year were $5,000, $6,500, $7,000, $7,500, and $10,000, you could find the average of those gifts—$7,200. So, you might determine that the minimum amount that your organization considers a major gift is roughly $7,000.
Revisit your major gift threshold often. If all is going well, you should be able to raise your threshold. This means your nonprofit and its fundraising capacity are growing!
How can major donors help my nonprofit?
Major donors play a significant role in the success of nonprofits like yours. This is because of the following reasons:
Major donors’ gifts usually make up a large portion of your nonprofit’s revenue. As mentioned earlier, the top 20% of your donors often give 80% of your total donations.
Major donors can be invaluable in helping you get a strong start with major projects like capital campaigns. They can also serve as partners to help you drive those big projects to success.
Major donors can be enthusiastic ambassadors for your organization when you actively steward your relationships with them—whether they continue to provide large donations, participate in your planned giving program, become board members, or even volunteer consistently.
Even though major donor fundraising is an involved process, it’s a worthwhile investment that will pay dividends down the road!
Where do I find major donors?
When you first get started with major donor fundraising, it can feel like an expert-level game of hide-and-seek. But in reality, there are several places you can look to find major donors, including your own database.
The first step to finding major donors within your current donor pool involves a process known as wealth screening, where you look for indicators of wealth and commitment to your cause that could signal a donor is ready to give a major gift.
After conducting a wealth screening, you can begin prospect research, where you use various research tools to qualify prospects who have an interest in your cause, a habit of consistent giving, and the financial capacity to give a large gift. We’ll cover both of these processes in more detail below.
How does major gift fundraising work?
Major donor fundraising is somewhat similar to the fundraising processes you follow for lower-level donors, but it’s much more in-depth and requires careful planning at every stage. Since major donors are so important to your organization, it’s crucial to approach these relationships strategically.
Typically, the cycle of major donor fundraising involves four key steps:
Identify prospective major donors. Use prospect research to discover the best prospects for major giving, then prioritize them based on each individual’s likelihood of giving.
Cultivate relationships with prospects. Next, start reaching out to your prospects and slowly develop positive relationships with them before you make an ask. Discover their personal interests, emphasize how their values align with your mission, and give them a behind-the-scenes look at your organization.
Solicit major gifts. Once a relationship is strong enough, you should make an in-person, highly personalized fundraising appeal.
Steward major donors. After someone makes a major gift, implement a major donor stewardship plan that involves thanking them in multiple ways, demonstrating the impact of their gift, and inviting them to get more involved with your nonprofit.
Major donor fundraising is a cycle because you’ll follow these steps again and again to establish a pool of passionate major donors you can rely on long-term. Now, let’s dive deeper into the first step in the major gift fundraising process: identifying prospects.
How to Identify Major Donors
Identifying potential major donors is a process that will take the right tools and a little know-how. If you’re new to soliciting major donations, be prepared for a bit of a learning curve. But remember that all of this work will pay off in the end when you not only secure a major gift, but kickstart a relationship with a new supporter who is invested in your cause and ready to take action to help you accomplish your mission.
To identify prospective major donors, follow these steps:
1. Appoint a major gifts officer.
Set yourself up for success by assembling the right team of people to lead the charge on your major donor fundraising efforts. After all, finding and cultivating major donors are time- and labor-intensive tasks unique from other day-to-day fundraising duties. So, if you want to be successful in securing major gifts, you’ll need at least one person dedicated to taking on these tasks.
Nonprofits just getting started with a major giving program should begin by appointing or hiring a major gifts officer. As your nonprofit grows, you’ll likely build out a major gifts team or hand your major gift efforts over to your development team.
No matter where you are in the process, the duties of a major gifts officer will include:
Designing and spearheading your organization’s major gifts program
Tracking fundraising metrics related to major donor fundraising
Using dedicated donor research tools to conduct wealth screening and prospect research
Creating educational and promotional materials geared toward major donors
Drafting major gift proposals
Handling your organization’s major gift solicitation strategy
Creating a donor appreciation and stewardship cadence that includes regular, genuine outreach
Securing buy-in from major donors in the quiet phase of capital campaigns
Working with other staff members and board members to accomplish general fundraising goals
One final note on setting up your major giving team: If you’re in between major gift officer hires, consider working with a fundraising consultant who offers transitional nonprofit staffing. These experts can fill your open position and help your major donor fundraising strategy continue smoothly while you prepare to hire the best person possible to join your team. They can even help you with the hiring process, providing guidance on how to create a solid job description and how to pick the best candidate.
2. Use wealth screening to find data about prospective major donors.
Start looking for major donors in your current donor pool. You can do so with a process called wealth screening, in which you look at the current data you have about your supporters (like their giving histories and addresses) along with external financial indicators (such as real estate ownership and stock holdings) that show they may be able and willing to give a larger gift to your organization.
