The assumption is understandable. Larger institutions have extensive development operations, prospect researchers, planned giving specialists, sophisticated technology, and numerous gift officers. Their resources allow them to engage donors at a scale that smaller organizations cannot easily replicate.

Yet the size of a fundraising team is only one factor in its success. A dedicated team with strong philanthropic relationships, disciplined priorities, and a clear understanding of its mission can generate significant results.

Consider the nonprofit sector itself. According to the National Council of Nonprofits, 92 percent of reporting public charities have annual revenue below $1 million. Smaller organizations represent the overwhelming majority of our sector.

If meaningful philanthropy required large development departments, most nonprofits would have little opportunity to succeed. My experience suggests that smaller teams can possess advantages that deserve greater attention.

• First, smaller organizations often have a direct connection between their mission, their leadership, and their donors. A donor interested in supporting a community health initiative, scholarship program, or social service can frequently meet directly with the individuals responsible for delivering that work. These conversations can provide a level of personal engagement that larger institutions must work deliberately to create.

Relationships remain the foundation of philanthropy. When a donor knows the executive director, understands the program, and sees the results of a gift, the opportunity for meaningful engagement grows.

• Second, smaller teams must become exceptionally disciplined about how they spend their time. Every fundraising activity carries an opportunity cost. An event that generates modest net revenue while consuming months of staff time may prevent the organization from developing relationships with individuals capable of making transformational commitments.

This requires leaders to evaluate activities based upon their actual contribution to philanthropic revenue and donor engagement. Tradition alone is insufficient justification for continuing an activity.

Time recovered from less productive activities should be invested in donor relationships. Consistent cultivation, thoughtful conversations, personalized stewardship, and an understanding of each donor's motivations create the conditions for larger and more sustained commitments.

• Third, a small development department does not mean that fundraising responsibility rests exclusively with a few employees. The CEO, board members, program leaders, and volunteers can extend the organization's capacity. A board member who makes a personal thank you call or introduces a prospective donor contributes meaningfully to the philanthropic process.

Technology can also help. Artificial intelligence and effective donor management systems can reduce administrative work, improve research, and support communications. Their greatest contribution is freeing staff to spend more time with donors.

• Finally, organizations must protect their most valuable resource: dedicated people. Expecting two development professionals to execute the same volume of activities as a department of twenty is unrealistic. Clear priorities, appropriate expectations, and organizational support allow talented professionals to concentrate on the work that produces results.

We should stop measuring fundraising potential primarily through the number of people employed in development. Instead, consider the quality of relationships, clarity of philanthropic opportunities, commitment of organizational leadership, and discipline with which limited resources are deployed.

A smaller team may never match the operational scale of a large institution. It can still build extraordinary relationships, secure substantial gifts, and create lasting philanthropic impact.

The question should be less about how many fundraisers an organization employs and more about how effectively those individuals are empowered to build relationships that matter.

As an Omaha kid, I admit to being partial to Warren Buffett. Growing up in a city known internationally because of one investor creates a certain hometown pride. Yet Buffett's story offers lessons that extend well beyond Omaha, investing, or even business.

When Buffett took control of Berkshire Hathaway in 1965, it was a struggling textile manufacturer. Over six decades, he transformed it into a conglomerate valued at more than $1 trillion, with interests in insurance, railroads, energy, manufacturing, retail, and some of America's most recognizable companies.

The financial growth is remarkable. However, Buffett's greatest accomplishment may be the extraordinary reservoir of trust he accumulated along the way.

Consider legendary Katharine Graham, publisher of The Washington Post. In the 1970s, Buffett became a major shareholder, trusted adviser, and close friend. Graham was navigating the complicated financial and operational challenges of running a major newspaper company while defending its journalistic independence. Buffett helped her understand corporate finances, evaluate acquisitions, and develop confidence as a business leader. Their relationship demonstrated how financial expertise, offered with patience and respect, could strengthen an institution.

That trust became particularly visible during the 2008 financial crisis.

As some of the world's largest financial institutions struggled to survive, their leaders sought Buffett's capital and judgment. Goldman Sachs turned to Berkshire for a $5 billion investment, providing desperately needed capital and a public expression of confidence. Buffett also supported government intervention to prevent a broader financial collapse. His decisions carried enormous influence because decades of disciplined investing had established his credibility.

Think about that. An investor operating from Omaha had become someone Wall Street executives looked to during one of the most consequential financial crises in modern history.

Buffett's success was built on several principles that apply to any profession: understand what you are investing in, maintain financial discipline, communicate honestly, admit mistakes, and recognize that reputation is accumulated over decades.

His record was hardly perfect. Investments sometimes disappointed, markets punished Berkshire, and critics questioned individual decisions. Yet his long perspective and willingness to explain his reasoning helped sustain shareholder confidence. Berkshire's annual compounded stock return averaged 19.7 percent from 1965 through 2025.

For those of us in philanthropy, his story raises an especially relevant question: Are we building relationships that can endure uncertainty and difficult decisions? Trust grows through consistency, transparency, and the demonstrated ability to place long term interests ahead of immediate gratification.

Buffett's retirement closes an extraordinary chapter in American business. His financial accomplishments will fill textbooks for generations. But I suspect his most enduring legacy will be something harder to measure: the confidence people placed in his judgment.

From one Omaha kid to another, thank you, Warren. We can all learn from your example.

In this particular situation, the organization had received a very large check from a donor. Some might call it a principal gift level. The check made its way to the finance department, where someone was uncertain about how to process it. Rather than asking for assistance or contacting the development office, the individual simply set the check aside. Nothing happened.

More than 90 days later, the donor contacted the organization to ask why the check had not cleared their bank account. Imagine the conversation that followed and the potential damage to a relationship that had taken considerable time and effort to develop. And to boot, the donor had to reissue the check because it had a “90 day valid” comment on the instrument. Oh boy.

While this situation may seem unusual, the underlying issue is remarkably common. We often approach fundraising as though the development office has primary control over the donor experience. We establish goals, create cultivation strategies, develop solicitation plans, and measure results. However, much of what determines our success takes place outside the development office. Finance processes contributions, legal counsel reviews agreements, program staff fulfill commitments, and leadership makes decisions that influence the organization's ability to deliver on its promises. Each of these functions has a direct or indirect influence on philanthropy.

