First Day Podcast

In this episode of The First Day from The Fund Raising School, Bill Stanczykiewicz, Ed.D., is joined by Jasmin Johnson, executive director and founding staff member of the Baton Rouge Area Youth Network, to discuss fundraising for intermediary organizations. Unlike nonprofits that provide direct services, intermediaries strengthen the organizations doing that work through coordination, partnerships, and capacity building. Johnson explains how the Baton Rouge Area Youth Network, known as BRAYN, began as a volunteer-led network of out-of-school-time programs and expanded to connect educators, health care providers, mental health organizations, and other youth-serving partners. Its four pillars, connect, strengthen, align, and sustain, frame a distinctive fundraising challenge: helping donors understand the value of an organization whose impact happens through the work of others. Johnson explains that making this case begins with showing what coordination makes possible and what fragmentation can prevent. Providers benefit from stronger partnerships and shared resources, families gain help navigating services, government benefits from stronger community infrastructure, and funders gain better visibility across their investments. These outcomes may develop slowly and extend across multiple organizations, making them harder to communicate than the number of children participating in a particular program. Bill and Jasmin emphasize that intermediaries must make those connections visible. A gift supports the infrastructure that helps many organizations work more effectively, giving donors an opportunity to strengthen services across a community. Bill and Jasmin also explore how intermediaries can raise money without competing against the organizations they support. Johnson describes a decision-making matrix that she and her board use to evaluate opportunities, guard against mission drift, and avoid creating problems for their partners. That commitment has meant passing on funding opportunities that would place BRAYN in competition with the providers it exists to help. For Johnson, these decisions are essential to trust. An intermediary cannot credibly promise to strengthen other organizations while making it harder for them to secure resources. Bill notes that this intentional approach applies to all nonprofits, encouraging fundraisers to consider whether a funding opportunity advances their mission and supports the relationships their work requires. The central takeaway is that an intermediary’s value includes becoming a trusted place for answers, connections, and support. Johnson shares the example of a pediatrician who received funding for an obesity prevention program but needed guidance on youth development, illustrating how expertise in one field does not automatically provide every tool needed to serve young people effectively. She also describes BRAYN’s school partnerships, which involve identifying needs, connecting providers, and assessing whether programs are prepared to operate safely and effectively. Shared standards, practical tools, and coordination all become part of the case for support. For fundraisers, the lesson is to connect that behind-the-scenes work to the people who ultimately benefit. The immediate support may go to organizations, but the purpose remains stronger services for children, families, and communities.

In this episode of The First Day from The Fund Raising School, Bill Stanczykiewicz, Ed.D., is joined by Carla Knorowski, Ph.D., a veteran fundraiser and advancement leader whose work has included institutions such as The Henry Ford, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, and the U.S.-based foundation supporting Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Knorowski shares how she became involved with fundraising for Notre-Dame shortly before the devastating April 2019 fire and how the crisis transformed an effort originally focused on long-term support into an urgent global campaign to save, restore, and rebuild one of the world’s most recognizable landmarks. The experience offers fundraisers a vivid example of how powerful storytelling can connect donors to a mission, even when they may live thousands of miles away from the organization or cause. Knorowski explains that effective storytelling begins with understanding the many different reasons people may care about an organization. For Notre-Dame, some donors were drawn by religious faith, others by history, literature, architecture, cultural heritage, or their own personal experiences visiting the cathedral. To organize those possibilities, the fundraising team developed what Knorowski describes as a “taxonomy of storytelling,” essentially a catalog of stories designed to appeal to different donor interests. She encourages nonprofits of every size to develop a similar approach, identifying stories that can speak to various motivations while weaving multiple points of connection into broader communications. Rather than relying on a single story for every audience, fundraisers can build a collection of narratives that help prospective donors recognize something personally meaningful within the mission. Bill and Carla also discuss the importance of making the donor a central character in the story. Knorowski describes Notre-Dame itself as an initial protagonist, the fire as an antagonist, and firefighters, artisans, supporters, and donors as additional protagonists who became part of the cathedral’s recovery. That framing allowed donors at every giving level to see a tangible role for themselves. Instead of simply announcing that hundreds of millions of dollars were needed for restoration, fundraisers could invite someone to “protect the protectors” by helping restore the cathedral’s gargoyles or to “buttress a buttress” during the exterior restoration. Those smaller, vivid stories made an enormous campaign feel accessible and helped communicate that a gift of a few dollars could still be part of a much larger achievement. Donations ultimately came from all 50 states and more than 50 countries, demonstrating how storytelling can bridge geography, background, and even differing religious traditions. The central takeaway is that data can demonstrate progress, but stories give that data emotional meaning. Knorowski emphasizes that metrics remain essential for accountability and continued donor engagement, yet “a compelling story is more powerful than compelling data” because stories help people understand why their participation matters. The restoration of Notre-Dame became a story not simply about repairing stone, timber, and architecture, but about preserving centuries of human history, responding to devastation with hope, and giving people an opportunity to contribute to something larger than themselves. For fundraisers, the lesson applies far beyond a world-famous cathedral: whether an organization helps a child learn to read, strengthens a community, preserves history, or improves someone’s quality of life, the most effective stories show donors how their philanthropy becomes part of that change. By cataloging stories, connecting them to different donor motivations, placing donors inside the narrative, and pairing emotional storytelling with meaningful evidence of impact, nonprofits can turn fundraising communications into invitations to make a lasting difference.

