Principal Gifts & Campaign Leadership Gifts
Seven-figure conversations: institutional readiness, gift structuring, and the long partnership behind transformational gifts.
Through the Human Services lens
A principal gift at this level is uncommon for a shelter or food bank, and when the moment arrives the executive director usually fills every role this module splits among a CEO, a CDO, and a board chair at once. Readiness here means the unglamorous basics, an actual strategic plan, a board that gives, a gift acceptance policy written before it is needed, since a family considering a gift this size will notice their absence quickly. The decision unit is often simpler than at a university or hospital, frequently one couple and one attorney, but the strategy memo's discipline of tracking the relationship in writing matters just as much when the organization's whole future may turn on this one gift.
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
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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.