For us, the deciding factor in counting a gift in the annual fund is whether the donor is able to repeat it in subsequent years. There are exceptions, of course, such as one-time gifts made in honor or in memory of someone, but the inclusion of nonrepeatable gifts in the annual fund undermines the very premise of annual giving. For instance, former Cornell University senior development officer David R. Dunlop suggests that a major gift might be 100 times the size of an institution's usual annual gift. Every individual associated with an institution has both the ability and the opportunity to make an annual gift. A smaller number of individuals also have the capacity and the inclination to make major gifts.
Donors can make major gifts to the annual fund.
We each may have donors who can and will make major gifts of this size, but have no interest in endowment or capital gifts. Instead, they prefer the immediate value of an unrestricted gift to be spent this year. Keep in mind, however, that such gifts will require a careful evaluation of your figures and projections for next year to account for the unusual spike in giving. The strongest development programs are those that create strategies and institutional cultures that seek to maximize annual gift revenue and major gift commitments simultaneously. Although these two types of gifts are complementary in nature, at most institutions there is an inherent sense of competition between annual gift and major gift programs.