The challenge is that we cannot reasonably expect everyone in the organization to understand these connections without some effort on our part. The finance employee who failed to deposit the check may not have understood the donor implications of that decision. The program director who delays providing impact information may not recognize how that affects stewardship. The executive who postpones a donor meeting may not appreciate the consequences for an evolving relationship. Their actions may be entirely understandable within the context of their own responsibilities, while simultaneously creating substantial challenges for fundraising.

This places an additional responsibility on philanthropy professionals. We must invest time in educating colleagues about the fundraising process and explaining how their responsibilities influence donor relationships. Sometimes that means developing better procedures or establishing expectations around communication and response times. Other times, it requires negotiating priorities with departments that have legitimate competing demands. These conversations require us to understand their challenges as well as communicate our own. We cannot assume that simply declaring something a fundraising priority will make it an organizational priority.

We will never eliminate every internal obstacle, nor should we expect complete control over activities outside our departments. However, we can develop stronger relationships with colleagues, create a shared understanding of donor expectations, and establish processes that prevent uncertainty from becoming inaction.

Ultimately, successful fundraising depends on considerably more than our ability to secure a gift. It depends on the organization's collective ability to receive, honor, and fulfill the commitment that gift represents. The relationships we develop inside our organizations deserve much more of our attention, because they have a direct bearing on the relationships we work so hard to develop with donors.

After all, getting the gift may be our job. Honoring the gift is everyone's responsibility.

That may be part of what is happening with community foundations.

The NonProfit Times recently reported strong growth among community foundations. Endowments at 114 community foundations grew 14.7 percent in 2025, following 11 percent growth in 2024. More than half of the foundations surveyed reported increased gifts, and among those organizations, the median increase was 79 percent. Those are substantial numbers.

Some of that growth is clearly tied to investment performance. But I think there is another part of the story----people want to make a difference where they live.

There is something very different about supporting an issue somewhere across the country and helping improve the community you drive through every day. You know the hospital. You know the schools. You recognize the neighborhoods. You understand the challenges facing families in your community because you see them, hear about them, or experience them through people you know.

The impact is closer.  And because it is closer, it often feels more real.

That matters in philanthropy. Donors do not simply want to know that their gift was received and properly used. They want to understand what happened because they gave. They want to see progress. They want to feel some connection between their generosity and a changed life, stronger organization, better opportunity, or healthier community.

Community foundations are built around that connection. They give donors a way to support the place they call home while addressing a range of needs. The growth of donor advised funds within community foundations also gives people flexibility to be thoughtful about where and how they give over time.

For nonprofit leaders and fundraisers, I think there is a larger lesson in this trend.  We spend a great deal of time talking about what our organizations need. We need a new program. We need more scholarships. We need a renovated facility. We need additional staff. Those may all be legitimate needs, but they are still organizational needs.

The more compelling conversation may be about the community.

• What kind of community do we want this to be?

• What do we want children growing up here to experience?

• What institutions must remain strong?

• What would happen if we solved this problem locally?

Those are different questions, and they create a different kind of philanthropic conversation.  They move the donor from funding an organization to helping shape a community.

That is an important distinction.  The continued growth of community foundations may be telling us something about what donors are looking for. They want proximity. They want relevance. They want to see the result of their generosity and understand how it changed something they care about.

There is a lesson in that for every nonprofit, whether it is connected to a community foundation or not.  Make the impact visible. Make it local whenever possible. Help donors understand what their generosity changes in the places and among the people they already care about.

Sometimes philanthropy feels most meaningful when the evidence of the gift is not somewhere far away.

Sometimes you can see it on the drive home.

What caught my attention was what was missing. Across 23 different descriptions of the modern healthcare CEO role, there was no meaningful discussion of philanthropy, fundraising or donors.

That matters because healthcare organizations increasingly expect philanthropy to do more.

Campaign goals are getting larger. Capital needs are substantial. Margin pressure continues. Organizations are looking for philanthropic support for facilities, technology, programs, research, workforce initiatives and community health priorities. In many organizations, philanthropy is no longer viewed as a nice supplemental revenue source. It is expected to become a meaningful component of the financial strategy.

That expectation creates a basic leadership problem when philanthropy is treated as the responsibility of the chief philanthropy officer while the CEO remains largely outside the process.

Ask a university president or chancellor whether fundraising is part of the job and the answer is generally obvious. Higher education has spent decades building a leadership culture in which presidents understand that donor relationships are part of institutional leadership. They meet donors. They travel. They cultivate relationships. They articulate vision. They participate in solicitations. They accept that philanthropy requires a meaningful portion of their time.

Healthcare has not consistently developed the same expectation.

That difference places chief philanthropy officers (and their fundraising teams) in a difficult position. They are often given increasingly aggressive fundraising goals while having limited access to one of the most important philanthropic assets in the organization: the CEO.

The CPO is expected to produce transformational gifts, but may struggle to get executive time with transformational prospects. The development team can spend months building a relationship only to encounter difficulty scheduling the CEO for the meeting that matters most. Fundraisers are told that philanthropy is a priority, but donor engagement can quickly lose its place on the calendar when operational matters arise.

Operational matters will almost always arise.

That is precisely why philanthropy has to be understood as part of the CEO's job rather than an activity that happens when time permits.

This is not an argument that healthcare CEOs should become full time fundraisers. They should not. Their responsibilities are too broad, and professional fundraising teams exist for a reason. It is an argument that the organization cannot hold the CPO fully accountable for philanthropic performance while treating CEO participation as discretionary.

That model does not make sense.

Major philanthropy is relational. At significant gift levels, donors are rarely making decisions based solely on a proposal prepared by the foundation office. They are making decisions about leadership, direction, trust and confidence in the future of the institution. They want to understand where the organization is going and whether the leadership has the ability to get there.

In those conversations, the CEO matters.

The CPO can prepare the strategy, understand the donor, develop the case, manage the relationship and orchestrate the process. The CPO cannot substitute for the CEO when the donor wants to hear directly from the person ultimately responsible for the organization.

