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If your major gift opportunities sound like a menu of programs, you may be unintentionally teaching donors to restrict their giving. In this episode of Hey Fundraiser!, Mary goes deeper on Offers & Outcomes and shows how to position your work around the change a donor can make instead of your internal program structure. You’ll learn the difference between a program and an offer, why specificity does not have to mean restriction, how to package cross-program work into a compelling major gift opportunity, and why donors should be investing in outcomes, not accounting codes. Mary also explains how to stop asking donors to design your strategy, how to price an outcome so it becomes an investable opportunity, and how flexible funding can actually make stewardship stronger because you can report back on the result the donor helped create. She shares examples from housing, healthcare, higher education, and the arts, plus a simple exercise to help you rework your own language: “With an investment of X, you can help us Y.” The goal is to stop selling programs and start inviting donors into meaningful, measurable change. 🎓 The Professional Development Budget Kit. Free Download! Everything you need to get your organization to say "yes" to funding your growth: templates, talking points, and an ROI calculator. 💸 Major Gift Intensives. We're headed to 6 cities in 2027. Are we headed to yours? Join us for a 3 day deep dive into major gifts! Only 30 seats per city. 🌻 The 2027 Growth Pass. Only 5 seats available. The Growth Pass bundles Mary's three flagship live experiences into one powerful year of learning. One Major Gift Intensive. One Ask Workshop. One Small Table Intensive. 🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy. 🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the scripts. 💻 Connect with Mary Petersen Website: heyfundraiser.comYouTube: @...

You found the perfect major gift prospect. Great capacity, strong giving history, real connection to your mission...and they will not respond. In this episode of Hey Fundraiser!, Mary tackles one of the hardest parts of major gift fundraising: getting in the door. You’ll learn why generic “would you like to grab coffee?” emails fall flat, how to make your invitation genuinely worth saying yes to, and why access often matters more than capacity. Mary shares practical ways to use your board, donors, leadership, volunteers, and community connections to create warm introductions; how to invite prospects to advise, react, experience, or see something behind the scenes; and why changing the messenger or communication channel can completely change your results. She also shares creative cultivation ideas that go far beyond coffee and lunch, including the story of the donor she cultivated by walking with him several mornings a week after his back surgery. And if nothing works? Mary explains when it is time to bless and release, because your job is not to get every wealthy person in the door. It is to find the people who actually want a relationship. Major gifts do not start with the ask. They start with access. 🎓 The Professional Development Budget Kit. Free Download! Everything you need to get your organization to say "yes" to funding your growth: templates, talking points, and an ROI calculator. 💸 Major Gift Intensives. We're headed to 6 cities in 2027. Are we headed to yours? Join us for a 3 day deep dive into major gifts! Only 30 seats per city. 🌻 The 2027 Growth Pass. Only 5 seats available. The Growth Pass bundles Mary's three flagship live experiences into one powerful year of learning. One Major Gift Intensive. One Ask Workshop. One Small Table Intensive. 🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy. 🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the scripts. 💻 Connect with Mary Petersen Website: heyfundraiser.comYouTube: @...

If Mary walked into a nonprofit tomorrow and had one year to build a major gift program from scratch, what would she do first, what would she ignore, and where would she spend her time? In this episode of Hey Fundraiser!, Mary breaks down the seven things she would prioritize to build a focused, effective major gift program without getting buried in software, policies, giant portfolios, or endless database cleanup. She walks through how to build a Money Map of the donors who can actually move your goal, create compelling Offers & Outcomes that fund change instead of budget lines, get in the door with your best prospects, establish a consistent Relationship Rhythm, identify donors who may already be ready for a larger conversation, build confidence around asking, and steward major donors like true partners after the gift. She also shares what she would deliberately not spend time on in the first six months and what she would want accomplished within the first 90 days. The goal is not more activity. It is more focus: the right people, the right opportunities, the right relationships, the right asks, and exceptional stewardship. Mary also shares how the 2027 Major Gift Intensives will help fundraisers do this work shoulder-to-shoulder using their own prospects, donors, challenges, and fundraising goals, with stops planned in Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and New York. 🎓 The Professional Development Budget Kit. Free Download! Everything you need to get your organization to say "yes" to funding your growth: templates, talking points, and an ROI calculator. 💸 Major Gift Intensives. We're headed to 6 cities in 2027. Are we headed to yours? Join us for a 3 day deep dive into major gifts! Only 30 seats per city. 🌻 The 2027 Growth Pass. Only 5 seats available. The Growth Pass bundles Mary's three flagship live experiences into one powerful year of learning. One Major Gift Intensive. One Ask Workshop. One Small Table Intensive. 🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy. 🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the scripts. 💻 Connect with Mary Petersen Website: heyfundraiser.comYouTube: @...

