Relationship Be Damned, Full Speed Ahead (and right into the iceberg)
I received an email recently from a friend in the profession. The message described a new directive from fundraising leadership that all development officers would be expected to ask donors at capacity. Not at a level connected to giving history. Not at a level supported by demonstrated engagement. At capacity. And even worse, ask at the capacity stated in a standard “wealth screen.”
As I read the email, I was reminded that this idea first gained traction years ago as wealth screening became more sophisticated and more widely adopted. What began as a useful research tool gradually evolved in some organizations into something much larger. Instead of informing strategy, capacity ratings began driving strategy. Somewhere along the way, some leaders started believing that if a donor had the capacity to make a six figure or seven figure gift, the organization should simply ask for it
The problem is that fundraising has never worked that way.
A donor's capacity and a donor's inclination are not the same thing. Neither are capacity and commitment. A wealth screening can provide useful information about financial resources, but it cannot tell us whether someone cares deeply about the mission, trusts the organization, feels connected to its leadership, or sees philanthropy to that institution as part of their identity. Those factors are often far more important than the numbers found in a screening report.
Imagine a donor who has given $50 annually for years. Their lifetime giving totals less than $1,000, but a wealth screening suggests they could make a gift of $250,000 or even $500,000. Some leaders now seem willing to jump directly from the donor's giving history to the capacity estimate and build a solicitation strategy around the larger number. That approach ignores everything we know about donor behavior. Most significant philanthropic relationships are built over time through engagement, trust, demonstrated impact, and increasingly meaningful investments. Donors rarely wake up one morning and decide to move from a modest annual gift to a transformational commitment simply because someone asked.
And even one step further, this all ignores the fact that 85% of the wealth in the US, and at higher levels with some of the wealthiest people in the world, is not in cash or marketable securities. It is in 401k’s, IRA, real estate, antique cars, wine collections, farmland, etc. And to get to those conversations, a gift officer better develop trust. Almost no one is going to dip into their assets to make a gift based on a single or two conversations—no matter how good the discussions were.
What concerns me most is that this philosophy reflects a misunderstanding of the gift officer's role. Professional fundraisers are not human versions of wealth screening software. Their value comes from understanding people. They listen. They learn. They connect donor interests with institutional priorities. They help donors move along a journey that is often measured in years rather than months. When organizations reduce fundraising to asking for the largest number attached to a donor record, they diminish the professional judgment of the very people they hired to build relationships.
The consequences extend beyond donor relationships. Gift officers know when they are being asked to do something that lacks strategic sense. They know when a solicitation amount is disconnected from a donor's history, engagement, and demonstrated interest. When leadership consistently ignores that judgment and imposes unrealistic expectations, frustration follows.
Eventually some of the most talented professionals decide to leave for organizations where relationship building is still valued.
What makes these directives particularly frustrating is that they often originate from leaders who are insulated from the consequences. In large organizations, senior advancement executives frequently oversee portfolios filled with the institution's most loyal donors and strongest relationships. They operate from a position of credibility built over decades. It is easy to issue broad directives about asking at capacity when someone else must sit across the table, make the ask, repair the relationship if it goes poorly, and continue managing the donor afterward.
Will this approach produce some large gifts? Of course it will. Almost any strategy will generate occasional success stories. The danger is that leadership often focuses on those victories while ignoring the far greater number of donors who become confused, uncomfortable, or disengaged.
At the same time, gift officers become increasingly frustrated by expectations that substitute algorithms for professional judgment.
Fundraising is ultimately about relationships, not capacity ratings. Organizations that forget that distinction may secure a few impressive gifts in the short term. The longer-term outcome is often much less attractive: strained donor relationships, declining trust in leadership, increased staff turnover, and a culture that values transactions more than genuine philanthropic partnership.
