This is for major gift officers, development directors, and executive directors who want deeper donor trust and stronger community legitimacy at the same time. After reading, you'll be able to:

• Explain what "fundraising with, not for" looks like in a major gifts program

• Choose a shared-power model that fits your size and culture

• Invite donors into shared decision-making without saviorism or tokenism

• Pilot one simple shared-power experiment this quarter

After reading, you'll be able to: Spot the cross-border elements already sitting in your portfolio, ask five early questions that prevent most surprises, and use a simple checklist to vet and manage an international major gift with your finance and legal partners.

This edition is for major gift officers and development directors who have a few donors they've been quietly avoiding and want a clear, kind way back in.

In this week's edition of Scaling Major Gifts, I share a backwards-planned Q4 roadmap for visits, proposals, approvals, and stewardship. Plus a simple dashboard you can build in an hour.

This edition of Scaling Major Gifts is for major gift officers, development directors, and executive directors who want impact reporting to deepen donor commitment, not just check a box.

This is for major gift officers, development directors, and executive directors who want to talk about legacy giving naturally, without handing donors off or waiting for "the right time."

This is for major gift officers, development directors, and nonprofit CEOs who are hearing more hesitation from good donors right now.

This is for development directors, major gift officers, and executive directors who want to build major gift talent instead of constantly rehiring it.

This is for major gift officers, development directors, and executive directors who want their digital presence to support high-touch relationships instead of quietly undermining them.

This is for major gift officers, development directors, and executive directors who are running or preparing a campaign in an unsettled year. After reading this, you'll be able to:

• Set one working goal and build three response scenarios around it

• Name the assumptions your plan is quietly resting on

• Talk to your board about uncertainty without losing their confidence

This is for major gift officers, development directors, and executive directors who want their thank-yous to match how values-driven and next-gen donors really want to be seen. After reading this, you'll be able to audit your current recognition practices, retire what's fading, and design one or two updates that center the mission instead of the donor's ego.

This is for major gift officers, development directors, and executive directors who want to move from reporting at donors to genuinely listening with them. After reading this, you'll be able to design a simple listening touchpoint, decide whether a session or a council fits your situation, and capture donor input in a way that actually shapes decisions.

This is for major gift officers, development directors, and executive directors who are carrying the weight of donor relationships alone inside their own building. After reading this, you'll be able to describe what a culture of philanthropy looks like in practice, name everyday behaviors that build or erode it, and start one simple internal habit that spreads donor-centered thinking beyond the development office.

This is for major gift officers, development directors, and executive directors who want to honor generous donors without absorbing behavior that crosses a line. After reading this, you'll be able to name the power dynamics that show up in major gift work, spot the early signs a relationship is drifting out of balance, and use language that resets expectations while keeping the donor's dignity and your own intact.

This newsletter is for major gift officers, development directors, and executive directors who want to stop chasing information from other departments and start building it into the way your organization works. After reading, you will know who belongs on your internal coalition, how to run a meeting that respects everyone's time, and where to start if you have never tried this before.

This is for development directors, major gift officers, executive directors, and event volunteers who want their donor events to build real relationships without draining the team. After reading this, you'll have a simple framework for planning your next gathering, a short list of formats worth trying instead of or alongside your gala, and a follow-up system that turns a good event into real momentum.

This is for major gift officers, development directors, executive directors, and small teams who want more hours for donor relationships without working more hours overall. After reading this, you'll know the three categories of work that are safe to hand off, see a few low-risk workflows you can pilot this quarter, and have guardrails so none of it ever feels impersonal to a donor.

Inclusive fundraising in 2026 means treating every donor as a whole person with their own story, not a box to check on a diversity slide. If you lead major gifts, development, or a small nonprofit team, this is for you.

This is for fundraisers who want to move beyond the single-gift cycle. After reading, you'll be able to: identify donors ready for a multi-year conversation, use the right language to extend an invitation naturally, and set up a simple stewardship rhythm that keeps recurring donors engaged and renewed.