Engaging Major Donors beyond Patron Schemes

When creating a strategy for securing major gifts from one’s membership base, I recommend four steps.

• Identifying prospective Major Donors
• Making first contact
• Cultivation meetings
• Making the ask

From your membership base look for indications of those who:

• have financial capacity to make a major gift
• have affinity for your organisation
• have a propensity for philanthropy

Your prospects should be members who fit all three of these criteria. Think about how you might research indicators of these three at your desk, or in conversation with your members. We covered a few examples in our session, which you can watch back.

Life’s busy, so make your first contact with prospects really easy to engage with:

• keep your message short and snappy (so they read it!)
• give brief context to why you’re writing to them (eg I saw you booked a ticket to every production of our last season…)
• keep things on email so it’s simply for them to reply and offer an invitation to meet in person

Find a balance in this invitation between making it attractive and explicit about your intentions. You want the prospect to be keen to meet you, but understand that you’d like to discuss a gift. If you get this right, then you’ll fix lots of meetings, and only with members who are willing to consider a major gift.

Given this prospect is a member of yours and you’ll have done your research, you know that they fit your prospect criteria and you’ll have been doing great cultivation over the years. The goal of this meeting is therefore to close a gift.

Add value and build rapport. Make yourself an expert on whatever you’re planning to ask for a gift, either a project, or your organisation generally, and make sure that you demonstrate passion. Your member will love what you do, show them you do too.

Ask lots of questions, find out all you can about their specific interests, propensity, capacity etc to pitch your ask just right. Get back-up from senior leaders, artists, or other colleagues. This will add value to the prospect, makes them feel special and gives them the feeling of major donor relationship.

We discussed some examples of how best you can do this, while not depending too much on your colleagues’ time.

This is the most important bit! All the work you’ve done so far is a complete waste of your time if you don’t ask. No one volunteers a major gift. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Be resolved and confident that what you’re asking for is important and in making a gift you will be vastly improving the donor’s life, because of the fantastic experience your organisation will give them. If you don’t have that confidence, it’s time to find it. If you’ve pitched your invitation to them well, then they will be expecting you to make an ask, they’ll be disappointed if you don’t!

Your ask should be tailored to this person, based on all the intel you’ve gathered at desk and then in the meeting. You must be ready to pivot. Pick your moment and be direct, perhaps prepare a line you use to ask in advance. If you’re asking for a £10,000 gift, say that explicitly, don’t be shy.

Don’t be afraid of a NO, that’s allowed and leaves you to move on to all of your other prospects. Remember, if it’s a NO to this ask, it doesn’t mean it’s a no to everything, understand from them what project might be right for them in future. If you get a YES, thank them using the figure you’ve agreed at the end of the meeting and write to them immediately afterwards thanking them for the figure in writing to close that gift.

If you do it right, engaging new major donors should not only be productive, but also a lot of fun, for you and your donor. This is the start of lifelong funding relationships. Good luck!

Dominic has previously been Head of Development & Communications at English Touring Opera and Development Director at Spitalfields Music. As Executive Producer, Dominic oversaw the development of OperaUpClose from start-up, to a national and international touring company. He is a Trustee of Talawa, the foremost Black British theatre company and of StreetGames, a charity which harnesses the power of sport to create positive change in the lives of disadvantaged young people across the UK. He is a Governor of Rushmore Primary School in Hackney.