The Partnership That Predicts Major Gift Success

Estimate read time: 4 minutes

Here’s something we’ve learned after years of working with nonprofit organizations:

A predictive variable in major gift success isn’t always the prospect list. It isn’t always the campaign case. It isn’t always the staff size or the budget or the technology.

It’s the relationship between the executive director and the development director.

And it’s almost never talked about explicitly.

What the Partnership Looks Like When It’s Working

When this relationship works well, the division of responsibility is clean and complementary:

•  The Executive Director opens doors. The development director walks through them with a strategy.

•  The ED carries the mission story and organizational credibility. The development director translates that into specific cultivation plans and prospect strategies.

•  The ED makes the relationship moves that only an ED can make: the personal call to a top prospect, the authentic conversation with a board member, the testimony that needs to come from organizational leadership. The development director identifies what’s needed and makes sure it happens.

•  Neither person manages the other. They manage the work together.

This is not a management structure. It’s a working partnership, and the distinction matters.

Partnerships require explicit conversation, shared understanding of each person’s role, and regular check-ins to make sure both people are getting what they need from the relationship.

What Goes Wrong When the Partnership Is Strained

Three common failure patterns, all of which damage major gift outcomes:

The ED is absent from the cultivation work.
She trusts the development director to manage the major gifts program entirely, reviews reports, and doesn’t make the relationship moves that only she can make. The development director, however talented, can’t move key relationships forward without the organizational credibility that only the ED carries. Major gifts stall.

The ED is over-involved.
She second-guesses strategy, attends every cultivation meeting, and inadvertently crowds out the development director’s ability to build her own relationships with donors. The development director’s effectiveness is undermined, even when the ED means well.

The role division was never made explicit. 

Both people are operating on different assumptions about who owns what, leading to gaps, duplicated effort, and resentment neither person names.

The Conversation That Fixes Most of This

One structured conversation between the ED and development director, twice a year, that covers:

• Who owns which relationships, and which ones the ED needs to be personally active in.
• What the ED will do specifically in the next 90 days that only the ED can do.
• What the development director needs from the ED to do her best work.
• Where there’s role ambiguity that needs to be resolved.
  

That’s it.

Most of the failure modes described above don’t require complex interventions. They require a direct conversation that most ED and development director pairs haven’t had.

Schedule that conversation. Have it honestly. The major gift program will be better for it.

If you’re an executive director, what are the three relationship moves only you can make in the next 90 days?

If you’re a development director, have you given your ED the specific guidance she needs to be an effective partner, or have you been hoping she’d figure it out?

This is a great blog post to forward to your partner Executive Director or Development Director! Use this as a guide to have a level-set conversation.