Major Gifts are Not Just for Bricks and Mortars
July 20, 2002 – by Gayle L. Gifford, ACFRE
Most of the organizations I have worked with, either as a consultant or as the Director of Development, haven’t had building or equipment needs upon which to base a capital or major gifts campaign. Yet all were able to institute effective major gifts programs.
Institutions with “bricks and mortar” have buildings or other forms of tangible property that donors can see and feel. Think colleges, hospitals, social service centers, land trusts, zoos, museums — you get the picture. “Bricks and mortar institutions” have a number of built-in advantages when cultivating prospects for major gifts:
- The idea of “bricks and mortar” is easy to understand — donors can visualize the kids in their classrooms, enjoy the birds and plants at the nature preserve, or appreciate all that extraordinary artwork at the museum.
- Donors can relate to how expensive it is to buy, build or maintain real estate so they asking for a large gift makes sense to them.
- “Bricks and mortar” symbolizes permanence and longevity. They evoke the donor’s belief that their gifts can make a lasting difference because the institution will be around for a long time (if not forever).
- And, of course, there are all those naming opportunities that provide donors with permanent public recognition.
Even if your major gift program isn’t for bricks, renovations, equipment or land, subconsciously, your donors will be more favorable to making major gifts to a project that feels as “solid.” Donors like to see their dollars produce substantial outcomes.
How do you motivate donors for major gifts when your nonprofit doesn’t have bricks and mortar?
If your organization does advocacy, outreach, public policy or education, it’s likely your programs aren’t wrapped around your physical plant or equipment. You definitely need to develop major gift opportunities that FEEL just as solid to potential donors.
Create investment opportunities that donors can visualize.
Here’s an example:
Unlike its more well-heeled conservation colleagues, this environmental watchdog group doesn’t own or buy land. Instead, its programs include research, development and promotion of environmentally responsible public policy, lobbying at the state legislature, and the thankless task of monitoring hundreds of requests for development, pollution and wetland alterations permits. Staff at the agency have always thought of their work under the general banner of environmental protection.
Fundraising has traditionally depended on membership dues and contributions to special appeals in the range of $25 to $100. Larger funding amounts ["major gifts" is not an appropriate term in this context] have largely been from foundation grants. The organization would not only like to [upgrade their lower-end donors to the] $500-$1,000 [level], it would also like to create opportunities and prospects for substantial giving at $10,000 or more.
In the last two years, the group has become involved in a number of advocacy activities to stop major commercial interests from purchasing subdividing thousands of acres of open space. It will never buy the land itself.
Instead, this organization is a leader in working with local and state officials to develop legislation to protect open space, recruit and train coalitions of activists, mobilize land purchasing groups and undertake extensive media outreach to alert the general public to the wider threat.
These activities present two great opportunities for developing a major gifts program.
1. Create a campaign: By totaling the three-year operating costs of anticipated legal work, public outreach, research, lobbying, policy development and related overhead, it created the Endangered Lands Campaign — with a goal of protecting 137,000 acres of land at a cost of $400,000 over three years.
2. Develop a special fund. This organization needs to rapidly respond to threats that emerge without prior warning. Since these quick actions could be costly, the organization named this action its Rapid Response Force. Then, to enhance fund raising and pay the cost of the fund, it created the Rapid Response Fund, with a goal of creating a standing reserve account of $200,000 that could be deployed quickly.
Each project provided a new opportunity to mobilize both major donors and special appeals to the larger membership list. Major gifts could be linked to naming opportunities or sub-components of the projects. For example, the largest gift could name the project (The Helen Smith Rapid Response Fund). Other named gifts could fund legal work, volunteer activity or other discrete components of the project.
What, then, are the critical elements of a program-focused, major gift opportunity?
- A solid-feeling project/program with tangible outcomes that donors can visualize, built by bundling interrelated program activities;
- A significant fundraising goal worthy of major gifts, built by combining direct program and related overhead costs, often over a multi-year period; and,
- An Urgency or time bound project — with a compelling name.
Setting up these projects requires a heaping dose of creativity and the ability to see familiar programs in new ways, and we’d welcome your examples, to share with readers in future issues — we will, of course, include the source.
This article first appeared in Nonprofit Boards and Governance Review at Charitychannel.com.
Gayle L. Gifford, ACFRE and her colleague Jonathan W. Howard at Cause & Effect Inc. help nonprofits from the grassroots to international create strategic change for a more just and peaceful world. With over 30 years of nonprofit experience, Cause & Effect helps nonprofit organizations with strategic planning, board development, fundraising and communications needs.