Should you hire a fundraising coach or a consultant? Most fundraisers pay for the wrong one. In this episode, Mary breaks down the real difference: a consultant hands you the plan, but a coach gets in the car with you. You'll hear the story of Anna and her major gift ask, learn exactly when each type of support makes sense, and get the questions to ask (and red flags to watch for) before you hire anyone. If you've ever wondered why the binder on your shelf didn't raise a dollar, this o...
Aug 14
27 min
What should you actually talk about at a Small Table? In this episode, Mary breaks down one of the biggest mistakes nonprofits make when they finally get the right donors around the right table: turning an intimate conversation into a miniature fundraising presentation. When leadership wants to talk about budget deficits and board members want to lead with statistics, it is easy to lose sight of what Small Table is really designed to do: build relationships. Mary shares how to turn financial ...
Aug 7
33 min
Executive directors are pulled in a thousand directions, but major gifts still need focused attention. In this episode, Mary shares a practical strategy for leaders who have only four to eight hours each week to devote to fundraising. You’ll learn how to identify the 15 to 20 donors who deserve your personal attention, structure a simple four-hour major gift schedule, prioritize donor conversations and follow-up, move the right people toward an ask, and ignore the complicated systems, perfect...
Jul 31
34 min
CEOs play a crucial role in major gift fundraising, but not all of them are natural fundraisers. In this episode, we’ll discuss how to prepare and coach your CEO for major donor meetings, including messaging, body language, and overcoming objections. Learn how to position them as the ideal storyteller and ambassador for your mission. 🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodolo...
Jul 24
42 min
This is a different kind of episode, and it might be one of Mary's favorites yet! No theory, no framework from the top down. Just three real questions sent in by fundraisers like you, answered live. Mary digs into how to do prospect research in-house with zero fancy tools (hint: your donor database already knows more than you think), how to translate big campaign priorities into asks that actually feel personal to a donor, and how to build a real system for stewardship and donor upgrades so g...
Jul 22
41 min
In this episode, I walk you through what we built together and answer the six questions that came up in the room, because I guarantee you're asking them too. Does the dinner have to be in someone's home? What do you do with loyal donors who won't return your calls? Can you invite people who have never given? And the big one: do you ask for the gift at the table, or the next morning? (The answer to that last one took me years and a lot of money left on the table to learn.) If you've read Smal...
Jul 17
33 min
Your year-end success is being decided right now. Not by your appeal letter, not by your Giving Tuesday plan, but by what you're doing with your top donors today. In this episode, Mary steps back from the tactics and hands you the thinking that makes every year-end move actually land: ask a major donor once, then thank them for the next 180 days. The Year-End Major Gift Playbook: Mary's complete six-month strategy to crush year-end, with scripts, calendars, trackers, and her 20 best cultivati...
Jul 14
33 min
Most fundraisers treat summer like the slow season. That's the mistake. Summer is the single best relationship-building season of the year, and what you do with your donors in July and August is what you'll close in October and November. In this episode, Mary makes the case for summer as your secret weapon and hands you the exact moves to use it. You'll learn the low-stakes cultivation tactics that actually deepen donor relationships (yes, the lemonade and the walk are strategy), and the on...
Jun 26
31 min
Mary shares highlights from her keynote at the AFP Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties Summer Symposium, a full morning with 110 fundraisers built entirely around major gift confidence. She covers the difference between cultivation and avoidance, the relationship rhythm that moves donors forward without feeling transactional, and why confidence isn't a personality trait – it's a skill set you can build. She also breaks down the three takeaways that landed hardest in the room: go deeper not wid...
Jun 19
48 min
Mary teaches the board fundraising framework from Small Table Big Philanthropy — the one that works because it doesn't ask board members to do anything that feels like selling. She covers the 3-questions exercise (30 minutes, dozens of new prospects), the 4 board fundraising roles (none of which require 'the ask'), the small table approach to activating board networks, and how to celebrate and reinforce board fundraising wins so the momentum continues. 🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a da...
Jun 12
43 min
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