This creates one of the most frustrating dynamics in healthcare philanthropy. Fundraising teams can be evaluated on results that depend, at least in part, on executive engagement they do not control.

Boards also contribute to the problem when they establish ambitious philanthropic expectations without establishing corresponding expectations for the CEO. A campaign may be approved. A major goal may be announced. Consultants may be hired. Additional development staff may be recruited. Yet nobody has clearly discussed how much CEO time will be required to make the strategy work.

Then everyone becomes frustrated when results fall short.

Higher education learned long ago that fundraising is not simply the advancement office asking wealthy people for money. It is a leadership function that happens to be supported by a professional advancement organization.

Healthcare should think about philanthropy in much the same way.

This issue is one of the reasons I wrote Vibrant Vulnerability: Mastering Philanthropy for Today and Tomorrow’s Healthcare CEOs. The book was written around a simple premise: healthcare CEOs do not have to become fundraisers, but they do need to understand their role in philanthropy.

That role includes being accessible to important donors. It includes articulating a compelling vision. It includes understanding why donors give. It includes being willing to develop authentic relationships before there is an ask. It includes recognizing that the CEO’s presence can communicate institutional priority in a way that no brochure, campaign video or development officer can duplicate.

If healthcare systems want philanthropy to become more significant, this conversation has to move beyond the foundation office.

The question is not whether the CPO has a strong enough strategy.  The harder question is whether the organization has created a leadership model in which philanthropy is understood as a shared executive responsibility.

Until that happens, healthcare will continue asking philanthropy teams to produce higher levels of revenue while withholding some of the leadership engagement required to produce it.  Heck, I even wrote a book about this issue and a guide to help CEO’s.

That is not primarily a fundraising problem.  It is a CEO leadership issue. 

That philosophy resonates with me. Like most parents, my instinct is to help. If there is a problem, I want to solve it. If there is confusion, I want to clarify it. If an assignment gets missed or something goes wrong, I know how easy it would be to send the email, explain the circumstances, or smooth out the situation. Sometimes that is necessary. But increasingly, I am convinced that stepping in too quickly can take away some of the very experiences our kids need in order to grow.

At 13, taking responsibility may mean communicating directly with a teacher, asking for clarification about an assignment, managing deadlines, or dealing with the consequences of being unprepared. At 9, responsibility looks different. It may mean remembering what belongs in the backpack, keeping track of homework, asking for help, or understanding that schoolwork belongs primarily to the student. The expectations should match the age, but the underlying premise can remain the same. Their lives are gradually becoming theirs to manage.

I actually want my kids to make some mistakes along the way. I want them to forget something occasionally, misunderstand an expectation, have an uncomfortable conversation, or make a decision they later realize was not their best one. Those moments are rarely enjoyable for a parent to watch, but they create opportunities that constant intervention removes. A child who learns how to recover from a missed assignment is developing skills that will eventually help with a missed deadline at work. A child who learns how to talk with a teacher about a problem is beginning to develop the confidence to communicate with professors, employers, colleagues, and other adults later in life.

Parenting today makes intervention particularly easy. We can monitor grades, assignments, schedules, emails, calendars, and countless other details that previous generations of parents simply could not see. That access can be useful, but access does not require action. Sometimes the better choice is to know what is happening and still allow our children to work through it themselves.

I am not sure I like how quickly they are getting older. There are days when I would gladly slow the whole process down. At the same time, I love seeing the growth that comes with it. My role is gradually changing from managing much of their lives to helping them learn how to manage their own.

At 13 and 9, that responsibility takes vastly different forms. The long-term goal, however, is the same. We are raising adults. Every time we allow our kids to communicate, struggle, solve a problem, recover from a mistake, and take ownership of another small part of their lives, we are helping prepare them for the much larger responsibilities still ahead.

Business decisions often involve numbers, contracts, expectations, timing, and return on investment. Personal decisions can involve relationships, emotions, and competing priorities. We spend a great deal of time weighing options and trying to determine the best path forward.

But occasionally, the answer is pretty simple.

A few months ago, a client and colleague asked me for some help. The work was outside the scope of what we were doing together, and it would take some additional time. Under normal circumstances, it would have been reasonable to define the project, discuss a fee, and send an invoice.

I did not do that.

They needed help. I was in a position to provide it. Helping them felt like the right thing to do.

There was no strategy behind the decision. I was not thinking about future business, calculating the value of the relationship, or wondering whether the favor might eventually lead to something else. I was not concerned about revenue or income. In that moment, the question was much simpler: what did they need, and could I help? The answer was yes.

About six months later, they came back. This time, they wanted additional work and made it clear that they expected to pay for it. I appreciated the opportunity, but that outcome had never been part of my original thinking. If they had never called again, I still would have felt good about helping them because the original decision stood on its own.

I have thought about that experience several times since then because it connects to something my wife and I have tried to teach our children for years.

Doing the right thing is usually not that difficult to recognize. Most of us know when someone has been treated unfairly. We know when we should tell the truth, apologize, help someone, keep a promise, return something that does not belong to us, or give someone else the credit they deserve. The challenge usually comes later. Knowing what is right and actually doing it are different things.

That is one of the lessons we have tried to reinforce with our kids. Doing the right thing can cost you something. It can cost time, money, convenience, an opportunity, or a little pride. It can mean admitting you were wrong when it would be easier to stay quiet. It can mean helping someone when there is no obvious benefit to you.

Those are often the moments when values become real.

As a parent, I have also learned that children watch far more closely than we sometimes realize. They hear what we tell them, but they also pay attention to how we live. If we tell them to be generous but constantly keep score, they notice. If we tell them to be honest but create exceptions whenever honesty becomes inconvenient, they notice that too.

My wife and I have never expected perfection from our children, and we certainly do not expect it from ourselves. But we have tried to make one principle clear: doing what is right should not depend on who is watching, what you might receive in return, or whether anyone ever gives you credit for it.

That same standard applies in business.

I run a business. I understand that work has value. Revenue matters. Time matters. Contracts and scope matter. A business cannot function if every decision ignores those realities. Still, every decision does not need to begin with a financial calculation. Sometimes a colleague needs help. Sometimes a client needs something beyond the technical boundaries of an agreement. Sometimes we have knowledge, experience, access, or time that can make a meaningful difference for someone else.

