Most nonprofits — and most businesses — chase new customers when the bigger opportunity is already sitting in their own database. Jeff Schreifels, co-founder of Veritus Group, has spent more than three decades proving it: the people capable of giving, buying, or advocating far more than they currently do are usually already on your list. They're just under-asked and under-appreciated. Jeff helps organizations find and develop those relationships into major, transformational support.
Direct Answer: To turn everyday supporters into major, long-term backers, stop treating them as one-time transactions and start building real relationships: identify who's already capable of giving or spending more, ask them directly, and follow through with personal acknowledgment — handwritten notes, calls, invitations — after they say yes.
The Database Already Has the Answer
Jeff co-founded Veritus Group in 2009 after 12 years in direct-response fundraising — the world of mail appeals, TV spots, and radio ads designed to get someone to write a first check. What he and his business partner noticed was a gap: nonprofits were good at acquiring small, transactional donors but had no discipline for developing the major donors already hiding in their own databases. People giving $5,000 a year out of habit were, in many cases, capable of giving ten times that — they simply hadn't been personally asked. The same pattern shows up in for-profit businesses: a customer who's been quietly renewing a modest contract for years might be ready for a much bigger relationship if someone took the time to build one. The fix isn't a bigger prospecting budget. It's a better look at who you already have.
The $1.5 Million Lesson in What Follow-Through Is Worth
The clearest illustration in the conversation is Jeff's story of a donor who made two identical $1.5 million gifts to two different organizations. The first went to his university, funding new football offices. In return, he got a form thank-you letter — essentially a receipt — and, on a later visit, an unguided tour led by a freshman who had no idea why he was there. No coach came out. No one acknowledged what the gift meant. He quietly removed the university from his estate plan. The second $1.5 million went to his local veterans organization. He received five handwritten thank-you letters from veterans, an invitation for his entire extended family to the building's grand opening, and a standing monthly check-in call from the executive director. He didn't just keep giving — he redirected everything he'd planned to leave the university into that organization's estate gift instead. Same amount. Same donor. The only variable was whether anyone treated the gift like it mattered.
Give Away Everything You Know, Then Watch Who Calls
Veritus's own growth followed a counterintuitive strategy: give away as much expertise as possible, for free, for years, before ever pitching a service. They wrote blog posts three times a week, published white papers, ran webinars, and started a podcast — all built to let any nonprofit implement the Veritus approach without hiring Veritus. Jeff's business partner worried this would kill the business. Instead, it built the business, because most organizations read the content and still didn't have the capacity or discipline to execute it themselves. The content didn't compete with the service — it built the trust that led people to call and ask for help.
A Small Pilot Can Become a National Program
That trust-first approach eventually produced one of Veritus's biggest wins. Four public media stations agreed to a two-year pilot to build major-gift programs, and their revenue doubled. Word of the result reached the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funded a 13-week training program for more than 300 fundraisers across the public media network. Over the following 18 months, that training generated $74 million in additional revenue. A similar pattern played out with Doctors Without Borders' U.S. office, where a $44 million increase in major-gift revenue in a single year led Veritus into new relationships with the organization's Switzerland and Netherlands offices. In each case, the mechanism was the same: prove the relationship-first approach works at a small scale, and let the results — not a sales pitch — do the recruiting.
