The Principal Gift Checklist

The Principal Gifts Team, while researching best practices and strategies for engaging the university’s highest capacity prospects, discovered this podcast. Ben Porter, associate dean of advancement for Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, discusses a checklist that Northwestern developed to move donors from outsiders to insiders—and ultimately move Northwestern into the donor’s top 3 charities.

The checklist has become the system that Northwestern uses to work with a donor who has the capacity to make a gift of $5 million or more and build on the intensity of their engagement with the institution. The 17 items on the checklist guide the engagement plan and determine readiness for a principal gift.

Click here to listen to the podcast. Porter’s book The Principal Gift Checklist: How to Cultivate and De-risk Gifts of $5 Million to $100 Million is available through CASE.