In my role as a fundraising consultant assisting nonprofits with their major gift campaigns, I help them evaluate their overall donor history, including their board members’ giving.

Working with the board president of one organization, we realized there was a name on the board list no one recognized. Year after year, this long-time board member had been giving modest, consistent gifts to the annual campaign, but no one knew who he was.

Since he had, technically, been on the board for a very long time, the board president asked if I would be the one to contact him and make a connection.

I reached out by email, shared who I was and asked to meet. Easy enough.

The next week, we met for coffee.

There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but I knew this was uncharted territory. I was certainly curious, but I wasn’t sure how he’d feel about being questioned after years of being overlooked.

“Tell me your story,” I began.

Over the next hour, the stories poured out. As I listened, he opened up about his thoughts, motivations and concerns.

Long story short, he had fallen through the cracks. The previous executive director recruited him to the board right before leaving the nonprofit. He didn’t know anyone else and no one had followed up, so his only correspondence was to reply to the annual appeal with a gift—which he did, gladly.

Thankfully, his feelings for the organization were still those of great gratitude. He had been involved with the nonprofit as a child, and it had a profound, positive impact on his life.

He said he wanted to help out with increased giving, but he also wanted to make a legacy gift in honor of what the organization had meant to him.

Following our one-hour visit, I was able to reconnect him with the organization. Not only were his subsequent gifts significant, but it was rewarding to see his relationship renewed with a group he cared about deeply.

For me, it was a great example of the power of philanthropy in action, when nonprofit leadership, fundraisers and donors come together to accomplish more than they could on their own.