Assiniboine College Foundation in Brandon, Manitoba, came to major gift fundraising not by choice but by necessity. The province of Manitoba had funded new capital builds at the college for years. When that stopped, the foundation faced a reckoning: a significant capital project was on the horizon, and the organization had never raised money at that scale. Annual fundraising revenue sat at a few hundred thousand dollars. There was no active major gift program and no infrastructure to support one.

Derrick Turner, who had moved from the academic side of the college to lead the foundation as VP Advancement, knew they needed help before they needed donors. The first call was for an assessment of the foundation itself. What came back was a clear picture of what needed to exist before any serious campaign could proceed.

The initial investment bought structure: roles clarified, a case for support developed, a campaign cabinet built, and a consultant who stayed on for a year to mentor the team as the infrastructure took shape. Staffing followed from that foundation – two major gift officers, a grant writer – and then the systems to support them: a CRM, moves management, prospect scoring.

The first $1-million gift arrived within months of staffing up – not because a new donor had been found, but because the relationship was already there and the infrastructure to close it finally was too. “That gave us confidence,” Derrick says. “We started to believe in ourselves.”

The campaign goal, initially set at $10 million, has now reached $23 million. Annual fundraising revenue has grown from roughly $1 million to exceeding $8 million. The conversion rate on major gift asks, once nearly 1:1 because the team only approached donors they were certain would say yes, is now 1:3 – because confidence and infrastructure make risk-taking possible.