Because you already have relationships with these donors and they’ve given to your organization in the past, you can infer that they have a personal interest in your cause. Wealth screening helps you gather more information before asking for a larger gift than a donor has given before.
3. Conduct prospect research to qualify and supplement prospect data.
Prospect research is the process of conducting comprehensive research to qualify and prioritize potential major donors. You can do so by using both internal and external sources to verify the data you received from your wealth screening and add new insights to that initial information.
To conduct prospect research, you’ll need to use dedicated prospect research tools like:
Prospect research databases
SEC and FEC filings
Matching gift databases
Real estate property records
You’ll use tools like these to look for capacity (wealth), affinity (warmth), and propensity (habit) markers in individual prospects. Let’s take a closer look at what these indicators look like:
Capacity (wealth) markers: These pieces of information show that a donor is in a financial position that would allow them to make a large gift to your nonprofit. Some examples include real estate ownership, stock holdings, and business affiliations.
Affinity (warmth) markers: This data shows that a donor has a personal interest in supporting your mission because it resonates with their experiences or values. Political affiliations and donations, past involvement with your nonprofit, and connections with other major donors or board members can all be indicators of warmth.
Propensity (habit) makers: Habit markers demonstrate that your prospect has a commitment to giving to charitable causes and would be likely to do so again. These indicators include donations to other nonprofits, board membership, and fundraising event attendance.
When you find a prospect that has all three types of markers, you can be confident that you’ve found a new major donor prospect worth reaching out to!
Just remember that your organization should always have some kind of existing connection with prospective major donors before you reach out. Cold outreach (where you reach out to individuals who don’t know anything about your nonprofit) often isn’t effective and can result in your organization spending too much time and money on prospects who are less likely to convert.
4. Leverage your board of directors’ connections.
Once you’ve identified who you’ll be reaching out to about major gifts, you may need help getting your foot in the door with some of your prospects. If you haven’t already, check to see if any of your board members have personal connections to any of the prospects you’re planning to reach out to.
Asking a board member for a personal introduction to a prospect can help your major gifts officer develop a strong rapport. Additionally, offering this opportunity for a board member to engage in the process allows your board to take an active role in helping your nonprofit fundraise. Not only will your board members be actively engaged in helping your organization accomplish its goals, but it will also give them some “on-the-ground” experience that can influence the leadership decisions they make with the rest of the board.
5. Consider working with an outside expert.
If you find that your nonprofit doesn’t have the bandwidth to conduct prospect research and wealth screening on its own, consider working with a prospect research consultant. An outside expert who is well-versed in research tools and strategies can be a great asset to your nonprofit, especially if you’re new to running a major giving program.
Here are a few signs to watch for that may indicate it’s time to hire a consultant:
Your organization doesn’t have the time or resources necessary to conduct donor research in-house.
You need help analyzing the data you’re collecting and designing solicitation strategies for major gift prospects.
You have complex or specific donor research needs that require a custom strategy or support.
With their expertise and fresh perspective, a prospect research consultant can bring immeasurable value to the table, whether you’re working to get your major giving program off the ground or fine-tuning your existing strategies.
Cultivating & Stewarding Major Donors
Now that you understand how to find the best major donor prospects, let’s walk through a few best practices for cultivating prospects and stewarding major donors after they give. Both of these processes are vital to successful major donor fundraising, so make sure you’re well-versed in each one.
Anchor your major gifts strategy in relationship-building.
A solid relationship is the key to turning a prospect into a lifelong major donor. This is why it’s crucial to structure your entire major gifts strategy around relationship-building. Form strong relationships through donor cultivation before making an ask, then work to retain and further develop those relationships after they make a major donation.
There are a variety of ways to start the process of relationship building with a new prospective donor, but here are a few ideas to get you started:
Set up an in-person meeting. Try meeting with your prospective donor for coffee or lunch, or even at their workplace. A casual meeting like this will give the prospect a chance to get to know you as a person and will create a positive memory that the donor will associate with your organization.
Invite them to events. Events are great opportunities to interface with your supporters. Try inviting your prospects to a fundraising or donor cultivation event. Not only will you get to chat with them, but they’ll also enjoy meeting other supporters and getting to experience the activities, entertainment, and community at your event!
Call regularly. Like any relationship, it’s good to have regular check-ins with your prospects. Reach out to them via phone and get regular updates on their lives, then continue these check-ins even after they’ve become donors. This is also a great way to keep them posted on upcoming opportunities for volunteer service, donating, and more.
Make sure you go into every interaction having done your homework. Try to remember and record details about your prospects like children’s names, recent projects they’ve had at work, or even favorite hobbies like fishing or painting. Being able to ask, “How’s Molly’s school year going?” or “Have you read any good science fiction books lately?” will add a personal touch to every conversation you have with your donors, making them feel seen as people.
