Top 12 Major Gifts Officer Skills to Put on Your Resume
In today’s crowded philanthropy arena, a resume that showcases a sharp, credible skill set can lift a Major Gifts Officer from the pack. The right mix signals you know how to inspire generosity, build trust, and turn intent into transformative gifts. Below, the core capabilities that matter—and practical ways to sharpen them.
Major Gifts Officer Skills
- Fundraising
- Donor Relations
- Salesforce
- Raiser's Edge
- Prospect Research
- Negotiation
- Stewardship
- Communication
- Wealth Screening
- Grant Writing
- Event Planning
- CRM Management
1. Fundraising
Fundraising means securing financial support to fuel the mission—often through significant gifts from individuals, families, corporations, and foundations—guided and stewarded by the Major Gifts Officer.
Why It's Important
It powers programs and growth. For major gifts work, it also anchors long-haul relationships with donors whose philanthropy can move the needle fast and visibly.
How to Improve Fundraising Skills
Try this blend of focus and follow-through:
Build real relationships: Learn what donors care about and why. Match their passions to specific initiatives and keep communication human, timely, and two-way.
Use data smartly: A modern CRM helps spot patterns, capacity, engagement, and next-best actions. Let evidence guide your moves.
Elevate the experience: Personalize updates. Share impact with proof, stories, and specificity. Invite donors into the work, not just the transaction.
Keep your edge: Webinars, peer groups, and coursework sharpen technique. Fundraising evolves; your playbook should too.
Plan the pipeline: Clear goals, defined stages, target lists, and disciplined moves management. Work the plan; revise as you learn.
How to Display Fundraising Skills on Your Resume
2. Donor Relations
Donor relations is the art and system of cultivating, recognizing, and stewarding supporters so they feel known, respected, and eager to stay engaged at meaningful levels.
Why It's Important
Trust compounds. When donors see impact, hear the truth, and feel appreciated, they give again—and often more boldly.
How to Improve Donor Relations Skills
Lean into personalization and clarity:
Know their interests: Map motivations, values, and preferred ways of engaging. Align every touch to what matters to them.
Communicate simply: Share outcomes, milestones, and challenges with brevity and candor. Consistency beats flair.
Engage personally: Face-to-face meetings, tailored events, handwritten notes—signals that say this isn’t mass marketing.
Gratitude that lands: Thank fast, thank well, thank often. Recognition should feel earned and thoughtful, never perfunctory.
Plan stewardship: Set a yearly cadence by giving tier and interest area so donors never wonder what’s next.
How to Display Donor Relations Skills on Your Resume
3. Salesforce
Salesforce is a CRM platform that consolidates donor data, interactions, pipelines, and analytics. For major gifts, it’s the command center for strategy and action.
Why It's Important
It keeps your portfolio organized, automates the repetitive, and surfaces insights that drive timely outreach and bigger results.
How to Improve Salesforce Skills
Make it work for major gifts:
Customize for prospects: Add fields for capacity, inclination, interests, affiliations, and stage. Build page layouts that reflect your workflow.
Integrate email and calendars: Use Salesforce’s Outlook/Gmail integration and Einstein Activity Capture to log communication without fuss.
Automate with Flow: Replace legacy Process Builder where possible. Use Flow for task creation, reminders, and handoffs that keep moves on track.
Train the team: Short, role-specific training boosts adoption and data quality. Document the basics; reinforce often.
Report and dashboard: Track pipeline by stage, activity cadence, proposal volume, and forecast. Visuals reveal bottlenecks fast.
Collaborate: Use built-in collaboration tools to share notes, next steps, and meeting outcomes across teams.
How to Display Salesforce Skills on Your Resume
4. Raiser's Edge
Raiser’s Edge (including NXT) is fundraising and donor management software built to track gifts, interactions, analytics, and portfolios—especially helpful for major gifts programs.
Why It's Important
It centralizes donor history and engagement, enabling targeted outreach and disciplined portfolio management that translates to larger, smarter asks.
How to Improve Raiser's Edge Skills
Lift accuracy and actionability:
Clean the data: De-duplicate, standardize, and refresh records routinely. Good data saves time and embarrassment.
