IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aza/jeam00/y2025v9i4p380-387.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Big ideas for big donors: A leadership approach to major gift fundraising

Author

Listed:
  • Stanczykiewicz, Bill

    (Senior Assistant Dean, External Relations, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and Director, The Fund Raising School, USA)

Abstract

Charitable giving by individuals is declining as a share of overall philanthropy in the USA. One reason involves fewer mega-donors providing fewer gifts of at least US$1m. Expert fundraisers with demonstrated success are not immune to these trends. In addition, even experienced fundraisers can hit a ceiling in their efforts to cultivate large, transformational donations. Research-based leadership practises can be translated into pragmatic fundraising strategies, helping veteran fundraisers sharpen their major gift fundraising skills. Lessons from organisational life cycle theory, effective leadership communication and creative innovation can help fundraisers work with donors to devise large, impactful ideas that inspire large, major gifts. In this challenging fundraising environment, fundraisers can gain confidence that their major gift fundraising strategies and tactics are rooted in evidence-based leadership practises.

Suggested Citation

  • Stanczykiewicz, Bill, 2025. "Big ideas for big donors: A leadership approach to major gift fundraising," Journal of Education Advancement & Marketing, Henry Stewart Publications, vol. 9(4), pages 380-387, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:aza:jeam00:y:2025:v:9:i:4:p:380-387
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hstalks.com/article/9039/download/
    Download Restriction: Requires a paid subscription for full access.
    File URL: https://hstalks.com/article/9039/
    Download Restriction: Requires a paid subscription for full access.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    major gift fundraising; big donors; big ideas; leadership; innovation; communication;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M3 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aza:jeam00:y:2025:v:9:i:4:p:380-387. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Henry Stewart Talks (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.