Examining Assumptions About Fundraising Portfolios: Insights from Sales Force Management
White Paper This white paper looks at sales force management techniques as a way to help development offices assign major donors to development officers in order to minimize costs and maximize revenue. The paper considers four common fundraising models—constituency based, geographic, capacity based and the Mayo Clinic model—in relation to criteria used in sales-force strategies: product knowledge, customer knowledge, available time/travel and internal incentives.

Major Gift Officer Portfolios & Reports
Sample Collection The CASE InfoCenter maintains this collection of documents about major gift officer portfolios, fundraising expectations and reporting.

Major Gift Metrics that Matter
Thomas W. Grabau, Ph.D.
White Paper This July 2010 issue of Bentz Whaley Flessner's white paper, Points of Practice, discusses how to track the right major gift metrics for the best donor results.

By the Numbers
CURRENTS Article To identify what gets measured in fund-raising efforts, Bentz Whaley Flessner surveyed about 4,700 development managers and major gift officers on their expectations regarding number of phone contacts, number of face-to-face visits, and other metrics. The findings provide a snapshot of what's going on in the field and serve to establish some baselines for performance management.

Beyond Metrics
CURRENTS Article A baseline of metrics provides a foundation for the performance evaluation of major gift officers and programs. Then it's possible to move beyond the numbers to achieve transformational gifts. A wide range of perspectives from an advancement headhunter to a chief development officer paint a more complete picture of how to develop "big idea" major gift efforts.