10 Essential Tips To Determine The Right Donation Solicitation Amount

One of the most common questions we receive from professional and volunteer nonprofit leaders is: How much should we ask for?

The truth is that there is no one-size fits-all formula. For every solicitation, the donor, the project/purpose, and the circumstances will be different. The larger the ask, the more complex the process of landing on the right donation solicitation amount will be. For example, capital campaign gift size evaluation will be much more challenging than determining the appropriate donation solicitation amount for an annual request.

Based on several decades of experience leading advancement programs for three higher education institutions and now as a fundraising trainer/consultant for a wide range of nonprofits, here are ten touchstones to guide your thinking when wrestling with this tricky question of deciding the size of requests.

1. Passion for the mission, project, and cause tops everything else. I know the first impulse is to think about the wealth of the donor prospect, but just because someone is wealthy doesn’t mean that they are philanthropic, have a genuine interest in your project, or could be cultivated to have such an interest.
2. Money follows time. The more time that the donor prospect gives you to get better acquainted with the mission, leadership, stories, and especially the impact of the nonprofit, the more likely they are to make a more robust commitment. This is the crucial phase we call cultivation in which the objective is to forge a personal and emotional bond between the donor and nonprofit.
3. First gifts are typically modest and commensurate with capacity. This is in the spirit of kicking the tires before purchasing the car. This lets donors observe how the nonprofit uses their funds, and reports on results. We call this phase stewardship, and nonprofits need to genuinely and profusely acknowledge and express gratitude for generosity.
4. Who is soliciting the gift? This should be leaders of the nonprofit, and better yet, a representative who enjoys a close relationship with the donor. It makes all the difference that the solicitor has made a stretch gift themselves to give them credibility in challenging the donor prospect to also stretch the amount they are being asked to consider.
5. Larger gifts usually require multi-year pledge periods. Unless they are incredibly wealthy, million and multi-million-dollar gifts are seldom paid as one lump sum. These pledges might run for three to five years or so.
6. Recognize that donors can make much larger commitments from their estates than from their wealth and income. An effective strategy can be blended gifts combining current and deferred resources from estates.
7. Don’t be afraid of under asking. I might be different from other consultants in this regard, but I firmly believe you can consider the first gift as almost a cultivation move. If requested funds are donated promptly, you steward the donor as if they’d made a much larger gift. If you point to sterling results achieved with this first gift, you will be in a strong position to return within a reasonable amount of time to make a much larger request.
8. Where does the request fit in with overall campaign or other fundraising goals? Show how the gift will provide momentum and strengthen the nonprofit’s position to solicit other philanthropic leaders.
9. What is the donor’s liquidity and financial flexibility? Not all wealth is the same. Very affluent individuals might have long-term and timely commitments and obligations to other causes and family members. This is another place where multi-year pledge periods might open doors.
10. Emphasize urgency. Why is it so critical that gift dollars be given now, and not later, and larger amounts are so strategic? This comes back to the case for support and vividly dramatizing how the request and each dollar will touch, improve, and save more lives.

Again, there are no magical formulas. But the door to major gifts and even million-dollar and multimillion-dollar gifts has never been so open. America has about 1,000 billionaires and 25 million millionaires. Some may live next door and surprise you with the modest lifestyles they lead. Some may already be in your database and have been loyal donors over the years. The dominant drivers of generosity are how their personal dreams, values, and priorities to forge a better world align with the mission of your nonprofit. Your job is to proudly tell the stories of your nonprofit’s impact and nurture genuine and lifetime friendships with those you request gifts of all sizes.

How does your organization determine your donation solicitation amount? Let us know in the comments.