This question comes up a lot when we talk about individual donors. And it’s good one! Great donor cultivation often leads to a major gift.
To answer, I thought I’d invite a colleague whom I really respect for his fundraising skills. Steven DeCaprio and I worked together years ago at the California League of Conservation Voters (now called CA Environmental Voters). He was the top performing fundraiser, and I was the development director. I’ve stayed in touch — and admired his work — ever since.
Meet Steven DeCaprio. Fundraiser and community organizer. Passionate about channeling resources into environmental and social movements. His model of Organizing-Centered Fundraising moves donors into action. Specialties include: new donors, major gifts, campaign fundraising, volunteer engagement, portfolio management, and board development. You can connect with Steven at linkedin.com/in/sdecaprio.
Enjoy reading these thoughts from Steven DeCaprio on Major Gifts…
What is a threshold level of giving?
Deciding what counts as a “major gift” matters because it shapes who you engage deeply, how many donors you include in a major donor portfolio, and the goals you set for those relationships.
There’s no single right answer. The number should come from your donors and your fundraising goals, not an arbitrary rule.
Start by looking at your current donor pool.
What is your average gift?
What are your largest 1% gifts? And who are those donors?
Is there a level where donor levels cluster?
Where do you see gaps between levels?
Maybe you’re a very small organizations with under $500,000 in revenue, and you have only a few donors giving over $1,000. So that might be your major gift level. Of course, you’d also want to groom the next tier with some extra TLC and treat $500+ donors as major gift prospects. As your revenue grows toward $1M, it’s reasonable to raise your major gift level.
For larger organizations, $10,000 is a common level for the formal major gift threshold, yet donors giving $1,000 are treated as major donor prospects.
Note from Melanie: when I was a major gift officer at The Nature Conservancy twenty years ago, $100,000 over 3 years was considered a major gift. I’m sure that’s much higher now.
Use your database reports to guide levels.
Thresholds should be flexible so you can generate a healthy pipeline. If you run a database report for $500+ donors and get only a handful of names, lower your prospect threshold. You want some folks to cultivate! This may also be a sign to focus on reaching new donors, in addition to major donor cultivation.
The right major gift level should challenge donors, but still be realistic for your community.
If the amount feels too high, prospects may not see themselves in your major donor circle and you’ll struggle to build a community of larger donors. If your threshold is too low, you’ll end up with an unwieldy roster of “major” donors, and your cultivation events and recognition tiers become hard to manage. A good “ask” will usually land a donor in the zone that’s doable yet a stretch — enough to require thoughtful conversation and engagement, rather than an automatic gift.
Be ready to pivot in individual conversations.
If you know a donor has capacity for much more, ask for a higher amount. If someone quickly says yes to your major gift ask, consider offering a way to stretch their support. For example, invite them to join a higher giving tier or a named project. Many nonprofits use multiple giving levels (such as Gold/Platinum or Supporter/Champion) to create a “ladder” — a path and pipeline for donors to move up.
Revisit your threshold regularly. As you secure more major gifts and your donor community grows, you may need to create new tiers or raise the major gift level so you can continue to cultivate and recognize deeper giving.
Where to start
Getting started is simple.
Pull your top 25–50 donors from your donor database, and look at what they give. If a couple give $1,000 or more, then start with $1,000 as your major gift level. If 20 or more donors give $1,000, consider a higher number — $5,000 or $10,000 is common. Try your chosen level for a few asks: if you get lots of “yeses,” consider raising it; if you get very few “yeses” then you might lower the threshold giving level.
Note from Melanie: Whatever threshold level of giving you choose, I encourage you to export a list of all the donors giving at that level and create an .xls. Include: name, email/phone/address, last gift amount/date, largest gift amount/date, YTD total giving, and total all-time giving. Call it your VIP Donor list (aka major donors and prospects), and then start to assign board members as liaisons to individual donors who will connect via phone or email with a quarterly update on your work. Use our Simple Annual Fundraising Plan template — one of our free, downloadable fundraising templates — as a guide to keep your board on track in quarterly VIP donor outreach.
Here’s key info to help you cultivate your VIP donors towards larger levels of giving (all are fields you can export from your donor database):
Once you know the threshold gift level that reliably challenges donors to step up in their giving, you build a pool of major gift prospects to engage. Congratulations! Formalize it on your website or in sponsorship materials, and you’re on the path to creating identity and community among major supporters.
Passionate about the flow of capital to social change. Fighter for justice, equity, opportunity. Grateful for community, mountains, shared meals, and digging in on big problems (and solutions)—together.
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