Dr. Russell James (the foremost researcher in our field) often speaks about the primal motivations for giving, emphasizing that donors give because of deep psychological and identity-driven motivations — not just because they were asked.
Thanks to his research he has identified several key factors that influence why people give, particularly focusing on legacy, meaning, and personal identity.
I’ve boiled this down to a simple WHY > WHAT > HOW framework:
To give a big gift, especially a gift of assets instead of just cash, a major donor must know their personal, primal motivations driving:
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- Why they might want to give
- What they might want to give to, and
- How they’d like to make it happen wisely.
The job of the gift officer is to walk each donor through that process as a guide, connector, and facilitator.
I’m not trying to oversimplify your job. While this might sound straightforward, all three of these steps are hard – especially the first two. But it helps to look at the process from this vantage point, because then you can focus your efforts on each component, develop your skills, and understand where each donor is in the process.
One reason major gift fundraising is so challenging is because so many organizations and their staff skip the first step. Some skip the second step too, and go straight to explaining how to give. Planned gift marketing vendors do this all the time. They offer newsletters or email communications that focus on the ‘how’ stage of the process.
But to give their biggest and most generous and enthusiastic gift, donors must know why they want to give. They must know their own motivations. They must feel it. Want it. Pursue it. Be excited about it. A donor with this level of emotional awareness will give their most generous gift, and happily.
So how do you help major donors find out their own motivations for giving? That’s what we’re talking about today.
“Why Should I Give?”: What Do Donors Want?
The biggest secret you need to understand here is – many donors actually don’t think about their own motivations for giving much.
They might have a vague ambition to give. They might feel like they should give something. They might even want to give. But they haven’t spent enough time self-reflecting on why giving even matters to them in order to actually make a major gift.
When nonprofits approach them, there’s a disconnect here. The donor might want to give, but why this organization? Is this what I really want to support? Donors who don’t know their own motivations will struggle to commit to a particular cause.
The reason is because personal mission drives philanthropic mission and they need your help connecting the dots.
Thus, before asking for a gift, you must help the donor understand themselves. You must empower and enable them to reflect on their own life, values, desires, interests, past experiences, personal heroes, and personal connections.
To help a donor know their ‘why’ you can explore a number of possible major donor motivations:
Become the best version of themselves
Some major donors give because they want to walk their talk. They see themselves as a certain type of person, and generosity is a big part of that. They think, “I am the type of person who gives generously.” They recognize their success and the blessings they’ve received, and they see philanthropy as a natural response to that.
But they need your help to realize this is what’s driving them. Before giving, they will have this sense of unfulfillment, but they may not know why.
Another word for this is self-actualization.
They want to fulfill their highest potential and fully utilize all their gifts and abilities. They know they’re not living their best life or using what they have to its fullest potential. They need your help to figure out what that is.
Achieve a degree of immortality and legacy
Some donors are more interested in legacy. They want to be remembered long after their life has ended. They want to know their life mattered and made a difference, and they want people to remember them for the good things they did and the values they represented and tried to live out.
This type of donor is forward-thinking, sees the long-term big picture, and is interested in lasting change and transformation.
Gain notoriety and positive publicity
Other donors give because they want to be recognized for it and have their life defined in part by the causes they support.
By getting public attention for giving, they align themselves with a particular set of values and beliefs. They advocate for a cause, using their wealth, and they inspire others to do the same. So there are some possible selfless motives within this group.
But others really do just want the positive public perception that comes from giving big gifts. They want to influence how people think about them.
Be part of a community
Some donors give because they want to become part of a particular set of beliefs, ideas, values, or cultural expressions. By supporting this cause, they align themselves with everyone else who supports that cause, and this defines them as a person. They want to be seen as part of the team.
Such a donor isn’t giving for their own publicity. They’re giving because it positions them to play an outsize role in a community that is important to them. This donor is thus a values-driven donor, but also someone who cares about the other people involved in the cause, in addition to the cause itself.
Live up to the family name
Other donors give because it’s part of the family legacy to do so. While such donors may often end up using private foundations, especially if the family already has one set up, that foundation’s mission and the causes they support can change over time.
Foundation or not, this type of donor cares about more than just themselves. It’s about what their family has done, how they want to be defined, and the behaviors and values they want to pass on to their children.