In this episode of The First Day from The Fund Raising School, Bill Stanczykiewicz, Ed.D., is joined by Angela Seaworth, Ph.D., MBA, ACFRE, Instructional Associate Professor at the Bush School of Government & Public Service, Texas A&M University, to explore how fundraisers can move beyond annual and major gifts toward transformational giving. Seaworth explains that a transformational gift is not defined by a particular dollar amount. While headlines may focus on gifts of $20 million, $50 million, or more; a $250,000 gift, or even a much smaller investment, can be transformational if it changes an organization’s trajectory, expands its capacity, or makes exponential impact possible. The key is for each nonprofit to define transformational giving in the context of its own mission, scale, and ambitions. Seaworth emphasizes that transformational gifts begin with transformational ideas. Fundraisers and nonprofit leaders can sometimes limit themselves by worrying that an idea is too ambitious or an ask is too large, but donors capable of significant giving may be more inspired by bold possibilities than incremental improvements. Developing those opportunities requires an organizational culture that encourages innovation, visioning, and big-picture thinking across departments. Rather than expecting the development team to generate the next great idea alone, nonprofits can invite frontline staff, program leaders, executives, and fundraisers to imagine what greater impact could look like. Generating many ideas, including some that ultimately will not move forward, can help organizations identify the few opportunities with the greatest potential to advance the mission. Bill and Angela also discuss the importance of trust and co-creation in developing transformational gifts. Strong donor relationships involve communication, investment, and what Seaworth describes as “mutual influence,” giving donors an opportunity to share ideas and participate meaningfully in shaping possibilities without allowing the organization to become donor-directed. One practical approach is the longstanding fundraising principle, “If you want money, ask for advice.” Instead of arriving with a finished proposal, fundraisers can bring donors into conversations about an ambitious idea, ask what excites them, and listen for connections to their experiences, passions, and hopes for the organization. Seaworth notes that donors capable of making extraordinary gifts may be seeking something they cannot simply purchase for themselves: the opportunity to advance a cause they deeply value, contribute to meaningful change, and create a lasting legacy. The central takeaway is that transformational fundraising requires nonprofits to think bigger while remaining firmly grounded in mission, strategy, and relationships. One sign that a donor may be ready for a transformational conversation is the presence of multiple relationships across the organization, such as connections with fundraisers, program leaders, executives, or board members, which can deepen trust and demonstrate sustained engagement. Seaworth illustrates the point with an early-career example in which funding for something as unglamorous as a parking lot became transformational because it addressed a critical need and aligned with a donor’s passion for organizational sustainability. By cultivating innovative ideas, inviting donors into authentic conversations, and defining transformation according to what will genuinely move the mission forward, fundraisers can turn long-term relationships into opportunities for extraordinary impact.

