The donors who could transform your organization are already in your database.
Most organizations have major donors hiding in plain sight, people who have been giving modestly for years but have never been asked for anything more. Steven identifies those donors, builds the relationships, and opens the conversations that lead to the gifts that change what your organization can do.
Steven works with you and reviews your existing donor database and networks to identify the prospects most likely to make a significant gift.
Prospect capacity is validated using wealth screening research, so your team focuses time and energy on the donors most able to give at a transformational level. Prospect screening helps validate a donor's giving capacity, allowing your team to focus its time and energy on the individuals most able to make transformational gifts. By grounding your strategy in real data, you approach the right donors with the right level of ambition.
Every major donor prospect gets a tailored plan, the right touchpoints, the right timeline, and the right relationship-building activities before a gift conversation ever takes place.
Steven joins your leadership in one to one meetings with your top prospects, helping shape the conversation and move the relationship toward a meaningful gift decision.
When the moment is right, Steven helps structure and lead the ask, prepared, personal, and focused on what matters most to that donor.
After a gift is made, the relationship continues. Steven helps your organization acknowledge, report back to, and deepen the connection with major donors.
Steven reviews your donor database and builds a prioritized prospect list based on giving history, capacity, and depth of connection to your mission.
Cultivation is about building genuine relationships before any ask is made. Through personal visits, meaningful touchpoints, and patient engagement, Steven deepens the connection between your top prospects and your cause.
The ask is prepared, personal, and timed to the donor's readiness. Steven structures the conversation to connect the gift to what matters most to that individual donor and your organization's mission.
After a gift is made, the relationship becomes more important, not less. Impact reporting, personal acknowledgement, and consistent follow-through set the conditions for a second and third gift.
A major gift is typically the largest category of donation an organization receives, and the threshold varies depending on the size of your program. It might start at $5,000 and it could be $100,000 or more. What defines a major gift isn't just the amount. It's the relationship behind it. These gifts almost never come from a direct mail piece or an online form. They come from personal conversations with donors who feel genuinely connected to your mission and trusted by your organization.
The most common reason is simple: nobody is doing the work. Major gifts require dedicated time, consistent cultivation, and the confidence to have direct conversations about significant money. Most charities are stretched too thin to do any of those things well. Staff are managing events, grant applications, and annual appeals all at once. Donors with real capacity sit in the database year after year, receiving the same newsletter as everyone else. What changes when an organization gets serious about major gifts is focus. A clear prospect list, a cultivation plan, and someone whose sole job is to build those relationships.
"Steven came in during a critical gap in our development office and immediately understood what we needed. He was cultivating major donors within weeks. The campaign hit its target — I genuinely don't think we get there without him."
Every engagement starts with a free, no-obligation conversation. Bring your goals, your timeline, and your questions.
