Major Gifts Officer

Ryan Mahoney

Ryan Mahoney

Director of Product, FirstWho

“Major Gifts Officers have to live in two different modes at once. They need the patience to spend three years building a relationship without asking for anything, and then the nerve to ask for a million dollars like it's the most natural thing in the world. Most people are good at one or the other. Finding someone who can move between them gracefully means looking for someone who listens more than they talk, who can sit quietly after saying a number and let the donor think, who knows when to step aside because someone else should lead. None of this shows up on paper. You have to put candidates in situations where you can see how they actually handle awkward moments, rejection, and uneven power dynamics.”

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Competency Questions

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Gift Stewardship and Stakeholder Engagement

Comprehensive major gift lifecycle management encompassing complex financial instrument structuring, regulatory compliance, sustainable relationship cultivation, impact communication, and equity-centered philanthropic practice for independent portfolio management.

Donor Relationship Management and Cultivation

Manages independent portfolio of major donors ($100K-$1M), executes cultivation strategies, closes complex gifts, and develops donor journey maps.

Interview round: Hiring Manager Strategy Interview

You notice a long-cultivated donor has become less responsive over six months. Your last two meeting requests went unanswered. What do you do?

Positive indicators

  • Pauses to assess what might have changed in donor's life
  • Tries different channels or timing before escalating
  • Reaches out to colleagues or board members with donor relationships
  • Creates space for donor to re-engage on their terms

Negative indicators

  • Immediately escalates to executive or board intervention
  • Interprets silence as rejection and redirects energy elsewhere
  • Increases frequency or urgency of outreach
  • Assumes donor has found another organization

Attitude Questions

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Active Listening

The disciplined practice of receiving, interpreting, and responding to both explicit and implicit communication in ways that validate the speaker's perspective, surface unspoken meaning, and build mutual understanding—particularly when stakes are high, information is incomplete, or emotional and strategic complexity obscures clear intent. For Major Gifts Officers, this involves suspending solution-oriented impulses to fully apprehend donor identity, organizational constraints, and relational dynamics before action.

Interview round: Recruiter Screen

Give an example of when you discovered you'd misunderstood a donor's priorities, and how you found out.

Positive indicators

  • Donor or third party surfaced discrepancy
  • Candidate shows curiosity rather than defensiveness
  • Adjusted approach based on new understanding
  • Identified root cause in own assumptions
  • Implemented preventive practice

Negative indicators

  • Never discovered misunderstanding or refuses to admit
  • Blamed donor for being unclear
  • Minimized significance of misalignment
  • No change to future practice

Progression Framework

This table shows how competencies evolve across experience levels. Each cell shows competency at that level.

Gift Stewardship and Stakeholder Engagement

5 competencies

CompetencyJuniorMidSeniorPrincipal
Donor Relationship Management and Cultivation

Assists with donor correspondence, schedules meetings, manages contact reports, and supports portfolio management for major gift officers to maintain relationships with 50-75 assigned prospects.

Manages independent portfolio of major donors ($100K-$1M), executes cultivation strategies, closes complex gifts, and develops donor journey maps.

Leads principal gift relationships ($1M+), navigates multi-generational family dynamics, designs transformative donor experiences, and leads volunteer committees.

Serves as organizational ambassador for ultra-high-net-worth philanthropy, shapes institutional fundraising culture, and mentors next-generation advancement leaders.

Equity-Centered Philanthropic Practice

Applies basic DEI principles to donor communications and ensures accessibility compliance in event logistics and materials, centering community equity in all fundraising activities.

Integrates equity frameworks into donor engagement strategies, facilitates trauma-informed conversations, and addresses power dynamics in philanthropic partnerships.

Leads organizational DEI strategy in advancement, designs inclusive philanthropic practices, and ensures cultural competency across diverse donor portfolios.

Transforms philanthropic paradigms toward community-centered models, establishes ethical frameworks for donor relationships, and advances sector-wide equity standards and accessibility.

