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Events

DPP participants are getting together in smaller groups to meet each other and discuss how the last session impacts their work.

There will be breakout rooms in these categories:

[Donor Participation] Small Group Discussions

In this Donor Participation Project session, we’re honored to welcome part of the Advancement leadership team at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville: Erick Weber, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Annual Giving and James Obear, Associate Vice Chancellor.

In recent years, the flagship campus of the UT system has seen incredible growth, almost doubling the number of donors per year.

 will walk us through the multi-faceted components of their donor participation strategy.

There will be a brief presentation followed by Q&A.

 (DPP) convenes fundraising professionals who are concerned about the nationwide decline in donor participation (20 million US households lost between 2000-2016).

We believe this can be solved by changing our fundraising practices and want to learn from peers who are moving the participation needle.

Discuss this Topic and Learn with the University of Tennessee Team During our March 17 Lunch Analysis

Read about our privacy and transparency practices

[Donor Participation] The University of Tennessee’s Donor Participation Growth

**We're always looking for additional volunteer chairs to make sure we have coverage. Please contact Louis if you're able to volunteer.

In this Donor Participation Project session, we’re honored to welcome Emily Taylor, Principal at teenyBIG, for a Workshop on Donor Experience Mapping.

Emily will be providing a brief overview of experience maps and how to use them, followed by the joint development of a donor experience map based on the group’s knowledge.

Emily’s approach in this area is based on her background working in nonprofit management and industrial design. In the private and nonprofit sectors, she has helped design user-focused campaigns on everything from bicycle safety and light-rail advocacy to community chambers. She has a bachelor’s degree in industrial design from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Emily serves on the board of the Association of Consultants to Nonprofits, where she helps lead the organization’s outreach to Chicago-area organizations. She is also active in the Chicago neighborhood where she lives with her family, including serving as a parent representative working with Chicago Public Schools.

The Donor Participation Project (DPP) convenes fundraising professionals who are concerned about the nationwide decline in donor participation (20 million US households lost between 2000-2016).

Discuss this Topic and Learn with Emily Taylor During our April 14 Lunch Analysis

[Donor Participation] Donor Experience Mapping with Emily Taylor, teenyBIG

In this Donor Participation Project session, we’re honored to welcome Adam Platzer, Assistant Vice President for College Advancement at RIT.

Adam will be walking us through his work on Forward Fundraisers, a free resource where he studies the links between engagement, cross-organizational collaboration, and major gifts.

He has prepared and analyzed multiple case studies that help us understand the sequence of events that lead to major gifts, starting at the very beginning of a relationship.

Discuss this Topic and Learn with Adam Platzer During our May 12 Lunch Analysis

[Donor Participation] Engagement to Major Gift: Lessons from Case Studies with Adam Platzer

We’re honored to welcome Dr. William A. Donohue, professor of Communication at Michigan State University.

Dr. Donohue has published extensively in the areas of conflict, communication, negotiation, and mediation while also conducting workshops and other intervention activities focusing on communication, leadership development, and conflict management.

He has extensive experience advising nonprofits on their communication and fundraising strategies.

In this session, he will be discussing the culture shift caused by social media and the explosion of information that requires increased transparency, more authentic communication strategies, and leading with engagement.

Discuss this Topic and Learn with Dr. William Donohue During our June 16 Lunch Analysis

[Donor Participation] Trust & Authenticity: The Nonprofit Communications Culture Shift with Dr. William A. Donohue

**For privacy, this meeting will be held in Webinar format. All questions will go only to the moderator.**

Join us to hear hiring managers from development shops introduce their organizations and answer questions.

We’ll feature jobs from UTSA, United Way, Williamson College of the Trades, University of Miami, National MS Society, University of Denver, Kennedy Krieger Institute, University of the Incarnate Word, and more…

 convenes fundraising professionals who are concerned about the nationwide decline in donor participation (20 million US households lost between 2000-2016).

