5 Essentials for Cultivating Relationships with Major Donors

While every one of your top donors is different, there is one universal truth about major donors: they have an extraordinary impact on your organization. Their fundraising contributions help you move your mission forward in ways you could not achieve otherwise. This makes it crucial to build, navigate, and sustain major donor relationships strategically, starting with cultivation.

Major donor cultivation is the process you embark on when you discover a potential major donor and work to build a genuine relationship with them. In this article, we’ll pull actionable tips from Donorly’s major donor cultivation guide to discuss how you can find potential major donors through prospect research and develop strong relationships with them.

Cultivating relationships with major donors is a skill and an art form—and it’s completely possible for newer fundraising professionals to learn. Let’s dive into our tips so you can strengthen your approach and secure more major donors for your nonprofit. 

1. Start with in-depth prospect research.

Before you can cultivate donors, you need to determine who they are. Prospect research is the process of identifying potential major donors by evaluating an individual’s likelihood of giving a major gift to your organization. It involves looking for markers in three essential categories:

• Capacity (wealth): These markers signal that the individual may be in a financial position to make a significant contribution to your cause. Common wealth indicators include real estate ownership, business affiliations, and stock holdings.

• Affinity (warmth): Affinity markers demonstrate that a potential donor might be interested in or passionate about your cause. Political involvement, connections with your current donors, and past involvement with your organization can all signal sufficient affinity for your cause.

• Propensity (habit): Indicators like frequent fundraising event attendance, past donations, and board service all point to a donor’s habit of giving to charitable causes like yours.

Use your own database and other dedicated prospect research tools to search for donors with these markers. When you identify a prospect who displays all three kinds of markers, you know you’ve found a potential major donor with whom you can begin cultivating a relationship.

If you don’t have the bandwidth or experience to do your own prospect research, don’t worry. You can also work with an expert prospect research consultant who has the necessary experience and tools to quickly find prospective major donors and set you up to cultivate lasting relationships with them. 

2. Get to know prospective major donors.

In the beginning, building genuine relationships with major donor prospects looks a lot like the start of any relationship. You get to know them as people, as professionals, and as individuals interested in learning more about your nonprofit’s work.

Laying the groundwork for future contributions starts with getting to know your potential major donors and collecting data about their:

• Shared values: What do they care about most, and where do your values align? For example, they might value family, literacy, or access to clean water. Find out what they’re passionate about and connect with them over those things. Then, naturally relate these values to your mission and your nonprofit’s work. 

• Professional experiences: No matter what career your prospect has, they’re likely to talk about their education, career path, and other experiences that got them where they are today. If they have expertise that directly relates to your nonprofit’s work, note it so you can later ask for their advice once your relationship is stronger. 

• Preferred communication methods: Ask for your major donor prospect’s preferences about receiving emails, social media messages, phone calls, direct mail, and texts. Do they have a preferred channel or a preference about the time of day you contact them?

• Relevant details about their personal life: Some information isn’t critical to cultivating a relationship with a major donor but is still good to know. For example, knowing small things like the names of your donor’s children or their favorite place to meet up for coffee can be the extra touch that helps you build a lasting relationship with them. 

You’ll need to spend time with your new donor to gather this information. At first, it might be natural to email or talk on the phone, but eventually, in-person meetings are crucial. During these meetings, focus on the donor, ask genuine questions, and listen with interest. Take notes, then record the data you’ve collected somewhere safe—NPOInfo recommends keeping all major donor data in a centralized location like your nonprofit’s CRM for easy access.

3. Use data to personalize cultivation plans.

Cultivating a relationship with a major donor prospect takes time, effort, and thoughtful planning. That’s why you should create a personalized major donor cultivation plan for each of your prospects and incorporate the data you’ve collected. These plans will guide your relationship-building efforts and help you strategically connect with each person in the ways that will make the most impact.

What does this look like in practice? You might create a plan that includes each of the following elements:

• Personal phone calls and face-to-face meetings to get to know them better

• Regular updates about your work and most urgent needs

• Invitations to facility tours, VIP events, or dinners with board members

• Opportunities to deepen their engagement with your organization and get an up-close look at your work

• Casual check-ins to see how they’re feeling about their relationship with your nonprofit

Use these elements as a baseline, then flesh out your cultivation plan with data. For instance, say that a prospect named Mary regularly donates to a like-minded sustainability organization and even served on their board a few years ago. You might send detailed information about your latest sustainability initiatives and invite her to have dinner with your board members.

These personalized communications and opportunities will help set you up for a long-lasting relationship and, eventually, significant monetary contributions. 

4. Make your strategic ask at the right time.

At this point, you might be thinking, “I’ve put in a lot of work to build a relationship, but when do I ask for a donation?” 

This is a tricky question to answer. Asking for a major donation too early can make your organization look like it’s all about the money instead of all about its mission. On the other hand, asking too late may leave your donor wondering. The key is to find the sweet spot that works for each prospect. Whatever you do, make sure you’ve made a genuine effort to get to know the donor and have invited them to get involved before asking for a contribution. 

Once you determine it’s the right moment—whether that’s during the quiet phase of a capital campaign or ahead of your annual year-end campaign—you’ll need to ask the right way. Keep your team on the same page by setting solicitation guidelines like:

• Build a strong relationship before asking. Ensure that your relationship is secure enough that they won’t be surprised or offended by a large donation appeal.

• Ask in person. For a donation this large, it’s necessary to make your ask face-to-face and have a discussion rather than just sending an email.

• Tell an impact story. Center your story on a compelling character and demonstrate a conflict or issue that can be solved with the help of a major contribution. 

• Request support for a specific project. Use what you’ve learned about your major donor prospects to figure out which initiatives they might want to contribute to. 

• Personalize the appeal. The donor data you’ve collected during prospect research and cultivation should guide you in asking for monetary contributions of specific amounts.

• Prepare for all possible responses. Know what to say if the donor says no or maybe. They may not be ready to give yet, and that’s okay. Prepare alternative ways for them to contribute until the time is right to ask again.

Knowing when and how to make a donation appeal is part of solid, strategic fundraising. If any relevant team members don’t feel comfortable making a major gift solicitation, help them boost their confidence by practicing and receiving feedback from more senior staff or a consultant.

5. Include major donor appreciation and recognition in your plans.

Showing gratitude to your major donors is critical. This is especially important after they’ve given an initial major contribution. But your thank-yous shouldn’t end there! From the beginning of your cultivation efforts, build a variety of appreciation and recognition tactics into your plan.

While it isn’t necessary to build a donor wall every single time a major donor does something for your organization, you should always find genuine ways to thank them for their involvement. You might write a handwritten thank-you note after an initial meeting or send them a small gift basket during the holiday season to let them know you’re grateful for their involvement. Whatever they do to help your organization move its mission forward, make sure you thank them, even if it’s just a “Thanks for speaking to me today!” after a phone call. 

Genuine gratitude is the key to building rapport with a donor that can help your relationship stand the test of time. You’ll be surprised at how much easier it gets to invite your donor to get involved with a new program or to ask them for another major gift after you’ve worked to continually establish that your organization is grateful for all they do. 

Cultivating relationships with major donors is a long process that involves navigating the delicate balance between building a genuine relationship and asking for the contributions you need. Take things slow as you get to know them, and remember that all your efforts will be worthwhile when your nonprofit ends up with a loyal, long-term supporter.