CASE STUDY
Nancy Sutherland onboarded, trained, and retained an employee from Salesforce to become the next corporate fundraising manager for Sunshine Foundation of Canada through completing the Fundraising Intelligence training and coaching program by Growth & Co.
Nancy Sutherland, President and CEOBrianne Oswald, Corporate Fundraising ManagerSunshine Foundation of Canada
Nancy Sutherland is the President and CEO of a national charity that fulfills dreams for children and youth living with severe physical disabilities across Canada. They raise over $2.5 million dollars per year.
While they have always been able to fill their fundraising vacancies in the past, the staffing shortage following the pandemic resulted in a lack of experienced fundraising professionals to recruit into the Manager of Partnerships role. Corporate sponsorships are a big part of fundraising revenue for the charity, and Nancy knew leaving the position empty would result in a loss of partner relationships. She needed another approach to hire talent that didn’t limit her to career fundraisers.
At the same time, she knew that if she didn’t hire someone with experience, they would need training and support from someone outside of the organization. While Nancy was familiar with the basics of fundraising and had been involved in fundraising as a nonprofit leader for 15+ years, she did not have the time as the CEO to train someone new to fundraising with all the information they would need to confidently succeed in their role.
Nancy became aware of Growth & Co. through years of crossing paths with founder Larissa Stoddart in the nonprofit community. Originally thinking Larissa may know someone who would be interested in filling the role, Nancy scheduled a meeting to discuss the role, brainstorm the staffing shortage dilemma, and see if there was anyone in Larissa’s network who would be a good fit. Based on suggestions and advice throughout their conversation, Nancy realized that a private sector sales person could make a great fundraiser. Knowing the Fundraising Intelligence program was available to her, she felt confident hiring a sales person with potential to transition into the nonprofit sector. The moment Brianne was hired, Nancy enrolled her in training and coaching with Growth & Co.
One of the most important strategies Brianne learned during her time with Growth & Co. was how to build a fundraising plan that would keep her team focused on the right tasks. She gained clarity on what those tasks were and why they were important by watching the weekly training videos, completing the projects using the provided templates, and attending private and group coaching with Larissa twice per week. She was able to restructure the roles of her direct reports and build new processes to ensure they were able to complete tasks such as prospect research and coordinating third party fundraising events more efficiently. She learned the importance of having a Case for Support to be able to communicate the impact their donations would have on children across the country, and began to build recognition levels and project-specific cases that she could present in donor meetings.
Within 12 weeks, Brianne gained the foundational knowledge of the nonprofit sector, managing her fundraising team, building a fundraising plan, crafting a case for support, how to research prospects, and how to cultivate and steward her corporate donors in ways that would result in new and maintained relationships with those companies.
By the end of the three month program, Brianne was able to book multiple meetings with well-known major retailers, airlines, and online travel booking corporations to discuss philanthropic partnerships between the organizations.
As Nancy put it,
“Brianne was excited to be in the program, her new confidence in our meetings is evident, and her understanding of our sector has improved greatly. This program was perfect for transitioning her from the private sector into a fundraising role at our organization.”