Are you preparing to take your next major fundraising initiative public before securing critical momentum behind closed doors?

Far too many organizations gamble on splashy kickoff announcements, only to watch donor interest stall and leave millions in potential support untapped. When campaigns lose steam early, organizations face donor fatigue, board burnout, and delayed community impact

In this episode, we're joined by Brian Abernathy, seasoned fundraising veteran and leader at Convergent Nonprofit Solutions, who has overseen campaigns raising more than $500 million. Brian reveals why the quiet phase is the true operational engine behind successful capital campaigns, accounting for up to 65% of total funds raised.

Discover how to use a fundraising feasibility study to build credibility, cultivate transformational leadership commitments, and create unstoppable momentum before stepping into the spotlight.

What You Will Learn

1. Quiet Phase Strategy: How securing your top 6–10 major gifts during the quiet phase guarantees 50% to 65% of your campaign goal before going public.

2. Pre-Cultivation & Data: How to analyze donor giving trends and initiate seed-planting conversations that elevate long-term donor stewardship.

3. Momentum & Urgency: Why timing milestone announcements and leveraging challenge grants creates the psychological trigger needed to mobilize mid-level supporters.

4. Corporate Giving Multipliers: How corporate matching gifts serve as powerful multi-generational catalysts that double impact and eliminate public fatigue.

5. The 5-Minute Readiness Audit: A rapid diagnostic framework nonprofit executives can apply immediately to test campaign feasibility.

Also on Youtube.

Are corporate service days leaving your nonprofit overwhelmed without bringing in long-term revenue?

When a corporate volunteer group walks through your doors, it should feel like an unbelievable launchpad for lasting impact, not an operational burden.

In this episode, Beth Steinhorn, President of VQ Volunteer Strategies, shares how organizational leaders can train frontline staff to maximize corporate service potential.

Learn how gathering employer data during volunteer registrations allows your team to align real operational needs with corporate social goals. By integrating corporate volunteer grants and volunteer time off (VTO) directly into your event orientation, your nonprofit can convert volunteer hours into reliable funding, elevate donor stewardship, and cultivate strategic corporate partnerships.

What You Will Learn

1. Strategic Project Design: How to plan high-impact service projects that avoid "busy work" traps by leveraging proven volunteer management practices.

2. Employer Data Capture: Why gathering employment details prior to service days enables personalized outreach and unlocks hidden corporate giving incentives.

3. Onsite Incentive Pitching: How frontline staff can comfortably pitch Dollars for Doers and VTO during orientation to drive workplace giving revenue.

4. Post-Event Retention: Practical follow-up methods to transform one-time group volunteers into lifelong brand champions and ongoing supporters.

Also available on Youtube.

Are standard donation tiers costing your organization critical revenue?

Default ask amounts either leave major donor giving capacity on the table or scare away grassroots supporters with sticker shock.

On this episode, we speak with Addie Olson, Deputy Director of AI Services at CauseMic, about using dynamic gift suggestions to personalize digital fundraising in real time, how algorithms combine real-time device signals, CRM history, and third-party enrichment data to calculate ideal gift asks.

Discover how centralizing data across your nonprofit software improves the donor journey, strengthens donor stewardship, and elevates long-term donor retention.

What You Will Learn

1. AI Gift Algorithms: How real-time contextual signals calculate optimal donation amounts without creating friction for supporters.

2. Centralization Over Perfection: Why connecting top nonprofit CRMs and eliminating data silos beats spending years manually scrubbing records.

3. Strategic Tech Stack Upgrades: How to avoid "random acts of AI" and prevent common data mapping errors across your fundraising systems.

4. Unlocking Workplace Giving: The single CRM configuration update—capturing employer data—that helps drive corporate partnerships and corporate matching gifts.

Also on Youtube.