In those moments, I try to come back to a question my wife and I have asked our children many times over the years: What is the right thing to do?

Then do it.

Do it when someone is watching. Do it when nobody is watching. Do it when there is a benefit attached to it and do it when there is absolutely nothing coming back your way. And if, six months later, something good does come back around, appreciate it. Be grateful for it.

Just never make that the reason you chose to do the right thing in the first place.

We have all seen the wrong kind of leadership. It is the leader who inserts themselves into every decision because nobody else can possibly get it right. The one who publicly corrects people over minor issues. The one who constantly snipes, criticizes, or demonstrates authority simply because they can. The one who always has to provide the answer, even when someone else already has one. Every conversation becomes a reminder of who is in charge rather than an opportunity to help others succeed.

What makes this kind of leadership especially difficult is that it is often invisible to outsiders. In public, these leaders can be warm, engaging, funny, and remarkably personable. They charm board members, clients, donors, and peers. They know exactly how to present themselves. Behind closed doors, however, the tone changes. Employees experience a very different person. They walk into meetings wondering what criticism is coming next. They second guess every email before pressing send. Those outside the organization often cannot reconcile the stories they hear because they have only seen the polished version.

On the surface, this behavior looks like confidence. In reality, it often reflects the opposite.

I love Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs….and have written/done my podcast on it several times. Maslow offers an interesting perspective. Before someone reaches the highest level of “self” as reaching “self-actualization,” they seek security, belonging, esteem, and a stable sense of oneself. Leaders who never seem satisfied and constantly diminish others often appear to be searching for esteem in the wrong place. Instead of building their own confidence through purpose, competence, and healthy relationships, they build it by pushing others down. Every criticism becomes proof, in their own mind, that they are still the smartest person in the room.

The problem is that leadership built on insecurity creates organizations filled with insecurity.

People stop taking initiative because every decision is second guessed. Creativity disappears because the safest choice is to remain silent. Talented employees spend more time managing the leader's emotions than solving problems. Eventually, people stop bringing ideas altogether because experience has taught them they will simply be criticized.

Over time, the organization pays a significant price. Innovation slows. Trust disappears. High performers quietly leave when they can. Those who remain often become less engaged, less confident, and less willing to take ownership. Performance declines, even though the leader often responds by becoming even more controlling.

The saddest part is watching what it does to good people. Capable professionals begin questioning their own judgment. People who once enjoyed their work become anxious before every meeting. Teams lose the energy that comes from feeling trusted and respected. The damage extends beyond the office. It follows people home, affecting their confidence, relationships, and overall wellbeing.

Yet many stay.

They stay because the compensation is attractive. They stay because they have families to support. They have kids in school. They stay because the uncertainty of leaving feels greater than the certainty of living with unhealthy leadership. Financial security can keep people in organizations for years after their enthusiasm has disappeared. Fear of the unknown will make people not even consider other options. From the outside, everything appears healthy because the leader has mastered the public image. The people living with the reality know otherwise.

Great leaders do something very different. They derive confidence from developing others rather than dominating them. They ask questions instead of supplying every answer. They correct with dignity, praise generously, and recognize that leadership is measured less by how indispensable they become and more by how capable everyone around them becomes.

Leadership should elevate people. When it consistently diminishes them, it is revealing far more about the leader than the people being led.

Recently, I tried to book a basic flight to a larger city. Nothing exotic. Nothing international. Nothing involving first class or a complicated itinerary. The cost was more than $800.

I stared at the screen for a moment thinking I had done something wrong.

Then there is Friday night dinner. We have places we go regularly. Same restaurant. Same type of food. Same general routine. A dinner that used to cost around $40 is now more than $60. The experience did not change. The food did not suddenly become extraordinary. The bill simply got larger.

I notice it when I balance our monthly accounts. I may not be the person paying each individual bill, but when I look at the totals, there is no question that more money is going out for many of the same things.

One experience caught my attention even more. I picked up a prescription recently and the pharmacist told me the price had increased—some but not crazy. Then came the question: “Is that okay?”  It was the way the question was asked that stayed with me.  The pharmacist was not simply explaining the price. The question sounded practiced, as if it had become necessary because enough people were standing at that same counter and saying, “No. I cannot afford that.”  That is when inflation becomes something different than a statistic reported on the evening news.

I am also hearing about it from nonprofit clients. Annual fund donors who have given consistently for years are disappearing. Some are reducing their gifts. Others are skipping a year. Organizations are trying to determine whether donor behavior has changed, whether their messaging is wrong, or whether there is some larger problem with engagement.

In some cases, the answer may be much simpler.  They may still have jobs. They may still own their homes. They may still appear financially comfortable from the outside. But the accumulation of higher grocery bills, insurance premiums, restaurant costs, travel expenses, medical bills, utilities, and everything else begins to change behavior.

Philanthropy lives within that reality.  I did two podcasts on this 4 years ago, with details of what this means in the philanthropic space…

• Episode 92: Inflation and Philanthropy - Understanding the Challenges, Part 1 https://www.hallettphilanthropy.com/podcast/episode-92-inflation-and-philanthropy-understanding-the-challenges-part-1?rq=inflation

• Episode 93: Inflation and Philanthropy - Creative Solutions to Inflation Fundraising Part 2  https://www.hallettphilanthropy.com/podcast/inflation-and-philanthropy-part-2?rq=inflation

Fundraisers cannot assume that a donor who gave $1,000 last year can comfortably give $1,000 this year. We cannot immediately interpret a smaller gift as declining loyalty. And we should be careful about labeling someone a “lapsed donor” when the real story may be sitting in their kitchen, pharmacy, credit card statement, or monthly budget.

There is a tendency in fundraising to study donor behavior through our own institutional lens.

Sometimes we need to look outside it.  Because people may be carrying more financial stress than we know. 

Soon, our television screens and radio airwaves will be taken over by political commercials.

Millions and millions of dollars will be spent trying to convince us how to vote. In some races, the spending is already extraordinary. Michigan’s 2026 Senate primary alone generated more than $98 million in advertising spending and reservations.

