Principal Gifts & Campaign Leadership Gifts
Seven-figure conversations: institutional readiness, gift structuring, and the long partnership behind transformational gifts.
Through the K-12 Schools lens
A principal gift at this level for a school usually funds a building, an endowment, or both, and the head of school plays the CEO's part in the strategy memo while the board chair, often a parent or alumni parent, validates the relationship. The decision unit is frequently a couple who has already sent multiple children through the school, and the readiness audit asks whether the school's own strategic plan and gift acceptance policy exist before the ask, not after a board member gets excited about a number. Structuring is usually simpler than at a university, a current pledge plus a modest blended estate component, but the same discipline of writing the relationship down first holds.
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.
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