Major Gifts- Donor Cultivation System

The most effective major gifts programs are those that are well thought out, systematic and properly executed, day in and day out. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) has created an excellent guide to help their member stations implement and manage a major gifts program. The guide should be adaptable for any organization involved in fundraising.

The guide is entitled “The Donor Cultivation System.” It is explained on the CPB website as,

“a collection of tools and instructions on how to use them that will take you from identifying donors through cultivating them to getting the gift. There are three principal tools in this system:

1. Prospect ratings tools

2. Moves management tools

3. Prospect call sheets

Some of these tools have more than one component. For instance, the moves management tools include a ratings grid for clustering your prospects—identifying those with the greatest potential—and a spreadsheet for tracking moves. These tools work together as part of a system, and the system is an integral part of this site.”

To access the guide, just click on the title to this post.

Fundraising- Helpful Hint #3- Major Gifts- Moves Management

If you are attempting to increase the results of your major gift fundraising program, Blackbaud, the parent company of a variety of fundraising software solutions including Raisers Edge, has a series of helpful white paper reports available. Their article entitled “Embracing Technology for Moves Management® Success,” is a particularly good place to start.

The article offers the following explanation of the Moves Management process:

“Do you visit prospects, create gift proposals, solicit individuals or organizations for donations, and cultivate and steward donors? The actions you take to bring in donors, forge relationships and keep the contributions coming are known as Moves, and Moves Management, simply put, is the system of policies, procedures and practices that directs these actions.

An effective Moves Management program will improve your bottom line and facilitate a number of internal processes. Look for an enhancement of:

• Constituent relationship management (CRM): Finding, analyzing and tracking constituent information to form personal, lifelong relationships with your donors.
• Solicitation strategy: Increasing the success of your efforts by targeting prime donor prospects.
• Program and pipeline management: Move prospects through successive pipelines: identify, qualify, cultivate and solicit — with the intent of progressively turning them into donors and predicting future gifts.
• Strategic analysis and execution: Evaluating your program in light of specific goals and objectives to ensure optimal results.

A successful Moves Management program increases the success rate of every solicitor action, communication and appeal. As with any new policy, procedure or process, however, it is important to begin with a foundation of solid goals and objectives.”

If you would like to read the entire article, just click on the title to this post.