The Board of Directors by Stephanie Roth and Kim Klein Getting Major Gifts Third Edition. In a number of my recent fundraising workshops, I have asked participants to give me a definition of cultivation. Here are the five worst and five best descriptions people have offered. Worst Cultivation is where you act like you like the donor, whether you do or not, so they will give you more money.
Cultivation is like going on a date.
You want to have sex, and your job is to get the other person to want it too. Cultivation is where you go and visit a rich person three or four times without talking about money, and then you finally bring it up. I don't know how you get to the money part though, or what you talk about on those other visits. Cultivation is a nice word for the games you play with donors, where you try to win a lot of money and they try to give you less than you want. Best Cultivation means you treat the donor like a whole person, instead of just a checkbook.