Weekly Major Gift Editorial
December 28th, 2009
by Terry Burton

A modest group of major gift announcements preceded the Christmas break. What the group lacked in dollar volume was balanced out by the range of the recipient organizations.

It is interesting to note the number of grants that from the Community Foundations to local nonprofits.

Six gifts ranging between $1 million and $1.5 million suggest that individual donors is on par with previous weekly gift announcements.

The international scene took top honors with the $12 million announcement from the Israel Museum. A gift from Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel through the Mandel Supporting Foundations helped to  cap off the $100 million campaign for the museum’s 20 acre campus.

As we head towards 2010 one of the trends worth following is the number of international campaigns at the $100 million mark and above. At last count I have identified 12 of them.

Cause and effect of this suggests that more American fundraisers may start looking overseas for new job opportunities.

Major gifts listed here come from individuals, private foundations and corporate philanthropy. The 2009 Major Gifts Archive began publication in May of this year and is sponsored by  DonorSearch.net.

To view previous week by week reports & my editorials click through to the web site listed above.

Happy New Year!

Contributing author, Terry Burton, is President of Dig In Research. Author, speaker and consultant on emerging trends & strategies for major gifts. For more information please visit my web site at http://diginresearch.biz or call 248-881-2323. Follow me on Twitter @Major_gifts.