Big, bold principal gift proposals that address societal or global issues are critical to attracting donors in an increasingly competitive philanthropic landscape. But identifying big ideas and scaling principal gifts is a struggle for advancement staff who must convince academic leaders with short-term departmental needs to think outside the box. It is critical that academic leaders, faculty members, and university leadership align around a formalized big ideas process.
For a big ideas process to succeed, advancement and academic leaders need to cooperate and collaborate. Follow six critical steps to source the big ideas you need while building working relationships with academic leaders and faculty members.
As more nonprofits compete for principal gifts, colleges and universities find themselves under pressure to articulate why they are best positioned to address the global issues donors care about. It is imperative for advancement staff to help campus stakeholders effectively present information about the transformative potential of their projects and share impact data with donors in a compelling manner.
One way for advancement to communicate impact is by helping forge strong ties between faculty members and donors through faculty discovery visits. But forming relationships is no longer enough. Advancement leaders and their faculty partners must communicate with today’s “donor investors” in ways that resonate with them.
Responsibility for managing relationships with principal gift prospects often falls to the busiest senior leaders on campus—Presidents, Deans, and CAOs among them. With the number of prospects being cultivated for principal gifts rising, this model is reaching its breaking point.
To realign principal gifts…