Your Best Major Gift Prospects
Are Closer Than You Think

By Jennifer Furla, Executive Vice President
Kansas City

I have great news for you! There’s a place where you can find hundreds – or even thousands – of major gifts prospects.

That’s right! There’s a place – right within your reach – where you can find qualified prospects that will give gifts at major giving levels for your nonprofit.

It’s not a new donor research company or some new-fangled Internet-based prospect service.

That place is right within your own donor and prospect database. Your donors have already proven they are willing to support your Mission at some level. And, if you’ve done your work to cultivate and inform them, the potential donors on your prospect database have some knowledge of your organization as well as your Mission and the programs and services you provide to carry out that Mission – and change people’s lives.

So, why do so many of us spend a great amount of time searching out our community’s “usual suspects” to approach for major gifts rather than mining the vast potential riches that lie within our own organization’s resources?

That’s not to say that some time spent on understanding your community’s top givers and why they might give to you is not a worthwhile endeavor. But, in the process of doing this are you ignoring those who know you and who’ve already signaled that they care about what you’re doing?

Whether you have 300 … 3,000 … or 30,000 or more donors and prospects in your database, you are simply missing the opportunity to gain greater fruits for your development program if you are not incorporating in your weekly and monthly plan some time for “moving” these donors to greater giving levels.

And do this with some degree of attention to detail. A short story I hope will inspire you:

A museum was in the midst of a capital campaign. The development director was reviewing basic membership lists for potential campaign prospects. Among that list was the name “Sumner Redstone.” If that name isn’t familiar, Mr. Redstone is Chairman and controlling shareholder of Viacom and CBS Corporation. And his name had been resting in the museum’s membership rolls for some time at a level of less than $100 per year! After some work to contact Mr. Redstone and highly professional communications and contact, Mr. Redstone became a major donor to the museum’s capital campaign.

Now, we don’t all have Sumner Redstones in our databases, but who do you have who might be willing to make a significant investment in your cause? Remember The Millionaire Next Door. You wouldn’t know him to look at him, but that same millionaire is likely a member of post-World War II “Greatest Generation” and believes in charitable giving to the causes that are important to him.

It’s January. Make it your New Year’s resolution to take 10 names a month and personally contact those donors. Invite them to come visit your organization to see first-hand what you do. Learn what other causes they support and ask if there some element of your Mission and work that interests them. Help them understand your needs and how their investment can make a difference in changing people’s lives. Then, find ways to involve them in a deeper relationship with your organization: as a member, volunteer, special event supporter, or on your board or special committee.

Commit to devoting some time each week to make your list and fill your calendar with at least one or two all-important cultivation and relationship-building visits. Then, at the appropriate time, plan to make a personal solicitation to ask those individuals if they will consider increasing their gift for 2006.