(Major Gifts #1) How to Move from Transactional to Transformational Major Gifts

Hope your new year is getting off to a happy, positive start. 

Let me tell you how to ensure you and your team raise more in 2023 than last year.

This is the first of an email series that we’ll be sending you over the next three weeks – all devoted to helping you and your team expand into a full-scale, robust major gifts initiative at your nonprofit. 

One reason we’re sending out all this advice is to encourage you and your team to consider joining our Major Gifts Intensive coaching program. 

In the Intensive, you and your team will develop the systems, mindset, skills, and structure for a long-term productive major gift program that will deliver measurable results for years. Find out more here. 

From Transactional to Transformational Gifts 

If you are wondering why your wonderful $ 1,000-a-year donor just made a $100,000 gift to another organization, stop for a minute and think about your approach and your mindset.

Did you have conversations with your donor about your organization’s vision – and how that vision will change the lives of those you serve? 

We’re wondering – did you ask your donor what they think of your organization’s work, and why they care so much about your mission? Did you seek to understand their emotions and how they feel? 

And, in your approach to conversations with your donor, were you patient, calm, respectful, and listening? Did you follow up?

This type of approach is what leads to transformational giving. 

Donors want to give away their money. Their largest gifts align deeply with their values and how they see THEIR role in bringing about good for something they strongly care for. 

In other words, a donor’s largest gifts go where they feel they are making a transformational difference to some outcome. That could be an endowed scholarship; a new program; an enhanced program; a research fund and much more. 

To raise major gifts better known as transformational gifts, you have to be curious, kind, and all about the donor’s personal interests and values. 

You must understand what motivates your donor – what they value. That understanding only comes from the conversations you have with your donor about the donor! It requires a classic donor-focused approach. 

Bottom Line: The difference between transformational gifts and transactional gifts.

Are you all about the Gift? Or are you about the Donor?

Are you focusing on the money . . . or the person behind the money? 

Is it the transaction you want? Or the donor’s allegiance, care, and partnership?

Think again. Change your focus. Devote yourself to your donor as a whole person. Then they will do anything they can for you and your organization. 

Stay tuned for more emails this week on these topics: 

• How to Predict Your Major Gifts Pipeline This Year
• What Board Members and Executive Management Need to Know About Major Gift Strategy

Here’s to many more generous major donors for your organization!