[Donor Participation] Advancement Job Fair

June 23 (12:00 pm EDT) - INFO session - Marketing Automation Study Group

What is marketing automation? How can it help you provide a better donor experience and save time with reporting/analysis? Join this DPP Breakout session for a brief introduction to marketing automation strategies and software tools.

June 30 (12:00 pm EDT) - Automate Your Donor Experience Workflows with ThankView

Join JD Beebe, CEO of ThankView, and his team to build integrations that will take your donor experience to another level. Trigger a video message after getting a phonathon call? Add donors who watch a video message to a personalized outreach list? No problem! We'll learn together how to build these workflows and others using Zapier and the ThankView API. (Free trial of ThankView included for DPP participants who schedule a training session.)

July 14 (12:00 pm EDT) - Automated Solicitation and Upgrade Strategies with Nic Prenger

Learn how to use MS Power Automate to integrate with your CRM and customize donor stewardship messaging, We will work through examples of building personalized chaser messages and upgrade invites to one-time donors over to monthly/recurring.

July 21 (12:00 pm EDT) - Final Project Presentation

Each participant will build their own workflow and share it with the group! We'll then ruthlessly criticize each other's work (just joking!) and celebrate our progress.

 (DPP) convenes fundraising professionals who are concerned about the nationwide decline in donor participation (20 million US households lost between 2000-2016). 

[Donor Participation] Marketing Automation Study Group

 session, we’re excited to welcome DPP member 

Diego is the Gaming Partnership Manager – Corporate Alliances at 

. There, he has spearheaded their engagement with the online gaming and live streaming community to obtain tremendous fundraising results in support of the USO’s mission.

In this session, Diego will be sharing the nuts and bolts of how he built the gaming and eSports program as well as the fundraising opportunities that his organization capitalized on in corporate and individual philanthropy.

Discuss this Topic and Learn with Diego Scharifker During our July 7 Lunch Analysis

[Donor Participation] Gaming and eSports Fundraising: A New Frontier

We all know that you’re supposed to test. Most of us just don’t or do it in a way that doesn’t teach us much.

Kirk Schmidt is a rigorous and innovative thinker in the area of fundraising analytics. Here is his message:

“The test itself it simple. Implementing it, avoiding pitfalls, and knowing what the test told you (and, sometimes more importantly, what it didn’t tell you) are what we are going to discuss. The principles discussed here apply to all A/B testing, but will be discussed in terms of direct response campaigns.

Instead of any pre-reading, I would like everyone to think about this question: what would you like to test? Then, I want you to write down what you think the result would be, how do you test that, and how could the test go sideways.”

Kirk is the Director of Operations for the Foundation of STARS Air Ambulance, a helicopter EMS in the prairie provinces in Canada. In his current role he manages that teams that work on donations processing and systems, stewardship, annual giving, volunteer management, donor research, and data analysis. He has been in the nonprofit space for 14 years, focused on data and analytics, and advocates for better metrics and analysis in the sector.

Discuss this Topic and Learn with Kirk Schmidt During our August 11 Lunch Analysis

[Donor Participation] Put It to the Test: They Might Be Fundraisers with Kirk Schmidt, STARS

DPP participants get together in smaller groups to discuss how the last session impacts their work.

Depending on attendance we may all meet together to discuss:

We typically have breakout rooms in these categories:

Buying fundraising technology can be confusing. Yet, we all know that the right technology can help you achieve more with fewer resources.

How to approach vendors without getting drowned in never-ending demos? How do you compare different products that all seem to be intended for slightly different goals? How can you make sure that you are enabling yourself and your institution to succeed?

For the first time, the Donor Participation Project is convening both sides of the equation, buyers and sellers, for an honest conversation and sharing of best practices that will help all parties do what we’re best at: 

 toward a more inclusive and representative donor base.

We’ll be kicking off with a presentation by 

, Executive Director of Annual Giving at Carnegie Mellon University, followed by an open conversation with the CEOs of the major nonprofit technology providers.

Discuss this Topic and Learn with Your Colleagues During our September 15 Lunch Analysis

[Donor Participation] What to Ask When Buying Tech

Let's get together in peer groups to discuss how the last session impacts our work. 

