Best way to find new major donors
Major donors are the best way to bring in new donors.
Let me explain.
Think of someone who is a current major donor - this sounds like them:
· Raving fan of your organization
· Literally bought in with a major gift (whatever that amount is for you - $1,000 or $100,000)
· Want to help
Then you can reach out and ask them to identify folks like them who might be interested in learning more about your work.
Your best bet for growing your pipeline of donors is taking great care of the ones you have and asking them to introduce you to folks like them.
If you are not taking great care of your current donors, then you likely struggle to get them to make intros.
This is a great litmus test of the health of your donor stewardship - like how well you build relationships with people:
Are they willing to introduce their network to you and your organization?
If not, there may be a few things happening.
1. They might not have the best experience being a supporter of your organization. No regular updates on where the money went, limited, impersonal communication, essentially taking their giving for granted, etc. Maybe not on purpose! But, that is the impact.
2. They may not know or realize that you need new donors. I know this boggles this mind, but in the nonprofit world we are notorious for making assumptions. We assume that people know a lot of things about our work, about our why, about our organization and its needs they don't know. If you aren't crystal clear, don't expect people to read your mind just because you're a nonprofit.
3. They are just getting started with you themselves, it's too early yet for an intro to their network. This one is about understanding and reading the timing of something. Consider their overall experience and if it's just too soon. They need more experiences with your organization themselves before they include someone else along the journey.
I usually find there is a spectrum of nonprofit CEOs and fundraisers:
⬅️ 😬 Folks who build relationships and never ask for much <---> Folks who only ask for money and don’t build much of a relationship 🤑 ➡️
Here's the solution:
Increase the frequency and quality of donor communication with your top 20 donors, you can ask them for intros and for more money, and they will gladly do it. Beyond that, they will be more engaged as a donor themselves and will be proud to continue giving at even higher levels!
If you don’t know how to build a comprehensive and strategic major donor experience, I can help you. The results are six and 7-figure gifts in 6 months. And a lot more fun and confidence in your work.
If you want to double your impact in the coming 2-3 years and you need support in closing 6 and 7-figure gifts, I can help in my 1:1 program by creating a customized strategy to get your current donors to give their best gifts and create a new donor strategy.
This is for nonprofit CEOs who are already at $1M+ in annual revenue and have some individual donors or relationships with supporters who could give 6 and 7-figure gifts.
If that is you then get in touch for a no-pressure chat to see if it’s the right fit.
If you missed my recent workshop Bold Major Gifts Strategy for 2023, click here to watch! I already got one email from an attendee saying they closed a $125k gift from one donor after the workshop using the strategy I taught! 🤯
P.S. If you need help crafting your ask for $10k gifts and you're not quite at the 7-figure level yet, sign up for CourageLab.
