NW Collaborative Toolkit

The Midlevel and Major Donor Toolkit

The Midlevel and Major Donor Toolkit is designed to serve as a short guide for nonprofit organizations that play a pivotal role in advocating for policies, rights, and resources for various marginalized and underserved communities. Progressive nonprofits can face numerous challenges. These can include political pushback, limited funding, opposition from powerful interest groups, and the vast scope and complexity of the issues they tackle. Like all nonprofits, progressive organizations rely on grants, donations, and fundraising campaigns to finance their operations. Many of them have effectively used social media campaigns, grassroots organizing, and innovative online tools to rally support and donations. As organizations seek to diversify their funding, it is important to not become over reliant on grants and instead, incorporate an individual giving strategy that includes midlevel and major donors. What is a midlevel and major donor? That answer will vary from organization to organization. That is discussed further in the toolkit.

Expectations

Use this stage to learn more about one another and share more information about the organization. Although learning about each other is a two-way street, for midlevel and major donors, you want to listen to them very carefully during this stage, so you can further tailor your conversation to their interests. Otherwise, you risk losing their interests which could make them a bit uncertain about giving or renewing their gift.

Share personal stories about the population you serve or other stakeholders such as volunteers and staff.
Use this opportunity to initiate communication from board members, staffs, or volunteers to nurture a prospect by having them send a follow up email should you not initially get a response.

Expectations

Complete information on how and when you need the donation.
An exact amount or bracket of the amount you need from the donor in comparison to your overall funding gap.
Details of how the funds will be used.
How this charitable donation will benefit the community served as well as the donor.
- This can include public recognition (events, social media, website, annual reports, recognition at events, etc.)
- Invitations to exclusive events
- Networking Opportunities
- Access to Information and Expertise

DON'T

Ask the wrong amount. If someone gave $250, do not ask them for $5,000.
Ask to support another program/cause. In your discovery call, if they like Program A, do not ask for a donation to support program B.
Ask the incorrect way. It is best to make significant asks over a call or in-person. Try to avoid email or texting them. The misuse of an inappropriate giving channel can result in a lowered gift, the same amount, or no gift at all.
Ask at the wrong time. You do not want to over ask in a short amount of time, and you do not want to wait too long to make an ask.

Community centric fundraising is a movement to evolve how fundraising in the nonprofit sector. Its goal is to support fundraisers and other nonprofit professionals to re-examine every fundraising philosophy and practice they have been taught, engage in vigorous ongoing conversations, and explore doing fundraising in ways that reduce harm and further social justice.

Drawing upon a set of principles as guidance, the CCF movement prioritizes the community as a whole over individual organizations, fosters a sense of belonging and interdependence, approaches work holistically, and encourages mutual support between organizations.

CCF prioritizes relationships over transactions and focuses on trust and mutual respect for sustainable fundraising. CCF moves the entire community into the center of efforts for outreach, recognition and decision-making. This differs from some of the other models used in fundraising. Sometimes, fundraisers employ a purely donor-centric approach and try to cater to a donor’s individual needs. This can reduce the impact of gifts if donor interests do not align with the greatest needs of the community. Or, fundraisers only recognize donors’ financial contributions and fail to acknowledge those who provide other critical resources, like time or expertise.

In practice, community centric fundraising can look like:

Community Dinners: community members can cook, share, enjoy meals, and strengthen form neighborly bonds. The dinner can be a “pay-what-you-can” model to be inclusive.
Collaborative Partnerships: Partner to receive a portion of sales from a local restaurant or coffee shop to support your organization or program.
Youth Engagement: Involving youth as part of your fundraising events not only provides leadership opportunities, but it instills a sense of responsibility and community services.

For midlevel and major donors, it is important to engage them in your activities as a way of focusing less on them, and more on the population your organization serves. It also gives this segment of donors the opportunity to see the impact of their gift which in turn, can yield in a renewal or an increased amount of their gift.

