Major Gift Challenge #4: Not Getting the Most Out of Your Major Gift Team?

Are you worried that you are not getting the most out of your major gift team?

Well, you’re not alone! We hear nonprofit leaders complain about this often. Like all managers, they are concerned about the productivity of their people.

To make matters worse, we’re all under pressure to increase fundraising revenues right now, especially in this chaotic time of fluctuating funding.

But when you think about it, what exactly IS keeping your team – or any team – from achieving its true potential?

To help you, we want to break this down.

Here are five major reasons that major gift teams are not performing, and how their leaders can help them.

1. Do Your Major Gift Officers Lack Experience and Training?

We are hearing:

• “The fundraisers are new to “major gifts”. and are unsure how to do their work.
• “The major gift fundraisers had little experience when we hired them.”
• “As a team our MGOs are performing at radically different levels.”

Here’s how you can help:

You can’t expect your team to perform at a high level without proper training. Major gift fundraising is not intuitive! There are specific skills to learn, and special approaches that really do work.

You can set your team up for success when you invest in their training and professional development .

Look for an educational training program that helps your fundraising team gain the skills, methodologies and confidence they need to succeed.

Find a program that gives them hands-on support and coaching, and you’ll see your people close more gifts.

We can help! Our Major Gifts Intensive program can teach your team the professional skills they need to successfully raise mega gifts.

2. Is Your Team Not Asking Enough? Or Are Their Asks Ineffective?

In this case, your team may not be asking for gifts effectively. There are, in fact, specific techniques for asking that really do work!

It might be that your team members haven’t created a plan and a target ask range for each donor. Or, they may not be employing best practices or techniques to successfully engage donors and prospects.

Here’s how to help them:

There’s a specific strategy that does result in meaningful gifts from happy donors. These bountiful gifts come from meaningful conversations, and your team can learn how to do this.

You can:

• Consider role playing ahead of an asking conversation.
• Set clear, actionable goals for fundraisers.
• Set up peer mentoring for new team members.

Teach your team how to uncover the values, interests and the philanthropic story of each donor in their portfolio and they will then be successful.

Don’t forget: Send them to our 2025 Major Gifts Intensive program where they will absolutely learn how to craft an effective ask. One that aligns your nonprofit’s mission with their donor’s purpose.

3. Are They Reactive Rather Than Proactive?

Fundraisers can often get stuck in a reactive mode, waiting passively for opportunities to open up with their donors.

Instead, you can teach them to proactively create Gift Conversations by building trust and professional relationships with major gift donors and prospects.

We find that so many good fundraisers simply do not know how to move a donor smoothly into a Gift Conversation.

Here’s what you can do:

You can facilitate a shift to proactive fundraising by setting metrics around regular, personal contacts. (not just personalized outreach).

These touch points may include personally designed thank you’s, reporting back on the gift’s impact or offering progress updates, and friendly “touching base” contacts during the year.

We teach proactive fundraising conversations in the Major Gifts Intensive. These practices should be part of your fundraisers’ cultivation and stewardship processes for all major gift donors.

4. Discomfort with Major Gift Asking (Cultural Shift)

Sometimes, leadership is simply uncomfortable with major gift fundraising. (!)

This can trickle down to major gift fundraisers, particularly if the organization has relied on event fundraising rather than one-to-one conversations with major gift donors.

Here’s what you can do:

• Foster a culture of major gift fundraising in your organization.
• Create buy-in from your leadership.
• Build a supportive environment for your fundraisers that helps them build their confidence.

The Major Gifts Intensive helps teams build confidence and competence in making major gift asks by focusing on the relationship aspect of fundraising.

Your team can learn how to approach their major gift asks with respect, clarity and connecting the donor to the impact of the work.

5. Lack of Time for Donor Meetings and Cultivation.

So often, leadership sets metrics in place solely focused on “dollars in” and “new donors.”

Including metrics around “meetings” (in-person or virtual), meaningful touchpoints, attendance at events (intimate or large) is one way to inspire major gift fundraisers to stop being transactional and start being more relational in their work.

And, we can’t forget that major gift fundraisers are often bogged down by administrative tasks (often not related to their major gift work).

Here’s what you can do:

• Delegate administrative work where possible.
• Give major gift fundraisers more time to build relationships with donors.
• Consider using built-in CRM tools for tracking or scheduling and offer clear expectations around donor cultivation.

If you want a high-performing major gifts team, the Major Gifts Intensive will help create the results you seek.

We help you team build systems for managing and cultivating major gifts effectively, ensuring that time is spent in the most impactful way possible.

Bottom Line: As the funding landscape shifts for many nonprofits with dynamic funding directives, strengthening your major gift program will position your organization to thrive.

A strong and sustainable revenue stream will provide the foundation for long-term success.

Now may be the perfect time for you to invest in strengthening your major gift efforts for a more sustainable future.

The 16-week Major Gifts Intensive will ensure your team will understand where to focus their time and energy. We will teach your team fresh models and structured frameworks for the “science side” of major gifts work while strengthening how they work with supporters, what we call the “art” of major gifts.

Find out more here, and we’ll hop on the phone with you to discuss your future success.