Major Gift Officer Dollar Expectations

Part 2 of a Series

The ultimate measure of a fundraisers success is the bottom line — how much money was raised this year. One college president told me he'd heard that the national benchmark was $2 million per development officer.

For an established fundraising program with an experienced fundraising who's been there awhile that sounds aggressive but doable. But, you need to take into account how many prospects the person has, their wealth capacity, how well they know the institution, and how much travel time is needed to see these prospects. For a regional urban university with 90% of the alumni in the metropolitan area you can expect one type of productivity. If you're a major gift officer for a major university with national alumni and your geographic region is a half day airplane ride away, that may be a different story.

There is another benchmark that is more universal. The cost of fundraising. For major gift officers working on the annual fund, building a new program, and with some travel achieving a 20% to 30% cost of fundraising is the goal. And soon. Ideally, you want to get a stable program to the 15% to 19% level.

In a capital campaign 10% cost of fundraising is the benchmark (lower for mega campaigns and second or third campaigns).

To get to this kind of frugal fundraising level (which is what donors expect so that 80% to 90% of their gift goes to the student, the faculty, the cancer program) you need to figure out your yearly cost to the institution in salary, benefits, expenses and support costs. For many places take your salary and double it to get a fully loaded number. So if you're paid $50,000, the total cost of fundraising to support you may be $100,000. To get to a 20% cost of fundraising you need to raise $500,000 a year. For a 15% cost, $700,000. For a 10% cost, $1 million. If you're paid $100,000 just double the money needed to justify your existence.

Now, that's the donor's perspective and probably the institutions expectations. These are real. We have learned the hard way that you need time to get there. Look at the chart to see a realistic expectation for your development office.


More to come: Click here for Part 1