There is no one size fits all model. There may be moments where you want to give your donors a more exclusive experience which is appropriate, understandable, and perfectly ok. Just do not be afraid to extend opportunities of engagement for your segment of donors. Once you learn more about your midlevel and major donors, over time you will be able to engage them in a way that is mutually beneficial and
meaningful to both them and the population you serve, prioritizing the needs of your community first and fulfilling the focus of the mission.

1. Value: Name a value that has deep meaning for you and/or organization

2. Connect: Why does that value matter? How does it connect to who you are?

3. Violation: How has your value been violated? Describe the issue it caused. Who is to blame? Be specific.

4. Bold solution and vision: What is your (or your orgs) bold vision for correcting the violation? How will it improve the conditions of your community, family, or you?

5. Action Step: What action steps need to be taken to manifest the bold vision and solution?

In 2022, individuals remained the largest share of donors, representing 64% ($319.04 billion) of all US giving ($499.33 billion). However, individual giving decreased by 13.4% in inflation-adjusted dollars from the previous year, making it the greatest decline in individual contributions when accounting for inflation since 2008. 1 In addition to a decline in dollars contributed, the number of individual donors also declined in 2022, continuing a trend seen in recent years.

$319.04 Billion Amount given by individuals in 2022.
-6.4% Decrease in individual giving from 2021 to 2022
64% Percent of all charitable giving by individuals

According to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project’s (FEP), the total number of donors declined by 10% in 2022. 22 However, charitable giving remains concentrated among wealthier donors, who show more moderate decreases in charitable giving. According to the FEP, decreased donor participation was driven by declines in contributor engagement resulting from insufficient acquisition rates and retention.

With the Great Wealth Transfer in motion and many Americans over 55 years old opting to pass down some of their estates while living, the younger generation’s wealth and philanthropic capacity are on the rise.

Between 2016 and 2022, the average Millennial household annual giving increased by 40% from $942 to $1,323, contrasting the decrease in average annual giving from Generation X (-4%) and Boomers (-12%) during this same period.

With younger generations increasing their philanthropic giving, nonprofits continue to focus on understanding their preferences and motives.

Having a compelling mission and opportunities for deep organizational engagement have proven critical for nonprofits to capture this growing donor base, as younger generations report being part of something bigger than themselves as a significant driver of their philanthropy.

AVERAGE ANNUAL HOUSEHOLD GIVING BY GENERATION

Generation Z (Born 1997-2021): $747

Millennials (Born 1981-1996): $1,323

Generation X (Born 1965-1980): $1,220

Baby Boomers (Born 1946-1964): $2,568

Where are prospective major donors found?

Finding prospective major donors is a crucial part of the fundraising strategy for many nonprofit organizations, campaigns, and other entities. Prospective major donors can
be individuals, businesses of all sizes, foundations, or other entities capable of making significant financial contributions.

It is important to do prospect research for many reasons. The first reason is to learn about the people around you, and that’s where spending the time to research a prospect can really be of value. When engaging potential major donors, it's crucial to
focus on building genuine relationships to understand their interests, values, and motivations. Tailor your pitch to show how their donation will make a real, lasting impact. Remember, many major donors are motivated by a mix of altruism and a desire for recognition, so find ways to honor and acknowledge their contributions in meaningful ways.

Rating your prospective donors will help you determine who is more of a warm lead as opposed to a colder one. One of the ways you rate your donors is by assessing three key areas: Affinity, Capacity, and Propensity. iWave is a wealth screening tool that supports this rating.

1. Affinity = Is this person passionate about your cause and nonprofit organization?

Consider exploring a foundations dataset, such as GuideStar. You can learn about your prospect’s affiliation with foundations (including both private and public charities) in Canada and the US. You can also learn if your prospect or donor sits on the board of other nonprofit organizations or if they have connections with board members.

Remember that a prospect giving their “time” is also a great indication of philanthropic tendencies.

2. Capacity = How much wealth can this person afford to donate?

Capacity is a broad topic with a lot of perspectives and a lot of
customization per organization. It’s not only about the data. Strong communication is key. Determine what information the gift officer needs and what they have. They may know of other indicators of a more qualitative nature.