And I dislike almost everything about it. My frustration has little to do with one political party or another. Both sides participate. Candidates participate. Political action committees participate. Outside organizations participate. Everyone apparently has concluded that the best way to earn my vote is to explain how absolutely terrible the other person is….

• Candidate A is dangerous. Candidate B cannot be trusted. Candidate A is destroying America. Candidate B wants to destroy America.

And, of course, there is always the ominous music, the unflattering black and white photograph and the narrator who sounds as though civilization itself may end sometime shortly after Tuesday.

I get it. Negative political advertising exists because campaigns believe it works. Research on its effectiveness is more complicated, with studies finding relatively small persuasive effects from political advertising overall and mixed evidence about the effectiveness of negative campaigning.

But effectiveness is not really my point. My question is much simpler:

• What are you going to do?

• Tell me how you are going to make my community better.

• Tell me how you are going to improve education, strengthen healthcare, address our national debt, improve infrastructure or make government function more effectively.

• Tell me what problem you want to solve.

• Tell me how you plan to solve it.

Give me a reason to vote for you instead of spending 30 seconds giving me reasons to vote against someone else. That would actually be refreshing.

I understand politics is competitive. Elections require candidates to distinguish themselves from their opponents. There are legitimate differences in philosophy, policy and priorities that voters should understand. But I would like to finish watching a political commercial feeling informed instead of irritated.

Maybe even inspired. Imagine that.

Instead, for the next several months, we are going to hear repeatedly about corruption, incompetence, extremism, disastrous voting records and various threats to our way of life.

Which brings me to football season.

I have complained plenty about the commercials during football games. Beer. Gambling. Male personal enhancement products. More gambling. More beer. I don't drink beer. I don't gamble. And I am going to leave the third category alone. But this fall, I may develop a newfound appreciation for all of them.

Because after watching my 14th political commercial explaining why someone I have never met is apparently the worst human being in America, a beer commercial with two Clydesdales walking through the snow is going to feel downright inspirational.

And game action cannot come soon enough.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently published an article by M.J. Prest titled “Small Events That Win Big Gifts, No Gala Required.” The article highlights organizations moving away from large, expensive events and toward smaller, more personal experiences designed to connect people with the mission. The results are worth paying attention to. The Alpha 1 Foundation, for example, spent about $10,000 on four small donor dinners and generated nearly $500,000 in major gifts.

But I think the bigger lesson is about more than event costs or return on investment. It is about relationships.

I have never believed that the primary purpose of a donor event should be to raise money that night. A good event creates introductions. It builds trust. It gives prospective donors an opportunity to understand the organization. It elevates current donors by giving them greater access to leadership, mission, and impact. It allows donors to introduce other people who might share their interests.

And then we see where those relationships go.

The Chronicle article describes an Alpha 1 dinner where guests sat around a table and shared their personal experiences with the disease. One family ultimately committed $25,000. The organization estimates that 80 percent of its dinner guests had previously engaged very little, or not at all, with the foundation.

That is powerful fundraising because the setting matters.

Think about the difference between 500 people sitting at banquet tables in a ballroom and 12 people sitting around a dinner table. At the ballroom, donors watch the mission. Around the table, they participate in it.

The same principle applies to emotional settings. Take donors into the hospital. Let them meet the physician doing groundbreaking work. Walk them through the new facility. Introduce them to the scholarship recipient. Put them somewhere where they can see, hear, and experience what their philanthropy makes possible.

Then do something fundraisers sometimes struggle to do: do not ask for money.

The Chronicle reports that several organizations specifically avoid making a solicitation during these gatherings. World Food Program USA President and CEO Barron Segar explained that he rarely holds an event where there will be a hard ask that evening because he is not looking for transactional donors. Exactly.

Our objective should be a relationship that has the potential to become transformational. That requires curiosity, engagement, trust, understanding, and eventually a conversation about what the donor wants to accomplish.

The event is simply one part of that journey.

So, yes, thank Goodness. Maybe we are finally getting somewhere. Smaller. Personal. Emotional. Mission focused. Built around relationships. And leave the pledge cards at the office.

As parents, we have been fairly restrictive about our son's use of AI (and that of our daughter). He needs to learn how to write before having technology rewrite something for him. He needs to work through a difficult math problem before asking a computer to solve it. He needs to learn how to research, organize information, develop an argument, and occasionally struggle with an assignment.

That struggle matters.

At the same time, we are already hearing stories about kids his age using AI far more liberally. Homework questions go into AI. Writing assignments get substantial AI assistance. Research gets condensed into an instant answer. Some students are undoubtedly using it in ways their teachers never intended and may never know. Maybe the change to limit access throughout the school district inside the schools will help curtail the usage of AI.

But today word and tomorrow’s future creates an enormous challenge for schools.

For generations, teachers could reasonably assume that the essay submitted by a student was written by that student. The homework represented the student's work. The research process required the student to actually research. AI complicates all of those assumptions. Trying to solve the problem by banning AI will have limited success. Students can access these tools outside school, on personal devices, and through an expanding number of applications. Schools will need rules, but they will also need to teach students how and when AI should be used.

That distinction may become one of the central educational questions of the next decade.

There are legitimate uses. AI can explain a difficult concept differently, help a student brainstorm, provide feedback on writing, or help organize ideas. Some schools are already developing frameworks that distinguish among using AI for clarification, planning, assistance, and revision while still requiring students to acknowledge its use.

The concern for me as a parent is what happens when assistance becomes substitution.

Education involves developing the ability to think. Writing forces students to organize thoughts. Reading builds comprehension. Solving problems develops reasoning. Research teaches students to evaluate information. If AI removes too much of that work, students may complete more assignments while developing fewer of the abilities those assignments were designed to build.

Our son (and his younger sister) will need to understand AI. His generation will probably use it throughout college and their careers. Keeping him completely away from it would leave him unprepared. But seventh grade should still involve learning how to think without asking a machine to do the thinking first.

Schools, teachers, parents, and students are going to spend years trying to find that boundary. I suspect the policy our district adopts this year will be rewritten many times. That is probably appropriate. The technology is moving too quickly for any policy to be permanent.

