A quick YES to your proposal may not always be the best answer.
Reflect on your last meeting with a prospective donor when you asked http://www.vinegarhillhouse.com/generic/ for $25,000 over five years. Receiving a YES response was terrific news – or was it?
Would it bother you, after you received the gift, to learn any of the following about your new donor?
He has a $1.3 million IRA.
She is about to inherit $860,000 from her late father.
They are getting ready to put the lake house up for sale.
He is planning to retire and sell the family business, including the building in which it’s located.
Worse, if you learn about a potentially giftable asset only AFTER it has been sold you’re already too late. Most major gift fundraisers tend to focus only on Part One of a successful gift discussion — what will motivate the prospect to say YES. Far too few pay much attention to Part Two of the conversation — how the gift plan might be structured — when the gift might be made, with what assets, in conjunction with what other considerations and triggering life events.
If you are only looking for the simple outright gift or pledge your own silo mentality limits you pretty much to gifts from income. Most really significant gifts are made from assets. If you are aware of what more is possible, if you’re competent to invite a donor-centered conversation about charitable gift planning just consider what the possibilities might include.
What is your plan to strengthen your knowledge base, to increase your competency as a major gift planner?