Gift Structuring and Compliance

Processes routine gifts, ensures accurate documentation, and applies basic IRS regulations to standard charitable contributions and acknowledgments within 24-hour SLA requirements.

Structures complex gifts including securities, DAFs, crypto, and real estate; drafts gift agreements; ensures compliance with charitable regulations.

Oversees planned giving and blended gift structures, manages legal risk in high-value transactions, and advises on international tax implications and restrictions.

Sets organizational gift acceptance policies, navigates complex regulatory environments for transformative gifts, and ensures audit-ready documentation systems.

Organizational Leadership and Capacity Building

Supports fundraising committees, assists with event coordination, helps train volunteers on basic procedures, and manages internal communications under guidance.

Leads cross-functional campaign teams, trains junior staff, facilitates volunteer leadership development programs, and manages advisory councils.

Builds fundraising capacity across departments, mediates complex stakeholder dynamics between donors and programs, and leads organizational culture initiatives supporting philanthropy.

Drives institutional advancement strategy, develops executive leadership pipelines, creates sustainable fundraising infrastructure, and leads organizational change management.

Stewardship and Impact Communication

Coordinates stewardship mailings, updates donor records, assists with basic impact report preparation, and tracks touchpoint calendars to support donor retention goals.

Develops comprehensive stewardship strategies, creates compelling impact narratives, manages named gift recognition programs, and produces financial transparency reports.

Designs institutional stewardship philosophies, oversees legacy society communications, ensures donor intent compliance across restricted funds, and leads scholarship reporting.

Establishes transformative stewardship models that demonstrate deep impact, creates sector-leading transparency standards, and shapes donor experience innovation.

Strategic Intelligence and Systems Architecture

4 competencies

CompetencyJuniorMidSeniorPrincipal
AI-Augmented Engagement Optimization

Implements predefined AI-driven personalization campaigns and monitors basic engagement metrics under supervision to support digital stewardship efforts.

Configures machine learning algorithms for gift timing optimization and A/B tests personalized donor journeys and communication sequences.

Leads AI strategy for donor engagement, integrating predictive models with cultivation workflows to optimize solicitation timing and channel selection.

Pioneers ethical AI applications in advancement, establishes governance frameworks for algorithmic decision-making, and influences sector adoption standards.

Data Systems and CRM Architecture

Performs routine data entry, hygiene tasks, and basic report generation under supervision to maintain CRM integrity and accuracy for gift processing and donor records.

Configures CRM workflows, manages third-party integrations, and develops automated dashboards for pipeline visibility and stakeholder reporting.

Oversees enterprise data architecture, leads system migration projects, and ensures data governance compliance across multiple platforms.

Designs next-generation fundraising infrastructure, evaluates emerging AI/ML platforms, and establishes ecosystem-wide data standards and interoperability.

Predictive Analytics and Donor Intelligence

Executes standardized wealth screening queries and maintains donor research files using established protocols and basic database queries to support portfolio management for 50-75 assigned prospects.

Develops custom donor scoring models and conducts advanced prospect research using predictive analytics tools to identify hidden capacity and inclination.

Leads intelligence strategy for high-value portfolios, synthesizing external data sources with internal analytics to predict major gift likelihood and timing.

Architects organizational intelligence frameworks, pioneering AI-augmented research methodologies and setting industry standards for ethical data use in advancement.

Strategic Fundraising Architecture and Ecosystem Design

Supports campaign planning through data collection and assists in mapping partnership opportunities under direct guidance to learn fundraising infrastructure fundamentals.

Develops multi-year fundraising strategies, designs partnership frameworks, and coordinates cross-functional campaign execution and resource alignment.

Architects scalable major gift programs, leads ecosystem partnership development, and aligns fundraising infrastructure with organizational mission and capacity.

Sets strategic vision for philanthropic infrastructure, drives sector-wide collaboration models, and leads organizational transformation initiatives.