SPRINT ACROSS THE FINISH LINE:
Are you maximizing your end-of-year fundraising potential?
The final months of the year are some of the most important weeks on the fundraising calendar, especially for major gifts. Donors are thinking about their giving, organizations are working toward year-end goals, and meaningful gifts can still make a tremendous difference.
But it’s time to get moving.
“Sprint Across the Finish Line” is a three-month major gift coaching and implementation program designed to help you make the most of the final stretch of your fundraising year.
SPRINT ACROSS THE FINISH LINE:
RAISING MAJOR GIFTS TO FINISH YOUR FUNDRAISING YEAR STRONG
OCTOBER 5–DECEMBER 21, 2026
Mondays | 12pm to 1:30pm CST
A weekly, live-training and coaching module designed to help you raise major gifts.
Here’s What We’ll Do:
Over three months, we’ll work through the major gift process together. You’ll learn where to start, how to build an outreach plan, which donors to prioritize, and how to facilitate meaningful conversations that lead to actual support.
You’ll learn how to…
1. Find the Right Donors
Your next major gift donor may already be in your database. We’ll identify the people with the strongest major gift potential and build a prioritized list of the donors who deserve your attention first.
2. Start the Conversation
Knowing who to contact doesn’t raise money. Contacting them does. We’ll develop your outreach strategy, work on what to say and how to follow up, and start reaching out to actual prospects.
3. Have Meaningful Donor Meetings
We’ll prepare for real donor meetings, work on what to ask and what to listen for, and help you have conversations that reveal what your donors care about and how they might want to help.
4. Turn Conversations Into Donor Strategies
We’ll use what you learn to develop individual strategies for your best prospects—what they care about, what they might fund, who should be involved, and what should happen next.
5. Build the Ask. And Make It
You’ll learn how to make an ask, how to determine your ask amount, evaluate who should make the ask – and when, and how to connect the opportunity to the donor’s interests. You’ll finish these sessions with a proposal template you can use into the future.
6. Follow Up and Finish the Year Strong
We’ll keep conversations, asks, and proposals moving while focusing on the opportunities that matter most before December 31.
Bill worked closely with me to understand our unique donor community and strategize portfolios with moves management built into the system. His approach helped break down what felt like a massive endeavor into a clear, multi-phase process. The team at Major Gifts Solutions tackled this project hands-on with a month of active outreach, resulting in personalized touchpoints for over 200 donors. It was great to have his thought partnership, and I’m pleased with the way Bill has set us up for success as we head into our fall appeal!
— Sierra Salinas, Director of Development, Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra
What You’ll Get
Your enrollment includes:
- 3 months of live 90-minute training and group coaching sessions
- Hands-on coaching around the donor situations you’re actually encountering
- Session recordings for review
- Finding the Donors You Already Have Guide
- Donor Outreach Toolkit with pre-approach letter templates, email and phone scripts, and follow-up resources
- Major Gift Proposal Template
- A customized Year-End Major Gift Action Plan
- Ongoing online access to the Sprint curriculum and program resources
Who This is For
Sprint Across the Finish Line is designed for nonprofit professionals who already have individual donors—and believe some of those donors have the potential to do more.
This program is a good fit if:
- You know major gifts should be a bigger part of your fundraising program.
- You have an existing base of individual donors with real major gift potential.
- You aren’t sure which donors deserve your attention first – or what to do once you’ve identified them.
- You want to get more comfortable reaching out to donors, getting meetings, and talking about philanthropy.
- You have real funding needs and opportunities that could become meaningful major gift asks.
- You’re willing to spend approximately 3–5 hours each week on the program and resulting donor activity.
- You’re ready to contact, meet with, and potentially solicit donors during the program.
Most importantly, you don’t have to have a sophisticated major gift program already in place.
You just need donors, meaningful opportunities for them to support, and a willingness to do the work.
Trusted by Nonprofits Like:
“With Bill’s guidance, we’ve not only reconnected with long-time supporters but also cultivated new relationships that are vital to our mission. His ability to coach our team, provide actionable strategies, and keep us focused on ambitious yet achievable goals has been transformative.”
— Raissa Allaire, Executive Director, Tree House Humane Society
This probably isn’t for you if…
- You don’t particularly want to raise more money.
- You’re perfectly happy letting your best major gift prospects sit quietly in your database.
- You’d rather send another mass email than actually talk to donors.
- You have no interest in learning how to cultivate new major gift prospects.
- The thought of asking someone for a major gift sounds terrible. And you’d prefer to keep it that way.
- You’d rather wait until January and put “build a major gift program” on next year’s to-do list.
If none of that sounds like you, we should probably talk.
Meet Bill
I’m Bill Myatt, founder of Major Gift Solutions, a Chicago-based fundraising consultancy helping nonprofits build major gift programs. I’ve spent more than a decade in professional fundraising, personally closing gifts of $100,000, $300,000, $750,000, and $1 million. Since launching Major Gift Solutions in 2020, I’ve worked with dozens of nonprofits across the country, from organizations with annual budgets just over $300,000 to more than $30 million. My clients have secured multiple seven-figure gifts, and we have helped organize multiple million-dollar campaigns. I believe major gift fundraising is ultimately about relationships, not complicated formulas or fancy systems. My goal is to help you raise more money, so you can advance your mission and make the world a better place.
“I’ve been in the nonprofit sector for many years. I’ve taken courses on how to raise money and attended events on fundraising. But Bill did something different. He guided me through the process of finding the right donors, reaching out to them for a conversation, and following up in a timely manner. He got me organized and coached me. Because of his help, we ended up raising a lot of money for the Little Village Rotary Club.”
— Len Dominguez, Little Village Rotary Club
Join the Founding Cohort
SPRINT ACROSS THE FINISH LINE
October 5–December 21, 2026
Mondays • 12:00–1:30 PM Central
Live Online