CASE STUDY
Dr. Peter Meehan filled his senior fundraising vacancy by investing in the skills and knowledge of the college’s fundraising assistant via the Fundraising Intelligence Training and Coaching program
Dr. Peter Meehan, President and Vice-Chancellor
Hayley Winters, Senior Development Officer
St. Jerome’s University, University of Waterloo
Dr. Peter Meehan is a leader in higher education, having held the President role of multiple affiliate and federated campuses across Canada. He is responsible for overseeing growth of campus enrollment, enrichment of the student experience, and increases in revenue for the college.
He began his role as President of St. Jerome’s in 2021, and he soon recognized the need to restructure the fund development department to make it profitable. To do that, he needed to address staffing challenges at the institution and move a strong performer into the lead fundraising position.
While the current development assistant showed great potential, she had not learned best-practice fundraising techniques from her former colleagues. Peter knew he needed to provide Hayley with more in-depth fundraising knowledge, as well as a coach who could guide her in applying that new knowledge to making improvements to the department. These improvements would reduce activities that did not result in revenue and increase focus on strong stewardship and major gift activities that would encourage high-networth alumni to donate generously.
Dr. Meehan had become aware of Growth & Co. by experiencing success while working with them on a prior engagement at St. Mark’s College at the University of British Columbia. After a phone call with Larissa to discuss recruitment, retention, and succession planning options, Dr. Meehan promoted Hayley into the role and enrolled her in the Fundraising Intelligence training and coaching program.
For twelve weeks, Hayley watched twelve fundraising training modules that guided her chronologically through the work of conducting a fundraising audit, drafting a fundraising plan, and crafting a compelling case for support to communicate with donors. Throughout the program, Hayely began to make adjustments to fundraising processes at the campus while developing a deeper understanding of what operational components needed to be put into place and why.
One of the most important strategies Hayley learned during her time in the program was how to prioritize her fundraising tasks and manage her time and projects so donors were interacted with in the right ways and times. She restructured donor recognition levels in ways that were easier for sponsors to understand, and learned how to communicate the impact of donations on students, faculty, campus, and broader community to alumni and donors.
Within the first four weeks of working together, Hayley was able to take a pause from low-payback activities to focus her efforts on existing donors with major gift potential who needed strong stewardship before making their next gift. One such example is a long time annual donor. She spent 3 hours researching this donor’s giving history and annual contribution that made an annual writing competition possible. She spent an additional hour drafting a simple stewardship report that highlighted writing samples of the student submissions and the impact the competition had on their academic success. That donor promptly made an additional gift of $40,000, without having yet met Hayley! As a result of the strategies she learned from Fundraising Intelligence, she increased donation revenue rapidly within the first few weeks.
In two years since working with Growth & Co., Hayley's direct response campaigns have more than tripled in revenue. One campaign that raised $12,000 in 2022 raised $36,000 in 2024. Due to Dr. Meehan's efforts at building a culture of philanthropy at the board level, members of the board are now making gifts who didn't give previously. Major gifts are increasing, as Hayley consistently closes multi-figure gifts and is securing meetings to discuss $1M+ gifts.
As Hayley put it,
“Being newer to the Higher Education Fundraising space, working with Larissa was a delight. She was patient in our 1 on 1 coaching sessions and super informative in assisting with our audit, fundraising plan, and the case for support. She went above and beyond to help us create a plan we are proud of. The online coaching program was simple to follow along with educational training videos and templates that were easy to consume and full of information to help our department. Larissa made the entire program a joyful process and we are excited to start implementing all the plans we now have in place. Already, our department planning is WAY ahead of where we were before. It feels good to come to coaching meetings with news that we secured another a $5,000 gift this week, a $11,000 gift the next week, and a $40,000 gift after that. As we start conversations with donors about $1M+ gifts, we are confident that working with Larissa is helping us achieve our fundraising goals!”