My Nonprofit Client Landed a One Million Dollar Gift

Nonprofit GrowthDevelopment
Written By Sherry Quam Taylor
Image of a nonprofit leader at her desk with arms raised as she celebrates the success of a one million dollar gift from a donor.

What would you do if you were less than 60-days into your new fiscal year and landed a ONE MILLION DOLLAR gift? 

I know. You’d take that problem, right? Well, that’s just what happened to my well-deserving client. That’s not even the best part! . . .

 

That best part? When she asked for a smaller gift from the same organization months earlier she got ‘a no’.

 

But, she’s an A+ student. Here’s what we’ve consistently worked on together:

 

🐢Go slow to go fast.

🫶🏻She works for a donor’s BEST gift. That relationship takes between 6-24 months. She lets it take that long. 

 

👄Speak like YOU.

🫶🏻She’s learned how to show up as her authentic self. Not as some #fundraising version of herself. Act normal. Speak human. That’s how donors see the real you!

 

⛔No doesn’t mean no.

🫶🏻She realized she wasn’t talking to the decision maker. Every single no can be a ‘not yet’ with consistent networking and persistence.

 

🚀Don’t make decisions for your donors.

🫶🏻She asks for what she needs. Not for what she thinks the donor can give. She has an innovative Strategic Plan with LOTS of growth.

 

About that growth?

She’s a few years ahead of schedule.

Last thing I'll say….

Notice what you didn’t hear? You didn’t hear appeals, events, campaigns, or wealth screening software. Might fundraising for your team and organization be different from what the sector has told us for years? Yep. Your hunch has been right. If you’ve got big growth plans and want to invest in accelerating them as you start 2026, you can apply to work with me here.

Whenever you’re ready, here are THREE things you can do next:

👣 Follow me on LinkedIn where I share insider info daily — the same lessons I teach my clients about attracting larger gen-ops dollars and diversifying revenue.

🍎 Grab FREE Guides + White Papers — download robust resources you can use to push against the sector’s misconceptions, equip your board, and shift your team into High-ROI fundraising.

📈 Work with me to diversify revenue & secure the gen-ops gifts you need to grow. If you’re a business-minded nonprofit CEO with big growth plans but need to make charitable revenue from investment-level donors a bigger part of your budget, you can apply to work with me here.

Sherry Quam Taylor

Sherry Quam Taylor works with business-minded Nonprofit CEOs whose Strategic Plans require expansive budgets and larger amounts of general-operating revenue for growth. To become investment-level ready, Sherry helps leaders see their revenue potential and helps them see what may be blocking donors from giving in this way. Sherry’s clients know how to attract larger donors by solving the funding challenges at the root of the issue.

As a result of learning her methodology, Sherry’s clients become sustainable, diversify revenue, and know how to add significant amounts gen-ops revenue to their budgets. But mostly, their development departments and board have transformed into high-ROI revenue generators – aligning their hours with relational dollars and set free from the limitations of transactional fundraising.

Sherry attributes the success of her business to her passion for modeling radical confidence to the future CEOs in her house - her two college-aged daughters.

https://www.QuamTaylor.com
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What to do when you receive a substantial nonprofit donation without the donor’s contact info . . .