[First 90 Days] Episode 1: What You Inherited
You got the job. Maybe a stack of donor files landed on your desk on day two, or someone on the board just said, "You'll handle major gifts now." However you got here, you're now responsible for the people who give the largest gifts your organization receives, and you're probably wondering what to do first. This is episode one of a special five-part series, Your First 90 Days in Major Donor Fundraising. In your first 90 days, the scorecard is relationships and information. The dollars come later.
In this episode you'll learn how to:
- Avoid the two early traps: hiding in the database, or calling everyone with no context.
- See the three things you really inherited: a list, a history, and relationships.
- Build a portfolio audit spreadsheet and sort every name into four buckets: active and warm, active but cold, lapsed, and unknown.
- Find the promises, landmines, and open pledges before you pick up the phone.
- Have short internal conversations with your predecessor, your executive director, finance, and your database manager.
- Qualify your portfolio by capacity, affinity, and connection, and move names that don't fit to the right place without dropping them from your organization.
- Write a one-page "what I found" memo that shows your boss your plan and resets expectations.
Marcus, the new gift officer we follow, is a fictional composite, but if you've stepped into a major gifts role, his portfolio will look familiar. Your donors have been waiting for someone to pay attention to them. These first weeks are how you start.
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