How to Ask a Major Donor for Money

Knowing how to ask a major donor for money is a fundamental part of any successful fundraising campaign. The key to a profitable approach will be understanding your donors inside out, what motivates them, and how to strike a chord with them.

Access to key donor data allows your fundraising team to craft a bespoke proposal for all your major gift donors. This helps each potential major donor understand the impact their donation will make, how your nonprofit aligns with their values, and why your nonprofit deserves their donation.

1. Understand Your Donor

Understanding your donor is key to securing a significant donation for your campaign. This is because fundraising isn’t as simple as shooting out generic emails and hoping donors will bite. The most successful charitable organizations understand the importance of tailor-made donor outreach that appeals to each major donor’s philanthropic interests.

Crafting a successfully targeted appeal requires access to a huge amount of data including potential donors’ giving capacity, affinities, and values. This is where Kindsight and their iwave donor database come in. This database—the largest in the industry—offers real-time, actionable donor data to allow nonprofits to reach out to the most promising donors with the right message at the right time.

This capability, coupled with an AI-powered content creation tool, empowers nonprofits to create highly personalized donor outreach messaging that aligns with the insights the database provides. These two tools work together to ensure your donor outreach is targeted, time-effective, and reaches the prospects most likely to engage. These prospects may ultimately become major donors over time.

Remove the Guesswork from Approaching Major Donors

More and more organizations in the generosity sector are turning to technology to take the guesswork out of their donor outreach. 2021 comparative research into the potential and risks of using digital technology in fundraising noted that automated workflows save nonprofit workers time in tasks like internal reporting, admin tasks, and donor identification (page 12 of the PDF).

Essentially this means that using the right nonprofit technology transforms nonprofit workers’ everyday tasks from monotonous, desk-based tasks to a much more active and involved role. This means they can invest their talents into more pressing, human-facing tasks like advocacy and outreach, disaster relief and response, or community building.

2. Prepare the Perfect Pitch

The best way to establish trust and confidence with a major donor is to deliver the perfect pitch. This will require inside-out knowledge of your nonprofit, its mission, and the scope of past and future campaigns. In other words, pitching to a major donor should only be left to the best and most experienced in your organization.

A key part of being prepared for a meeting with a major donor (or a prospective major donor) is to rehearse your pitch and anticipate the many paths a meeting with them could take. Ensure you fully understand your talking points, practice how to counter probable objections graciously and be ready to frame how you ask for a donation in the most appealing way for them.

All of this will require time and practice. Plan everything down to a tee, from the small talk you’ll make at the beginning to how you’ll transition into your ask. Focus on making every aspect as smooth and efficient as possible. Remember, a major donor is likely busy and engaged in many different initiatives. Practice your pitch to be friendly and personable without taking up too much of their time.

3. Create the Perfect Environment

Donors are most likely to feel comfortable and in safe hands when they see familiar faces. Many nonprofits will send an executive director and board member to meetings with important donors. While this is a good strategy, it’s always best to make at least one of them someone the donor already knows and has an established relationship with.

Remember that much of what nonprofits do is about relationships. Major donors want to feel looked after and valued. Sending someone with a strong pre-existing relationship with a donor is already a great start and conducive to a long and fruitful relationship.

Think About Where to Hold the Meeting

Think carefully about the best place to hold your meeting. Use what you already know about your donor to decide whether to suggest meeting up at their home, office, or another convenient place for them. Some may be willing to go to you, but this should only be an option if they suggest it. Seek a quiet place where you can get their full attention to ensure all eyes are on you, your nonprofit fundraising campaign, and how a major donation will help move your mission forward.

4. Warn Your Prospect that a Pitch Is Coming

A major donor may suspect that a donation request is coming when you propose a meeting. However, it’s poor etiquette to catch them off guard or lead them into thinking you’re meeting them for another purpose.

Be transparent with major or prospective donors and let them know that you’re interested in talking about how they can contribute to your nonprofit fundraising efforts. Make it clear that even though you’re interested in them or their organization, your visit has a greater and very specific purpose.

5. Engage Your Potential Major Gift Donors

Keeping your major donors engaged is a must and may require original ideas. After all, big asks require big moves. Reading the bullet points off a PowerPoint simply won’t cut it with most major donors and will fail to engage them with your mission.

Many presenters like using resources like PowerPoint as it makes them feel safe and ensures they don’t forget any key details. However, this approach lacks the human touch that fundraising is all about. Your donors want to see your passion, knowledge, and how their donation will truly make a difference. This won’t be achieved by reading through a presentation, but rather by engaging them personally.

As we discussed earlier, this becomes easier with practice. When you’re well prepared, you know you won’t fluff your lines and will face your meeting with the confidence of someone who’s done their homework.

This could be the place to dare to be bold. Try to provoke interesting discussions, reactions, or even debate with the conversation you bring and the questions you pose. Leave forgettable, formulaic encounters behind and make the interactions you have truly meaningful.

6. Ask for a Specific Amount

Asking for a specific amount may seem counterintuitive to some. However, this is the best way to go as you take the burden off the donor to figure out how much would be most appropriate for a donation. Suggesting an amount also allows you to explain the exact impact of the donation and ensures all your hard work and preparation is rewarded with the amount you need to make a real difference.

Securing Major Gifts: A Foundation for Impact

Successfully cultivating major donors is critical for the long-term sustainability and impact of any nonprofit organization. Building meaningful relationships, crafting compelling narratives, and demonstrating a clear path to impact are essential for securing significant philanthropic support.

Approach major donors with respect, authenticity, and a deep understanding of what motivates them to be an essential part of your nonprofit’s future. This will ensure you secure the resources you need to achieve your mission and create lasting positive change.