Ask Deb: The Case for Major Gift Investment

Welcome to Ask Deb, where we help fundraisers review their trends, compare performance with peer benchmarks and make strategic data-driven decisions.  

Ah, spring: the season of rebirth when we plant the seeds of budget increases for investment in fundraising strategies. To shore up funding for ongoing efforts in their growing major gifts program, our featured station turned to data to help clear some rocky ground this year. 

Q. We’ve made several investments in major giving in the last few years.  Are we seeing reasonable growth from those efforts? Are there still opportunities in this area? 

Five years ago, a newly hired Development Director quickly determined that one of her new station’s opportunities was in major gifts. At the time, the share of donors giving at the $1000 or more level was nearly half that of the average station. This station was also getting ready to launch a capital campaign, which made hiring a Director of Major Gifts a natural next move. 

This new position was responsible for identifying prospects, formalizing their leadership giving circle and providing the personal touch for these donors.  

When the COVID quarantines went into effect, they seized the opportunity to provide much needed connection via many phone calls and group online gatherings which were much appreciated by this group of donors. In addition, this station has capitalized on their university license holder by engaging with their development teams to identify high net worth alumni/station donors and coordinate efforts to engage with them. 

All these steps toward increasing major gifts have had a substantially positive impact. In the last year, they saw growth rates exceeding median growth rates for both donors giving $1000 or more and revenue from these gifts. How does your growth rate compare to benchmark medians? 

As a result of their accelerated growth, the share of this station’s donors giving at the major gift levels has nearly reached the median, indicating that while there has been great growth over time, more opportunity remains. 

A peek at the More Opportunities and Actions report showed us that in addition to the opportunity to increase donor counts at the $1000 plus level, the dollar amount contributed by their current major donors is below the average for all stations. This station has more than a half of a million dollars potential revenue increase if major gift donor value was in line with top performers. Now that’s the case for investment!   

Using the data and the benchmarks, we were able to show how far this program has come and how their past investments have had strong returns. We identified areas where further growth is possible, walked through several potential strategies for increasing both the number of major donors and the revenue per major donor, and established how we might set some reasonable goals for growth with ongoing investments in this program. All of this should set this station up nicely for a fruitful year and a happy harvest of well-funded quality content.  

Is there a particular challenge your station is facing? Want to dive deeper into the data? Send Deb your questions about a metric or trend specific to your station by emailing askdeb@cdpcommunity.org.