Past Events
Past Event
General Session
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
8:30 AM — 11:00 AM
Extend Your Reach: How Major Gift Officers Become Active Partners in Gift Planning Efforts
In the fundraising sector synergy is the result of collaboration and shared success. This presentation offers practical tools to create synergy in your development office, combining the skillsets of major gifts and planned gifts in ways that do more than just multiply results.
Participants will learn
- how to lead donors through purposeful discovery conversations, and how those conversations lead to the effective integration of planned giving and major giving;
- how interactive case studies serve as the tool for sustainable in-house training that equips major gift fundraisers to find more and greater gifts, and positions planned giving experts as collaborative partners;
- how such purposeful conversations help uncover more outright, deferred, and blended gifts.
R. Daniel Shephard, CFRE
Dan Shephard is Principal of The Shephard Group, which provides training, coaching, and consulting services focused on the skillsets most valuable to frontline fundraisers. A veteran of the not-for-profit sector since 1986, Dan knows from personal experience the value to the major gift planner of being equipped with both the competence and the confidence to engage a potential donor in a discussion that will result in a significant gift commitment.
He is the creator of The Four Decisions— How to Lead Your Donor to Each, which serves as the foundation of his training programs on conversational gift planning.
Dan began his fundraising career in the performing arts. He served as Director of Development for The Fulton Opera House, New American Theatre, and Pittsburgh Public Theatre.
During his time in higher education he served as Planned Giving Director for the Florida State University Foundation, Director of Development for the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech, Director of Gift Planning for The Citadel Foundation, and Director of Development for the Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University.
Craig H. Smith, Senior Consultant, John Brown Limited
Craig is best known for his leadership, personal solicitation skills, and gift planning know-how. His work as Senior Consultant with John Brown Limited spans more than 25 years. He has directed client relations in higher education, the arts, healthcare, and cultural organizations nationwide, including the National Geographic Society; the University of Michigan; all of the campuses of the University of North Carolina; Columbia University; the Smithsonian Institution; and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He has helped to develop and manage campaigns from as small at $6 million to as large as $2.5 billion.
During his career, Craig served as Associate Vice President for Development at Rochester Institute of Technology, and at the University of Rochester Medical Center. In these roles, he managed large teams of field officers focused on major gifts, as well as corporate and foundation relations, and development communications. At RIT, Craig rolled out a combination of activity and dollar-based metrics to drive day-to-day success, and encouraged the routine use of gift planning tools and techniques in all interactions with donors.
8:30 AM Full Breakfast
9:00 AM Presentation: Extend Your Reach: How Major Gift Officers Become Active Partners in Gift Planning Efforts
10:30 AM 25th Anniversary Celebration
Nassau Club
6 Mercer Street
Princeton, NJ 08540
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