In this episode of The First Day from The Fund Raising School, Bill Stanczykiewicz, Ed.D., is joined by Jeff Grandy, Vice President of Client Development at Catapult Fundraising, to discuss why every nonprofit should be thinking seriously about legacy giving, and why the best planned gift prospects may already be hiding in plain sight. Grandy explains that while surprise million-dollar bequests make headlines, they are not the typical story. More often, legacy donors are ordinary, deeply committed supporters whose long-term loyalty to an organization matters far more than the size of their annual gifts. Grandy shares that loyalty is one of the strongest indicators of a potential legacy donor. At Catapult Fundraising, his team has found that donors with roughly 11 years of consecutive giving or 14 years of non-consecutive giving can be especially strong prospects, though organizations should adapt those benchmarks to their own donor base. A supporter giving $25 a year for more than a decade may be every bit as worthy of a legacy conversation as a major donor. The key is to look beyond wealth indicators and pay attention to sustained engagement, including donors, volunteers, alumni, grateful patients, and others who have maintained a meaningful connection to the mission. Bill and Jeff also explore how fundraisers can begin those conversations without making planned giving feel uncomfortable or overly complicated. The starting point is curiosity, not a discussion about wills, death, or tax law. Fundraisers can simply ask longtime supporters why they continue to give, what they value about the organization, and what impact they hope to see continue in the future. Grandy emphasizes the importance of listening for those values, sharing appropriate donor stories, and allowing the relationship to develop over time. In his experience, legacy conversations may unfold across several interactions over six to 18 months, although some donors are already waiting to be asked; Catapult has found that about 25 percent of donors contacted during outreach say they have already included the organization in their plans. The central takeaway is that legacy giving should be treated as part of a nonprofit’s overall fundraising strategy, not as a separate activity reserved for wealthy donors or large development teams. Strong annual giving systems, thoughtful donor stewardship, and long-term relationship building can all support a healthy legacy pipeline. By recognizing loyalty, approaching donors with authentic curiosity, and advocating for long-term sustainability alongside immediate fundraising needs, organizations can help supporters extend their values far into the future, and create transformational impact in the process. Stay Connected with The Fund Raising School 🔗 Explore courses and resources: https://bit.ly/3QKSAEn 🤝 Join the The Fund Raising School – Changemakers Community on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/21740024/ 📱 Follow us for more fundraising insights: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thefundraisingschool/ • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefundraisingschool/ • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheFundRaisingSchool

In this episode of The First Day from The Fund Raising School, Bill Stanczykiewicz, Ed.D., is joined by Lisa Chmiola, MS, CFRE, CSPG, Director of Legacy and Gift Planning for Children’s Medical Center Foundation in Dallas, to discuss how fundraisers can make planned giving less intimidating and build support for it across an entire nonprofit organization. Chmiola shares her own path into gift planning, which began in event-based fundraising before moving into individual giving. Her experience offers reassurance for fundraisers who may feel overwhelmed by planned giving: you do not need to become an expert in every type of charitable gift at once. Instead, she recommends starting with common approaches such as bequests, beneficiary designations, appreciated securities, qualified charitable distributions, and donor-advised fund grants. More complex gifts can be handled with support from attorneys, community foundations, financial professionals, and other experts. Bill and Lisa also explore why planned giving should not be treated as a separate fundraising function. A strong gift planning program can strengthen long-term sustainability while supporting current fundraising goals. Loyal annual fund donors, even those giving modest amounts each year, may eventually become significant legacy donors. Conversations about non-cash assets can also reveal resources donors may never have considered using philanthropically. With less than 3 percent of wealth in the United States held in cash, fundraisers should recognize that a donor’s capacity to give often extends far beyond a checking account or paycheck. Those conversations require fundraisers to listen carefully and feel comfortable suggesting possibilities. A donor may mention securities, retirement assets, real estate, or other property without realizing those assets could be used for charitable giving. Chmiola emphasizes that fundraisers do not need to provide legal or financial advice themselves. Their role is to recognize opportunities, remain in relationship with the donor, and connect them with the appropriate professionals when needed. Organizations also need to be prepared for complex and non-cash gifts. Chmiola recommends that every nonprofit understand its gift acceptance policy, or create one if none exists. A strong policy defines which gifts the organization will accept, which require additional review, and which could create more cost or liability than benefit. A racehorse, for example, may appear valuable until boarding, feeding, veterinary care, and other expenses consume the proceeds from its sale. Real estate can bring its own requirements, including title reviews, inspections, and environmental assessments. That ability to say no is part of responsible stewardship. Fundraisers are not obligated to accept every asset simply because it is offered with charitable intent. Instead, gift planning should begin with the donor’s “why”: why they care, what impact they want to make, and only then how the gift should be structured. If one asset is not a good fit, the fundraiser can help identify another path. The central takeaway is that planned giving works best when it is integrated into the organization’s broader fundraising strategy. By building internal confidence, understanding common giving vehicles, adopting thoughtful gift acceptance policies, and keeping the donor’s goals at the center of the conversation, organizations can create meaningful opportunities for supporters to give both today and in the future.