If you manage a university board, you already know that the meeting itself is not the work. The meetings are obviously important, but if engagement only happens three times a year around a conference table, you’re not doing it right. Board members don’t just want to attend meetings. They want to contribute. And after every…

I believe great fundraising leadership happens in high-quality coaching conversations. The 1:1 meetings between manager and fundraiser should help drive performance, create clarity around priorities, and keep momentum moving on open proposals. Rather than spending time on status updates alone, the goal for managers should be to ask questions that help our fundraisers think strategically…

If you want access to top donors, relationship mapping has to be part of your fundraising strategy. Relationship mapping is the process of utilizing the professional and personal networks of your board members, staff, and existing supporters to uncover paths to new prospects. There’s no substitute for a trusted introduction. A cold email might get…

As a manager of frontline fundraisers, there’s one task I know I should be doing and almost never have enough time for: reading visit contact reports. These are the reports fundraisers enter into the CRM after meeting with a prospect. They’re often detailed, multiple paragraphs long and there are a lot of them. Reading every…

Every Monday, I receive a spreadsheet with the metrics for all the fundraisers on our team. It’s filled with columns of goals, visits, asks, closes, and percentages. But most fundraiser metrics reports don’t actually help managers manage. You glance at the numbers, look for where fundraisers are behind on their goals, and then give feedback…

Scholarships are one of the most impactful things we can raise money for at a university and every fundraiser needs a clear, confident pitch when talking with donors about them. Here are five core points every donor should hear from you about the importance of giving to scholarships. 1. Scholarships Change Lives & Open Doors…

Most major gift stories get reduced to one line: “Met with donor. Gift closed.” But every fundraiser knows that’s not how gifts actually happen. Behind almost every meaningful gift is a series of engagements: introductions, conversations, follow-ups, and colleague partners that build toward trust. A lot of people do not understand what goes into making…

I recently wanted to take a look at if closing speed had an effect on fundraising success. By closing speed, I mean how long between when an ask is made and when the gift is closed. So I analyzed all the proposals on my team that were: approved gifts, declined gifts, and every open “asked”…

Every fundraiser knows this prospect. They love your mission, they love your university, and they genuinely want to make a big gift. But then they tell you “When my company sells or goes public, that’s when I’ll make the big gift.” Great. But what do you do in the meantime? You play the long game…

Good intuition is one of the most important (and least talked about) traits of a great major gift fundraiser. Fundraisers with strong intuition can walk out of a first meeting and immediately sense, “This person is going to be a great partner for our organization.” They know which prospects are worth their time and which…