: we have a new group for independent schools!

**We're always looking for additional volunteer chairs to make sure we have coverage. Please contact Louis if you'd like to volunteer.

, Director of Donor Innovation at Grand River Hospital Foundation, to discover what a "donor innovation officer" does.

What does "donor innovation" mean? What do they focus on? How do they apply the concept of innovation silos?

Specifically, you'll learn how this position goes beyond database management or engagement officer activities to promote holistic improvements to the donor experience across the organization.

Discuss this Topic and Learn with Your Colleagues During our October 13 Lunch Analysis

[Donor Participation] Why You Need a Donor Innovation Officer

, Senior Director of Cultural Arts at the JCC of Metro Detroit, in a demonstration of how she manages complex fundraising projects using the popular no-code table Airtable.

Dr. Loeb is a long-time arts entrepreneur and tech enthusiast, which has made her obsession with efficiency and information quality seem like a job skill. Airtable’s powerful automation, data visualization, and integration tools make it one of the best databases on the market. But, it’s most powerful feature is that it is shockingly easy to use.

Discuss this Topic and Learn with Your Colleagues During our November 17 Lunch Analysis

[Donor Participation] Manage Complex Projects with Airtable by Jaemi Loeb

Join us for a Donor Participation Project celebration of 2021 in fundraising! We will have surprise guests, competitive fundraising trivia questions, and a broad discussion on what YOU have found to be the defining trends in fundraising these past 12 months.

Bring a colleague to get a Donor Participation Project t-shirt!

 (or click on "Invite Others" when you register). **

Community Centric Fundraising (CFF), crypto donations, impact investing, nonprofit leadership, and more.

Discuss this Topic and Learn with Your Colleagues During our December 15 Lunch Analysis

[Donor Participation] 2021 Fundraising Year-in-Review

In this session we will review some findings from experimental research and see how this can apply to effective communications in fundraising.  Beyond just gleaning a few tips and tricks, we will discuss how these findings reflect underlying realities about the process of charitable decision making.

 is a chaired professor in the Department of Personal Financial Planning at Texas Tech University where he directs the on-campus and online graduate program in Charitable Financial Planning (planned giving) and also teaches a graduate course in behavioral finance.  Prior to his academic career he worked in planned gifts fundraising and then major gifts fundraising for 11 years.

Discuss this Topic and Learn with Your Colleagues During our January 19 Lunch Analysis

[Donor Participation] Why People Give: Fundraising Recommendations from Behavioral Science

Opaque speaker selection? Expensive, in-person only events? Too much celebration and not enough real knowledge-sharing? Conference "insiders" (and, therefore, "outsiders")?

We all feel that something needs to change. Join us to share your thoughts and learn about the work that the Donor Participation Project has been doing over the last 6 months.

Matthew Manfra, VP for Advancement at Georgian Court University will share his work leading the Think Tank: Future of Nonprofit Conferences.

We will also make an exciting announcement!

The Future of Nonprofit Conferences

Join Lisa Vuona and Wendy Wilsker from Boyden, a global leader in executive search and talent advisory services. We'll have the privilege to pick their minds about hot-ticket fundraising talent topics:

What trends are they seeing in the hiring market?

How should nonprofits think about attracting fundraising talent?

Join us and be ready to ask your hiring and career questions in the chat!

​We believe this can be solved by changing our fundraising practices and want to learn from peers who are moving the participation needle.

[Office Hours] Ask Lisa and Wendy: Recruiting Fundraising Talent

Want to talk shop with fellow fundraisers? Eager to share your thoughts with accomplished colleagues?

 and your Donor Participation Project colleagues for our first in-person meetup in the heart of New York City.

Food & entertainment (in the form of intelligent conversation) will be provided.

Please RSVP by Thursday 2/3 so we know how many to expect.

 (DPP) convenes 1,100+ fundraising professionals who are concerned about the nationwide decline in donor participation (20 million US households lost between 2000-2016).

We believe this can be solved by changing our fundraising practices. We meet monthly to learn from peers who are moving the participation needle.

