The Freshman Fundraisers Podcast

You failed. You were let go (or left before you were) and find yourself at an all-time low. How do you bounce back and move on better than you were before? Anastasia Schriber joins us to talk about her personal story about how she dusted herself off and found herself in a better place after being let go from an organization.

Anastasia Schriber is the Development Director of the Respiratory Health Association in Chicago. She uses her creative brain and love for data to identify and implement strategies to engage donors. When she's not fundraising, she is either vintage dancing with the Lake Shore Dames, recording my own podcast Conquering Classics, and nerding out to fantasy novels, video games, and family D&D

Guest: Travis McDearmon

Welcome to season 2 of the Freshman Fundraisers podcast! We decided to change up the format a bit and we can't wait for you to hear from all of our fabulous guests! New episodes drop every other Tuesday starting Aug 17!

Jack Silverstein began his fundraising career as a high school student in London, Ontario, canvassing for the Canadian Cancer Society and has never looked back.  He spent four years with a consulting firm in Burlington, where he ran numerous capital campaigns from Churches to the Masons to a Symphony.  He has brought his passion, creativity, and flair for raising money to professional positions in Ottawa with Carleton University, the Ottawa Hospital Foundation, Executive Director of the Annual Campaign for the Jewish Federation of Ottawa and President of the Ottawa Jewish Community Foundation and most recently as the Vice President of Financial Development for the National Capital Region YMCA-YWCA.

Jack enjoys training and encouraging volunteers as much as he enjoys closing gifts himself.  He has vast experience with both private and corporate gifts and has raised tens of millions of dollars for worthy charities.  He believes strongly in endowments, legacies, and teaching the next generation about the importance of giving.

Jack is married to Sarah, a Social Worker, and they have two sons who keep them busy and laughing.  He enjoys cycling, running, watching football, a good cigar, and a great (single malt) scotch in his spare time.

We talk with Christina about all things stewardships. Top practices, do's & don'ts, upcoming trends, and more! 

Christina McNamee is currently the Senior Director of Advancement Services at an independent K-12 in the Washington, DC area. Previously, she worked in two roles for the University of Maryland, focusing on donor stewardship and recognition. She has worked in donor relations for the George Washington University, where she also received an MPA in Public Administration and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She lives in Fort Washington, MD, with her ever-expanding menagerie, including her wife, two daughters, dog, and cat.

With so many development professionals that just happen to fall into this work, there's a new generation of individuals venturing into this field with intention. We spoke to Jess (our first GenZ guest), a recent college grad who aspired to work in fundraising and is just starting out.

In fundraising, we recognize the importance of our words when talking to donors. 

In this episode, Kim and Diana sit down with Valerie Johnson, the Director of Institutional Advancement for Pathways to Housing PA to discuss the importance of the language we use when talking about participants in our programs (specifically when it comes to populations that are often marginalized or disenfranchised). We also chat about the importance of recruiting a board with lived experiences (and what a Give, Get can mean for those board members).  

As a bonus, Valerie shared with us about her work with AFP and getting her CFRE. 

Whether you're an extrovert (like Kim) or an introvert (like Diana), networking is generally considered to be part of the job for most fundraisers.

We talk to Mallory Erickson, Executive Leadership & Development Coach about the importance of authenticity in fundraising. 

Mallory Erickson is the fundraising coach for passionate leaders making a big social impact. She uses innovative tools to transform mission-driven leaders like you into powerful and authentic fundraisers. During her 13 years in the nonprofit sector, Mallory served as the Managing Director and Executive Director of multiple organizations and had multi-million dollar fundraising requirements in all of her leadership roles. Once she became a coach, she was able to identify the ‘elephant in the room’ when it came to fundraising and since then has been focusing her career on helping leaders raise transformative revenue by understanding and moving past the discomfort and vulnerability that comes from asking for money. If you want to feel differently about fundraising as well as clear and excited about your next steps - Mallory is the coach for you!

Pandemic required an almost universal requirement for fundraisers to adapt and work from home so we wanted to share our experiences as well as tips and tricks.

Feet First Peer to Peer Fundraising

Join us as we talk with Kat Gunsar-Smith, Manager - Triathlon, National Fundraising Campaigns & Volunteer Engagement with Team Challenge, Crohn's & Colitis Foundation. 

Kat shares how she got started with fundraising (by doing her own p2p fundraiser), the struggles event-based fundraisers are experiencing in the pandemic, setting up people for success in their p2p fundraising, and a few other tips and tricks. 

So email is the #1 way to communicate. 

So how do you do it? 

How do you write an email that will both catch attention and encourage a response. 

Our Top 5 Tips

1. Subject - avoid words that might be filtered out (anything to sales-y)
2. Salutation- Address them by first name
3. Opening
4. Body - Ask for advice/get money vs ask for money/get advice
5. Closing

Join us as we talk with Chloe Corcoran, the Senior Associate Director of Constituent Engagement  - West Coast for Emory University about her career journey in advancement and her experience as an out transgender woman in fundraising.

Chloe shares her guiding principals in working with donors (passion and impact) and how the impact of a gift can be great, even if the gift is relatively small. 

To give to Chloe's fundraiser for the Transgender Law center - https://bit.ly/3ixIAad

Our first Minor Episode

Kim & Diana discuss Women in Nonprofit and how it can be a struggle. Mentorship and networking are key and that's why we started the Nonprofit Sisterhood. A free Facebook group for nonprofit women to gather and discuss! 

Join us today - https://urlgeni.us/facebook/nonprofitsisterhood

Join us as we talk with Heidi Bruce CFRM, MBA. She talks about her journey from starting in fundraising at Morgan State University in MD, to THE Ohio State, to medical foundation fundraising, and back to Higher Education.

Heidi explains why networking is important, why she never asks for a donation, and why she picks the cranky donors. This is a not to miss episode!

Join us as we discuss how to talk with donors during the covid pandemic. Our top 5 suggestions are:

1. Wellness/Emotional Check-in
2. Acknowledge that things are hard/authenticity/honesty/humility
3. How your organization is helping/responding
4. Find new opportunities
5. Say thank you

We know that the mid-level donor is going to be one of the hardest hit demographics but it is important to continue to engage them!

Welcome to the First Episode of the Freshman Fundraisers podcast. In our first episode we talk a little about who we are, what we hope to accomplish, and why we started this!