The larger goal should remain much more stable: use AI to help our children learn while protecting the intellectual work required to actually become educated.

There is one significant area where I disagree with conventional thinking: In organizations with professional fundraising staff, I generally do not want board members asking donors for money. (I would note that for organization that are completely volunteer led with no professional fundraising person/team, the Board must be engaged with soliciting philanthropic support).  That does not mean board members should stay away from fundraising. I want exactly the opposite.

Board members can be among an organization’s most valuable fundraising resources. They can identify prospective donors, make introductions, provide intelligence about relationships, attend donor meetings, tell their personal story about the organization, host gatherings, thank donors, and help deepen relationships.

The Chronicle article makes an especially good point about pairing board members with development professionals. One expert quoted in the article explains that board members can help pave the way for gifts, while recognizing that many lack the knowledge and skills necessary to finalize them.

That distinction matters.

One of my concerns about asking board members to solicit gifts is that they can unintentionally make the conversation transactional. A board member may ask someone for $10,000 because $10,000 feels like a significant gift to the board member. Or $25,000. Or $100,000.  The amount can be based more on the board member’s comfort level than the donor’s capacity, interests, philanthropic priorities, or potential.

The conversation becomes: “Will you give us $25,000?”  That question can actually limit the gift and the relationship.

A professional fundraiser should be approaching the conversation differently. What does the donor care about? What change does the donor want to create? Why does this particular mission matter to them? What would be meaningful to accomplish? How can the organization help the donor fulfill that philanthropic passion?

These conversations take time. They require listening, judgment, patience, preparation, and an understanding of how donors make significant philanthropic decisions. Eventually, the conversation may lead to a gift. But the amount should emerge from an understanding of the donor rather than from what someone sitting across the table feels comfortable asking for.

That difference can be the difference between a transactional gift and a transformational relationship. 

Fundraising is a profession.  Professional fundraisers spend their careers learning how to understand donor motivation, evaluate capacity, recognize signals, manage timing, connect donor interests with organizational priorities, and navigate complex gift conversations. Experience matters. Judgment matters. Knowing when to ask, what to ask, and when not to ask matters.

This is why the combination of a board member and professional fundraiser can be so effective.

The board member brings credibility, relationships, community knowledge, personal commitment, and access. In many cases, the board member is the reason the donor agreed to have the conversation in the first place.  The professional fundraiser brings the experience and discipline necessary to understand the donor, develop the relationship, and manage the philanthropic conversation.

Put those two people together and something powerful can happen.

There is an obvious exception. In very small nonprofits without professional fundraising staff, board members may have to make gift requests. Someone has to assume that responsibility. In those organizations, training and preparation become even more critical.

But when an organization has invested in professional fundraising staff, use that expertise.

Board members should open doors. They should build relationships. They should tell stories. They should listen. They should provide credibility. They should thank donors. They should help create opportunities for meaningful philanthropic conversations.

Then pair them with a professional fundraiser who knows how to turn those opportunities into long term donor relationships.

That is where the magic can happen.

I spent the day with a client in Southern California. The meetings were productive, the conversations were worthwhile, and I wrapped up feeling good about the work. Then reality arrived.

My flight was canceled.

Like thousands of other travelers every day, I suddenly found myself trying to solve a puzzle that kept changing. The best available flight wasn't from John Wayne Airport in Orange County where I had started. It was from LAX.

If you've made that drive from one side of LA to the other, you know it isn't a quick change of scenery. More than three hours later, I arrived at Los Angeles International Airport after navigating horrific Southern California traffic (I still can’t believe people do this every day). The rental car company wasn't exactly thrilled that I wanted to return the vehicle to LAX instead of taking it back to the airport only about 40 miles away where I had picked it up---they wanted to charge hundreds of extra dollars for really nothing. After that came another surprise. It took roughly 40 minutes just to get from the rental car return to the terminal using the shuttle bus system.

Then I walked into a terminal with no air conditioning. In the middle of a Southern California summer, the terminal was hot, crowded, and uncomfortable. After hours of driving, shuttle buses, and changing plans, standing in a warm terminal wasn't exactly the ending I had envisioned. It turned out that the best place to be was on the shuttle bus from the main airport to the remote terminal—the bus had great air conditioning – I almost made several trips back and forth

As a “just in case,” The airline had provided a hotel in Dallas if there was an additional delay. The list of hotels made me shake my head. Years ago, when my wife and I were just getting started and every dollar mattered, those would have NEVER been acceptable choices. Even the reviews were terrible. Now, they reminded me how far life has come and how much my expectations have changed. Let's just say I politely declined.

Frustrated, tired, hot, hungry, and exacerbated, I was ready to simply get on an airplane.

None of this should be as difficult as it often becomes. Yet anyone who travels regularly knows these experiences are more common than exceptional. Flights are delayed. Weather changes. Aircraft need repairs. Crews time out. Airports become overcrowded. Travel plans that looked perfect on paper can unravel in minutes.

The lesson isn't to expect everything to go smoothly. The lesson is to prepare for the moments when it doesn't.

Before every trip, I now spend a few minutes researching backup flights. If one airport becomes impossible, I already know my alternatives. I pack an extra day's worth of clothes (or two), just in case. I fill my water bottle every chance I get. I keep chargers, medications, and essentials in my carry on (to be candid, I haven’t checked a bag in decades). A little preparation doesn't eliminate the hassle, but it dramatically reduces the stress.

Because in the end, none of us travels simply for the sake of traveling. We travel because of work, family, service, or opportunity. But when the day is over, there is only one destination that really matters. And I made it to where I wanted to be most.

Home.

The meetings matter. The clients matter. The work matters. But the people waiting at home matter most.

The state is beginning to put provisions into contracts for public university presidents that require them to pay money back if they voluntarily leave before completing their contracts. The payment can reach $200,000, depending on when the president leaves. The goal is straightforward: if a university makes a significant commitment to a president, the president should make a meaningful commitment in return.

My first reaction was: Good for Utah.