(This event is in-person. To join one of our virtual sessions, please visit 

[Donor Participation] New York Meetup

 as the facilitator for this month's Lunch Analysis.

Mark is a globally-recognized author, speaker, podcaster, and business consultant. He is a prolific writer and speaker whose work sits at the intersection of marketing, technology, and humanity. He has advanced degrees in marketing and organizational development, holds seven patents, and is a faculty member of the graduate studies program at Rutgers University.

He is the best-selling author of nine popular books including the

very first book on influence marketing. His blog, 

 are ranked among the top-rated publications in the marketing field. His clients range from successful start-ups to global brands such as Adidas, Johnson & Johnson, Dell, The U.S. Air Force, and the UK Government. And he has appeared on media channels such as CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and CBS News.

In this session, Mark will guide us through his research on where marketing is headed and how his findings in his books 

[Donor Participation] New Marketing Realities for Nonprofits with Mark Schaefer

Meet our steering committee member Anne Murphy, Senior Director of Development at OSU Foundation.

We'll learn about her background and she'll share updates about the '22 Donor Participation Conference!

DPP Conference Update

[Small Group Discussions] Social Services/Agencies - Leadership

The Purdue Optimizes Development Support (PODS) concept is designed to optimize operational support with an 

end goal of maximizing our revenue generating potential

 at Purdue. Through the PODS, the Purdue for Life Foundation is creating a culture of shared purposes and responsibilities, while acknowledging the independencies that produce fundraising success.

 in a discussion about the A (acquisition), B (building), C’s (customization)—and D (data-driven decisions)—and how they use them within and across their departments and to effectively collaborate and increase Purdue’s ability to raise money.

Discuss this Topic and Learn with Your Colleagues During our March 2 Lunch Analysis

[Donor Participation] Starting from the End: Purdue's Approach to Transformational Gifts

​The ’22 Donor Participation Project Conference is built by and for the everyday development professional.

If it does, you’ll want to join our inaugural conference. Together, we will:

Join us for one or all four Friday sessions (4/22, 4/29, 5/6, and 5/13) between 1 and 3pm ET.

Sessions will be run on Zoom and use Zoom automated captioning. Each session will include a presentation from an expert host, a lightning round of practitioners sharing experiences from the front lines, and breakouts for 

with presenters and your peers in small groups.

Group purchases, invoicing, and buy-one-give-one sponsorships: 

To buy multiple tickets for your team, pay by invoice, or buy an extra ticket that can be gifted to a fellow fundraiser, please contact 

Full scholarships are available thanks to EverTrue

​Session 1: A New World for Nonprofit Communications

 hosted by Russell James, Ph.D. with a presentation by Julia Campbell

 communication styles have stopped working. Donors are not interested in being sold, talked to, or lectured.

​Instead, donors trust and seek information from their peers, friends, and social networks. Donors want to engage in conversations and collaboration to advance causes they care about.

​What can we learn from science about (re-)building trust?

​How should we best invest our time and resources?

​Finally, how do we get other people (leadership, marketing colleagues) in our organization to engage with these new ways of thinking about communication?

​Session 2: Grow Engagement with Underrepresented Groups - Starting TODAY 

hosted by Dr. Reshunda Mahone and Joey Zumaya, LinkedIn

​If you’re frustrated by how much lip-service and how little actual change is happening, this session will provide actionable tactics to increase engagement and giving from underrepresented groups right now.

​You’ll go beyond “we need to study the data” or “let’s read a book” to “here are tangible examples of how it is being done successfully.”

​Awareness is OK, but measurable results are even better. Join us to get moving!

​Session 3: Scrappy Innovation : Get More Done With Tools You Already Have 

​Shiny technology and dream-like efficiencies shouldn’t be only for large fundraising shops. Guess what? With free & sub-$40/month tools you may not have heard about before today, you can immediately become more efficient.

​Quick personalized thank you videos? ✅

Automatically send a postcard from a spreadsheet? ✅

Create a giving site from scratch in 5 minutes? ✅

Upload a spreadsheet and easily manage dozens of crowdfunding campaigns? ✅

​Today’s presenters will introduce you to the semi-magical world of no-code and automation tools so you can create a world-class donor experience with a team of 1 or 100.

