
Do This Before You Think About Nonprofit Donor Cultivation
December 20, 2024Major Gifts Ramp-Up Revolutionizes the Way Nonprofits Do Business is Stephen Nill’s review of the new book, Major Gifts Ramp-Up by Joanne Oppelt and Jimmy LaRose.
Next year will mark my 50th year in the nonprofit sector. Over the decades, I founded several thriving nonprofits and advised, as a consultant, more than I can remember. The publishing company I founded published over 120 books for nonprofit practitioners. I directly raised several hundred million dollars and indirectly, through programs I have established and advised, over a billion. I served as legal counsel to major philanthropists, foundations, and nonprofits large and small and taught other lawyers, through MCLE programs, the ins and outs of gift planning. I spent years as a contributor on nonprofit topics to several national cable news programs. Along the way, I have served on dozens of nonprofit boards.
So, believe me when I say that in all these years, so much of what is “new” is just a last-century approach clothed in razzle-dazzle.
In the years I was accepting book proposals, I was tough on authors. I would reject nine out of 10 proposals simply because they contained little to advance our thinking about fundraising or governance. Recently, even though she knew I was no longer accepting book proposals, a friend and author of several books that I have published, Joanne Oppelt, asked me to take a look at a manuscript she was cowriting with Jimmy LaRose, cofounder and CEO of the National Association of Nonprofit Organizations & Executives (NANOE).
Major Gifts Ramp-Up not only incorporated many of the more salient lessons I had learned in my decades in the trenches of fundraising and governance—rare enough in a single book—but took a giant leap forward by radically redefining the role of the organization’s CEO. Finally, bold, forward-leaning, out-of-the-box thinking!”
I’m glad I did. The manuscript for Major Gifts Ramp-Up not only incorporated many of the more salient lessons I had learned in my decades in the trenches of fundraising and governance—rare enough in a single book—but took a giant leap forward by radically redefining the role of the organization’s CEO. Finally, bold, forward-leaning, out-of-the-box thinking! I could not resist signing on as the manuscript’s editor.
The concept that grabbed me by the lapels was the idea of the “strong CEO.” In a nutshell, Oppelt and LaRose showed that the main impediment to a thriving nonprofit organization is the CEO’s focus on the organization’s programs rather than on developing resources to enable those programs. The authors do not neglect programs but insist that the COO oversee them in consultation with the CEO, unleashing the CEO to focus primarily on fundraising. Let me say that again: the CEO’s primary focus should be, according to Oppelt and LaRose, on fundraising.
Not only that, but they insist that the board allow the CEO to determine pretty much everything about the direction of the nonprofit, subject to the board’s broad approval. When they say strong CEO, they are not kidding. To be clear, this is not a model of an out-of-control CEO. The model incorporates outside financial and programmatic audits procured by the board to ensure financial and programmatic accountability. The board still plays a critical governance role.
The Major Gifts Ramp-Up model earns its place alongside a groundbreaking book I published not long ago, Personalized Philanthropy: Crash the Fundraising Matrix, 2nd Edition, by Steven Meyers, which a growing number of higher-education courses on philanthropy have adopted as the textbook. In it, Meyers shows us how to crash the fundraising matrix while working against the headwinds of a traditional governance system. He urges development offices to tear down their fundraising silos—which serve mainly the needs of the institution—to make donor aspirations their true focus. Meyers would do away with mere lip service to putting the donor first; he would have us actually put the donor first. As icing on the cake, he gives several examples of how to do that.
Oppelt and LaRose, on the other hand, show us how to crash the governance matrix. They would replace it with one that will truly enable the organization to meet its mission by providing the resources it needs to thrive. In their view, the nonprofit sector has largely failed to create the change it needs to solve the issues it addresses. They believe that if nonprofits are to solve the most vexing human problems of the day, they must scale and sustain their efforts. They postulate that cash acquisition is the highest priority an agency should have. Without funding, nonprofits die on the vine. Money is vital to achieving impact.
Major Gifts Ramp-Up makes clear what is elusive to many, providing a methodology that raises the millions charitable organizations need to solve complex social problems. It outlines a 13-step model that, when implemented, results in greater financial capacity to fund missional success.
Oppelt and LaRose put donors first, a theme consistent throughout the book. I was thrilled to read how they proposed to excite mission investors to get involved. I found their explanation of how to attract large-gift supporters to the cause refreshing. Well-written and easy to read, the book is a must-have resource for any fundraising professional, nonprofit executive, and board member.
As the years have passed, I have become focused on real change. Major Gifts Ramp-Up: Money is Oxygen—Without It Charity Can’t Breathe is a guide to the future I yearn to see.
Major Gifts Ramp-Up Revolutionizes the Way Nonprofits Do Business was first posted at JoanneOppelt.com
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