I began my career in fundraising March 14, 2007. Yes, I remember the exact date, it was a Wednesday. My prior professional experience was in commercial sales, the pace was frenetic. When I arrived for my first day on campus I thought I had landed in heaven.  Were people really this nice? I kept hearing about culture and community but I didn’t know what that meant. My experience was in a cut throat environment where I was scared all the time. Coming to an independent school took some adjusting but it was an extraordinary change. I wanted to fit in.  I wanted to be successful. I was ready to learn everything I could to be a part of this wonderfully kind new world. 

The summer of 2007 I went to CASE’s Summer Institute. If you’re not in academic fundraising, CASE is the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Essentially, the guiding light for fundraisers in education. My first CASE conference I had no idea what to expect. It was for new people to the profession. I had been at work four months already when I arrived on the campus of Williams College for a week of professional learning, I felt like a veteran. Many of the new fundraisers there were starting their jobs in the fall. Think of it as a fundraising bootcamp. I was assigned a dorm room, a mentor, and cohort to make the most of the experience. I participated in workshops on annual giving, alumni engagement, effective communications, stewardship, working with leadership, reporting and events. It was best practices 101.

When people ask me about my background in fundraising, I describe myself as classically trained, because I was. I learned from the best of the best and went back to work at a school with a program that was highly functional with an extraordinary team and culture. We played by the rules, followed best practices, and delivered predictably consistent results. There was a cadence to the fundraising cycle that was reliable. We hosted similar events in similar locations with similar turnout and ROI each year. The consistency was comfortable, until it wasn’t. 

I got bored. I had moved up as far as I could in the first few years of my career but I thought I needed to move on to grow. Top leadership turned over but new leadership had a similar style and approach – like I said, classically trained. I saw opportunities to do more. I thought there might be a better way. I was serving in a frontline fundraising role. I was working with leadership-level donors, managing reunion classes, and serving as an active part of groups working on events and volunteer committees. I began to see themes emerging from conversations with parents and alumni. They were behaving out of habit. They had ideas too but didn’t want to upset the status quo. Everyone was very comfortable being comfortable. 

I was torn. I loved this kind comfortable place where I worked but I wanted to grow. I wanted to learn new ways of doing this, raise bigger gifts, make a bigger impact. I finally started to look at other career opportunities. I found a new role in higher ed at an organization I was excited about. I made the decision, if I got an offer, I was leaving.

It was tulip season in Washington. I was on the long drive from Bellingham back to Seattle with the new Head of School. We began the two hour car ride talking about the meeting we just left. I was feeling a little nervous. Two hours felt like a long time to be in the car with my boss’s boss. What were we going to talk about that whole time? So, I kept it purely professional. This was his first headship and we talked about fundraising best practices. I explained all of the things I was taught that summer at Williams College but somehow the conversation turned. I ended up telling him my ideas. We talked about the way I was trained to do things but my ideas for how they could work better at our school. We talked about the conversations I had with volunteers and the insights I gleaned from donor visits. I did a complete fundraising geek out brain dump. He asked lots of questions, shared his past experiences, and we conjured up new ideas neither of us had thought of before. The car ride that at first felt daunting flew by. 

A week later I was walking across campus and my phone rang. I got the offer. I was excited, scared, proud, and everything in between. I spoke to my boss, shared the news, and was preparing to tell my friends. Then my boss’s boss asked me to come talk to him. My nerves that day in the car in Washington didn’t hold a candle to how I felt at that moment being called into the Head of School’s office. I was less intimidated talking to him in a casual setting but one on one sitting at his mahogany table in the black captain’s chair in his office, I felt the nervous sweat building. He heard the news, I was resigning. He wondered why and I gave him all of my reasons about growth and opportunity. He asked me if I could give him 48 hours before I signed my offer letter. I agreed. 

That was how my career in fundraising leadership began. Two days later he offered me the top fundraising job. I stayed there for another seven years. The leap from #3 to #1 was huge. At first I felt like I was drinking from a fire hose. My first senior administrative meeting I looked around the room at my new peer group. I thought I was the least talented person in that room. But I was fortunate, I found wonderful mentors and I grew. I even implemented the ideas I shared on that long car ride from Bellingham to Seattle. I learned about the business of fundraising, board politics, strategic planning, and how to build a team. One of my favorite memories was of my first presentation to the full faculty about the fundraising results from the prior year and plan moving forward. I worked hard, collaborated with a consultant on the strategy, and felt well-prepared. I like public speaking but these were not strangers, they were my colleagues. The presentation went well, at least I think it did.  I don’t remember it. I walked off the stage and immediately the past 45 minutes were immediately erased from my memory. It was as if I had a full out of body experience. I told my boss how I felt. He laughed. He told me not to worry, that goes away the more you do it. 

I had one guiding principle I always followed, be the boss I’d want to work for. I think I’ve just been fortunate to work for great leaders. None of them are perfect but all of them are excellent in their own ways. I had extraordinary mentors. I’ve been asked more times than I can count, “what’s your leadership style?” I’ve always found this question tough to answer. It’s situationally dependent. I came to learn that my style is called Adaptive Leadership. It was introduced by Ronald Hiefentz and Marty Linsky. You can read more about it here. Being an adaptive leader has made me successful as a coach and helpful as a mentor. 

I grew because others poured their time and wisdom into me, today I seek to do the same for others. Mentorship was critically important in my career journey and too often, an undervalued resource. One thing I hear from people is that they don’t want to be a bother. The fear of being a burden gets in the way for too many. 

Let me give you my perspective coming from the other side of the table. Hearing from a mentee is a bright spot in my day. It’s a break from bureaucracy, problem solving, and politics that reminds me when I work in this field. Mentorship is the fun stuff. Just a few weeks ago someone reached out to me on LinkedIn who I didn’t know. He read something I wrote and had a question about how his church should approach a particular fundraising challenge. I was glad to help. The ten minutes it took me to reply to his email gave me a mental break. I mapped out some fundraising 101 best practices from that summer at Williams College and I provided him with some insight into how he might approach his challenge. I think that exchange did much more for me than it probably did for him. He wasn’t a bother. 

Fundraising will always be a relational business. No amount of innovation or AI will change that. People give to organizations but they give because of people. People navigate unique donor circumstances, listen to volunteer stories, and negotiate major gifts while convincing the donor it’s actually NOT a good idea to make the gift contingent on the unicorns winning the Super Bowl. Fundraising is about personal interactions with people. Shouldn’t nurturing talent be approached the same way? 

I encourage people, at all ages and all stages of their careers, to seek out a mentor. Ask an industry leader for advice. Developing relationships is like weaving fabric, they get stronger as more is added.