Use custom attributes: Track interests, event touchpoints, wealth indicators, and relationships specific to major gifts work.
Segment intelligently: Group by recency, frequency, amount, capacity, and engagement for focused cultivation.
Report deeply: Build dashboards for pipeline health, activity volume, and conversion rates. Review them in team meetings.
Invest in training: Short, ongoing refreshers keep usage high. Share tips and create simple SOPs.
Use mobile: Update notes and tasks on the go with NXT so nothing lingers in a notebook.
Integrate tools: Sync email marketing and event systems to streamline communication and tracking.
Tap prospecting features: Prioritize portfolios using capacity and affinity data inside the platform where available.
How to Display Raiser's Edge Skills on Your Resume
5. Prospect Research
Prospect research identifies who can give and who is likely to give, so outreach starts warm and focused rather than broad and hopeful.
Why It's Important
Time is scarce. Research filters the universe into a prioritized, qualified list that aligns with your mission and ambitions.
How to Improve Prospect Research Skills
Blend tools with judgment:
Use wealth and philanthropy datasets: Screen for capacity and verify with multiple sources. Treat scores as signals, not verdicts.
Analyze giving patterns: Look at timing, amounts, causes, and affiliations to anticipate readiness and interest.
Leverage professional and social profiles: Executive roles, board seats, and public philanthropy reveal priorities.
Collaborate with peers: Share wins and methods across advancement, programs, and research teams.
Keep learning: Stay current on tools, screening ethics, and privacy norms. Document your approach.
Personalize next steps: Turn insights into specific outreach angles and cultivation paths.
How to Display Prospect Research Skills on Your Resume
6. Negotiation
Negotiation, in major gifts, is the careful conversation that aligns donor intent and organizational needs—naming, recognition, timing, purpose—into a shared win.
Why It's Important
It protects mission integrity, respects donor priorities, and often unlocks gifts that might otherwise stall or shrink.
How to Improve Negotiation Skills
Get prepared, then stay nimble:
Do the homework: Know your budget, case for support, and non-negotiables. Understand the donor’s goals and constraints.
Build rapport first: Trust calms the room. People say yes more readily to partners, not strangers.
Listen fiercely: Reflect back what you hear. Surface the interests beneath the positions.
Be clear and specific: Plain language, concrete options, crisp timelines. Ambiguity invites delays.
Offer creative options: Pledges, blended gifts, matching challenges, multi-year commitments—flex without losing the plot.
Steady your emotions: Pause when needed. Keep the relationship bigger than the moment.
For deeper study, explore well-regarded negotiation frameworks and fundraising-focused training from reputable professional associations and academic programs.
How to Display Negotiation Skills on Your Resume
7. Stewardship
Stewardship is the ongoing care and accountability you demonstrate after the gift. It’s impact reporting, gratitude, and meaningful involvement over time.
Why It's Important
Loyalty comes from feeling seen and seeing results. Stewardship turns one great gift into a lasting partnership.
How to Improve Stewardship Skills
Design it like a program, not an afterthought:
Personalize every touch: Reference past gifts, interests, and outcomes. Make updates feel curated, not canned.
Show the impact: Use outcomes, stories, photos, and numbers. Tie results to what the donor intended.
Be transparent: Share wins and headwinds. Clarity builds trust.
Thoughtful recognition: Align recognition with donor values—naming, private briefings, or quiet thanks.
Offer engagement pathways: Site visits, advisory input, volunteering, or curated learning sessions.
Ask for feedback: Short surveys or candid conversations. Then act on what you learn.
How to Display Stewardship Skills on Your Resume
8. Communication
Communication in major gifts means telling the mission’s story clearly, listening with intent, and shaping messages that resonate with each donor’s lens.
Why It's Important
It’s how you earn meetings, convey urgency, and make the case that a gift today changes tomorrow.
How to Improve Communication Skills
Keep it crisp and human:
Active listening: Ask thoughtful questions, reflect back, and confirm. Understanding drives alignment.
