The secret sauce. The decoder ring.
The perfect message.

Every charity – every Vice President of Development, major gift officer, gift planner, annual fund director and direct mail manager – is looking for it: that one thing that will resonate with donors and become the game-changer of the fundraising cycle.

How can I get major donors to upgrade? How can I interest donors in planned gifts? Get my first-year donors to give that elusive second gift? How do major and planned gift officers – with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of prospects to cultivate and qualify – balance mountains of individual detail with the need for an efficient system? These questions occupy the minds of the best fundraisers.

So they test – over and over, in endless combination – from letter length to donor clubs and everything in between. Clearly some things are working, because there are many successful charities doing great work. But the perfect message? Fundraising’s Holy Grail? It doesn’t exist. Despite everything we know about generational cohorts and what motivates them – the idea that we can speak to large groups with a single message – every single donor is different. Each donor started giving for a specific, personal reason.

Finding out what motivates an individual donor, what compels him or her to give to your organization – that’s the secret sauce. And the only way to capture that information is to talk to donors one on one. Find out why they started giving, why they continue to give, and how your charity is important in their lives. Giving your donors a chance to be heard – reaching out to them to let them know you care about what they have to say – will create dynamic, enduring relationships.

Covenant Calls was created to meet this growing need in the non-profit marketplace: to help charities connect with their donors one-on-one, strengthen and cultivate relationships, capture valuable information and qualify donors for major and planned gifts. Our program offerings include Major Donor Cultivation and Bequest Qualification.