3. Propensity = Has this person given to nonprofit causes before?

Determining propensity for prospects requires a healthy amount of skepticism and due diligence. Unlike internal-focused research, your prospect research tool gives you access to external records of past giving to organizations other than yours.

Existing Donors Review your current donor list. Some donors might be willing and able to give more than they currently do, especially if they understand the impact their larger donation could have.

Wealth Screening There are services that can evaluate your current donor database and identify people who have the financial capacity to make larger gifts.

Peer-to-peer Referrals Engage your board members, current major donors, and other key stakeholders in the process. They might know other potential donors in their networks.

Professional Networks Groups like sororities and fraternities, chambers of commerce, and other professional organizations are filled with civic-minded individuals, many of whom might be potential major donors.

Alumni Networks Especially for educational institutions, alumni can be a key source of support.

Local Businesses and Corporations Many businesses are interested in philanthropy, both for the good of the community and for the positive publicity it can bring.

Foundation and Grant Directories These can help you identify foundations that might be interested in supporting your cause.

Special Events Hosting or attending galas, auctions, or other fundraising events can help you meet potential major donors face-to-face.

Community Leaders Engage with prominent individuals in your community. Even if they can't donate themselves, they might be able to introduce you to potential donors.

Research Read local business journals, magazines, and other publications that highlight successful individuals and philanthropic efforts.

Philanthropy Databases Resources like the Chronicle of Philanthropy often highlight major gifts and can give you an idea of who is donating to what causes.

Online Platforms and social media Sites like LinkedIn can help you identify and connect with potential donors based on their affiliations and interests.

Financial Advisors and Estate Planners These professionals often work with individuals who are considering making charitable contributions as part of their financial or estate planning.

Why segment donors?

Personalized Communication: Donors are more likely to respond positively to communications that feel personalized to them. Segmenting donors helps in tailoring messages to specific audiences, increasing the chances of a favorable response.

Efficient Resource Allocation: By understanding the characteristics and preferences of different donor segments, organizations can better allocate
resources where they'll have the most impact.
Enhanced Engagement: Different donor segments may require different engagement strategies. For instance, first-time donors might benefit from a welcome series, while major donors might appreciate more personal communication.
Improved Retention Rates: By segmenting donors and tailoring outreach efforts, organizations can improve donor retention rates and build lasting relationships.

Using the Donor pyramid

General rule of thumb, based on the Donor Pyramid, you are likely to have more smaller dollar gifts that will serve as the base of your giving. As you move up the pyramid, the number of gifts become fewer, but the gift amount is higher.

It is recommended that you segment your donors according to the following depending on how sophisticated you want your Midlevel and Major Giving Program. Segmenting your donors allows you to create a thoughtful donor engagement plan as well as be strategic with staff capacity.

A donor profile is a document that summarizes the characteristics, preferences, motivations, and behaviors of a prospective or existing donor. It supports you in tailoring your communication, engagement, and stewardship strategies to their interests and needs.

If you want to go the extra mile and capacity exists, try to go the extra mile and research if you can extract your donor’s values and not just their demographic information.

Once your donor segments are established, investigate their values and see what comes up. Values are the beliefs, principles, and standards that guide their decisions and actions. They reveal what matters most to them, what motivates them, and what they expect from you. You can research donor values by using various methods, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, social media analysis, or donor feedback you’re able to obtain from your meetings. The goal is to find out what they care about, what they support, and relevant and not often discussed, what they oppose.

Once you have a good idea of their values, create a values statement. Value statements are concise and compelling sentences that describe the core values of your donor segment. They should capture the essence of what drives them to give, and how they want to make a difference.

For example, a value statement for a donor segment that supports environmental causes could be:

"We value the health, safety, and dignity of our domestic workers, and we want to create a narrative that encompasses the intersection of families, work, care, and a safety net that benefits all."

The value statements should be the focus of your profile, as they will help you craft messages and offers that resonate with your donors. Creating a donor profile is not a one-time task. You should regularly review and update your profile, as your donors may change their values over time, or as you learn more about.

