Two More Major Major Gifts

Keep Qualifying Donors

The San Francisco Chronicle just announced two major gifts to Stanford University to help fund the new Precourt Institute for Energy.

Stanford alumnus Jay Precourt donated $50 million. He studied petroleum engineering before working in the oil and natural gas business. "I'm quite concerned, having been in the energy business my whole life, with the fact that we are importing energy from insecure, unreliable sources who are, in many cases, not friends of the United States."

An additional $40 million came from Stanford trustee Thomas Steyer and his wife Kat Taylor. they are both alums and funded the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy within the Precourt Institute for Energy.

Funding will enable Stanford to hire eight faculty and offer 20 graduate student fellowships.

The lesson here is that you need to keep qualifying donors who have done well in this tough economy. Don't stop raising money, just raise money more strategically. Ask donors how they are doing.

A good example – I was in the Midwest working with a client and talking with a campaign volunteer. We were getting acquainted and when I asked him what he did, he said banking. I asked how they were doing. To my surprise he said 2008 was their best year ever and they expect 2009 to be even better. Who knew.

It's critically important to keep your ears open and listen to potential donors' sense of their networth and the urgent needs that philanthropically can solve.

Photo courtesy Stanford.edu

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