Thought Leadership
Articles on fundraising strategy, board leadership, and what it actually takes to raise what your mission is worth. Written from twenty years inside this work.
Category
Head, Heart, and Imagination: The Missing Piece in Your Major Gift Pitch
Head informs. Heart moves. Imagination compels. Most major gift pitches have the first two and miss the third — the spark that helps donors see themselves as partners in a future, not just funders of a need.
Multipliers: Your Most Underused Donor Acquisition Channel
Your secret major gift weapon isn't your board — it's your most deeply committed donors who introduce their peers. This article explains what Multipliers are, how they're different from board members, and how to find and activate them.
Reliability Is the Strategy: What Actually Drives Major Gift Growth
After working with 23 nonprofits across six time zones, one pattern surfaced consistently: fundraising performance is more about reliability than brilliance. Here's what that means in practice and why it matters more than the next bold move.
The Trust Equation: How Major Donor Trust Is Actually Built
Trust isn't a vibe — it's built in specific choices. This article breaks down the four dimensions of the Trust Equation and shows how to use them to diagnose exactly where a major donor relationship is strong and where it's quietly eroding.
The Inner Gift Game: The Four Psychological Barriers That Sabotage Fundraisers
The barriers that undercut fundraisers aren't skill gaps — they're psychological. This article names all four, shows what each looks like in the room, and offers the reframe that lets you move through them.
The newsletter nonprofit leaders forward to their boards.
Once a month, the deep thinking you don't have time to do yourself — on fundraising strategy, donor relationships, board leadership, and how to raise what your mission is worth. Practical frameworks. Real-world tools. Ideas you can put to work the same week.
Subscribe and receive the Add a Zero framework free: a practical guide to helping your organization stop underasking and start raising gifts at the level your mission deserves.
Speaking & Facilitation
Shannon speaks and facilitates for nonprofit leaders, boards, and development teams. Three signature talks, available as talks or workshops.
