In Mistake #79 from 101 Biggest Mistakes Nonprofits Make And How You Can Avoid Them, I tackle one of the most frustrating mistakes we see in major gift fundraising…
Whenever I walk into a development office and see gift officers sitting at their desks I know there’s a problem. The goal of every development officer should be to be out in the community visiting with donors, building and enhancing relationships, and advancing those relationships for the benefit of the organization.
However, some organizations place other unnecessary burdens on their Major Gift Officers – like managing events, filling out excessive paperwork on each donor, promoting the organization’s social media campaigns, etc. This is the absolute worst kind of waste of talent and opportunity.
Think about it this way: In a single eight hour day, a Major Gift Officer can likely make two or three in-person contacts and another two or three contacts via phone. On the low end, each of those donors they’re engaging might give anywhere from $2,500 – $5,000, whereas on the high end of the spectrum, they might be talking to donors who can each give $50,000, $100,000, or even seven-figure gifts. The return on investment for the time spent with those donors will be anywhere from 10:1 to 100:1. That’s huge impact!
Now contrast that with asking that same Major Gift Officer to spend half her day in the office with non-essential, non-donor-focused tasks. The return on investment for that time is going to be less than 1:1. That’s direct mail new donor acquisition ROI – and it’s a terrible use of your top talent!
Roy Jones, CFRE at Mercy Ships told me recently that he’s restructured the way his entire major gift team logs their donor contact reports. Instead of asking each gift officer to fill out a lengthy document of their contacts, he’s shifted to a very quick and easy reporting mechanism that they are only asked to complete once per week, on Fridays. That, among other changes, has freed his team up to spend more time out in the field with donors. The result is that Mercy Ships is raising more major gift money than they ever have before – and they are experiencing double-digit major gift revenue growth year-over-year.