How do you top what is said to be the greatest selling fundraising book of all time? How do you improve upon Mega Gifts, a book CASE Currents magazine called 'the most important fundraising book' written?
How do you, as Emeril Lagasse would say, 'kick it up a notch?"
Jerold Panas knows how.
You update the content, revise it, add more chapters, introduce a rash of new donors, and look afresh at what's happened over the past two decades. What you end up with is an even better book, if that's possible.
The Second Edition of Mega Gifts: Who Gives Them, Who Gets Them is no 'how-to' book. Panas would wince at that depiction. No, Mega Gifts it is far more substantive and significant than that.
What Panas is after is nothing less than exposing the soul of those who make large gifts. And in his own inimitable style, he goes right to the source, the big givers themselves, and speaks at length with dozens of them.
Then, to corroborate what he learns, Panas surveys nearly a thousand professionals in the field and incorporates their insights as well.
The result is a tour de force book from an unrivalled storyteller, with insights dancing off every page. In fact, there's so much inside information, you'll feel you're reading someone else's mail.
What you find in Mega Gifts is the real deal, from the primary source. This isn't conjecture.
And what you gain is an understanding of donors' innermost motivations, what drives them to the causes they support, how they reach their decision, what nurtures their loyalty, what they expect from organizations and their staff, how they wish to be recognized - even how they want you to approach them and present your case.
And then there are the Tenets for Success. From his depth interviews, from his survey to field professionals, and from his own close association with mega givers over the past several decades, Panas has distilled down 62 tenets that guide, shape, and determine the success of securing major gifts. Each and every one should be tacked on the wall.
Mega Gifts is the 800 pound gorilla in the field and one hugely entertaining animal it is.
