Part 1. Major Gifts Fundraising by Lawrence Pierce-Durance

Lawrence Pierce-Durance a.k.a “The Fundraising Dr.” 5 Part Video Series Discusses Major Gift Programs For Small and Medium Size Non-Profits with Budgets of $300,000 – $3 Million.

In training some 1500 nonprofit senior executives and boards, raising significantly more money almost always is the key issue facing them.
You’re watching the first video of the series where he takes the most common issues and questions that come up and then he’s going to touch on them for you the way he has seen it helpful with non-profits.
The first installment is going to deal with the statement… See if this fits you…
“Our organization has a small staff and it’s overworked now. It is unfair to ask them to do more…Really how important is a major gift program?”
That’s really where most organizations start with Lawrence but first and foremost. If things are going pretty well with your organization, If in fact you are receiving enough support generally to fulfill your mission to the people you serve then don’t mess with what Lawrence Durance is about to tell you… If it works don’t fix it!
But by the time Durance “The Fundraising Dr.” gets called in organizations have discovered they need more resources and if they need considerably more resources they have reluctantly come to the conclusion that more of the same won’t get it done and Lawrence believes major gifts can be a significant part of the answer.
Here’s an axiom in fundraising to help wrap your head around why major gifts are important. It’s excepted in successful fundraising programs with non-profits that where they have good non-profit, good fundraising program 80 percent of the money will come from about 20 percent of the donors that’s a fundraising fact of life.
In fact it’s a conservative fact of life that Durance has noticed in the last 10 to 15 years it’s more like 90 percent of the money coming from fewer than 5 percent of the donors. Those are the organizations in which I have first hand experience.
So if Lawrence Pierce-Durance the fundraising doctor gets called in to help he’s going to do a fundamental test just like a regular doctor would do but instead of checking your blood pressure and your meds, Lawrence Durance is going to…
Talk with Senior Staff and key board members and ask this simple question “What percentage of your fundraising time is devoted into your organization on the top 20 percent or so of your prospects?
Notice Lawrence did not say “how much time you are spending.” There are a lot of people who will say; you should spend so much time on fundraising…I’m not there. I’m asking of your fundraising time…how are you spending it?
And here are the answers Durance gets:

1. Few if any are spending a noticeable percentage of their fundraising time working to identify, cultivate and solicit the topic of their market.
2. What they are spending their time on is special events, grant applications, annual funds, donor acquisitions, mail appeal, etc.
3. So when we get that question answered, that they’re not spending much time on major gifts, I then say to the organization…this does not make you a bad organization by any stretch of imagination, but if you need significantly more funds; you’re gonna have to get in the game. The game is Major Gifts. That’s a hard fact of life for some. Some come to it joyfully and some come to it reluctantly. But you have to be in the game if you wanna have significant results.

So here is what I’m going to give as your first task. You need to go back to your organization, you need to think about how you can educate your staff and your board on the importance of major gifts. I would say what you wanna do is educate them to the importance you need significantly more money to get the job done to fulfill your mission.
On our next installment, we’re gonna be dealing with your case for support; why people should give you money. In particular, we’re gonna look at how do you make a case for support for major gift prospects in particular? Be consistent with your overall case for support.
In future installments, we’re gonna deal with how do you find major gift prospects if you don’t have them. We’re gonna talk about how do you find the time to do it? For now, take a look at how you can move on this first step.
If you want more information, go to my website and if you want to talk to me personally, you can contact me through that website. Have a great day and I look forward to visiting with you next time.
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