Learn 9 major gifts best practices rooted in brand clarity and relationship-first fundraising, and built for nonprofits ready to grow sustainable donor support.
Major gifts fundraising is one of the most meaningful, yet most often misunderstood, areas of nonprofit development. It’s not about perfecting a pitch or hitting a number. At its core, it’s about building the kind of trust and clarity that invites people to invest deeply in a mission they believe in.
For us at BrandRaise, we believe sustainable fundraising starts with brand clarity. That when nonprofits know who they are, what they stand for, and how to communicate that with consistency and confidence, major gift conversations stop feeling transactional and start feeling relational. It’s also the foundation that we build major gifts strategies around.
If you’re thinking about dipping your toe or even taking a giant cannonball into major gifts fundraising, we’ve outlined out top best practices below. But a quick note – this is not about quick fixes or having a one-size-fits-all checklist. Each best practice reflects our core belief that fundraising and branding are inseparable, and that the most powerful donor relationships are cultivated long before anyone makes an ask.
Ready to approach major gifts with more clarity, confidence, and intention? Let’s dig in.
Table of Contents
Best Practice #1: Keep Relationships Top-of-Mind When Building Your Gift Table – Not Just Math
A gift table is a key strategic approach for any major fundraising campaign. By mapping out the specific number of donations needed at each giving A gift table is one of the most strategic tools in major gifts fundraising, especially when it’s treated as a relationship roadmap and not just a spreadsheet exercise. The mistake many organizations make is dividing their goal by donor count and calling it a plan. Except major gifts fundraising rarely works that way.
Successful campaigns follow a pyramid structure in that a small number of significant gifts carry the weight of the goal, and are supported by a broader base of mid-range contributions.
For a $100,000 campaign, that structure typically looks like this:
- 1 lead gift of $15,000–$17,000 (15–17% of the total goal)
- 2 gifts of $10,000 (together with the lead gift, roughly 28–30% of goal)
- 5 gifts of $5,000 (approximately 40% of goal reached at this level)
- 10 gifts of $2,500 (approximately 60% of goal reached at this level)
- 25 gifts of $1,000 (approximately 80% of goal reached at this level)
Here’s the insight that’s worth emphasizing: regardless of your goal size, 60–70% of your total will come from just 12–16 donors. That means your energy, attention, and relationship-building should be concentrated accordingly. And that once you’ve aligned on your gift table, you can use it to guide your major donor cultivation strategy. Your highest-touch efforts like personal conversations are likely going to be at the top of the pyramid.
A reminder that we have on repeat: Every gift counts and and every donor matters.
This isn’t about smaller gifts lower in the pyramid being any less important. But rather, matching your approach to the depth of relationships that is most often required for each level. And from that lens, it’s how the gift table can tell you who you to be in relationship with, and how.
Best Practice #2: Use Your Case Statement for Relationship Building
Your case for support is the most important document in your major gifts toolkit, but not just because of what it says.
Yes, a strong case for support should include your mission and vision, the community need you’re addressing, measurable outcomes, and a clear call to action, all written in a tone that speaks to your donor. But most organizations treat case development as a writing exercise that focuses solely on getting the message right so it can get out the door and be used for solicitations as quickly as possible. For us, the document itself is only part of the story. It’s the journey of getting to the end result that makes this document so valuable.
Every case statement we create for clients goes through a thorough validation process; it’s the cornerstone of our development. What think means is that we share the case with committee and Board members, and ask for their feedback. Then, we ask them to share it and gather feedback from a few people in their network. We believe that when you invite someone to engage with your case and ask for their perspective, you’re opening the door to an ongoing conversation. You’re creating a touchpoint and over time, those touchpoints build the familiarity and trust that make a future ask feel natural rather than abrupt. So that by the time an invitation is made, it’s grounded in shared understanding and earned trust.
Want to go deeper on case statement validation as a relationship-building strategy? Click here to read Why Case Statement Validation Matters More Than You Think
Best Practice #3: Stewardship Is How the Relationship Deepens
Every donation is a gesture of trust. Someone has decided they believe in your mission enough to invest in it, and what happens next determines whether that trust grows or slowly fades away.
Stewardship is how you honor that trust intentionally. It’s not about the next ask, but about creating a consistent, brand-aligned experience that makes your major donors feel seen, informed, and genuinely connected to your work long after they’ve given. When stewardship is designed thoughtfully, it transforms donors from one-time contributors into long-term partners.