Why do donors happily fund programs but hesitate to fund the people, systems, and infrastructure that make those programs possible? In this episode of Hey Fundraiser!, Mary breaks down how to inspire more unrestricted major gifts by building deeper donor trust. You’ll learn why restrictions often reveal where trust stops, how phrases like “we do so much with so little” can reinforce harmful scarcity thinking, and how to reframe overhead as the investment required to produce strong outcomes. Mary shares practical ways to talk about staffing, technology, leadership, and infrastructure with confidence; explains why unrestricted gifts are really confidence gifts; and gives exact language for asking a major donor for flexible support. She also challenges fundraisers to calculate the true cost of delivering their mission, set an intentional unrestricted giving goal, and replace scarcity language with investment language. Plus, Mary previews her upcoming book, Fortune 500 Expectations on a Bake Sale Budget, and makes the case that strong missions need strong organizations behind them.  🎓 The Professional Development Budget Kit. Free Download! Everything you need to get your organization to say "yes" to funding your growth: templates, talking points, and an ROI calculator. 💸 Major Gift Intensives. We're headed to 6 cities in 2027. Are we headed to yours? Join us for a 3 day deep dive into major gifts! Only 30 seats per city. 🌻 The 2027 Growth Pass. Only 5 seats available. The Growth Pass bundles Mary's three flagship live experiences into one powerful year of learning. One Major Gift Intensive. One Ask Workshop. One Small Table Intensive. 🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy. 🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the scripts. 💻 Connect with Mary Petersen Website: heyfundraiser.comYouTube: @...

How many times can you follow up with a donor before you become annoying? How do you actually know when it’s time to ask? What happens if you ask for too much? Do you need a polished proposal before you ever talk about money? And where do you even begin when your major gift portfolio is completely overwhelming? In this episode of Hey Fundraiser!, Mary tackles five of the questions she hears most often in her major gift coaching conversations and digs into the strategy behind each one. She shares why silence from a donor doesn’t automatically mean no, how permission-based fundraising can take the anxiety out of asking, why fundraisers often negotiate against themselves before the donor ever gets a vote, when a proposal helps and when it becomes a hiding place, and how to narrow an enormous portfolio into a focused Money Map of the donors most likely to move your fundraising forward. The thread running through all five? Stop letting fear make your fundraising strategy. Great major gift work requires curiosity, judgment, confidence, and the courage to keep the relationship moving forward.  🎓 The Professional Development Budget Kit. Free Download! Everything you need to get your organization to say "yes" to funding your growth: templates, talking points, and an ROI calculator. 💸 Major Gift Intensives. We're headed to 6 cities in 2027. Are we headed to yours? Join us for a 3 day deep dive into major gifts! Only 30 seats per city. 🌻 The 2027 Growth Pass. Only 5 seats available. The Growth Pass bundles Mary's three flagship live experiences into one powerful year of learning. One Major Gift Intensive. One Ask Workshop. One Small Table Intensive. 🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy. 🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the scripts. 💻 Connect with Mary Petersen Website: heyfundraiser.comYouTube: @...

