What can one big gift do for you?

Let me talk a little about City Club’s history. Last year was the first time the organization tried raising money, and its fundraising efforts brought in a couple thousand dollars. Not a lot, but a good first step.

This year, board giving was vitally important, and I approached it along the same lines as recommended in the book, with the exception that the board president took the lead and made the asks. I have a wonderful board president and she was happy to take this on.

Early on in the process, one board member pledged $1,000. This was a big gift for us. In fact, it was twice as big as the largest gift we’d gotten the year before. What was its effect?

After another few board members gave, our President was able to send an email to the board and write that with “less than half” of the board giving, we’d already raised $1800. It doesn’t take much to do the math there. This was a really good way to signal that the board should be stretching without having to really spell it out. We did get some small gifts (only a handful below $100) but many gave more than that. In the end, the board of 17 gave on average $219 each. That worked out to be more than we’d made in all of the annual efforts from the year before.

Best of all, we invited members in the annual appeal to “match the board” and made $219 the target.

Guess how much the first gift that came in was for? $219.

This will have implications in the future, too, because we’ll be growing from a strong point. “Last year the board raised $3,700. Let’s aim for $5,000 this year.” And we can tell new prospective members that the board on average gave $219. Our expectations will be high going in.

What would things have looked like if that early gift had been say $200 instead of $1000. Our average would be at least $50 lower per person. Fewer board members might have given as much as they did. Our target ask to “match the board” would have been smaller. And next year we would be saying “we raised just under $3,000, let’s aim for 4 this year.”

One big gift, and its effects will be felt for years to come.

Keep that in mind as you’re soliciting. One big gift (for you), properly leveraged, can have a long-last impact for your organization down the line.