The individual donor prospect profile template is created to assist your organization with new donor prospects. It is best to learn, understand, and involve your donors so you can know how to engage them in your organization. It is important to appreciate your donors and not only value them for monetary purposes. Part of ensuring value is understanding they are humans first and not money machines.

When you secure an email, call, or in-person meeting with a prospective or existing donor, it is important you study them based on the information you were able to obtain above. It is endearing and demonstrates interest in the donor as a person, and it also feels good when
people remember things about you and your family. Understanding who they are is important to further deepen the relationship and build trust.

The template below is a starter list that starts with your warmest leads and builds out to cooler leads. Oftentimes, development teams are some of the slowest to develop at organizations which makes capacity limited although the need for money is high.

That said, it is totally ok to begin with 1-2 midlevel or major gift prospects to not overwhelm yourself. Allow this list to ease you into the process and work your way through thoughtfully and slowly. Feel free to add this to an Excel sheet and add
relevant fields to build out a comprehensive list.

Volunteers

Volunteers add an immense amount of value to organizations. They are donating their time, love, and skills. They can also donate money and become a strong midlevel or major donor. Don’t be afraid to invite volunteers to your soiree or gala as
a guest, and not as a worker.

Have conversations with them and really get to know them. You may discover some of your volunteers may have the capacity to give at a midlevel or major donor level. Based on your conversation, cultivate them like you
would any other midlevel or major donor

You have a prospective major donor. What do you do now? Some of those on the Prospect lists generated in building your list will require cultivation before you can realistically expect a major donation from them. Others, however, should already be sufficiently cultivated.

Many fundraising databases allow for tracking this level of contacts or “moves management” with regards to individual donors. Otherwise, it can easily be tracked in Excel if it’s limited to a reasonable number of prospective donors.

In general, whoever is managing the major donor list for the organization should be making a monthly pass through all prospects being cultivated and determine if the time is ripe to officially solicit them. In some organizations, though, almost all major gifts solicitations happen during specific campaigns, in which case this evaluation should happen during the preparation for the campaign.

How often do you cultivate a prospective or existing donor?

For those prospects you have decided require cultivation before solicitation, a general rule of thumb is to “touch” them with cultivation 4-6 times before a solicitation. This
includes both the more personal cultivation tactics and less personal mass communications.

A mixture of tactics is healthy. Donors will sometimes invite solicitation; in which case you shouldn’t delay. If the donor brings up the subject of a donation, you should provide them with the best way to give to your organization or campaign.

Once they’ve donated, you want them to have an ongoing, steadily deepening relationship with both you and the organization, so you should steward that relationship. Stewardship requires repetition in gratitude.

For anyone who’s taken the time to meet in person with you, that means a handwritten thank you. Even for major gifts that otherwise come in, a handwritten thank you is advisable. The alternative: a phone call thank you when the gift comes in. Be sure to include any information appropriate for tax purposes in their acknowledgement letter. Good stewardship and good cultivation are very closely related in tactics.

Wealth screening tools help nonprofit organizations and institutions identify and prioritize potential major donors by evaluating their financial capacity, philanthropic tendencies, and connection to the organization. These tools analyze data from various sources to give a comprehensive view of a donor's wealth, giving history, and propensity to give. Here are some of the popular wealth screening tools available.

When selecting a wealth screening tool, it's essential to consider factors such as the depth and accuracy of data, the ease of use, integration capabilities with existing donor management systems, and cost. It's also a good practice to periodically validate and clean your data to ensure that you're working with the most accurate and up-to-date information.

Now, many groups, particularly at the grassroots level, may not have the funds to utilize some of these wealth screening tools. It is perfectly fine to use an Excel spreadsheet, as many established groups still use, and use Google and word of mouth/relationships. Will Google take longer? Potentially, but you also may find more information while surfing the internet that some wealth management tools may not have.

WealthEngine This is one of the most popular tools. It uses data from over 60 sources to provide info about a donor's wealth, giving history, real estate holdings, and more.

DonorSearch This tool focuses on philanthropic history as an indicator of future giving potential. It also provides information about a donor's wealth, business affiliations, and board memberships.

