Nothing But Major Gifts

In the non-profit sector, if you aren’t willing to advance into management, there is very little opportunity to grow as a fundraiser, take on new responsibilities, and increase your salary.  

This is a frustrating reality, because not everyone is right for management.  

Leadership requires a different skillset and specific perspective, one that’s interested in finding success and delivering results through others. It’s not as simple as taking your best frontline fundraiser and putting them in charge. 

In this podcast episode, Jeff is joined by special guest Greg Gibbs, who shares whether management is the right track for your career, and provides some tips to help current managers get better at their jobs. 

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More and more, fundraisers are being overworked and underpaid. They’re frequently pulled in different directions and asked to accomplish tasks that don’t fall under their domain – all without a solid support structure. It’s caused many to leave the sector entirely.  

There is so much important work to do in our world and we need to take care of our people in order to solve these big problems. That means implementing mindful, self-care practices so you’re ready to approach your work with the energy and focus it deserves.  

In this podcast episode, Karen and Megan share their top tips and best practices for managing burnout and overwhelming stress, and provide you with tools to quiet your inner critic.  

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It’s not easy to let go of certain donors, but there comes a time in every fundraising cycle when you’ll need to transition a donor relationship to someone else.  

Whether the donor is moving from mid-level to a major gifts portfolio, or from a higher level of giving back into mid-level or direct response, transitioning them to another colleague is one of the best things you can do for your program, organization, and the donor! But you need to have protocols in place so that the transition feels seamless and keeps your pipeline free and clear of any clogs.   

In this podcast episode, Jeff, Theresa, and Matt share their top tips and best practices for handling donor handoffs, shifting your thinking, and transitioning members of your caseload.  

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How many times has your organization pulled you into something that doesn’t directly relate to your job? This kind of scenario is all too common in the non-profit sector, and the results of it are usually negative: fundraisers lose their focus, have less impact, and solicit less giving. 

What if fundraising leaders and management stopped distracting their mid-level and major gift officers with unnecessary organizational tasks, activity-oriented metrics, meetings that aren’t related to their donors, and community events? Well, the results for your organization would probably look a little better: increased revenue, higher donor retention rates, and less staff turnover. 

In this podcast episode, Jeff, Karen, and Kendra share their top tips for how fundraising managers and leadership can let their teams do their jobs and find high-value success in their work. 

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With summer vacations wrapping up and back-to-school season in full swing, it’s time to start taking a close look at your fundraising plans for the fall and year-end. 

Are you feeling prepared for the busy months ahead? We know how valuable this time of year is in your fundraising cycle, which is why it’s so important to focus on creating a strong strategic plan for your donors.

In this episode, Jeff Schreifels is joined by Debi Dunham,

Listen in to this episode to learn what steps you can take right now and in the months ahead to set yourself up for a successful year-end fundraising season.

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It’s the most intimidating part of fundraising: asking someone for a gift.  

But that’s not the only thing that fundraisers need to ask for. You’re also requesting meetings, inviting donors to attend events, and asking them to share the personal drivers behind their giving.  

So, whatever you’re asking for – how do you do it in a way that honors the donor as a partner in your mission? 

We developed our Permission-Based Asking™ model as a framework for more authentic dialogue. No more guessing what your donor is thinking or making assumptions about what’s going on for them.  

This episode is a re-release of one of our most-downloaded podcast episodes on asking, featuring Karen Kendrick, our Senior Director of Client Engagement, and Debi Dunham, Senior Client Experience Leader. Listen in to hear some real-life examples of how a permission-based approach to asking can transform your donor relationships. 

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Did you know that Veritus Group is an international consulting agency, with offices in the UK & Europe (in addition to our US & Canada team)? We often get questions about how The Veritus Way works in different cultural settings, so we wanted to spend some time sharing about our work with international clients and highlighting what’s been working well for them. 

In this episode, Jeff is joined by Sara Di Lullo, Director of Client Engagement for Veritus UK and Europe, along with Karen Kendrick, Senior Director of Client Engagement for Veritus Group in the U.S. and Canada. Tune in to hear Sara and Karen share how our clients are taking a relational approach to major gifts in an international context.  

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Veritus Group was incredibly honored to be the Presenting Sponsor for the AADO Conference in 2024. 

AADO (African American Development Officers Network) is a network of more than 3,500 fundraising professionals of color. Their annual conference is the premier event for fundraising, development, and operations professionals of color, and their allies.  

During the conference, our team sat down with several AADO leaders and conference presenters to talk about the projects they’re working on and the path toward racial justice in the non-profit sector. 

Our guests on this episode are Birgit Burton, Chief Executive Officer of AADO; Nneka Allen, Founder of The Empathy Agency; and Christopher Beck, Senior Advisor for Principal Gifts and Inclusive Philanthropy at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.  

We were so inspired by this conversation and hope you’ll come away feeling encouraged by the insights shared and the progress toward racial justice in our sector. Thanks for listening! 

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Over the past two decades, our team at Veritus has analyzed hundreds of different non-profits’ data files, and we see the same trends over and over again. While overall revenue may go up year-over-year, many donors give less over time (or go away altogether). But organizations are often unaware this is happening because the loss is covered up by gifts from new donors.  

So, what can you do about this? The first thing to do is start analyzing your donor file so you can understand where you have opportunities. For today’s episode, Jeff is joined by Theresa Tapocsi (Client Experience Leader) and Amy Chapman (Director of Client Engagement) for a conversation about how we perform our free donor file assessment to identify the hidden potential in your donor file.  

The sooner you understand what’s happening in your data, the sooner you can take action. We hope this episode helps you think about your next steps in analyzing your donor data for opportunities to better engage your donors. 

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As a fundraiser, you play two roles in any donor meeting. First, you’re there to be a partner to your donor, which means you’re seeking to learn more about their passions so you can help to match those with your organization’s programs.  

And your second role is to act as a facilitator so that everyone is on the same page about the purpose of the meeting and leaves feeling like their time was well-used. This is a real skill that requires some practice.  

In this podcast episode, Karen and Matt share their top tips for how fundraisers can successfully facilitate a donor meeting using our Permission-Based Asking™ model. 

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