Enterprise-Level Sales Training for EDs and Development Teams
I’d propose there's a next level of relational fundraising that exists, yet few tap into.
Your major donors need more than a gala and a thank-you note. They need customized journeys that go beyond traditional storytelling — one that pairs your organization's real financial need with their capacity to meet it, and invites them into a leadership-level investment in the change you're both after. I train you and your team to lead that conversation with confidence.
Your donors are ready. Are you?
"Our donors just aren't giving bigger gifts."
I hear this all the time. And it's rarely a donor problem. It's a training problem.
Most fundraisers kinda found themselves in fundraising — they came up through programs, moved over from corporate, or were great at writing grants and landed in fundraising by accident. That's not a knock. It just means most fundraisers have never been trained to sit across from a donor and lead a conversation about need, capacity, and investment — one that requires preparation and a genuine grasp of both your finances and their philanthropic goals, not a rehearsed pitch.
I train your EDs, development staff, and board to:
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Move
Move past mission storytelling and into pairing your organization's impact with its real financial need
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Lead
Lead individual major donors — plus foundations and corporations — through relational, not transactional, giving
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Navigate
Navigate answering the financial questions most fundraisers avoid
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Use
Use proven tools that build confidence and remove the guesswork from private solicitations
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Convert
Convert passive or one-time donors into champions who want to give their best gift, every year
Your major donors aren't a list. They're a relationship you haven't built yet.
Here's the mindset shift that changes everything: the people capable of your organization's largest gifts aren't sitting somewhere waiting to be found.
They're already close to you — at your gala and golf outing, in your board's network, giving monthly gifts they've never once been asked to grow, or quietly believing in your mission without ever having been invited into a real conversation about what you actually need.
That's the work.
And when you finally do sit down with them, done right, that conversation doesn't feel like a pitch — it feels like clarity and trust.
Because you learned how to show them the real picture and invited them into it.
I’ll teach you how to ask for that gift every year, face-to-face — never through a paddle raise, never through an email blast.
YOUR MAJOR DONORS ARE WAITING FOR YOU
Relationships aren’t just about individual donors.
Relational fundraising has historically meant individual donors, which led too many people to assume foundations and corporations are transactional by nature. Not so.
I'll show you how to apply the same relational principles to strengthen foundation and corporate giving too — resulting in larger general-operating gifts across the board. It doesn't matter whether a donor gives through a personal check, a DAF, stock, their business, or their family foundation. Go beyond the grant application. It's the authentic relationship that drives everything.
Have you equipped your fundraising with enterprise-level sales training?
YOU KNOW WHAT SURPRISES ME?
The number of fundraisers who aren’t hosting meetings with donors.
Honestly, too many fundraisers don’t know how to move donor relationships beyond the event, site visit, or volunteer experience and into investment-level conversation. And because of that, you’re leaving money on the table. Sometimes millions of dollars.
Leave-behinds, sponsorships, and auction items won’t get major donors to give you more money. I provide confidence-building tools that make solicitations easier and provide clarity to donors — giving fundraisers the ability to guide donors through real, prepared conversations into strong solicitations.
And that ask you’re avoiding? You'll know exactly how to solicit donors for unrestricted, general-operating gifts.
“I’ve always found that once I’m in a meeting I'm able to navigate the conversations well. But, in the work I’ve been doing with Sherry, my preparation for those meetings has shifted. I used to go in and feel like I had that one opportunity to make the ask. Now I feel like I can enter into meetings more confidently knowing the trajectory, what to say, and having tools in-hand that eases the donor into the ask. I don’t feel like I’m chasing anymore or must ask for money. Now it feels more natural, and the conversation is leading somewhere that I’ve planned. I have way less hesitation to ask because I feel way more confident in conversations with donors. I’m consistently securing 5-, 6-, and 7-figure gifts. I simply approach donor communication in a completely different way.”
— Yamilée, Founder and Executive Director of STEM From Dance // Securing regular 6- and 7-figure general operating gifts
Beyond fundraising consulting.
Into revenue transformation.
I can't wait to help you start attracting the unrestricted dollars you need.