I had never heard of this approach with university presidents. The closest comparison I could think of was college athletics, where contracts have become increasingly complicated about who owes whom money when someone leaves. We have even seen the strange situation where a fired college football coach has a contractual obligation to "look" for another job because the university paying the buyout requires the coach to mitigate its financial damages. Someone can receive millions of dollars for no longer coaching while periodically demonstrating that he is searching for employment.

I have watched these golden parachutes for years, particularly in sports and executive leadership. Like a lot of people, I have occasionally wondered, "Where can I get mine?" I already know the answer. I can't. Most people can't.

For most of us, if a client no longer wants our services or an employer decides our performance is inadequate, nobody hands us several years of compensation on the way out the door. Yet, at certain levels of leadership, we have somehow accepted enormous, guaranteed payments as a routine cost of hiring someone.

That raises a question I find fascinating. Is the talent pool for these positions really so bereft of talented, experienced and capable leaders that organizations have virtually no negotiating leverage?

I find that difficult to believe.

A university presidency is unquestionably a demanding position. So is leading a major nonprofit, health system, corporation or athletic program. Talented executives deserve to be well compensated. Organizations also need competitive compensation packages to recruit people capable of handling complex leadership responsibilities.

But somewhere along the way, competitive compensation can become excessive protection. If an organization expects to pay a leader hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars when it ends the relationship, why shouldn't the organization receive some protection when the leader ends the relationship?

Consider what happens when a university president suddenly leaves. The institution may conduct an expensive national search. An interim president may be needed. Strategic initiatives can stall. Donor relationships may be disrupted. Faculty and staff face uncertainty. The institution invests significant time and money establishing a new administration.

Then another university can recruit that president away, leaving the first institution to absorb the consequences. Utah is essentially saying there should be accountability on both sides of the contract.

I like that idea.

This goes beyond university presidents. Boards and organizations should ask themselves whether executive contracts appropriately balance the interests of the leader and the institution. Negotiating leverage should not automatically belong almost entirely to the person being recruited simply because the position is difficult to fill.

There are talented leaders in higher education, healthcare, philanthropy, business and athletics. Organizations should compete for them and compensate them appropriately. They should also stop assuming that recruiting exceptional talent requires giving away nearly every contractual protection.

Good for Utah. Others, in and outside of higher education, should be watching.

How do you remain faithful to your founder while responding to a world the founder could never have imagined? 

The room was thoughtful. Everyone understood the weight of the discussion. Some believed the foundation should stay very close to its historical grantmaking. Others argued that today's challenges require different approaches. Neither perspective came from a lack of commitment.

Both came from a desire to honor the foundation's purpose.  Somewhere in that discussion is the real challenge of stewardship.   Foundations have an unusual privilege. Unlike most organizations, they can exist for generations. The people who established them are gone, yet their charitable resources continue working. That longevity is remarkable. It is also where responsibility becomes complicated.

A foundation created to improve the lives of vulnerable children may once have invested heavily in orphanages. Today, the same commitment could lead to family preservation, foster care, early childhood intervention, or mental health services. The mission has not changed. Our understanding of how to accomplish it has.

The same is true across philanthropy. Educational opportunity looks different than it did a generation ago. Community health extends well beyond hospital walls. Economic mobility involves challenges that many donors could never have imagined when they wrote their founding documents.

The responsibility of a board is not to preserve a grantmaking pattern. It is to preserve the purpose behind that pattern.

That does not mean change should be abrupt or careless. Foundations owe their longstanding partners honesty, thoughtful communication, and reasonable transitions whenever priorities evolve. Relationships deserve that respect.

At the same time, charitable dollars cannot become captive to tradition. If a foundation continues funding yesterday's solutions simply because they have always been funded, it slowly shifts from stewarding a mission to preserving a routine.

There is a difference.

Donor intent is often misunderstood as protecting specific grants, organizations, or programs forever. More often, donor intent reflects a set of values. Improve lives. Expand opportunity. Relieve suffering. Strengthen communities. Those values endure. The methods should continue to evolve as knowledge and circumstances evolve.

Every foundation eventually reaches a moment when it must decide whether it is honoring its past or simply repeating it. Those are not the same thing.

The greatest tribute a foundation can pay to its founder is not doing what they did. It is pursuing what they cared about with the same imagination, courage, and commitment they would expect if they were sitting in the boardroom today.

The retreat reminded me of something that technology can never replace. People need to be together. The agenda mattered. We discussed strategy, priorities, and challenges. We made decisions. We planned for the future.

But the most valuable moments happened between the agenda items. People who had worked together for years learned something new about one another. They shared stories about their families, career paths, and interests outside of work. They laughed together. They discovered common experiences they never knew they had.

Those conversations changed the dynamic in the room.

When people know each other beyond job titles and email signatures, they communicate differently. They ask better questions. They listen more carefully. They become more willing to offer help and more willing to receive it. Trust grows, and trust makes every organization stronger.

Technology is a tremendous gift. It allows organizations to recruit talent without geographic boundaries. It gives employees flexibility that many value deeply. It makes communication faster than ever. It does not, however, create relationships.

Relationships require shared experiences. They require observing how someone reacts under pressure, celebrates another person's success, or works through a difficult conversation. Those moments are hard to recreate through a screen.

I think about younger professionals entering today's workforce. Many have spent much of their education or early careers in virtual environments. Flexible work is normal to them, and in many cases it should be. At the same time, many have had fewer opportunities to experience the informal learning that happens when people simply spend time together.

Leadership is often learned through observation rather than instruction. Culture is built through countless small interactions that never appear on a meeting agenda. Mentoring frequently happens during lunch, while walking to another meeting, or in conversations that begin with work and end somewhere entirely different.

Organizations should continue using technology wisely. They should continue offering flexibility where it makes sense.

They should also be intentional about bringing people together.

Retreats are one of the best investments an organization can make because they accomplish far more than strategic planning. They strengthen relationships. They create understanding. They remind people that they are part of something larger than their individual responsibilities.

We live in an increasingly digital world. That makes genuine human interaction more valuable, not less. The strongest organizations are built by people who know each other, trust each other, and have spent enough time together to see one another as people first and coworkers second.

