Principal Gifts & Campaign Leadership Gifts
Seven-figure conversations: institutional readiness, gift structuring, and the long partnership behind transformational gifts.
Through the Healthcare lens
A principal gift in healthcare is usually a service-line or facility campaign's lead commitment, and the decision unit often includes the family's own physicians, whose credibility with the donor can matter as much as any adviser's. Structuring frequently involves appreciated securities or a family's business interest, and the readiness audit has an added layer: a clean audit and a strategic plan matter, but so does the hospital's clinical reputation in the specific service line the gift would fund. The CEO and CDO roles echo this module's case study closely, a family whose history with the institution runs decades and patience that outlasts a single campaign timeline.
Continuing education
1.25 points
Relationship Building · Securing the Gift
Learning objectives
- Define an institution's principal gift threshold and describe what changes above it: the donor's question, the decision unit, the time horizon, and the CEO's role.
- Recognize the forms a large gift may take, from appreciated securities and DAF grants to real estate and life-income arrangements, and apply the referral reflex for each.
- Draft a two-page principal gift strategy memo with a relationship map, a meaning thesis, a readiness checklist, a sequence, and team assignments.
- Run a quarterly principal review that rolls readiness gaps into an institutional to-do list and names which relationships advanced or stalled.
- Explain how a nine-figure lead gift's anatomy, loyalty noticed first, co-design before invitation, counsel on structure, translates to a smaller organization.
Designed for CFRE continuing education. Not yet accepted; no CFRE points can be claimed.
Lessons
- 25 min
Video lesson
How transformational gifts happen
III Discern · Relationship Building
- 20 min
Field guide· PDF
Gift structuring options explained
V Receive · Securing the Gift
- 18 min
Template· DOCX
The principal gift strategy memo
II See · Relationship Building
- 17 min
Case study· PDF
Case study: a nine-figure campaign's lead 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
Boards, Teams & Leadership
Running the Development Shop
Directing the work is a different craft than doing it. Plans, budgets, staff structure, and the operating rhythm of a healthy shop.
Capital Campaigns
Capital Campaign Readiness
Before the feasibility study, before the consultant: an honest readiness assessment and the two years of quiet work that make campaigns succeed.
Boards, Teams & Leadership
Hiring, Coaching, and Keeping Fundraisers
The average fundraiser tenure is 16 months. Build a team that stays: hiring for the real job, coaching the craft, and career paths that retain.