Fearless Major Gifts: Inspiring Meaning-Making

Take the fear out of the art of the ask.

 

Every major gift is planned, and every planned gift is major. This book is written with the premise that if you know how to identify, evaluate, cultivate and finally ask for the gift, it does not matter if it is a major gift or a will. Clergy and others need help learning how to 'make the ask' before the major gifts have been allocated to other non-profits and schools so willing and prepared to ask for them. LaFond recounts I remember sitting with a beloved, dying parishioner who turned to me in her last three hours and quietly said 'I wish I had remembered the church in my will.' I asked why she had not and she said, sweetly, 'They never asked, and everyone else did, and so thoroughly.'" Clergy and lay leaders are terrified of asking for major and planned gifts while parishes need them and donors need to give them. Clergy is not taught in seminary how to do this essential work of ministry. LaFond, in his various roles, is filling that educational gap.

Author: Charles LaFond
Publisher: Church Publishing
Published: 11/17/2017
Pages: 248
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.75lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780898690286

About the Author
LaFond, Charles: -

Charles LaFond has been raising major gifts in churches for 25 years in every possible ecclesial and non-profit context as a corporate vice president of the YMCA, a diocesan teacher, a missionary, monk, curate, Bishop's canon, consultant, Cathedral Canon, and associate rector. He has led training in this work, interviewed forty philanthropists, and raised more than $25 million in his non-profit ministry and $50 million in his ecclesial ministry. Major gifts work is a basic ministry and is the same in a parish of twelve families as one of 1,200.