What if the professional development line in your budget isn’t an expense, but one of the smartest revenue investments your organization can make? In this episode, Mary shares what happened when 15 Executive Directors and fundraisers gathered at her home in Bend for the VIP Intensive and went deep on their actual major gift work. Mary walks you through how to build the business case for professional development, calculate the ROI, identify the gift that would make the investment pay for itself, approach your ED or board, and respond when you hear “we don’t have the budget,” “can’t you learn this for free?” or “let’s revisit it next year.”  Download the 2027 Professional Development Budget Kit to get the budget request memo, ROI worksheet, objection language, board talking points, and 2027 calendar you need to make your own ask. Learn more about the Major Gift Intensive at heyfundraiser.com/major-gift-intensive and the VIP Intensive in Bend OR here: heyfundraiser.com/vip 🎓 The Professional Development Budget Kit. Free Download! Everything you need to get your organization to say "yes" to funding your growth: templates, talking points, and an ROI calculator. 💸 Major Gift Intensives. We're headed to 6 cities in 2027. Are we headed to yours? Join us for a 3 day deep dive into major gifts! Only 30 seats per city. 🌻 The 2027 Growth Pass. Only 5 seats available. The Growth Pass bundles Mary's three flagship live experiences into one powerful year of learning. One Major Gift Intensive. One Ask Workshop. One Small Table Intensive. 🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy. 🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the scripts. 💻 Connect with Mary Petersen Website: heyfundraiser.comYouTube: @...

Your best gift officer is going to get a recruiter's call this quarter. What happens next was decided by how you led this quarter. This week I'm sharing a session I delivered for nonprofit leaders at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management on the problem nobody budgets for: keeping your most successful development officers. The average frontline fundraiser stays 16 to 18 months. Replacing one costs an estimated $127,650 before you count the real damage, which is the donor relationships that walk out the door. By the numbers, the average MGO closes nearly $2 million a year. That's not a staffing gap when they leave. That's a revenue line. The good news? Almost every reason great officers quit is a leadership choice, which means every one of them is fixable. I walk you through the four pillars that keep top performers: investing in their growth before someone else offers to, real flexibility (not the fake kind with surveillance software), servant leadership that removes obstacles instead of inspecting activity, and my favorite: giving your officers time to go do things, because donors are out seeing plays and trying new restaurants, and an officer with no life outside the office has nothing to talk with them about. I also share the five KPIs I give every organization I coach, including why I cap face-to-face meetings at ten per month instead of setting a floor. None of the four pillars are a raise. All of them cost you almost nothing. And your best officer is already measuring you against every one of them.  🎓 The Professional Development Budget Kit. Free Download! Everything you need to get your organization to say "yes" to funding your growth: templates, talking points, and an ROI calculator. 💸 Major Gift Intensives. We're headed to 6 cities in 2027. Are we headed to yours? Join us for a 3 day deep dive into major gifts! Only 30 seats per city. 🌻 The 2027 Growth Pass. Only 5 seats available. The Growth Pass bundles Mary's three flagship live experiences into one powerful year of learning. One Major Gift Intensive. One Ask Workshop. One Small Table Intensive. 🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy. 🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the scripts. 💻 Connect with Mary Petersen Website: heyfundraiser.comYouTube: @...

Should you hire a fundraising coach or a consultant? Most fundraisers pay for the wrong one. In this episode, Mary breaks down the real difference: a consultant hands you the plan, but a coach gets in the car with you. You'll hear the story of Anna and her major gift ask, learn exactly when each type of support makes sense, and get the questions to ask (and red flags to watch for) before you hire anyone. If you've ever wondered why the binder on your shelf didn't raise a dollar, this one's for you.  🎓 The Professional Development Budget Kit. Free Download! Everything you need to get your organization to say "yes" to funding your growth: templates, talking points, and an ROI calculator. 💸 Major Gift Intensives. We're headed to 6 cities in 2027. Are we headed to yours? Join us for a 3 day deep dive into major gifts! Only 30 seats per city. 🌻 The 2027 Growth Pass. Only 5 seats available. The Growth Pass bundles Mary's three flagship live experiences into one powerful year of learning. One Major Gift Intensive. One Ask Workshop. One Small Table Intensive. 🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy. 🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the scripts. 💻 Connect with Mary Petersen Website: heyfundraiser.comYouTube: @...

