going solo Archives - Barbara Barron

How to Start a Major Gifts Program at Your Independent School

Barbara Barron — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 12:05:36 +0000

April 7th, 2021 by Barbara Barron

Let’s begin with a definition of terms.

What is a “major gifts program?” A major gift program is an ongoing part of a mature and robust advancement program. It is different from the Annual Fund or a capital campaign in that it does not necessarily have a specific timeline, launch, or end date. It is not something we attempt to get everyone to participate in. It is designed narrowly, intentionally. So it usually operates under the radar of most people in our school’s community.

A major gifts program is comprised of specific, often highly tangible projects that require big funding. Projects that exist outside of the annual operating budget. I like to describe them as being the thing(s) that the school’s program wants to do, as opposed to what it must have to function. These projects target the ways a school intends to grow, expand, even flourish. It fixes vitally important issues but rarely are these “urgent” issues.

What kind of projects are best for a “major gifts program”? A major gifts program is most often used to fund something called capital improvements or a capacity-building opportunity.

Take the long-overdue renovation of the faculty lounge, for example. This high traffic area – pre and post-Covid – says a lot about the ways we value, or don’t value, our teachers. New carpet, appliances, seating, lighting – these are all capital improvements. They will make a world of difference to the people that touch our children’s lives. Daily. It is not an urgent improvement, but I’d argue that it is a vital one.

Other times, a capital improvement is the overhaul or expansion of a particular program. Maybe your school needs to broaden the foreign language program from three to four offerings. To do that would mean hiring a professional and building out a curriculum. Both are not currently in the budget. Enhancing your curriculum like this would require funding for a couple of years until it gets its legs. The operating budget will ultimately be able to support this program as enrollment increases but in the interim, a “capacity build” like this will be needed to get it up on its feet. Another vital but not urgent improvement.

There are more examples of ways major gift initiatives can make a big difference. I’ve raised major gift dollars to invest in donor research – in other words, discovering who and where our potential supporters are. I’ve raised money to purchase a new database so that we can better organize and track our activities. I’ve even raised money to reduce a school’s debt. The trick is that a major gift project needs to, well, be major. It needs to have the potential to have a significant impact. That puts it on our project short list.

How many projects should we be working on at any given time? Typically you want to have 3 to 5 projects at any moment so you have a short menu to offer to donors (more on that in a second). Each project should be pretty expensive but not all are the same level of expensive. Think range. And remember, they should be vital, but not urgent. Work with your Director of Finance, Head of School, and other key leaders to identify the most exciting, impact-heavy projects you can. Look for variety.

Now that you have a couple of great ideas and know the price range for each, it’s time to go find some angels to bring them to life. That’s where the program gets its energy. This is where all your thoughtful cultivation pays off and allows you the opportunity to meet with some leadership prospect donors. This is your chance to share the vision you have for the projects and all the benefits your school will enjoy from them. You now have the opportunity to ask for significant gifts to make change possible, and your donor gets to experience making a huge impact. Yummy.

How do I start asking for money? You don’t. Not yet. First, you have to figure out who you’re asking. A successful major gifts program needs to be carefully and narrowly crafted. Like I said before, it is not for everyone. The first step, before you go out there and start making the case for your program, is to set the entry-level gift.

How do I know where to set the “entry-level gift” for my program? In designing a major gifts program, I urge the Head and the finance and development pros to set the entry-level gift amount high. At some schools that might be $50,000. At another, it might be $250,000. (Or more.) Resist any pressure you receive to make it more accessible. This is not the place for that important value. Breathe. Have faith.

In most cases, we will find the prospects for this program in our Annual Fund. It makes sense. Use the Annual Fund to assess which families have greater capacities to give. Take note of the savvy family who, as they enter the school, asks “So, what’s on the horizon for the school?” Or even clearer, and we’ve all heard it: “What do you need?” Well, funny you should ask… Love them. But in most cases, your prospects for this know you well, you know them well. In other words, you’ve done the cultivation and stewardship work to earn the opportunity to bring this possibility to them. That takes time. In fact, think of major gifts as a long game. Plan, budget, and staff for it that way.

Okay, now that I know whom I’m asking, and how much I’m asking for, how do I make the ask? This is actually the easiest part of a blossoming major gifts program.

