By Heather Wiley Starankovic, CFRE, CAP

Regardless of when your fiscal year begins and ends, it’s the ideal time to pause and assess the status of your major gifts program. Until now, you’ve likely been working tirelessly to meet your goals and metrics. However, it is essential to take time to consider how to best position yourself for the transition between fiscal years. Reflect on where you started and envision how you want to finish. As author and leadership expert Robin Sharma said, “Starting strong is good. Finishing strong is epic.”

Here are 10 essential steps to take to ensure your major gifts program not only starts strong but also finishes strong, resulting in a transformative, epic year.

At the start of the fiscal year:

1. Confirm with executive leadership that your fund development priorities are clear and well-defined. This could include launching a new campaign, the next wave of an existing campaign or a longstanding project that significantly impacts your community.

2. After identifying your fund development priorities, engage with the appropriate clinical partners who support those areas. Connect with them and assess their potential as partners. If they are a good fit, cultivate and secure their partnership.

3. Conduct a portfolio check-in for yourself and all your gift officers. Ensure each officer has 50 or more engaged and qualified prospects. Verify that these prospects are across all stages of the donor lifecycle, including engagement, cultivation, pre-solicitation, solicitation and stewardship.

4. If portfolios are not filled with at least 50 qualified prospects, it’s essential to evaluate your qualification discovery pipeline. Consider collaborating with clinician partners for referrals, utilizing data from patient lists or your system, engaging volunteers or employing a prospect researcher to assess wealth and capacity in your community. These strategies can effectively enhance your discovery efforts.

5. Ensure you have a strategy in place to engage all past constituents, including donors, volunteers and staff. Each group should have a dedicated champion responsible for their engagement. Ensure your plan includes first-time donors, LYBUNTs, SYBUNTs, annual fund donors, major donors and planned giving donors. Even a small shop can start with personalized letters tailored to each group.

At the end of the fiscal year:

1. Take the time to acknowledge and sincerely thank all your donors from the previous fiscal year. For those who have made significant contributions, consider a more creative approach, such as a gratitude jar filled with handwritten notes that highlight the impact of their gifts. It’s important to demonstrate to donors how their contributions are making a difference.

2. Show appreciation for your volunteers, including your clinician partners. Volunteers contribute invaluable time, talent and resources. Tailor your expressions of gratitude to match the level of their investment. Consider gestures like hand-delivering an orchid with a heartfelt note, offering a tray of homemade chocolate chip cookies or providing public recognition for their contributions. Since these individuals are vital to your mission, ask them how they prefer to receive appreciation from the organization they support, and make it happen.

3. Assess how gift officers tracked their meaningful interactions throughout the year. Were any donors stuck in a stage for too long? Did the officers grasp each donor’s philanthropic goals, or were their visits brief? Are they aware of their close rates? While these metrics are reviewed monthly, year-end offers a chance to consolidate this data and showcase the year’s accomplishments.

4. Evaluate your team’s discovery efforts. If portfolio building is needed, did your team make 20 to 50 discovery calls per week, and what were their conversion rates? A strong focus on discovery is essential for growing portfolios, whether in a new or established program. Tailor your approach to your organization’s needs, whether that means drilling down on researched lists or focusing on high-net-worth individuals. Don’t overlook this crucial step; discovery calls have led to million-dollar gifts. Measure your team’s conversion rates—how many calls resulted in meaningful prospects—and aim for continuous improvement.

5. Consider if you successfully implemented your plans for each constituent group. Reflect on what you learned—perhaps the workload was overwhelming, or the joy in your work has faded. It’s essential to assess the true cost of activities beyond just financial metrics. Evaluate not only what went well but also what didn’t, and decide what to carry forward or discard next year. Think of these activities as sandcastles that wash away by the tide or snowmen that melt—this exercise will help you determine what is worth keeping, improving or cutting from your plans.

A successful and strong transformative major gifts program involves many factors, but regardless of your team size, asking the right questions can significantly enhance your program. By implementing these steps, you’ll set your program on the path to becoming a transformative major gifts initiative that benefits you, your team, your organization and your community.

About the Author: Heather Wiley Starankovic, CFRE, CAP, is a Principal Consultant with Accordant, with a special dedication to supporting staff members and creating programs that keep talented and dedicated servant leaders within the field. She can be reached at Heather@AccordantHealth.com or through LinkedIn.