What should you actually talk about at a Small Table? In this episode, Mary breaks down one of the biggest mistakes nonprofits make when they finally get the right donors around the right table: turning an intimate conversation into a miniature fundraising presentation. When leadership wants to talk about budget deficits and board members want to lead with statistics, it is easy to lose sight of what Small Table is really designed to do: build relationships. Mary shares how to turn financial challenges into mission-centered conversations, why statistics should support the discussion instead of dominate it, and how better questions can help donors think, engage, and reveal what they truly care about.  🎓 The Professional Development Budget Kit. Free Download! Everything you need to get your organization to say "yes" to funding your growth: templates, talking points, and an ROI calculator. 💸 Major Gift Intensives. We're headed to 6 cities in 2027. Are we headed to yours? Join us for a 3 day deep dive into major gifts! Only 30 seats per city. 🌻 The 2027 Growth Pass. Only 5 seats available. The Growth Pass bundles Mary's three flagship live experiences into one powerful year of learning. One Major Gift Intensive. One Ask Workshop. One Small Table Intensive. 🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy. 🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the scripts. 💻 Connect with Mary Petersen Website: heyfundraiser.comYouTube: @...

Executive directors are pulled in a thousand directions, but major gifts still need focused attention. In this episode, Mary shares a practical strategy for leaders who have only four to eight hours each week to devote to fundraising. You’ll learn how to identify the 15 to 20 donors who deserve your personal attention, structure a simple four-hour major gift schedule, prioritize donor conversations and follow-up, move the right people toward an ask, and ignore the complicated systems, perfect proposals, giant prospect lists, and time-consuming activities that do not lead to gifts. Mary also shares how to involve willing board members, protect fundraising time on your calendar, and build a major gift program that is focused, personal, consistent, and sustainable.  🎓 The Professional Development Budget Kit. Free Download! Everything you need to get your organization to say "yes" to funding your growth: templates, talking points, and an ROI calculator. 💸 Major Gift Intensives. We're headed to 6 cities in 2027. Are we headed to yours? Join us for a 3 day deep dive into major gifts! Only 30 seats per city. 🌻 The 2027 Growth Pass. Only 5 seats available. The Growth Pass bundles Mary's three flagship live experiences into one powerful year of learning. One Major Gift Intensive. One Ask Workshop. One Small Table Intensive. 🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy. 🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the scripts. 💻 Connect with Mary Petersen Website: heyfundraiser.comYouTube: @...

CEOs play a crucial role in major gift fundraising, but not all of them are natural fundraisers. In this episode, we’ll discuss how to prepare and coach your CEO for major donor meetings, including messaging, body language, and overcoming objections. Learn how to position them as the ideal storyteller and ambassador for your mission.  🎓 The Professional Development Budget Kit. Free Download! Everything you need to get your organization to say "yes" to funding your growth: templates, talking points, and an ROI calculator. 💸 Major Gift Intensives. We're headed to 6 cities in 2027. Are we headed to yours? Join us for a 3 day deep dive into major gifts! Only 30 seats per city. 🌻 The 2027 Growth Pass. Only 5 seats available. The Growth Pass bundles Mary's three flagship live experiences into one powerful year of learning. One Major Gift Intensive. One Ask Workshop. One Small Table Intensive. 🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy. 🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the scripts. 💻 Connect with Mary Petersen Website: heyfundraiser.comYouTube: @...

This is a different kind of episode, and it might be one of Mary's favorites yet! No theory, no framework from the top down. Just three real questions sent in by fundraisers like you, answered live. Mary digs into how to do prospect research in-house with zero fancy tools (hint: your donor database already knows more than you think), how to translate big campaign priorities into asks that actually feel personal to a donor, and how to build a real system for stewardship and donor upgrades so gratitude doesn't rely on one exhausted fundraiser's memory. She closes it out with the story of how she got into fundraising in the first place, and yes, a 22-foot python named Rajiv is involved. Got a question of your own? Send it to [email protected] or drop a voice memo on Speakpipe. It might be the next episode!  🎓 The Professional Development Budget Kit. Free Download! Everything you need to get your organization to say "yes" to funding your growth: templates, talking points, and an ROI calculator. 💸 Major Gift Intensives. We're headed to 6 cities in 2027. Are we headed to yours? Join us for a 3 day deep dive into major gifts! Only 30 seats per city. 🌻 The 2027 Growth Pass. Only 5 seats available. The Growth Pass bundles Mary's three flagship live experiences into one powerful year of learning. One Major Gift Intensive. One Ask Workshop. One Small Table Intensive. 🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy. 🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the scripts. 💻 Connect with Mary Petersen Website: heyfundraiser.comYouTube: @...

