When you’ve been coaching and working with major gift officers for as long as I have, you meet a lot of good ones. You also encounter some pretty bad ones. But throughout my career, I’ve also had the privilege of working with a handful of extraordinary MGOs.

Through the years, I’ve seen six qualities that make the really great MGOs so successful. They might seem a little unconventional and sometimes counter-intuitive, yet they are key if you want to be extraordinary at this work.

Maybe you’re looking for new talent to fill a big role, or perhaps you’re trying to develop your own skills as a major gift officer. Well, I want you to keep an eye out for people who consistently show these six attributes — or foster them in yourself.

They Set Goals They Can’t Reach

If setting unreachable goals sounds like setting yourself up for failure, think again. Some MGOs resort to sandbagging — they never aim for goals they might not achieve. Doing that sets mediocrity as the standard.

I understand the urge not to set an impossible goal. But there’s a trick to this. Set a goal with your manager — one that’s reasonable and that you can achieve with hard work. Put a healthy percentage increase on top of last year’s income.

Then set a top-secret, private goal. Tell one other person, so you have some sense of accountability. But don’t let your manager in on the secret. Think hard. What could you achieve from your caseload if you really kicked it up a notch? Thinking like this is a great internal motivator that really helps you stretch yourself. And 9 times out of 10, I’ve found when a higher goal is set … it’s achieved.

They Embrace Rejection

The best MGOs are fearless in the face of rejection. Why? Rejections show that they’re out there doing the work. When they’re afraid of rejection, that fear manifests in unnecessary behavior: Things like looking for new clients instead of spending time with their caseloads. Or staying at their desks and making plans, as opposed to talking to people in their portfolio.

Now, that doesn’t mean extraordinary MGOs like rejection. They just know that the more they ask, the higher the likelihood that someone will say yes. That’s how they view their work and their caseloads. The best baseball players in the world fail about 7 out of 10 times. A success rate of 30-40% makes you a star. As long as you’re constantly learning from your rejections, asking good “why” questions, and getting back out there, success will come.

They Make Mistakes

Tons of them! You might be thinking this doesn’t make sense. The best MGOs don’t make mistakes, right? Wrong! Think of the most respected political figures in history. They might look invulnerable on first glance, but dig a bit more deeply and you’ll find they have made colossal errors and have experienced significant failures. But at other times, they got it right in a very big way.

But similar to rejection, extraordinary MGOs are never afraid to try new things, test unconventional ideas, and go above and beyond for donors. Sometimes they get it wrong. They learn from these experimental moments and rarely repeat the same error twice.

They Ignore Traditional Timekeeping

If you’re a manager, the worst thing you can do is demand adherence to punching the clock and working from the office every day. Talk to enough extraordinary MGOs, and you’ll quickly find that their biggest accomplishments didn’t occur within the confines of their 9-to-5 work hours. These are fundraisers who see their job as a vocation, a calling, and schedule their time around donors’ needs.

When a donor asks for a late meeting, or a weekend catch-up, the MGO makes sure they’re there. The best major fundraisers aren’t concerned about hitting their 40-hour work week quota. They’re worried about knowing their donors, deepening relationships, and creating great offers that will inspire transformational giving.

They Don’t Have All the Answers

We’ve been trained to feel like we should know everything in our profession. Extraordinary MGOs know that having all the answers isn’t possible. Instead, they focus on curiosity.

Curiosity is powerful tool. It can drive you to solve problems, ask important questions, and catapult you to some very complex situations. Extraordinary MGOs understand this. They don’t get stuck for long or delay things without solutions. They’re eager to learn and fun to be around. When you leave a meal with them, you feel great because they’ve expressed interest in you and listened to what you’ve said.

They Never Get Comfortable

The ideal caseload for an MGO includes 150 qualified donors. Among those, you always have at least a dozen different situations that are problematic, complex, or difficult to solve. If you’re doing your work well, you’ll always be hustling and working out solutions to problems. Challenging? Yes. Rewarding? Of course. Fun? Often. But it’s rarely comfortable.

Meetings are a good litmus test. Extraordinary MGOs tend to have meetings that fly by because they’re super animated or brainstorm creative and complex projects that have all kinds of twists and turns. They’re engaging because they know how to connect.

You’re always going to run into problems, but being an extraordinary MGO isn’t supposed to be easy. This job requires you to get out there and go to every length you can for your donors. The extraordinary MGOs do it because it’s worth it.

Jeff Schreifels is Principal at the Veritus Group  https://veritusgroup.com/. If you’d like to download a whitepaper (free) on this same topic, go to: Six Secrets to Becoming an Extraordinary Major Gift Officer  https://veritusgroup.com/whitepapers/six-secrets-to-becoming-an-extraordinary-major-gift-officer/

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