Major gift fundraising is essential for your university to thrive. Whether you’re conducting a capital campaign to construct a building on campus, launching new academic and cultural programs, or expanding your scholarship offerings, major gifts provide the financial foundation to further your institution’s success.

However, requesting thousands of dollars from your donors isn’t something to undertake lightly. Instead, your university needs to approach the process strategically in order to ask the right donors for the right amounts of money to fund the right initiatives.

In this guide, we’ll walk through three strategies your university can use to secure more major gifts, including how to:

1. Keep Your Donor Database Up to Date
2. Conduct Thorough Prospect Research
3. Build Relationships With Prospects

How you implement these strategies will likely vary depending on what type of institution you’re soliciting major gifts for. Every university has different needs and supporter preferences, so you’ll need to adapt your process to reach your specific goals. With that in mind, let’s dive in!

1. Keep Your Donor Database Up to Date

The first place to look for major donors is your university’s current donor base. In addition to identifying past major donors to reach out to again, you might discover other loyal supporters who have the financial capacity to upgrade their giving.

To make this process easier, DonorSearch recommends creating individual profiles within your donor database for each of your university’s current and prospective donors. These profiles should include key information about each donor, such as their:

• ‍Basic details: Full name, preferred name, pronouns, date of birth, contact information and preferences, status in relation to your institution (alumni, parent, retired faculty member, etc.)‍
• Personal history: Degree(s) and whether they earned them from your university, real estate holdings, stock holdings, community involvement, interests, values‍
• Familial information: Marital status, spouse’s name and profession if applicable, children’s names and other personal details, information on other relevant relatives‍
• Professional affiliations: Employment history, current employer, position, other business contacts‍
• Organizational connections: Giving history with your university, additional philanthropic engagement such as event attendance or board service‍
• Philanthropic ties: Giving and engagement history with other charitable organizations

Review and update these profiles regularly to ensure you can identify the correct donors to fulfill your university’s current major gift fundraising needs. Additionally, always follow data security best practices when it comes to your database so donors can trust that you’ll keep the sensitive information in their profiles safe.

2. Conduct Thorough Prospect Research

Prospect research is useful for expanding your university’s existing donor profiles and finding brand-new major donors to reach out to. The most important thing to remember with prospect research is this: While wealth is an important indicator of a potential major donor, it isn’t enough on its own to make someone a viable prospect.

Instead, your university should take a more holistic approach to prospect research. To get a complete picture of each potential donor, look for the following three types of indicators:

• ‍Capacity markers show that a prospect has the necessary resources to make a significant gift to your university. They include the donor’s real estate ownership, SEC transactions, business affiliations, and political giving history.‍
• Philanthropic markers demonstrate a prospect’s charitable tendencies, which can give you a general sense of their willingness to donate. These include previous donations to your university as well as gifts to other higher education institutions or nonprofits.‍
• Inclination markers help you gauge a prospect’s willingness to give to your university. A deep love for your institution, along with alignment between your current initiatives and their personal interests or values, can indicate their “warmth” when it comes to making a major gift.

Ensure your university is equipped with the best prospecting tools before you start. In addition to a comprehensive, accurate prospect research database, AI solutions that provide predictive modeling and prospect report generation can give you a more detailed overview of each potential donor and help you prioritize your outreach.

3. Build Relationships With Prospects

Asking for major gifts takes time and patience. Prospects will only make significant donations if they’re confident that your university will use the money to fund the initiatives that matter to them. They’ll also be more likely to give if they know you value them as individuals—after all, no donor wants to feel like an ATM with legs!

Here are some donor cultivation tips to try with your university’s major gift prospects:

• ‍Get to know them one on one. Have a member of your university’s major gifts team meet with each prospect individually, either in person or via video conference. Although the representative may take some time to get the prospect up to speed on your university’s current initiatives and recent accomplishments, they should spend most of the meeting listening to the prospect talk about their life, interests, and values.‍
• Follow up with them regularly. Use each prospect’s preferred communication method to send them more information about projects they expressed interest in and set up meetings with other staff or board members they may share connections with. Also, revisit the personal details the prospect shared in the initial meeting in subsequent interactions to show that you’ve made an effort to get to know them.‍
• Offer customized engagement opportunities. Inviting prospects to events or volunteer opportunities allows them to get a firsthand look at your work, which can inspire them to donate. Tailor these asks to each prospect’s interests and potential giving affinity. For example, let’s say a prospect enjoys the performing arts and may consider designating their major gift for that program. You could invite this prospect to an upcoming production and give them a private behind-the-scenes tour of the theater.

There is no set time to ask for a major gift—you’ll need to monitor your relationship-building progress with each individual prospect to determine when to make your request. Since most major donors restrict their contributions to specific projects or programs, approach the prospect with a gift designation that aligns with their background and values, and have a few backups in mind in case they turn down your first ask.

Your major gift fundraising efforts aren’t finished when a prospect says “Yes!” to your donation request. Proper recognition and stewardship are essential to keep major donors engaged with your university and set up the possibility of soliciting additional contributions down the line. Additionally, collect and analyze data on major gifts to determine what your university is doing well and where you could improve your process going forward.