In this episode, I walk you through what we built together and answer the six questions that came up in the room, because I guarantee you're asking them too. Does the dinner have to be in someone's home? What do you do with loyal donors who won't return your calls? Can you invite people who have never given? And the big one: do you ask for the gift at the table, or the next morning? (The answer to that last one took me years and a lot of money left on the table to learn.) If you've read Small Table Big Philanthropy and thought "okay Mary, now help me actually build mine," this episode is your preview of exactly what we do in the Small Table Intensive.  🎓 The Professional Development Budget Kit. Free Download! Everything you need to get your organization to say "yes" to funding your growth: templates, talking points, and an ROI calculator. 💸 Major Gift Intensives. We're headed to 6 cities in 2027. Are we headed to yours? Join us for a 3 day deep dive into major gifts! Only 30 seats per city. 🌻 The 2027 Growth Pass. Only 5 seats available. The Growth Pass bundles Mary's three flagship live experiences into one powerful year of learning. One Major Gift Intensive. One Ask Workshop. One Small Table Intensive. 🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy. 🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the scripts. 💻 Connect with Mary Petersen Website: heyfundraiser.comYouTube: @...

Your year-end success is being decided right now. Not by your appeal letter, not by your Giving Tuesday plan, but by what you're doing with your top donors today. In this episode, Mary steps back from the tactics and hands you the thinking that makes every year-end move actually land: ask a major donor once, then thank them for the next 180 days. The Year-End Major Gift Playbook: Mary's complete six-month strategy to crush year-end, with scripts, calendars, trackers, and her 20 best cultivation ideas. Everything you need between now and December 31. --> Get your Year-End Major Gift Playbook Here! 🎓 The Professional Development Budget Kit. Free Download! Everything you need to get your organization to say "yes" to funding your growth: templates, talking points, and an ROI calculator. 💸 Major Gift Intensives. We're headed to 6 cities in 2027. Are we headed to yours? Join us for a 3 day deep dive into major gifts! Only 30 seats per city. 🌻 The 2027 Growth Pass. Only 5 seats available. The Growth Pass bundles Mary's three flagship live experiences into one powerful year of learning. One Major Gift Intensive. One Ask Workshop. One Small Table Intensive. 🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy. 🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the scripts. 💻 Connect with Mary Petersen Website: heyfundraiser.comYouTube: @...

Most fundraisers treat summer like the slow season. That's the mistake. Summer is the single best relationship-building season of the year, and what you do with your donors in July and August is what you'll close in October and November. In this episode, Mary makes the case for summer as your secret weapon and hands you the exact moves to use it. You'll learn the low-stakes cultivation tactics that actually deepen donor relationships (yes, the lemonade and the walk are strategy), and the one conversation that takes the pressure off your entire fall: sitting down with your prospects to map out the next six months together, so you're protecting their holidays on purpose instead of chasing them through the Jewish High Holidays, Halloween chaos, and Thanksgiving.  🎓 The Professional Development Budget Kit. Free Download! Everything you need to get your organization to say "yes" to funding your growth: templates, talking points, and an ROI calculator. 💸 Major Gift Intensives. We're headed to 6 cities in 2027. Are we headed to yours? Join us for a 3 day deep dive into major gifts! Only 30 seats per city. 🌻 The 2027 Growth Pass. Only 5 seats available. The Growth Pass bundles Mary's three flagship live experiences into one powerful year of learning. One Major Gift Intensive. One Ask Workshop. One Small Table Intensive. 🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy. 🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the scripts. 💻 Connect with Mary Petersen Website: heyfundraiser.comYouTube: @...