Fundraising leadership through transition
I bring fundraising leadership to nonprofits navigating transitions and growth, helping to protect and grow the relationships and revenue their missions depend on.
Interim Fundraising Leadership
Maybe your Development Director just gave notice before your busiest grants season, or they’re going on leave and your coordinator is excellent but new. Without someone setting direction and steering the pipeline, proposals fall through the cracks, donors aren’t contacted, and your team is working hard but without clear priorities.
I help keep revenue and relationships on track by providing senior judgment on your pipeline and donor strategy, coaching for you and your team, and a strong handoff to the new or returning leader.
Best fit: at least one development staff member carries the day-to-day work.
My services
Transitions tend to expose the cracks in fundraising. And they’re also moments to build capacity. Engagements can be a defined project or interim leadership of roughly three to six months.
Development Assessment
Most fundraisers are strapped for time with too much on their plates, and the back-end stuff is often deprioritized. Then they find themselves reinventing the wheel and losing time making do with broken systems. Donor history gets lost along the way. Sometimes organizations are ready to expand programs, but the infrastructure to grow giving isn’t there yet.
Strong systems and processes are the behind-the-scenes magic that lets a fundraising team do its best work. I assess what you have in place, understand what’s already working, and recommend improvements to create the optimal development shop for your team. I can also help you to implement the shifts and bring your team along in the process.
Fundraising Strategy and Planning
When you’re launching a new program, setting bold goals to grow philanthropy, or tackling annual planning, you may want a partner who’s been there before.
I can help you build fundraising plans and make decisions that set your team up to execute. This could look like crafting a plan to diversify revenue, building a culture of giving on your board, or deciding how to revamp a development role.
This can be a focused project or ongoing thought partnership for an Executive Director or development leader.
About
Hello! I’m Kelsea. I’m a consultant who brings fundraising leadership to nonprofits navigating transitions and growth, helping to protect and grow the relationships and revenue their missions depend on. I’ve spent 15 years building and scaling nonprofit development teams and functions at OneGoal, Mission Asset Fund, and Prospera.
As the founding development leader for OneGoal’s Bay Area team, I grew the organization’s philanthropy from $500K to $2M in partnership with Executive Directors, board members, and donors. I’ve worn almost every fundraising hat you can imagine, but some of my favorites are building development shops from the ground up, getting boards invested in fundraising, taking the stress out of grants management, and designing effective Executive Director & Development Director partnerships.
Throughout my career, I’ve also stepped in to cover the fundraising responsibilities from Development Director to Executive Director - to keep revenue and relationships on track while setting up the new or returning leader for success. I fiercely believe in supporting leaders to step away to care for themselves and their families. And I’ve been on both sides of it, as the person covering a leave and the one stepping away.
The throughline of my work is building fundraising capacity - the people, systems, and structures that deliver sustainable funding.
Let’s connect.
Want to explore how I can help? Schedule a discovery call.