Building a Major Gifts Portfolio
Move from reactive asks to a managed portfolio: qualification, moves management, and a caseload you can defend.
Through the Healthcare lens
Capacity is the hardest signal to read responsibly in a healthcare portfolio, since this module's warning against inferring wealth from protected information applies with extra force around a patient's medical history; connection here means gratitude expressed after care, not anything drawn from a chart. Qualification sprints most often start from physician referrals and grateful-patient letters, and the loyalty signal, a family who gave small amounts for years even before any major medical event, is frequently the strongest predictor this module names. Portfolio sizing has to account for the emotional weight of each visit, so a hospital foundation officer often carries fewer active relationships well than this module's upper range would suggest.
Continuing education
1.25 points
Relationship Building · Securing the Gift
Learning objectives
- Qualify a prospect on the three signals of connection, capacity, and inclination, and explain why connection plus inclination outranks capacity alone.
- Size a portfolio from the hours available for relationship work and name the conditions under which a name comes off it.
- Run a two-week qualification sprint that sorts fifteen to twenty names into qualified, later, or released, with the reason written down.
- Write a one-page moves management plan with a stage, a working hypothesis, and the next three dated moves.
- Identify the moves that carried a loyal donor from a qualification sprint to a six-figure commitment over twenty months.
Designed for CFRE continuing education. Not yet accepted; no CFRE points can be claimed.
Lessons
- 23 min
Video lesson
Who belongs in your portfolio (and who doesn't)
III Discern · Current and Prospective Donor Research
- 19 min
Field guide· PDF
Qualification sprints that fill a caseload
III Discern · Relationship Building
- 20 min
Template· DOCX
Moves management plan template
VI Accompany · Relationship Building
- 16 min
Case study· PDF
Case study: a first $100K gift
IV Invite · Securing the Gift
This is members-only material.
Members get every lesson, template, and worksheet in all eight tracks, plus the support to put them to work in your shop.
More in this stage
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Annual Giving Systems: Calendar & Segmentation
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Annual Giving & Direct Response
Monthly Giving That Compounds
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