---
name: major_gifts_fundraising
description: Run a major gifts program for a small team: define the threshold and gift range chart, qualify donors from giving history and public research with a transparent scoring sheet, write month by month cultivation plans, prepare and run the ask meeting, and steward the answer so trust survives yes, not yet, and no. Triggers on major gifts, major donor prospects, donor qualification or scoring, cultivation plans, moves management, the ask meeting, gift range charts, pledge follow up, or lapsed major donors.
---

# Major Gifts Fundraising

## Purpose

Give a small team a complete, honest major gifts system that fits in a spreadsheet and a calendar. The work is a cycle: identify, qualify, cultivate, solicit, steward, then cultivate again for the next gift. That cycle is Moves Management, the standard framework for major gifts, and this skill runs it with tools instead of slogans: a scoring script that shows its arithmetic, a gift range checker, a cultivation plan template with a worked example, and a meeting prep template that forces the ask into one sentence before anyone books the meeting.

A major gift is whatever your organisation defines as major. Set the threshold from your own giving data, commonly the level where a small number of donors account for a large share of revenue, and write it down. Every number in this skill is measured against that threshold, so the method works at a 5,000 threshold and at a 500,000 one.

## Workflow

1. **Set the threshold and test the goal against a gift range chart.** Pull last year giving, set the major gift threshold, and state the revenue goal. Build a gift range chart: how many gifts at each level the goal needs, and how many prospects each level needs because not every prospect says yes. Check the arithmetic with `python3 scripts/gift_range.py chart.csv --goal <goal>`. The worked chart in `assets/gift-range-example.csv` reaches 1,000,000 from 201 gifts and needs 606 prospects, at ratios of 4 to 1 at the top levels and 3 to 1 below it. If your chart is short, fix the chart or the goal before anyone cultivates a single donor. If you cannot name prospects for the top levels at the stated ratios, the pipeline is the problem, not the messaging.

2. **Build the candidate list from your own file first.** Start with current and past donors, board members, volunteers, event attendees, and program participants. Add names your board and staff can actually reach. Do not start with rich strangers. Your best prospects are almost always already in the database, hidden by the fact that nobody scored them.

3. **Score every candidate and read the flags.** Export the fields in `assets/donor-scoring-sheet.csv`, fill capacity estimates only where research supports one, and run `python3 scripts/score_donors.py prospects.csv --threshold <threshold> --out scored.csv`. The model scores capacity 35, giving history 25, affinity and engagement 20, and access 20, and it is built so capacity alone cannot qualify anyone. Read the method and the point table in `references/qualification-and-research.md` before defending a score to anyone. Treat the flags as assignments: capacity_unknown means research is owed, interests_never_asked means a conversation is owed, a lapsed flag means check the donor own giving pattern before calling them lapsed.

4. **Qualify in person before you plan an ask.** The score starts qualification, a discovery visit finishes it. In that visit confirm the three things research can only estimate: real capacity, real interest in a specific project, and the route to a decision, including who else the donor consults. Ask about their giving, what they want it to do, and what good stewardship looks like to them. Write up the visit the same day. Move the prospect to a band honestly: qualified, discovery, nurture, or not a major prospect now. A small portfolio worked properly beats a large one worked thin: 25 to 50 names for a part time portfolio, 125 to 150 for a full time major gift officer.

5. **Write one cultivation plan per qualified prospect.** Use `assets/cultivation-plan-template.md`. Name the project from the donor stated interests, the target amount with its reasoning, the pledge period, the target ask month, and 4 to 8 dated moves with owners. Plan on 12 to 18 months from qualification to solicitation for a typical prospect, faster only when the relationship is already close. Include at least one involvement step where the donor contributes time, judgment, or feedback, not only attention. Review plans monthly. A plan with no dated next move is not active, whatever stage the CRM claims.

6. **Run the readiness check, then prepare the ask meeting.** Solicitation waits until the donor has seen the work up close, met the people who will spend the money, talked about the project in their own words, and signalled something about timing or amount. Then complete `assets/meeting-prep-template.md` in full: the ask in one sentence with amount, purpose, and period, the amount reasoning, who attends and who makes the ask, the written proposal, the rehearsal, and a written plan for yes, maybe, and no. Follow `references/ask-meeting-playbook.md` for the meeting itself: private setting, no surprise about the purpose, the specific ask stated plainly, and silence after it while the prospect responds first.