We organize stewardship around four goals, and each touchpoint serves at least one:
- Appreciation
- Transparency
- Connection
- Reflection.
Before every interaction, the most useful question to ask is, “What do we want this donor to feel, know, or do as a result of this?”
The organizations that do stewardship well aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest teams or the most resources. They’re the ones who’ve built a repeatable system with clear touchpoints, assigned responsibilities, and consistent timing so that relationship-building happens by design, not by memory or chance.
For major donors especially, stewardship is part of the strategy. And it’s one of the clearest ways your brand comes to life because it has so many opportunities to emphasize how you make people feel.
Want to build your own stewardship plan? Click here to read How to Build a Donor Stewardship Plan That Strengthens Relationships
Best Practice #4: Use Your Committee to Build Awareness
One of the most common things we hear from nonprofit leaders starting their major gifts journey is some version of, “We don’t know anyone who could give at that level.” And when that’s the starting point, the instinct is often to look outward to wealth screeners, donor lists, and awkward Board conversations centered on net worth.
But that approach skips the most important part of major gifts fundraising – helping people understand your organization before asking them to invest in it.
That’s why, in our major gifts work, we use a single communications-focused committee where members engage by providing feedback. First by reviewing the messaging framework we’ve developed from the brand strategy, and then through the validation process. These members engage deeply with how the organization communicates its mission, impact, and vision. That engagement builds their own confidence and understanding, which in turn expands awareness through their networks in ways that feel relational rather than transactional.
Not every committee member will become a major donor, and that’s not the expectation. What matters is that each member leaves with a clearer understanding of your work, and the ability to discern if someone in their network needs to know about your work.
When committees are built around feedback rather than fundraising, awareness grows without pressure, which is exactly the kind of foundation relationship-based giving requires
Want to learn more about how we approach committee engagement? Click here to read Using a Committee to Build Awareness in Major Gifts Fundraising
Best Practice #5: Shift From Transactional to Relationship-Based Fundraising
There’s a tendency in fundraising to treat the ask as the main event; like the single important moment that everything else is building toward. But we think about the ask as just one moment in a much longer arc. What happens before and after matters just as much… if not even more.
Building a relationship with a major donor means showing up consistently over time. It means learning what they care about, inviting them into your work before you ask them to invest in it, and creating touchpoints that feel genuine rather than transactional. That cultivation process is the work.
When organizations shift from transactional to relationship-based fundraising, something changes – not just in the outcomes, but in how it feels throughout the entire process. Donors understand why the organization exists and why the work matters. Board members feel more confident initiating conversations. And the ask, when it comes, feels like a natural next step in an ongoing conversation rather than an interruption.
It’s also worth naming that the ask doesn’t have to fall on one person. We typically recommend that solicitations happen in pairs. It’s often the Executive Director or Development Director along with whoever has the strongest relationship with that potential donor. That way, fundraising becomes something the organization does together, not something a single person carries alone.
Want to go deeper on shifting from transactional to relationship-based fundraising? Click here to read The Future of Fundraising is Brand-Led and Relationship-Based
Best Practice #6: Map the Major Donor Engagement Journey Intentionally
Major gifts develop across a series of intentional interactions, with each one building on the last so trust and understanding can deepen. A donor engagement journey map makes that progression visible and plannable, so your organization isn’t just hoping relationships develop organically, but actively designing how they do.
The journey moves through five stages, and what makes this framework essential is that it starts long before an ask is ever made, and continues long after one is:
- Awareness
- Engagement
- Cultivation
- Conversion
- Advocacy.
Our approach also reframes how donors enter the relationship. Rather than leading with the mission and hoping it resonates, the entry point is a feedback request (like validating the case statement). A committee or Board member reaches out personally to someone in their network and asks for their input on a piece of collateral. This invitation shifts the focus to contributing something substantive that isn’t tied to a monetary amount, which creates a very different dynamic and builds trust from the first interaction.
From there, each stage has a clear goal. Engagement deepens emotional connection. Cultivation builds trust through consistent, personal touchpoints. Conversion honors a decision that has already been forming. And advocacy turns donors into champions who bring the next cohort of supporters into the organization’s orbit, making the journey a cycle rather than a finish line.
When your brand is clear, this map becomes even more powerful. Every interaction, from a first email to a long-term stewardship meeting, reflects who you are consistently. This opens the door for donors to recognize and trust your organization in a way that feels natural and lasting.
