Why it matters
An ask that arrives cold is easy to decline. An ask that follows a site visit, a lunch with your program director and a few honest updates feels like the natural next step. Cultivation is how you earn the right to ask for a larger gift.
For a small team, cultivation works best as a short written plan for each prospect: two or three touches, each with a date and an owner, ending in a clear ask. Without the plan, cultivation quietly turns into waiting.
How Steward shows it
In Fundraising, under Major gifts, Plans lets you lay out a cultivation plan as a series of steps. Only one step is open at a time, and each one lands on The Thread for the person who owns the relationship. A plan never sends anything.
Events can be typed as cultivation events, and every conversation you log joins the donor's timeline, so the history of the relationship is in one place when the ask comes.
Related terms
- Solicitation Solicitation is a direct request for a gift, made in person, by phone, by letter or by email. In major giving it usually means a specific ask for a specific amount and purpose.
- Major gift A major gift is a gift large enough that your organization handles it personally, with visits, a tailored ask and close stewardship. The dollar threshold is set by each organization, not by the sector.
- Moves management Moves management is a structured way to plan and log each deliberate step, or move, that brings a donor closer to a gift: from identifying them, through cultivation and the ask, to stewardship after.
The free Lost & Found audit reads a giving export in your browser and shows your lapsing donors and what they used to give. Nothing is uploaded. Then bring the same file to a 20-minute demo.