As managers, we all know we should be looking at the trends in our team’s performance – what’s working, what isn’t, who’s improving and who needs support. But pulling that together takes time most of us don’t have. I recently compared my team’s FY26 metrics against FY25 using the prompt at the bottom of this…

I’ve been saying it for a while: the most common mistake major gift fundraisers make isn’t a bad ask. It’s no ask at all. Gift officers spend months cultivating prospects they could have asked a long time ago. They keep adding touchpoints. Scheduling lunches. Sending articles. Waiting for the “right moment.” Meanwhile, the prospect is…

I’ve been saying it for a while: the most common mistake major gift fundraisers make isn’t a bad ask. It’s no ask at all. Gift officers spend months cultivating prospects they could have asked a long time ago. They keep adding touchpoints. Scheduling lunches. Sending articles. Waiting for the “right moment.” Meanwhile, the prospect is…

You had the meeting. The conversation went great. They seemed genuinely interested in making a gift. Then nothing happens. You get no response from the prospect in the coming months after multiple outreach attempts. Radio silence from them. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. But here’s what most of us get wrong about why…

Anyone who’s closed a major gift knows the truth: you didn’t do it alone. That transformational commitment? It was years in the making. It involved your president sharing a coffee with a prospect, a program director giving a behind-the-scenes tour, a board member making an introduction at just the right moment. Major gifts don’t come…

I am all about making more asks. So when I pulled my team’s metrics after three quarters, I wanted to see if the data backed up that idea. It didn’t just support it – it proved it. The fundraisers on my team who are at or above goal are the ones making the most asks.…

We just finished the third quarter of our current fiscal year. As a manager of a fundraising team, I wanted to get an overview of my team to see what is going well and what needs improvement with only three months left in the fiscal year. To help with this, I came up with the…

If you’re a major gift fundraiser, you know one of the most annoying parts of the job: entering contact reports after donor visits. It’s a task that always seems to get pushed aside. You get back from meetings, jump on calls, answer emails, and before you know it, a few days have passed and the…

If you manage a university board, you already know that the meeting itself is not the work. The meetings are obviously important, but if engagement only happens three times a year around a conference table, you’re not doing it right. Board members don’t just want to attend meetings. They want to contribute. And after every…

I believe great fundraising leadership happens in high-quality coaching conversations. The 1:1 meetings between manager and fundraiser should help drive performance, create clarity around priorities, and keep momentum moving on open proposals. Rather than spending time on status updates alone, the goal for managers should be to ask questions that help our fundraisers think strategically…