Fundraising & Development
Grow donor revenue with disciplined pipelines, appeals, events, and stewardship built for how nonprofits actually raise money.
Annual Appeals
Plans and writes annual fund direct-mail and email appeal campaigns: donor segmentation for appeals, ask-string/amount ladders, appeal letter and reply-device copy, year-end and giving-season campaign calendars, and appeal performance benchmarks (response rate, average gift). Use when a user asks to plan a year-end or giving-season appeal, segment a donor file for a mail/email drop, write or edit an appeal letter or reply card, build an ask-string ladder, or analyze appeal response rates. Does not cover donor database/segmentation tooling setup (use nonprofit-donor-crm), social/team fundraising campaigns (use nonprofit-peer-to-peer-fundraising), or general e-newsletter content unrelated to a fundraising ask (use nonprofit-email-newsletter).
Capital Campaigns
Plans and runs capital campaigns: feasibility studies, quiet/silent-phase gift solicitation sequencing, public-phase launch and promotion, campaign leadership structure (steering committee, campaign chair), and gift range/table construction. Use when a user asks to plan or assess feasibility for a capital campaign, build a gift range table for a campaign goal, design campaign phases and timeline, structure a campaign cabinet or steering committee, or plan a public campaign launch event. Does not cover routine annual fundraising operations (use nonprofit-annual-appeals) or the mechanics of an individual major-gift ask within the campaign, which use nonprofit-major-gifts.
Corporate Sponsorships
Builds corporate sponsorship programs: sponsorship package/benefit-tier design, pricing, sponsor pitch decks and proposals, cause-marketing partnership structuring, and sponsor renewal/retention strategy. Use when a user asks to design sponsorship tiers or benefit packages for an event or program, price a sponsorship ask, write a corporate sponsor pitch deck or one-pager, structure a cause-marketing partnership, or plan sponsor renewal outreach. Does not cover foundation or government grant funding, even from a corporate foundation (use nonprofit-grant-research), and does not cover the underlying event budget/logistics the sponsorship funds (use nonprofit-fundraising-events).
Donor Pipeline
Builds and manages donor pipeline and moves-management systems: prospect identification, qualification, cultivation move sequencing, solicitation staging, and stage-to-stage conversion tracking. Use when a user asks to build a moves-management plan, set up pipeline/gift range stages, triage a prospect list, write a portfolio's next-move plan, calculate stage conversion rates, or diagnose why prospects are stalling in a stage. Does not cover setting ask amounts or structuring major-gift proposals (use nonprofit-major-gifts), thank-you/acknowledgment mechanics and lapsed-donor win-back (use nonprofit-donor-retention), or CRM software selection/configuration (use nonprofit-donor-crm).
Donor Retention
Designs thank-you/acknowledgment processes, maps the end-to-end donor journey, plans lapsed-donor win-back campaigns, and diagnoses retention-rate and donor-attrition problems using standard retention metrics. Use when a user asks to fix a low donor-retention rate, design or speed up a gift acknowledgment/thank-you process, map the donor journey from first gift onward, plan a lapsed or lybunt/sybunt win-back campaign, or calculate retention/attrition/donor-lifetime-value metrics. Does not cover moving new prospects through initial identification/cultivation/solicitation stages (use nonprofit-donor-pipeline) or the ask-string/segmentation mechanics of a regular mass appeal (use nonprofit-annual-appeals).
Fundraising Events
Plans and budgets fundraising events (galas, auctions, benefit dinners): event budgeting and net-revenue projection, sponsorship-vs-ticket revenue mix planning, live/silent auction procurement and structure, and event-day run-of-show/logistics planning. Use when a user asks to budget or plan a gala/auction/benefit event, project net revenue or set ticket pricing, plan auction item procurement and auction mechanics (live vs. silent, paddle raise/fund-a-need), or build an event-day run of show and volunteer/staffing plan. Does not cover designing corporate sponsorship tiers/pitch decks themselves (use nonprofit-corporate-sponsorships, then plug the resulting revenue into this event's budget) or peer-to-peer/team fundraising event formats like walks and runs (use nonprofit-peer-to-peer-fundraising).
Grant Research
Finds and vets foundation, government, and corporate grant funders: prospect research and fit scoring, RFP/NOFO tracking, funder database searches (Candid/Foundation Directory, grants.gov, state portals), and building a grant calendar of deadlines and renewal dates. Use when a user asks to find funders for a specific program, build or maintain a grant prospect list or grants calendar, score how well a funder matches the org's mission, or track upcoming RFP/NOFO deadlines. Does not cover writing the LOI or proposal itself (use nonprofit-grant-writing).
Grant Writing
Drafts letters of inquiry (LOIs) and full grant proposals for foundation, government, and corporate funders: needs statements, program narratives, budget narratives, evaluation/logic-model summaries written for a specific funder's guidelines, and grant reports. Use when a user asks to write or edit an LOI, draft a proposal narrative or budget narrative, respond to a specific RFP/NOFO's required sections, or write a grant report to a funder. Does not cover finding or vetting funders, tracking RFP deadlines, or scoring funder fit (use nonprofit-grant-research), and does not cover building the underlying logic model or theory of change from scratch (use nonprofit-program-design) — this skill packages an existing program design into funder-ready language.
Major Gifts
Sets major and principal gift strategy: rating prospect capacity and readiness, setting a specific ask amount, structuring a gift proposal or one-page case document, and drafting/negotiating gift agreements including multi-year pledges and named-gift terms. Use when a user asks how much to ask a specific donor for, wants help structuring a major-gift proposal or gift agreement, needs a capacity/readiness rating for one prospect, or is preparing a solicitation visit. Does not cover moving a prospect through general pipeline stages (use nonprofit-donor-pipeline), bequests/estate and legacy gifts (use nonprofit-planned-giving), or campaign-wide gift tables and campaign leadership (use nonprofit-capital-campaigns).
Peer To Peer Fundraising
Plans and runs walk/run/ride and team-fundraising campaigns: participant and team-captain recruitment, individual fundraising page copy templates, team captain toolkits, incentive/leaderboard mechanics, and peer-to-peer email/social prompts to participants' own networks. Use when a user asks to plan a walkathon/run/ride fundraiser, recruit or support team captains, write participant fundraising-page copy or coaching emails, design a leaderboard or incentive structure, or grow per-participant fundraising averages. Does not cover corporate sponsorship of the event (use nonprofit-corporate-sponsorships), venue/day-of event logistics (use nonprofit-fundraising-events), or one-time appeal letters not routed through individual participant networks (use nonprofit-annual-appeals).
Planned Giving
Builds bequest and legacy society programs: structuring planned-gift vehicles (bequests, beneficiary designations, charitable gift annuities, charitable remainder trusts), scripting legacy-gift donor conversations, marketing a legacy society, and stewarding named/estate commitments. Use when a user asks to launch or grow a legacy/bequest society, script a planned-giving conversation, market planned gifts to a donor segment, explain a planned-gift vehicle to a donor or board, or design stewardship for documented estate commitments. Does not cover outright major gifts made today (use nonprofit-major-gifts) or general pipeline stage tracking (use nonprofit-donor-pipeline).