On March 20, Lisa Hoffman, social sector coach and consultant, led a conversation at Foundation Center West: A Day in the Life of a Major Gifts Officer. She spoke with two major gifts officers: Shernaz Polad Boga, director of donor engagement at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California; and Leigh Illion, director of leadership gifts at the San Francisco Marin Food Bank. Boga and Illion shared their experiences and best practices for succeeding in their current work cultivating and securing major gifts for their respective organizations. A recording of the event is available here.

Prospect research is the key to unlocking a veritable treasure chest of donor data. And with that treasure chest of data, your nonprofit can develop a well-informed strategy to cultivate, solicit, and steward your top prospects.

Major gift acquisition isn’t an easy feat. But, few things that are truly worthwhile are. So you have to be strategic about how you plan every stage of the process: from identification to cultivation to solicitation to stewardship. We'll focus on the first stage: prospect identification.

You don’t have to reach for the stars--like Oprah Winfrey--to find generous donors. Fundraising coach Paul Jolly says connecting with a good prospect is as easy as ABC.

There are two ways you can spot that you’re wasting your time with a bad fundraising strategy. Veteran fundraiser Armando Zumaya discusses identifying the true ROI of a fundraising campaign and developing relationships.

Something isn’t working with your planned giving program. You heavily invested in reputable software, recruited talented staff, and yet, the golden goose has yet to lay one single golden egg. Follow these three tips to develop a winning planned giving strategy.

Want to work smarter and not harder? Start a planned giving program. Begin with bequests, incite interest from stakeholders, and reach out for technical assistance as your program grows.

Donor-centered moves management is a major donor cultivation approach that combines love with a great management system to plan, make, and keep track of a targeted number of “moves” or “touches” per year to major gift prospects. 

Setting up an effective major gifts program in your institution may be a challenge, but there’s no reason for it to seem impossible. Here are four myths that Armando dispelled with ample humor at Foundation Center San Francisco’s Open House last month.

Did you know you’re 85 percent on your way to securing a gift if you can get your prospect to agree to a visit? The hardest part of fundraising is getting the visit. Here are some specific tips that will help you get in the door from coach and consultant Claire Axelrad.