People often use the words morals and ethics interchangeably, but they are different. Ethics are the standards a community, profession, or society establishes about what is acceptable. Morals are personal. They are the values you choose to live by, even when no one is watching. Ethics answer, "What does society expect?" Morals answer, "Who am I going to be?"

That distinction feels more complicated than ever when you are raising children. With a 13-year-old and a 9-year-old, we spend a lot of time thinking about the kind of adults they will become. The world they are growing up in is noisy. Every device offers another opinion. Every social media feed presents another version of success. Every game, video, or influencer competes for attention. None of those things are inherently bad, but they can crowd out the conversations that help shape character. And that is why they are strictly limited and monitored.

Morals are rarely taught in dramatic moments. They are built in ordinary ones. They grow during dinner at the kitchen table, where everyone puts the phones away and actually talks. They develop when children hear adults disagree respectfully, admit mistakes, and apologize when necessary. They take root when parents do what they said they would do, even when it is inconvenient.

Children notice consistency long before they appreciate it.

That may be the hardest part for parents. We cannot simply lecture about honesty, kindness, generosity, or responsibility. We have to demonstrate them. Every shortcut we take, every promise we keep or break, every interaction with a waiter, cashier, neighbor, or stranger becomes part of the lesson. It is exhausting at times because parenting leaves very little room for pretending. Our children see us at our best and our worst. They know whether our actions match our words. It is SO hard when you know you have short comings and don’t want them “passed on” to young people who show so much promise and who you love so much.

The encouraging part is that every so often you see the lesson come back to you.…..a child stands up for someone who is being left out. They tell the truth even though it costs them. They thank someone without being reminded. They share something valuable because they believe it is the right thing to do.

These moments rarely make social media. They will never trend. Yet they represent victories that matter far more than any number of likes, followers, or gaming achievements. These are the moments when you realize that the conversations around the dinner table, the limits on screen time, the repeated reminders, and the daily effort to model the behavior you hope to see have been accomplishing something all along.

Teaching morals is slow work. It requires patience, consistency, and more self-discipline than most of us expected. It is rarely easy. It is, however, one of the few investments that can shape generations.

That makes every conversation, every example, and every imperfect attempt completely worth it.

If we measure generosity only by gifts made to registered nonprofit organizations, we are looking through a narrower lens than society actually lives.

A recent Chronicle of Philanthropy opinion argued that philanthropy is not broken, but that our funding models may be. The author challenged foundations to focus less on rigid grant structures and more on outcomes, giving organizations greater freedom to solve problems in the ways that work best. It is a compelling reminder that how we support good work matters as much as how much we give.

I would take the idea one step further.

The question is not simply whether we need new funding models. The question is whether we need a broader definition of philanthropy itself.

Crowdfunding offers an interesting example. Many in our profession dismiss it because it often bypasses nonprofits, lacks tax deductibility, or responds to individuals instead of institutions. Those concerns are legitimate. Transparency matters. Accountability matters. Sustainable solutions matter.

Yet it is difficult to argue that someone contributing to a family's medical expenses through GoFundMe is somehow less generous than someone writing a check to a traditional charity. The impulse is the same. The compassion is real. The desire to help is authentic. Surveys show millions of Americans are making these kinds of gifts even while expressing understandable concerns about oversight.

The same could be said for mutual aid groups, neighborhood giving circles, online communities that rally around a crisis, or people quietly paying a stranger's utility bill.

These acts often disappear from our data because they fall outside the categories we have created. That does not make them any less philanthropic.

As fundraising professionals, we should be careful about confusing the health of our institutions with the health of generosity itself. Our organizations need support, and declining participation in traditional charitable giving presents real challenges. We should work hard to reverse that trend.

At the same time, we should recognize that generosity has always adapted to the culture around it. Technology changes. Communities change. Trust shifts. People find new pathways to express the same enduring desire to improve someone else's life.

When we expand our definition of philanthropy, we gain a clearer picture of the society we serve. The challenge before us may not be convincing people to care. It may be learning to recognize all the ways they already do.

If we can see generosity more broadly, we may also discover new opportunities to invite people into deeper and more lasting forms of giving, rather than insisting there is only one acceptable way to make a difference.

Colleges and universities have a responsibility to create safe campuses. That means protecting students, faculty, staff, visitors, and property. Cameras, emergency notification systems, access controls, and other security tools all have an appropriate place. As the parent of a child who will be on a college campus within the next decade, I expect institutions to make those investments.

Safety is not optional. It is a core responsibility.

The challenge comes when technology moves beyond safety and begins influencing expression.

Higher education has always been more than a collection of classrooms. It is one of the few places where people from different backgrounds, experiences, beliefs, and cultures come together with the expectation that they will wrestle with ideas. Some of those conversations are uncomfortable. Some challenge long held assumptions. That is part of the educational process.

If surveillance tools are used to discourage lawful protests, monitor political viewpoints, or make students and faculty wonder whether expressing an unpopular opinion will bring unwanted scrutiny, the institution has crossed an important line. The purpose of a university is not simply to educate people about subjects. It is to teach people how to think, evaluate evidence, and engage respectfully with those who see the world differently.

Over the past several years, we have heard people across the political spectrum say they do not feel comfortable expressing their opinions on campus. Depending on who is speaking, the blame shifts from one side to the other. That conversation misses a larger point. When any group believes it cannot speak openly, the institution has work to do.

A healthy campus does not require agreement. It requires respect.

Students should be able to ask difficult questions without fear of ridicule. Faculty should be able to present competing ideas fairly. People should leave conversations understanding another perspective, even if they ultimately disagree with it. Listening does not require agreement. It does require curiosity.

Some of the most valuable moments in higher education happen when someone encounters an idea they have never seriously considered before. Sometimes that experience strengthens their existing beliefs. Sometimes it changes them. Either outcome is evidence that learning has occurred.

The balance is clear. Use technology to keep people safe. Protect buildings. Respond quickly to emergencies. Prevent violence when possible. Those are appropriate uses of campus security.

But never allow security to become a substitute for open dialogue.

The best colleges prepare students for a world where they will work with people who think differently, vote differently, worship differently, and live differently. That preparation begins by creating campuses where respectful conversation is encouraged, ideas can be challenged, and every member of the community has the freedom to participate without fear.