7. **Close the gift on paper.** A yes becomes a written gift agreement covering amount, purpose and any restriction, payment schedule, recognition or anonymity, and reporting owed. Use the checklist in `references/ethics-and-agreements.md`. Send the official acknowledgement and receipt your jurisdiction requires, separate from the personal thanks, and put every stewardship report date in a calendar with an owner before you celebrate.

8. **Steward the answer, all three kinds.** Yes gets impact reporting tied to the specific gift, recognition exactly as agreed, and contact that continues after the pledge ends. Not yet gets the agreed next step kept on the agreed date. No gets thanks without argument, one learning question at most, and a move to a stewardship only track at the contact level the donor welcomes. Detail for each path is in `references/cultivation-and-stewardship.md`. Once a year, run the lapsed segments: LYBUNT, gave last year but not this year, and SYBUNT, gave some earlier year but not this year, and work past major donors in those lists with stewardship contact before any new ask.

9. **Report the program with pipeline numbers, not activity counts.** Monthly, report: prospects by stage, moves completed against plans, asks made with amounts, gifts closed with amounts, pledge payments received against schedule, and stewardship reports delivered on time. Compare closed gifts against the gift range chart levels. A month of many meetings and no stage movement is a warning, not an achievement.

## Output Contract

Deliver all of the following for a program setup or review:

- **Threshold and goal memo**: the major gift threshold, how it was derived from your giving data, the revenue goal, and the gift range chart as a CSV in the `scripts/gift_range.py` format, with the checker verdict quoted. A goal the chart does not reach is reported as unfunded ambition with the gap named plainly, with the shortfall stated.
- **Scored prospect sheet**: the output of `scripts/score_donors.py` for the candidate list, with every subscore visible, the band per prospect, and the flags. Prospects scored on invented capacity figures do not count. Unknown capacity is scored as unknown and flagged.
- **Portfolio assignment**: each qualified and discovery prospect with a named owner, a stage, and a dated next move. Portfolio size stated against the capacity guidance in step 4.
- **Cultivation plans**: one completed plan per qualified prospect, following `assets/cultivation-plan-template.md`, each with a target amount, its reasoning, a target ask month, and a dated move sequence.
- **Meeting prep packs**: for every solicitation scheduled, a completed `assets/meeting-prep-template.md` with the one sentence ask, the rehearsal record, and the three response plans.
- **Gift and stewardship records**: for every closed gift, the agreement checklist result from `references/ethics-and-agreements.md`, the acknowledgement date, and the stewardship report dates with owners.
- **Monthly pipeline report**: the numbers listed in step 9, with stage movement explained name by name for the top ten prospects.

## Operating Rules

1. **Capacity is not inclination.** A wealthy person who has never given to anyone is a research note, not a prospect. The scoring model enforces this. Do not override it by hand to make a portfolio look bigger.
2. **No surprise asks.** The prospect always knows the purpose of a solicitation meeting in advance. An ask the donor did not see coming trades one gift for the trust every future gift depends on.
3. **One specific amount, tied to one specific purpose.** Vague asks get vague answers. If the team cannot state the amount and defend it from the research, the meeting is cultivation, and it gets labelled and run as cultivation.
4. **Stop talking after the ask.** The prospect speaks next. Never fill the silence by cutting your own amount or stacking justifications.
5. **Research uses public and given information only.** Public records, published giving, and what the donor told you. No private financial data, no inferences about family members, and nothing in a file you would not say with the donor in the room. See `references/qualification-and-research.md`.
6. **Honour the Donor Bill of Rights and the AFP Code.** Gifts are used for the purposes given, information is handled with confidentiality, recognition matches what was agreed, and anonymity is absolute. Check fundraiser compensation against the current AFP Code before agreeing any of it. Full treatment in `references/ethics-and-agreements.md`.
7. **Staff give no personal tax or estate advice.** State the organisation tax status accurately, explain that deductibility depends on the donor circumstances, and point the donor to their own adviser.
8. **Never invent numbers about the sector.** Retention rates, average gifts, response rates, and wealth figures enter a plan only from a named source you checked, or they stay out. Your own pipeline numbers, computed from your own file, are the numbers that run this program.
9. **A no ends the ask, not the relationship.** Thank, learn at most one thing, record it, and steward. Pressure after a clear answer is reported in this skill as a failure of the program, not as persistence.
10. **If the evidence says the goal cannot be reached, say so in the report.** Name the level of the chart that has no prospects, state the shortfall, and propose the fix: more qualification work, a longer timeline, or a smaller goal. A plan that hides its shortfall will miss in public later.