Cultivate major donors strategically before you try solicitation.
Donors all want the same thing when it comes to your nonprofit—they want to make a personal, substantial impact on your cause. They don’t want to feel like a blank check.
This is why it’s unwise to jump straight into a solicitation immediately after discovering a prospective major donor. Instead, take time to get to know your prospective donors as people before you even mention money. Learn about their families, values, interests, and hobbies. Find out why they’re interested in your nonprofit’s mission and ask about other nonprofit work they’ve been involved in.
Additionally, share genuine stories and provide tangible examples of the impact your nonprofit has made on beneficiaries so far. Prove to your prospects that your organization is worthy of their funding and that you’ll use it to further the mission you’re both passionate about.
For the best results, your major gifts officer or fundraising team should create personalized cultivation plans for individual prospects. These plans might involve a schedule of check-in phone calls, personalized invitations to opportunities they may be interested in, and more.
Thank and steward major donors after they give.
The importance of showing appreciation to your major donors cannot be overstated. Major gifts naturally merit tons of follow-up. They’ve just donated thousands of dollars to your organization—perhaps the largest donation they’ve ever made—so they deserve to be personally thanked and updated in a variety of ways.
Beyond an initial “thank you” at a meeting or over the phone, tap into other recognition strategies like:
Writing letters. Handwritten letters are rare nowadays, so why not tap into the novelty and personal touch that a letter can provide? Give this thank-you strategy a little extra power by including a signature from a board member or your executive director.
Including their name on a donor recognition wall. Donor recognition walls are especially popular for capital campaigns and can be a great way for your community to visualize the support your major donors have given you. A recognition wall can also serve as a place for your donors’ friends and family to visit.
Sending a thoughtful gift. A personalized gift, like a gift basket full of your donor’s favorite things or even a gift made by a beneficiary or staff member, can provide a tangible reminder of your cause and gratitude.
Recording a thank-you video. A thank-you video is a unique appreciation strategy in that your donor will be able to actually see your staff celebrating them on the other side of the camera. To add a special touch, consider asking a beneficiary to participate in your video, too!
Inviting them to events. Whether it’s an invitation to the ribbon-cutting ceremony for your new facility or a board meeting, an invitation to attend an event—especially as a VIP—can go a long way in making your major donor feel like part of your organization.
Providing regular updates on their donation’s impact. Give specific examples of how major donors have made a difference and helped your organization get results. For instance, you might explain how you’ve been able to break ground on the new wing of your museum thanks to their donation, or how you’ve been able to begin offering more dance classes for at-risk youth in your community because of their generosity.
All of these strategies can be effective, but expressing your gratitude for major donors will certainly entail more than a one-off thank-you card. In addition to thinking about donor appreciation as a set of discrete strategies, think of it as part of the continuous relationship-building we touched on above.
Plus, stewarding these relationships long-term can lead major donors to get more and more involved with your nonprofit. They might give again, volunteer, serve on your board, or provide regular sponsorship for your organization’s events.
Even if you have no projects that need major funding coming up, you should still be reaching out to your major donors regularly to keep up with them. Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone, send an email, or schedule a time to chat over coffee. Make it clear to your donors that your organization doesn’t just need their donations—it needs them.
4 Major Donor Fundraising Tips
With a comprehensive understanding of the full major donor fundraising cycle, you’re ready to dive deeper into what the solicitation process might look like for your nonprofit. When the time is right to ask a prospect that you’ve cultivated a good relationship with, follow these tips to make your ask:
1. Ask for a donation for a specific project.
When the time comes for you to ask a prospect for a major gift, you’ll often ask them to donate to a specific project or campaign. This will help you be more specific about what their donation will help your organization accomplish, illustrating how they can be part of your work and help you meet your goals. Here are a few examples of how this might work:
You ask a prospective major donor to give a gift during the quiet phase of a capital campaign. After you’ve conducted a feasibility study and determined that your capital campaign is viable, you’ll begin asking for the major gifts that will make up 60-80% of your campaign’s total fundraising goal. Relying on your case for support, explain to prospective major donors the goals and objectives for your campaign and highlight how their contribution will help you get there.
You present prospective donors with an opportunity to match gifts during a specific campaign. There are many ways to go about this. You might, for example, ask your donor to match gifts up to $5,000 during a telefundraising campaign or on GivingTuesday. The great thing about this strategy is that it can get your donor excited about engaging others in your work.
You propose that a major donor sponsor your upcoming fundraising event. Sponsorship can be a great way for a major donor to be recognized by the community for their contributions to your organization. Consider asking for donated event equipment, catering, or venue space in addition to or in lieu of a monetary gift.