Why Should I Give AGAIN? Motivating Multiple Gifts
An interesting aspect of major gift fundraising is what happens after the first gift has been given. When the process is done right, donors feel great. They have achieved something important for themselves. As charitable giving researcher Dr. Russell James puts it, they have advanced their own personal hero story.
So, does this mean the organization can freely approach them again about a second gift, after enough time has passed?
Actually….no.
The process repeats itself after each major gift.
After the first gift, the donor will need to re-examine their ‘why’ all over again so they understand why they should consider giving again. Yes, their previous growth in this area will still be present, but they will need to renew and advance it before giving another major gift. Plus, they’ll examine whether they got what they wanted the first time.
You can encourage this process and prove your worthiness using many of the same approaches, but just taking them deeper:
- Report on what you did with their first gift – show impact and be specific
- Help the donor reflect on what they have already achieved
- Motivate them to continue pursuing the best version of themselves
- Increase their notoriety
- Expand their understanding of the depth of the community they’ve joined
- Revisit the needs associated with the cause they care about
The point is – the donor needs to get excited about giving a major gift – each time they give a gift. They don’t just do it once. The process repeats. It goes from why, to what, to how, and then back to why again.
Why Should I Give a Planned Gift?
The same line of thinking applies to planned giving. As you can easily infer, it’s donors who care about their legacy, their family name, their values, and their lasting impact on the world and their family who are drawn to the idea of planned giving.
But to get a donor to fully commit to a planned gift, you once again must begin with ‘why’.
Those affected by a donor’s planned gift will remember them, long after the donor has passed away. This is a form of immortality, and some donors are enraptured by this idea.
The idea that their money, and therefore their life, can continue to influence the world for good even decades after their death is very attractive to some donors.
Your job is to amplify this desire – before you ask them to consider a planned gift. Build up the desire first. Make it froth in their minds and hearts. Then, when you know they are yearning to take action in this direction, you can present the idea of planned giving.
And again, this idea can apply to more donors than those who are drawn to the idea of immortality. For example:
- What will your heirs and their children think of you?
- What influence will you have on future generations?
- What will the community you care about remember you for, if at all?
- Who will keep fighting for the values you care about after you’re gone?
You can motivate almost any donor to start thinking about the generational impact of a large planned gift if you take the time to nurture it before jumping straight to the money talk.
What Many Nonprofits Do Wrong
As you might have guessed already, what most nonprofits don’t get right is, they jump straight to the money talk.
Some simply brag about how great they are when the donors are wondering how great they can be if they give through an organization. Others skip the ‘why’ and talk about the programs the donor can support. That’s ‘what.’ Others want to focus on giving instruments or how easy it is to give a gift of assets. That’s ‘how’.
‘How’ is about the details for giving gifts of assets and the procedures required to obtain the various tax benefits and meet all the requirements, such as required minimum distributions. Things like naming rights, government regulations, and the details of a will are all associated with how to give a major gift.
But so many nonprofits that pitch the idea of legacy gifts lead with this sort of language. They talk about how easy it is to give from an IRA or from stock options. “Just click here to find out HOW to do it,” they might say.
It’s the wrong message.
Donors aren’t ready for ‘how’. And by leading with this language, you’re driving donors away who might have given a planned or major gift had you first tapped into their motivations for wanting to give one.
There are ‘planned giving’ marketing companies that pitch services to nonprofits, and this is nearly all they do – explain how to work through the process. But that process is best handled one on one, in person with a gift officer, after the donor has already decided they want to give and knows their motivation.
Spraying out planned giving marketing doesn’t work, because 96.2% of all planned gift revenue comes from less than 1% of planned gift donors. That tiny minority represents most of the money, and they won’t likely be motivated to give because they got a treatise in the mail explaining how to set up a planned gift.
As the age-old saying in Hollywood goes:
“What’s my motivation?”
Your donors need to know this first, before you raise the idea of a major gift – if you want their biggest, most generous gift and for them to be thrilled about giving it.
Related Resources:
- 4 Ways Your Assumptions about Major Donors Are Hurting Your Fundraising
- What’s Wrong with Donor Journeys: The Hidden Costs of a Misguided Approach
- Fundraising’s Worst Oversimplification
- The Most Important Fundraising Metric: The 20-Year Relationship