Nonprofit Fundraisers: When Declining a Gift is Best
by Betsy Steward
My last two blogs have been about the nuances of soliciting major gifts: how to fit your nonprofit’s story to the donor’s point of view, and how to deal with the fear of asking. Today, I’ll focus on what to do when a major gift is offered, but with conditions that don’t necessarily align with your organization’s plans.
Let’s say you’ve received a generous 5-, 6-, or 7-figure gift from a donor you’ve cultivated, and the gift includes specific instructions for its use. If those instructions line up with the programs your nonprofit offers or your board’s vision for the future, that’s great! Try not to break your arm patting yourself on the back.
But what if the instructions are outside of your current programmatic offerings, or beyond the scope of your mission or your board’s vision?
A former client of mine received a generous gift from a woman whose husband had recently died. He had passionately loved music, so she wanted to start a music program named for him. She chose my client, a children’s educational center, to put her plan into action. Sounds like success, right?
The problem was that the educational center, which offered many enrichments programs, did not have an active music program. The donor’s gift, while generous, was not enough to buy instruments and hire staff trained to teach music, both of which would be required to launch even a small music program.
My client could have accepted the gift and somehow tried to figure out something that would qualify as a music program. That’s a solution that would tempt many… because who wants to DECLINE a gift??? It’s hard enough to solicit a gift, much less figure out how to gracefully say “no” to one.
Saying “yes” would have been good for the annual fundraising goal… but it would have created significant problems for the nonprofit down the line.
Instead, my client talked with the donor, helping her see that such a gift would not fit into the center’s current plans. The goal of the conversation was to convince the donor to take the restrictions off the gift.
Unfortunately, the donor was very focused on setting up a music program named for her husband, so her answer was no, she would not remove the restrictions.
After much discussion with board members and the ED, the Director of Development thanked the donor but declined the gift, explaining that the center would not be able to fulfill the donor’s idea.
Why was declining the gift the best course of action in this case?
The only way to accept a gift with restrictions is to fulfill the restrictions. That would have meant developing a substandard music program — definitely not the tribute the woman had in mind for her husband — and/or ignoring the strategic plan by eliminating existing programs to pay for a new one.
Using the development team’s time to accommodate a donor’s wishes by creating a new program distracts fundraisers from their real work, resulting in less funding. Creating a new program is a job for the program staff, right? It’s beyond the skillset of a fundraiser. Worse than that, it prevents the fundraising team from spending time on their main job, which is cultivating and soliciting donors.
Accepting the gift would have wasted an important opportunity to expand the donor’s understanding of the nonprofit’s existing programs and impact. My client was able to have a straightforward conversation with the donor, explaining why the donor’s idea didn’t fit with current operations. A missed opportunity like that could result in more gifts with restrictions from the donor, with even more expectations that her ideas would be put into place, no matter how unrealistic or unsuitable.
It was the most honest response to the gift. The most important quality a fundraiser has is integrity. Giving the donor an honest, reasonable response — even if it’s not the one they want — builds trust that will certainly pay off going forward. Simply put, saying “yes, thanks” when your organization can’t do what you’re agreeing to is not honest.
Declining the gift does not mean ending the relationship.
The donor in this story had already chosen the center as a good recipient to memorialize her husband, so the hardest part of fundraising — engaging the donor to begin with — was already in place. Just because this gift didn’t work out doesn’t mean more gifts from this donor are not possible.
The fundraising team was able to grow the donor’s belief in the organization without disparaging her original idea, and she continued to donate, even though the large gift she had offered hasn’t yet come to pass. But it’s not over! She’s still an engaged donor, and with continued cultivation, I’m confident that she’ll offer another generous gift in the future. The fundraising team continues to brainstorm about this donor, remembering that:
“If you need something from somebody,
always give that person a way to hand it to you.”
— Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees
Even if “no, thank you” feels awful, it still may be the right move.
I know how heartbreaking it is to decline a gift, because I know how hard it is to get the gift in the first place. But in the long run, it’s a huge mistake to promise something that can’t be delivered. Don’t be tempted! By saying “no, thank you”, you are safeguarding your organization’s future in three ways: 1) by not wasting time trying to force a square peg into a round hole; 2) by continuing to focus your efforts on donor cultivation instead of program creation; and 3) by earning the respect and trust of your donor.
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Betsy Steward is an independent fundraising consultant. She advises clients on major donor solicitation, cultivation, and stewardship, as well as fundraising best practices, back-office organization, board presentations and writing to donors (appeal letters, emails, proposal letters, thank-you notes, etc.). She can be reached at BetsyVSteward@gmail.com and you can join her blog mailing list by scrolling to the bottom of the page at https://www.betsystewardconsulting.com/