Try your best to solicit donations for projects you know your major donor will be interested in. For example, if they’ve expressed interest in helping out with a certain program or campaign, it will mean a lot that you ask them to contribute specifically to that project. They’ll likely be excited to jump in and take on other responsibilities to help the project be successful, whether they’re giving you advice when you need it or volunteering every week.
2. Understand that the donation solicitation process will take time.
As you’re working on securing major gifts, it’s important to remember to take a step back and be patient. As with any relationship, it will take a good chunk of time for your organization and a prospect to develop trust and get to know each other. And that process shouldn’t be rushed, especially if you want to retain that major donor’s support far beyond one fundraising ask.
So, what should you plan for, specifically? It’s difficult to say exactly how long it should take you to secure a gift, as every nonprofit’s situation will be different. The timetable will depend on:
The donation amount you’re asking for
The donor’s perception of your nonprofit
Knowing this, plan on the process taking anywhere from a few months to a couple of years. Know that you’re still making progress with every interaction you have with a major donor, even if the time hasn’t come yet for the ask.
Additionally, remember that your relationship with a prospect isn’t over after you’ve secured a gift. You need to stay in touch and keep developing the relationship to show respect, drive engagement, and secure more gifts down the road.
3. Actively steward your mid-level donor base.
Many organizations neglect this important step. But remember, most of your major donors will have started giving at lower levels below your major gift threshold!
Organizations often put off stewarding mid-level donors because of time, staff, and resource considerations. But it’s possible to build frequent screening and touchpoint cadences that will help you connect with them. A fundraising consultant can help you design an effective pipeline to do this.
Plus, if you suddenly realize that a long-time mid-level donor can now give at a higher level, but you’ve never put in the time to talk to them before now, that could leave your donor with a bad impression of your organization. By developing a specific mid-level donor stewardship plan now, you’ll already have a strong relationship foundation when the time comes to make a larger ask.
4. Provide opportunities for engagement outside of donating.
Donating isn’t the only way major donor prospects can make a difference for your cause. In fact, by providing more than one way for donors to make a difference in your work, you’ll deepen their engagement with your organization, strengthening their connection to your cause and their relationship with your staff and leadership. Therefore, make sure your prospective donors are aware of additional engagement opportunities such as:
Event attendance
Volunteering
Board service
As you get to know prospective major donors better and better, you can turn to them for their input on how they think things are going with your organization. They might have insights to share about a recent campaign’s success or how your programming is viewed by the larger community. And, when you take their advice seriously, they’ll know they’re truly valued by your organization.
A Fundraising Consultant’s Role in Your Major Donor Strategy
Whether you’re just starting to design your major giving program or you’re looking to tighten up your strategy for improved results, working with a fundraising consultant can be a great way to help you and your major gifts team improve how you find, connect with, and solicit donations from major donors.
At Donorly, we offer a wide range of consulting services to small and mid-size nonprofit organizations. If you want to tap into major donor fundraising to fundraise beyond your size and prepare your organization for future growth, we can help you get there!
Explore our services that you can tap into for developing your major giving program, including:
Prospect research subscriptions: Tap into our prospect research tools and expertise to find major donors for your mission. We offer 5, 10, and 20-hour subscriptions.
Transitional nonprofit staffing: Want to build out a dedicated major giving team but don’t have the bandwidth? No problem. We can step into your major gifts officer or development role and provide support while you get ready for an in-house hire.
Capital campaign feasibility studies and ongoing assistance: Feasibility studies help your organization learn if you’re ready for a capital campaign and involve discussions about viability with major donors. Our consultants can assist you with all the parts of a feasibility study and help you move forward, no matter the results. Plus, when your campaign gets underway, we can provide ongoing support!
All in all, our team of fundraising experts can help you get your major gifts strategy off the ground and pave the way for continuous improvement.
Wrapping Up
No matter your nonprofit’s size, major gifts make up a large portion of your organization’s fundraising revenue, which is why it’s critical to have a thorough strategy for finding major donors, cultivating relationships with them, and stewarding them after they’ve given to your cause. Remember that there are plenty of resources available to support you on your way to an improved strategy, and don’t be afraid to seek out professional assistance.
Want to learn more about the world of nonprofit fundraising strategy? Check out these recommended readings:
Hiring a Fundraising Consultant: 5 Steps & Top Firms. When it comes to hiring a fundraising consultant, finding the right fit is imperative. Learn all about the hiring process in this guide!
Capital Campaigns: A Success Guide for Small Nonprofits. Brushing up on major giving best practices because you’re launching a capital campaign? Read more about everything you need to do to launch your nonprofit’s capital campaign successfully.
Step-by-Step Fundraising Plan Template for Nonprofits. If you want fundraising success, you’ll need a rock-solid plan. This resource walks you through all the components of fundraising planning and provides a template your organization can leverage for its own campaigns.
