White papers from our practice
Research and analysis from our work with nonprofit boards and development teams. Free to download.
The Agentic Advantage
How agentic AI workflows surface and engage major gift prospects at scale, and why this changes the economics of nonprofit fundraising.
When the Floor Becomes the Ceiling
Why board Give/Get policies cap what boards raise, and the holistic model that outperforms them.
Straight answers, before you download
Do board Give/Get policies actually increase what a board raises?
Usually the opposite. A Give/Get sets a minimum, and human behavior turns minimums into targets: a trustee capable of generating $100,000 in value reads a $10,000 quota as the definition of a good board member, meets it, and stops. The floor becomes a ceiling.
What should replace a Give/Get policy?
Keep universal participation at a personally meaningful level, and replace the dollar quota with activity-based goals: clear directives, no expectation that trustees solicit, full staff support, transparent dashboards, and a genuine team relationship between board and staff. Boards that make this shift raise more and retain members longer.
What is agentic AI in fundraising, and how is it different from ChatGPT?
A generative tool answers a single prompt — polishing an appeal letter, for instance. An agentic workflow pursues a goal: it plans a sequence of steps, uses tools like wealth screening platforms and giving records, evaluates its own results, and carries the task through with a human approving the consequential moments. Fundraising’s bottleneck was never writing; it is the compounding labor of identification, qualification, enrichment and follow-through.
Can a small nonprofit run major gift prospect research without a full development office?
Yes. That is the core argument of The Agentic Advantage: research and cultivation capacity that once required a fully staffed development office is now available to organizations of nearly any size. The five-stage agentic pipeline — surface, verify, enrich, personalize, follow through — replaces weeks of manual screening per campaign.
Hudson Ferris and Ed Leibman in the field
Podcasts, press and conference appearances on major gifts, board development and the future of nonprofit fundraising.