Clarity over jargon: Short sentences. Specifics over slogans. Cut filler.
Tailor the message: Customize by interest area, impact level, and preferred channel.
Right-channel, right-time: Email, call, video, briefings—match the medium to the moment and the person.
Invite feedback: Build loops that improve your next conversation and your next case statement.
How to Display Communication Skills on Your Resume
9. Wealth Screening
Wealth screening estimates a prospect’s giving capacity and philanthropic signals using public data and specialized datasets—fuel for prioritizing outreach.
Why It's Important
It focuses effort on donors most likely to make consequential gifts, improving both efficiency and yield.
How to Improve Wealth Screening Skills
Precision matters—and so does ethics:
Keep data current: Refresh records, confirm addresses, and validate signals. Outdated inputs waste time.
Segment by insight: Group by capacity, affinity, and engagement to route the right cultivation plan.
Use predictive tools judiciously: Treat models as guides. Verify with human research and staff intel.
Personalize outreach: Translate findings into specific, relevant opportunities.
Stay compliant: Follow privacy laws and your organization’s data policy. Be transparent internally about how data is used.
Nurture relationships: Screening informs strategy, but rapport and relevance close gifts.
How to Display Wealth Screening Skills on Your Resume
10. Grant Writing
Grant writing means researching opportunities and crafting proposals that align funder priorities with your program’s logic, budget, and credible outcomes.
Why It's Important
Major gifts teams often partner with grants to round out big initiatives. Strong proposals unlock new capital and reinforce the case for individual donors.
How to Improve Grant Writing Skills
Make it compelling and clean:
Study the funder: Mirror their focus areas, language, and evaluation criteria. Fit is everything.
Write for clarity: Plain language. Sharp problem statements. Concrete outcomes.
Tell a tight story: Need, solution, approach, measurement, sustainability. No loose threads.
Align the budget: Every line should map to the work. Justify assumptions; avoid wishful math.
Peer review: Fresh eyes catch gaps, jargon, and inconsistencies before the deadline.
For growth, look to respected training programs, sample proposal libraries, and sector publications that dissect winning submissions and common pitfalls.
How to Display Grant Writing Skills on Your Resume
11. Event Planning
Event planning for major gifts focuses on curated gatherings—intimate, purposeful, and memorable—that deepen relationships and spark consequential conversations.
Why It's Important
High-quality events create connection, signal credibility, and open doors to bigger, braver giving.
How to Improve Event Planning Skills
Design with intention:
Know the room: Tailor format, content, and speakers to donor interests and giving stage.
Set crisp objectives: Stewardship, cultivation, or solicitation—let the goal shape the agenda and run of show.
Use smart tools: Event platforms can streamline invitations, RSVPs, seating, and follow-up.
Engineer conversation: Seating charts, facilitators, and purposeful programming make networking natural.
Personal touches: Acknowledge past support and tailor interactions. Details linger.
Follow through: Same-day thanks, photos, outcomes, and clear next steps. Momentum fades fast—catch it.
Debrief and refine: Collect feedback and translate it into changes for the next event.
How to Display Event Planning Skills on Your Resume
12. CRM Management
CRM management is the disciplined use of your database to capture clean data, segment donors, automate workflows, and guide timely, personal outreach.
Why It's Important
Better data, better decisions. It lifts retention, raises average gift size, and keeps portfolios moving.
How to Improve CRM Management Skills
Make the system your ally:
Guard data quality: Standardize entry rules, audit regularly, and fix errors quickly.
Segment for relevance: By capacity, interest, lifecycle stage, and engagement channel. Then tailor the plan.
Automate wisely: Triggers for reminders, acknowledgments, and nudges keep cadence without micromanagement.
Mine analytics: Use dashboards to spot lapses in activity, sluggish stages, and emerging prospects.
Design better experiences: Use insights to personalize touchpoints, from briefings to stewardship reports.
Train continuously: Short, role-based refreshers help everyone use the system the same way.
Iterate the process: Review what’s working quarterly and adjust fields, stages, and automations accordingly.
How to Display CRM Management Skills on Your Resume
