Nonprofit Major Donor System: Moves Management in Excel

Most first major-gift programmes start as a list of names that somebody important recognises, kept in a file that nobody is responsible for opening.

Moves management is the unglamorous answer: every relationship has one owner, every prospect has a next action with a date, and the ask only happens once the qualification work behind it is done. Written down, it stops major gifts depending on whether a particular person remembers to call, and it survives that person leaving.

The part teams most often miss is the promise after the gift. Stewardship obligations have due dates like anything else, and a donor who was told they would receive a report is owed it whether or not the development manager is still there.

The Major Donor System is an Excel command centre of 22 sheets that shows who owns each relationship, what happens next, which asks are ready and which promises are due. It ships blank and as a sample workbook filled with a fictional nonprofit, with a 14-module implementation guide that runs from defining your major-gift threshold to troubleshooting, 32 Word templates in one editable document in US Letter and A4 — charters, research briefs, cultivation plans, meeting briefs, contact reports, ask memos, stewardship and renewal plans, 16 donor letters and emails and 4 board and connector scripts — and 12 fillable PDF field forms. It was tested at 250 prospects, 1,500 moves, 2,000 interactions and 500 opportunities.

It is not cloud CRM software: it is a spreadsheet system that lives in your own files. There is no wealth screening, no prospect data, no automatic email and no payment processing, and it is not a tax receipt, year-end statement or planned-giving toolkit. The case-for-support and pitch-deck workflow is sold separately as the Donor Pitch System.