Principal Gift Strategies LLC
So you want to raise $50M gifts?
Principal Gift Fundraising is Human-to-Human trust.
And the best relationship wins.
A system created by Ben Porter · Author of The Principal Gift Checklist: How to Cultivate and De-Risk Gifts of $5M–$100M+ (© 2019 Council for Advancement and Support of Education. All Rights Reserved.)
Hi, I'm Ben Porter. In 2019, I created the Principal Gift Checklist, the most widely used system for raising $5M+ gifts from individuals. Published by CASE, it has been adopted by organizations around the world. The Checklist moves a donor from outsider to insider, and you into their top three charities.
Now, here's how I can help.
The Original Checklist
It started with the original Checklist.
After four printings, the original Principal Gift Checklist is out of print. The thinking behind it has continued to evolve.
“We have put Ben’s checklist into practice at Rutgers and, not coincidentally, achieved record principal gift results for three consecutive years.” — Chris Needles, Former VP, Rutgers University Foundation
Current CDO, Wounded Warrior Project
“Applying Ben’s principles in my everyday work helped me secure a $5M gift within 18 months and drive $24M in production by my second year.” — Carol Thelen, Senior Principal Gift Officer, University of Minnesota FoundationExplore the Principal Gift Checklist →
For Repeated, Institutional Use
Checklist 2.0 — a critical second opinion.
Everything I know that stops $10M asks from becoming $1M gifts.
Experienced VPs already know these lessons intuitively. Checklist 2.0 puts that judgment into a repeatable process — so gift officers, deans, and other partners can share a common vocabulary without senior leaders having to reteach it every time.
50 critical questions. One integrated diagnostic.
Designed for repeated use across multiple prospects and gift officers, it produces a six-page report testing the amount, the timing, the idea, the asker — and whether you've earned the right to ask.
Built from 20 years of experience and data. Refined with top VPs on live eight-figure asks. Even includes quarterly office hours with me.
“Ben Porter’s insights and teachings are foundational to our principal gifts work.” — Amanda Peters Hopkins, AVC of Development, University of Colorado Boulder
Checklist 2.0: It remembers what others forgot.
Run it every time.
Your Top Families
When a checklist isn't enough, you need The Turn
We go off the map — and into the land of maximum creativity.
Your five most important donor families will set the bar for your entire campaign. They are irreplaceable, and require your highest and best work.
That is what The Turn is for.
A team is smarter than its smartest individual. We bring your brightest principal gift minds together and create the roadmap to the gift of a lifetime.
“Ben Porter is one of the most creative fundraisers in our field.” — David Lively, VP, Northwestern University
Powered by data. Grounded in practice.
Ben Porter
Creator of The Principal Gift Checklist and the 4×90 Lens
Ben spent 23 years inside higher education advancement.
He spent 16 years at Northwestern University, including as Associate Dean at Kellogg during its $520M campaign and as AVP for Principal Gifts during Northwestern's $6B We Will campaign. Earlier Northwestern roles included Executive Director of Development for Engineering during its successful $220M campaign, Regional Director for Major Gifts in Chicago, and Director of Leadership Annual Giving.
While at Northwestern, he studied what made principal gifts successful and solicited more data from the University of Chicago, University of Minnesota, and University of Texas at Austin. The resulting study became The Principal Gift Checklist. A larger 2026 study of 26 universities expanded the research, with new findings on first-generation wealth creators, “outside influencers,” and how $50M gifts differ from $5M gifts.
From 2022–2025, he served as Chief Advancement Officer at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, where he designed the Tuck 125 campaign, which secured more than $120M for unrestricted endowed scholarships, nearly doubled endowed scholarship funds, and generated scores of new six-figure annual fund pledges. The campaign later received a CASE award.
He began his advancement career at the Harvard Kennedy School in Annual Giving.
A.B., Princeton University.
“After reading The Principal Gift Checklist, Tufts leaders found Ben’s visit both energizing and practical—bringing the ideas to life with sharp data, real-world examples, and wit.” — Sara Judge, Vice President for Development, Tufts University
Field Notes & Research
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