Practices for Major Gift Efficiencies

July 25, 2023

This article is related to a recently completed custom research project ABA conducted on behalf of a museum member. Our research team is always delighted to speak with members about tailoring research projects to your organization. To learn more or submit a custom research request, simply contact your member advisor or email us at info@advisoryarts.com. 

For organizations fundraising for multiple concurrent special projects, having effective communication systems for major gift officers is key to avoid over- or under-funding initiatives.

To explore how institutions build efficiency into their fundraising processes, we spoke to five science and cultural institutions and one university about their development team structures and procedures.

Some key findings from the report include:

• Project and fundraising alignment: discovery portfolios and focusing on segmenting prospects vs. long-term loyal donors is quite prevalent across organizations, and can help formalize the process to steward new relationships and build them up into bigger donors.

• Team communication and reporting: advancement communication teams seems to be among the most critical piece to free up gift officer time to focus on their portfolios and to avoid inefficiencies of multiple people working on the same report.

• Collaboration with other departments: creating touchpoint opportunities/in-person retreats with programming and education departments is critical to ensure that gift officers have the full picture of those departments’ work and can leverage those stories in cases for support.

Members can download the full research below.