Want to learn more about donor engagement journey mapping? Click here to read Designing Your Donor Engagement Journey: Turning Connection Into a Strategy
Best Practice #7: Use Challenge Grants to Build Urgency and Deepen Engagement
A well-structured challenge grant is one of the most effective tools for accelerating a major gifts campaign. When a lead donor or foundation agrees to match gifts up to a certain threshold, it creates urgency, amplifies impact, and lowers the psychological barrier for other donors to give.
A few things worth knowing before you launch one. First, have an honest conversation with your challenge grant donor early to understand their expectations. Many want your organization to receive the funds regardless of whether the public fully meets the match. Knowing that upfront will affect how you structure and communicate the campaign.
Second, how you frame the challenge matters. Leading with impact like ‘your gift is doubled’ lands differently than ‘we need to hit a match.’ The former centers on the outcome of their gift; the latter centers the organization’s need.
Challenge grants work best when they’re tied to a clear campaign narrative, promoted across multiple channels, and supported by genuine donor relationships.
Best Practice #8: Your Next Major Donor May Already Be in Your Database
When the conversation turns to finding major donors, the instinct is almost always to look outward; new networks, Board introductions, or wealth screeners. And while those efforts have their place, they often overlook the donors who have already said yes and are hiding in plain sight.
Individual donors, even those giving at modest levels, have already done one of the hardest things in major gifts fundraising: they’ve made a financial commitment to your mission. That’s not a small thing and is actually the foundation a major gifts relationship is built on.
When did you last look carefully at your individual donor base? Not to assess capacity, but to ask who already has a relationship with your organization that’s never been intentionally deepened.
A few signals worth paying attention to:
- Who gives consistently, year after year, even at a small level?
- Who has a warm existing connection to someone on your Board or committee?
- Who engages specifically with one program or aspect of your work?
Those signals are likely already in your data. They just need someone to pay attention to them.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t about moving someone through another pipeline. But rather, leading with curiosity and seeing if they want to move to the next phase. Ask what drew them to the work, following up on what you learn, and let the relationship tell you where it wants to go.
Your next major donor may have been giving you $100 a year for a decade, waiting to be asked a different kind of question.
Want to go deeper on identifying and cultivating major donors from your existing base? Click here to read Turn Individual Donors Into Major Donors
Best Practice #9: Lead With an Abundance Mindset
Annual giving is the backbone of most nonprofit fundraising programs. It provides a reliable, recurring source of revenue to fund your core oFundraising has a way of bringing out scarcity thinking. Not enough donors. Not enough time. Not enough capacity. And when scarcity drives the work, it shows up in how you communicate, how you ask, and how you engage in donor relationships.
An abundance mindset isn’t wishful thinking. It’s the belief that there are people in your community who genuinely want to invest in your mission, and that it’s your job is to help them find their way to it. It’s not to chase them down or convince them of something they don’t already feel.
When you lead with abundance, a few things shift.
- You approach donor conversations with curiosity rather than anxiety.
- You build relationships because they matter, not just because you need something from them.
- You celebrate every act of generosity rather than fixate on the gap between where you are and where you need to be.
This mindset also has a practical effect on the people around you. Board members and committee members take their cues from organizational leadership. When an executive director approaches fundraising with steadiness and genuine belief in the mission’s value, that confidence is contagious. It’s worth noting that the opposite is true – when fundraising is approached from a place of fear or desperation, it’s also contagious.
The organizations that build sustainable major gifts programs over time aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest networks or the most resources. They’re the ones that have learned to fundraise from a place of clarity, confidence, and genuine connection, which starts with believing the support is there to be found.
Major gifts fundraising doesn’t have to feel overwhelming, but it does have to feel intentional. The practices we’ve listed are meant to be supportive tools for building something sustainable, and the right starting point looks different for every organization.
The through-line across all nine practices is the same: major gifts fundraising works when it’s rooted in genuine connection, consistent communication, and a clear sense of who you are and why your work matters. That’s not a trend. It’s what has always made people choose to invest in a mission they believe in.
Yes and, if you’re looking for outside support, we would to help. We walk alongside nonprofits at these kinds of turning points and help you connect your brand and your fundraising so that both become stronger and more sustainable over time. Our approach is customized to where you are, what your team can carry, and what your community needs. Learn more about our major gifts fundraising consulting services here.
Kelly is a passionate brand strategist and designer who loves supporting nonprofits on their mission to do more good work in this world. She’s seen firsthand the power of creating a consistent and cohesive brand – from building better connections with your audience to streamlining marketing and fundraising efforts.
