Major donor fundraising

Major donor fundraising is about building relationships. It is also about donors making or withholding gifts that are considered extremely important to the running of your charity.

This can put you in a vulnerable position as a fundraiser and it is important to remember some key principles.

• You must not let behaviour slide that you wouldn’t normally accept.
• You must not allow the donor to be more involved in the charity than you are comfortable with.
• Your safety and the safety of the people the charity works with is a priority.

This can be difficult to manage and needs the support of the whole organisation. Your policies must all emphasise that they apply to everyone, including major donors.

Specific policies and procedures will help prevent situations from arising.

• Have a lone working policy for meetings with donors.
• Have a set of procedures for donor visits and the types of involvement that are suitable, that has been agreed by the whole organisation.
• Develop gift acceptance policies that cover what to do about donors who have had a complaint made about them.
• Make sure all fundraisers know how to report issues with a donor, and how to escalate that report if they don’t get a response they are happy with.

You must also be prepared for incidents and things that you might need to be able to do in response.

• Be prepared to report a donor to the police, or safeguarding bodies, in the case of serious incidents.
• Work with the complainant to address the issue with the donor directly, if they feel able to do so.
• Be ready to assign a donor to a different fundraiser.
• Be ready to ensure visits to a donor are always accompanied.
• Be prepared to manage a donor’s participation in organisational events and reduce their opportunities to engage directly with staff.
• Be prepared to reject a donor.