The pressure. The team. The decisions that keep you up at night. That part isn't in any development newsletter.

The Objection For three years, I asked parents whose children had cancer to support a pediatric cancer research group. These parents were aligned with the cause. Most of the time, their reasons for not donating came down to one sentence. "I already give to the hospital where my child was treated." Encouraging parents to grow from annual fund donors into major donors was the toughest part, and it took me a while to figure out why. The gift we were up against Gifts to the hospital come from...

The Concentration Line 3-minute read We’re tracking to budget for our contributions goal this year. The variance isn't too low or too high. Just enough to feel good. But here’s the catch: over the last 24 months, more than 50% of our contributed revenue has come from just 10 donors. Both statements are true, but a typical board report usually includes only one. That’s the issue. When revenue grows, it can hide the risks behind it. If you want your board to pay attention to diversification,...

Do Whatever You Think Is Right Ruth Gottesman Sandy Gottesman created the wealth. Ruth Gottesman chose how to use it. She didn’t know much about the fortune. When he died in 2022, she inherited the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio with just one instruction. Seventeen months later, a retired pediatrics professor made the largest gift ever to an American medical school. Who She Is (And Why It Matters) Ruth Gottesman graduated from Barnard in 1952 and earned a master's at Teachers College at...

How You Lose a $4 Million Funder (and Don't Miss a Quarter) 4-minute read A $4 million funder walks away. In most organizations, the next steps are easy to guess: emergency meetings, a new forecast, and a list of prospects who suddenly become top priority. There’s pressure to speed up gifts that aren’t ready, and the CEO quietly asks, how will we replace $4 million? But there’s another way to look at it. You lose the funder, but you still meet your quarterly goals. This might sound like a...

The Doubling Test 3-minute read A foundation gave us $10 million and expected us to scale almost overnight. We hired new staff, set up new reporting systems, and brought in consultants to extend capacity and expertise. There was no slow ramp-up. We built everything quickly, under real pressure to deliver impact. It worked. Our program delivered and our reporting held up. Now the foundation is considering giving us more because we showed that a bigger check leads to bigger results. What I...

The Chief Reminding Officer 4-minute read Seven of every 10 of our sponsorship proposals still open with a cost table. Staff time. Program expenses. Indirect rate. That's a sector habit, and a reasonable one. Most of us learned this work writing grants, where the budget comes first and proves you're a responsible steward. Sponsorship runs on different logic. Companies pay for access, reputation, and audience. I've said that sentence in our meetings more times than I can count, and I'll keep...

Calm Leadership in a Culture of Urgency 3-minute read A request comes in for a donor profile with an hour's notice. This happens on my team about twice a month, always for high-value prospects. The first minute sets the tone for the whole hour, and it's not about the document. It's about my expression. The reaction is usually frustration. No one gave a heads-up, and the deadline means we’ve got to drop everything. That feeling is real, but it doesn't help. If I show my stress, my team feels...

The Three-Day Assumption 3-minute read A call came in, and in my practice with unknown numbers, I let it go to voicemail. The caller sounded like she was in her 20s. I decided it could wait. Three days passed before I called back. When I finally did, I found out she was reaching out for her family's foundation. We almost lost a $125,000 gift because I judged her age before considering her role. This wasn't a scheduling issue; it was a screening one. I assumed before checking the facts, and...

Are You the Bottleneck? 4-minute read I love my Think Days. Hot coffee. Chill music. No distractions. I feel like I'm doing something unique to advance my team and my performance. And the results never disappoint. Until this one. I started my Think Day with five questions on my list. This time, after staring at them for twenty minutes, I was stuck. So I turned to a little AI kickstart. I asked it to review my work since the last Think Day so it could help with my five questions today. Where...