Major gifts from dedicated donors provide the lifeblood for many nonprofits. But identifying and building relationships with these donors requires significant investment of time and resources. While in-depth, in-person conversations are the gold standard for major gift work, they are simply not scalable or realistic for all donors.
Surveys can be an effective tool for broadly engaging more donors and discovering those with the capacity and interest in major gifts. Asking the right questions in a survey helps donors articulate what they care about in a low-pressure way and gives fundraisers valuable insight into their motivations and values. With this information, fundraisers can then focus their efforts on the most promising survey respondents.
For example, questions like “What causes or issues do you care most about supporting?” or “If you had extra time or resources, what societal problems would you want to help solve?” encourage donors to envision their ideal impact and giving. Follow-up questions requesting a prediction of their likelihood to give a major gift to address the issues they identified can activate donors’ generous identities and make them more inclined to give.
While a survey will never replace in-depth conversations, it is a mechanism to start them.
Fundraisers should analyze survey results to identify major gift prospects, then schedule phone calls or virtual meetings to discuss the issues that matter to them. On these calls, fundraisers can share potential projects that match donors’ interests and ask open-ended questions to learn more about their motivations and vision for impact.
For donors who do not respond to surveys or meeting requests, fundraisers can nurture the relationship through regular communication highlighting the nonprofit’s meaningful work and impact. Over time, with a combination of broad engagement tactics and one-on-one cultivation, more donors may evolve into major gift prospects.
The key is using the right questions and a genuine spirit of inquiry to discover donors’ passions and show them that their input and partnership matters.
While potentially time- and resource-intensive up front, investing in these relationships and focusing on donor meaning can lead to transformational gifts that fund mission-critical work. Overall, nonprofit leaders must recognize that fundraising is not about what organizations need but what donors care about. Surveys and listening are two of the best ways to find out.
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