I’ve written extensively about the challenge of making your Annual Fund case come to life. I’ve preached on the importance of talking about the myriad benefits a school receives because of support from the Annual Fund — rather than focusing on a school’s needs. With major gifts, making that case is much, much easier. We get to offer donors what they love best: tangible projects with an immediate impact. A major gift for the faculty lounge can be put to use over the summer so when the teachers return — voila! Donor research funded by a major gift can allow the development team to find and begin to cultivate alums with huge capacity, instantly — voila! The expanded foreign language program empowers the admission team to recruit the students interested in this offering but who would otherwise enroll at a peer school – voila! Major gift projects all have an impact that the school and the donor can experience right away. Just be sure you don’t allow this special gift to take the place of their ongoing Annual Fund support. This is always above and beyond annual giving.

The stewardship opportunities in a major gifts program are enormous. And rich. And fun! We get to work closely with donors, keeping them engaged throughout the process, and in doing so, build deeper relationships, knitting them ever closer to our schools. It’s so rewarding, for everyone. If you’re curious about the ways you might get better at making big asks, I’ve written extensively about that very thing: “How Do We Prepare for the Biggest Ask of Our Career?”

I hope that by reading this, I’ve made a strong argument for you to get your own major gift program started. Perhaps you’ve already had one for a while, and that this piece will nudge you to reinvigorate it.

To tell you what you already know, none of this will be “easy.” It takes time and commitment to get a good program started. It requires all the best practices in our fine profession: access to good information, a decent database, enthusiastic buy-in from our Head and Board, as well as support from the Director of Finance. We will need someone on the development team with the skill and bandwidth to get this puppy up on its feet, find and solicit the families who can support it, and then deliver world-class stewardship to those who do. It is not easy work; it is deeply rewarding work.

If this sounds like what your school is ready to consider, I can help. Feel free to take a look at my articles for any further guidance. Or, if you have specific questions, my inbox is always open – barbara@barbarabarron.com.

As always, stay well,

Barbara Barron

barbara@barbarabarron.com // @BBAdvancement

How the 2026 Mid-Term Elections May Impact Our Fundraising & What We Can Do About It June 7, 2026
Success Story #4May 26, 2026
What Can We Do About Our Changing Parent Donors?May 11, 2026
Success Story #3April 24, 2026
How Can You Set Yourself Up So That Next Fall is a Huge Success?April 14, 2026
Metrics That Matter vs. Metrics That Don’tMarch 16, 2026

The post How to Start a Major Gifts Program at Your Independent School appeared first on Barbara Barron.

Let’s Hear it for the One-Woman Development Office

Barbara Barron — Sat, 20 Feb 2021 11:58:45 +0000

March 10th, 2021 by Barbara Barron

Please note that this article is intended for the eyes and ears of the Heads of School and Executive Directors out there. Read on, dear development pro. But then forward this on to your leader, with my best wishes.

There she is, toiling away in her tiny office. Can you see her, in your mind’s eye? She’s deftly handling all aspects of the organization’s fundraising activities. She’s launching appeals, entering data, recording gifts, pumping out acknowledgment letters, planning events, and fielding requests from a volunteer. Someday soon, we hope, she’ll be driving her own car to Target to pick up cases of sparkling water and boxes of brownie bites for the next parent gathering. And my favorite: making name tags. So glamorous.

Who is this one-woman-band of a person? Why, she’s the solo development department – of course! And while she definitely deserves our gratitude and applause, what she really needs is our respect… and some help.

Independent schools all over this country rely on the work of solo practitioners – development offices of one. With tight budgets and eagle eyes scanning for unnecessary expenses, we understand why it happens.

But if we take a deeper look, we might come to a different conclusion. We may even move towards a completely different model. One that supports these fine professionals by giving them the resources and support they need to continue to survive. And by survive, I – of course – mean thrive.

After all, for schools and many other non-profits, gifts are the only source of non-tuition (or non-service) generated revenue we have. It is what we count on every year to make the magic happen in our program. For those fortunate organizations that have amassed a significant endowment, or have sizable physical plants that garner big ancillary income (say, summer camp programs or special event rentals), the pressure on gifts is less intense. Somewhat. I’ve never seen or heard of a school so well endowed (if you will) that they don’t also go full-court press on raising annual dollars.

For the one-woman shop, that work is all hers. Most of us who get into this line of work do it for the opportunity to have an impact. We want to help. To serve. There are notable exceptions, sure, but most of us are not out for fame or to always be the center of attention. So, while many of us are ok sacrificing fancy office digs for the good of the program and the support of our teacher colleagues, there comes a point of no return that I see too often.