Blackbaud Target Analytics A product of Blackbaud, this tool offers a range of prospect research solutions including wealth screenings, custom modeling, and data enrichment services.

iWave iWave compiles philanthropic and wealth info on donors, allowing organizations to understand their capacity, propensity, and affinity to give.

Windfall This tool specifically focuses on identifying affluent US-based individuals with a net worth of $1 million or more.

Prospect Visual This tool emphasizes relationship mapping, helping organizations understand the connections between prospects and current donors or board members.

Data Axle (formerly known as InfoGroup) While not strictly a wealth screening tool, Data Axle provides extensive data on businesses and individuals, which can be useful for prospect research.

LexisNexis for Development Professionals This tool pulls data from numerous sources to provide information about an individual's assets, business ties, and philanthropic activities.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools have become increasingly essential for nonprofits as they seek to manage donor relationships, track fundraising efforts, and streamline operations. Progressive nonprofits are no exception. These organizations often aim to maximize their social impact through better engagement with supporters and efficient management of resources.In the nonprofit sector, there are quite a few customer relationship management (CRM) tools available and you can speak with client service representatives to find the best option for your organization.

When selecting a CRM, progressive nonprofits should consider the platform's flexibility, scalability, integration capabilities, and pricing structure. Given the evolving nature of progressive causes and campaigns, it's also beneficial to look for CRM tools that offer features to engage younger audiences, like integrated social media management and peer-to-peer fundraising capabilities.

Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) Salesforce offers this tailored CRM solution for nonprofits. It helps organizations track donors, volunteers, and beneficiaries and
integrates well with various fundraising tools. The NPSP is highly customizable and can be adapted to suit the unique needs of progressive nonprofits.

Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT A comprehensive solution geared towards fundraising and donor management, it's especially useful for larger nonprofits looking to handle
complex donor relationships.

NeonCRM This cloud-based CRM is designed for nonprofits of all sizes. It includes donor management, membership applications, event registration, and more.

EveryAction It's especially popular among progressive political campaigns and nonprofits. It offers donor management, digital fundraising, advocacy campaigns,
volunteer management, and more in a unified platform.

CiviCRM An open-source CRM developed specifically for nonprofits. CiviCRM offers constituent management, event management, email marketing, and more. It's customizable and can be integrated with platforms like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.

Bloomerang A newer entrant in the CRM space, Bloomerang focuses on donor retention. It provides insights into donor engagement and tracks interactions to help
nonprofits understand and retain their supporters.

Salsa Labs It offers two primary products - Salsa Engage (for marketing automation, fundraising, and advocacy) and Salsa CRM (for donor management). This platform is ideal for progressive nonprofits looking to engage their audience both online and offline.

Kindful It provides donor management with integrated fundraising tools and analytics. It also integrates easily with many other software solutions used by nonprofits.

DonorPerfect A fundraising software that offers donor management, event registration, and other necessary tools for nonprofits. The platform is customizable and scalable.

Zoho CRM for Nonprofits While Zoho CRM is primarily a tool for businesses, they offer special pricing for nonprofits. It's versatile and can be adapted for various nonprofit
requirements.

The Midlevel and Major Donor Toolkit

Table of Contents

Definitions

What is a Midlevel Donor?

What is a Major Donor?

What is a donor (or fundraising) lifecycle

Core 5 Stages of a Donor Lifecycle

1. Identification (aka Prospecting)

2. Qualification

Values-Based Donor Profile Template

3. Cultivation

4. solicitation

solicitation Action steps

5. Stewardship

6. Retention

7. Upgrade

Community Centric Fundraising

Values-based storytelling

Individual Giving Donor Data

GIVING FROM YOUNGER GENERATIONS CONTINUES TO INCREASE

MidLevel and Major Giving Prospecting

strategies and places to identify these donors

How to Establish Your Individual Giving Levels

Using the Donor pyramid

Values - Based Donor Profile Template

Individual Donor Profile Template

List Building

Cultivating Mid-Level and Major Donors

How often do you cultivate a prospective or existing donor?

Stewardship

Prospecting and Planning Tools

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tools

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