Building a Major Gifts Portfolio
Move from reactive asks to a managed portfolio: qualification, moves management, and a caseload you can defend.
Through the International NGOs lens
Connection is genuinely hard to build at a distance, so this module's three signals shift weight: inclination, does this donor respond, ask questions, take the call, becomes the most visible evidence available when a donor has never set foot in a program country. Qualification sprints here often start with the sponsor or monthly donor whose gift has never lapsed in years, since sustained giving from a distance is itself a strong loyalty signal. Portfolio sizing has to account for time zones and travel, so an officer managing international donors well often carries fewer relationships than the domestic range this module gives, since each meaningful touch takes longer to arrange.
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
Donor Communications & Stewardship
The Case for Support That Writes Itself
One master case document that powers every appeal, proposal, and conversation, built from your mission's real evidence.
Annual Giving & Direct Response
Annual Giving Systems: Calendar & Segmentation
Graduate from one-off appeals to a segmented, scheduled program with lapsed-donor recovery built in.
Annual Giving & Direct Response
Monthly Giving That Compounds
Sustainers are the closest thing to endowment a small organization has. Launch and grow a program built to last.