Here’s an enlightening exercise: Go through your database and identify your current donors who have made leadership-level annual gifts, current major gifts, and planned gift commitments. Next, do the following: For those donors who have made leadership-level annual gifts (whatever the amount as defined by your institution), determine the average age at which they made…
Month: August 2012
Is “Hard Data” The Best Way to Make Your Case?
In building a case for support for our institutions, advancement professionals typically rely on one of two approaches: a fact-based, quantitative, logical approach, or a story-based, qualitative, anecdotal approach. Depending on the predilection of the author of the message, a reader or listener quickly can see a fondness for one approach over the other. If…
Interruption or Opportunity?
True story. Yesterday, a major gifts officer at one of my clients received a call from the President’s office. Seemed the executive assistant had a man on hold who wanted to talk with someone about making a gift. The MGO took the call. Here’s what happened next. The man on the other end of the…
How Do You Respond When A Mistake Is Made With A Donor?
The gorgeously designed and perfectly-bound printed annual report was just mailed. It was a master-piece. It was a work of art. The VP’s pride directed him to fan out 5 copies of it on his coffee table in his office. And then his phone rang. It was Mrs. Donald, the lead gift donor during their…