Great advancement professionals are burning out. They are tasked with too much, without adequate compensation, recognition, or support. They are lonely and underappreciated. It’s a bad look. And our schools are hurting because of it.

How this is operationalized and the ways we can fix it are two sides of the same coin.

The fix regards communication. In other words: who has what information about the current roster of families at our school. There is a natural and healthy tension about who needs to know things. Discipline issues, for example. An illness in a family. A student struggling academically or emotionally. Every situation is, of course, unique. But in too many schools, there is a virtual wall that prevents the advancement professionals from being in the know about these sensitive situations.

What’s the harm? Well, let’s say that our beleaguered one-woman development professional happens to call on the family in distress on that very day. Maybe she’s calling to ask for a donation for the annual auction. Or to remind them, as they requested, of their next pledge payment. Bam. Blindsided. And in addition to our pro feeling absolutely terrible for the insensitivity, this makes the school look heartless, disorganized, and out of touch. I’ve been in that situation and it is awful. So much for building and caring for relationships.

This is totally avoidable, my friends. Sharing confidential information is imperative. It needs a thoughtful procedure, for sure. But it’s not like development folks don’t handle and keep all kinds of highly confidential information every day. It’s what we know how to do. Instead of being left out, we need to be trusted by our colleagues. And we need our Heads to create and insist on a process that loops us in.

Similarly, it’s vital to share information about newly admitted families early on in the process. This gives the one-woman development team a chance to learn more about them and to prepare for the eventual hand-off of these families to the ongoing relationship manager. Oftentimes our admission colleagues – again adhering to confidentiality and healthy boundaries – are reluctant to share intelligence, making it much more arduous for development to do the necessary and standard work of research.

As forward-looking organizations, we need to break down those silos and start seeing this work as the collaboration it should be: welcoming new members of the community and cultivating what we hope will be our next generation of donor change-makers.

Naturally, much of this important refashioning of systems requires our Heads (and Boards) to see the issue and the consequences of continuing to isolate and minimize development. Especially when it is a one-person operation.

To make that process clearer and easier, here are some additional, specific ways to start to make vital changes. Changes that will help us keep good people longer. Changes that will build a more effective advancement model that benefits everyone:

1. Give your one-woman development team access to family information in real-time, from all key players. Make sure your development pro is in the room and at the table — for all the reasons stated above.

2. Create communication systems that respect privacy but also ensure there are no gaps in your one-woman team’s knowledge so you minimize the risk of painful gaffs. This is a clarification and expansion of item number one. It’s not enough to dump a spreadsheet on her. Your information-sharing system needs to be both thoughtful and consistent.

3. Train new Board members to follow the one-woman development team’s lead in matters of cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship. Insist that trustees and other volunteers report back on all donor interactions in a timely manner so that our one-woman development team can do her job. Keeping track of and serving as air traffic control is a major part of the job description. This will make it doable without the elevated risk of burnout.

4. Offer ongoing professional development opportunities to your one-woman development team. Send her to conferences. Provide professional coaching. Encourage her to engage with peers at other organizations to share best practices and learn new techniques. If she is going to be at the center of your fundraising world, arm her with the most relevant and up-to-date information we have.

5. Find the resources to pay your one-woman development team what she’s worth. Maybe find a way to add another team member (!) so she can occasionally get out front behind a screen and meet and make connections with families, or call on alumni, or sit with donors to learn more about their interests and passions. Give her the breathing room to help the school deliver on its inspiring mission.

And finally:

6. Give your one-woman development team her own office, and put that office in a highly-visible area. This is a far more central issue than simply where someone sits to do their work. Too often, development offices are squirreled away, literally in a basement or another off the beaten path part of campus. It is highly counterproductive to hide our development office. Why? Because what it says to our community (parents, teachers, other administration, students – also known as future alumni) is that the office and the work being done in it is unimportant – at best – and distasteful or shameful – at worst. That is the opposite message we should be broadcasting. Instead, we should be loud and proud about the evidence of philanthropy at work in and for our organizations. We should celebrate generosity. And we should demonstrate that we are grateful for the hard and noble work of the professionals that make it happen.

These are the kinds of simple but substantive changes that will grow our programs, whether they be one person shops or ten-person offices.

This global crisis has shaken up our schools in so many ways. These solutions are doable and can change your whole world in a matter of weeks. There’s never a better time than now to invest in your advancement program and grow the vital resources we need to deliver on the mission.