​Session 4: New Rules of Co-creation: The Future of Major Gift Fundraising 

​Fundraising manager’s obsession with “the ask” is showing itself to be an increasingly weak strategy.

​Donors are clamoring for more input, greater collaboration, and a sense of participation in meaningful endeavors. By continuing to ignore them we are putting the entire nonprofit enterprise at risk.

​Join this session to hear from those who are making meaningful differences in the 

. As an added benefit, you’ll feel validated in your observations. Donors are really reacting differently and are not happy with their relationships with nonprofits. You’ll hear from successful and not-so-successful organizations and will have a chance to brainstorm solutions to this complex issue.

With thanks to our visionary partners, hundreds of 

, and the LinkedIn Creator Accelerator Program.

Marketing and communications supported by:

The Conference for Fundraisers Who Keep Asking “Why are Things Done This Way?”

If you want to use more video in your fundraising, join 

 for a brief presentation and conversation on what you should be thinking about.

(Sneak peek: videos that work don't require a huge production budget!)

Discuss this Topic and Learn with Your Colleagues During our May 18 Lunch Analysis

[Donor Participation] Video Marketing for Fundraisers

**We're always looking for volunteer chairs. Please contact Louis if you'd like to volunteer.**

[Donor Participation] Small Group Discussions - Social Services/Leadership

, incoming Chief Development Officer for the UMD University Libraries, for a conversation on the inner game of fundraising.

Need a Pep Talk? How to handle even the most challenging fundraising interactions

Whether you're an introvert, an extrovert, or in between, sometimes our brains get in the way of our own progress as fundraisers (and as human beings). In this talk, Kenna shares some of the techniques that she has adapted from neighboring fields to position yourself for success.

We will also be presenting the DPP Intro Club! A way for you to meet fellow DPPers 1:1 for networking, career advice, or just sharing common challenges.

Discuss this Topic and Learn with Your Colleagues During our June 15 Lunch Analysis

[Donor Participation] Fundraiser's Pep Talk & DPP Intro Club

Did you know that two out of every three people in the US play video games? And that philanthropy is a critical component of gaming communities?

, a social impact leader and fundraising expert to learn how organizations are raising significant gifts and engaging their community through gaming.

Robyn has served in executive roles at Tiltify, Blackbaud, and the MD Anderson Cancer Center helping nonprofits innovate and fundraise more effectively.

Video Game Fundraising and Engagement with Robyn Mendez

DPP participants get together in smaller groups to meet each other and discuss how the last session impacts their work.

Could you have a goldmine in the middle of your donor pyramid? That place where people don't give enough to be assigned to a major gift officer portfolio but give too much to really be in the annual giving pool.

, VP of Development at HelpCureHD to learn about the mid-level giving program that she pioneered at Louisiana State University. You'll have a chance to ask her about her process, her results, and the roadblocks that she encountered along the way.

Build a Medium-level Donor Program

 group for networking and professional conversations!

**We're always looking for volunteer chairs. Please contact 

How much more could you be raising if you engaged your community in deeper more authentic ways?

Based on extensive data analysis and survey work with nonprofit organizations, 

 joins Louis Diez on #DPPOfficeHours to share their latest breakthroughs into this age-old question.

Click through for more information on this program of the Donor Participation Project (

Putting a $$ Amount on Engagement

, Associate Dean, Development and External Relations at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education

Are you a fundraiser new to a leadership role? Being a leader is a different set of skills. Craig will discuss some ways to build a great culture and team and give you some ideas on how to implement them.

Discuss this Topic and Learn with Your Colleagues During our July 12 Lunch Analysis

[Donor Participation] Fundraising Leadership Skills

When managed appropriately, they have proven to be effective fundraising and donor acquisition channels.

Join Dan Long to learn how his team at St. Baldrick's Foundation do it!

St. Baldrick's Foundation is the largest non-government funder of pediatric cancer grants in the US.