According to Charlotte Grimshaw of Fundraising Research and Consulting, there are now 200 donors in the country who have donated more than $1,000,000 and their gifts are on the public record.  Fundraising Research and Consulting has undertaken the painstaking task of reading through donors lists at all the major galleries, theatre companies and educational institutions to compile this fascinating collection of names.  It is fascinating because these gifts are often just the tip of the iceberg of the generosity of some of these donors, who may also have donated in other places as well, but not been counted as the donations may have been smaller, (even if still significant).

In a way I feel sorry for the poor donors who should now be on every sensible fundraiser’s hitlist – my advice to you if you intend to approach any of these donors – is to look very carefully at their interests – they won’t want to be approached randomly just because people think they have buckets of money – they will still only want to donate where they have a connection, an emotional link and a strong belief in the cause / organisation.

How do you source your major gift donors?