How to Show Up With Power as a Major Gifts Fundraiser

By: Connie Lewin, Founder and Principal Consultant

If you're a frontline fundraiser, you've probably heard many times that major gifts are crucial for a nonprofit’s revenue plan and can help fill persistent funding gaps.

And it’s true. Securing major gifts is essential to strengthening your revenue mix. The latest Giving USA 2025 report showed that individual giving remains the largest source of philanthropic support (74%), and bequest giving has risen to 10%, up from 8%. Fidelity Charitable recently reported $18.3 billion in donor-recommended grants, a 23% year-over-year increase. The key takeaway is that not pursuing major gifts means missing critical funding opportunities.

While this is true for most nonprofits, pursuing major gifts requires more than a strategic plan and a pipeline of prospects. It also requires YOU to adopt the appropriate mindset, skills, and tools to build and maintain relationships with high-net-worth individuals. Let’s face it: there are power dynamics at play when engaging with high-net-worth individuals, but you can overcome that when you step into your own power and establish a shared identity and values with donors.

Early on in my fundraising career, I received misguided advice to simply “Act as a rich white man,” as if that alone would inspire confidence to meet with donors.

I knew that approach would be ineffective for me, but I still felt an internal tension of claiming my voice, owning my leadership, and learning how to articulate our organization’s mission and vision with clarity and conviction.

I realized that embracing my authentic identity was essential to communicating my passion and commitment to the cause. Instead of trying to play a role, I focused on developing the conviction, clarity, confidence, and presence needed to engage high-net-worth donors effectively and on my terms.

First, I reflected on my relationship with money, inspired by "The Generosity Network: New Transformational Tools for Successful Fund-Raising," which sparked a mindset shift away from equating my worth with my finances. This book helped me move from transactional to transformational fundraising and introduced generosity-centered strategies for engaging donors.

Second, I learned to embrace discomfort by seeking speaking opportunities for my organization. I pursued opportunities to represent my organization on national and social media and at national and global conferences. I invested time in honing my storytelling skills, emphasizing our organization's strengths and unique value proposition, and gaining the confidence to communicate our mission and vision to diverse audiences.

Third, I outlined our organization's ideal major donors by developing donor personas that include their ages, giving histories, professional backgrounds, key personal experiences that would connect them to the girls and women we served, and values. These are individuals likely to be passionate about engaging with the communities we serve, aligned with our system-based model, and motivated by our global vision. Understanding this ideal donor shape guided my messaging and approach in meetings. While donors assess us, I also assess them.

I stayed motivated and accountable for this work by working with a coach who served as a thought partner and held me accountable. Engaging with donors requires a dynamic exchange to build trust and align their vision with your organization’s goals. My coach helped me move from overanalyzing conversations to reflecting and taking action.

This foundation of shifting my mindset, establishing my authority as a spokesperson, getting specific about our ideal donors, and working with a coach taught me that my authenticity doesn’t need to be erased in order to be received as a fundraiser by donors. It also helped me raise my first $1 million in major gifts within a year.

If you’ve been holding back or struggling to build traction, this is an ideal time to engage a thought partner. I am available to help build your major gifts strategy, align it with your impact goals, and determine your next steps. You can book a 30-minute discovery call at lewinphilanthropy.com or email me at connie@lewinphilanthropy.com.