Do You Need to Create a Successful
Women’s Philanthropy Initiative This Year?

Do You Need to Create a Successful Women’s Philanthropy Initiative This Year?

The Opportunity

You need to learn quickly what works well, and what doesn’t. You don’t have time to reinvent the wheel. In the past two years, there has been a groundswell in the number of institutions who are intentionally focusing on women and how they approach philanthropy. Their results are significant.

You and Your Organization are Invited To Join the Women’s Philanthropy Senior Leader Seminar

Starting in July 2021, the Senior Leader Seminar will help you create a successful women’s philanthropy initiative in your organization THIS YEAR. Join me and 11 other leaders from different organizations, meeting once a month for 9 months, to create and implement a women’s philanthropy strategy that works.

Those who follow the core six principles are surpassing their initial goals faster than they had anticipated. Become part of this growing community that successfully embraces women and all historically underrepresented groups to grow their fundraising.

Join a community of leaders ready to implement women’s philanthropy.

You’ll learn, across 9 months, how you can grow your pipeline, your dollars and loyal partnerships with your women donors without additional time or effort – just different approaches. And the women supporters you gain will be more generous with their time, talent, treasure, ties and testimony than you are used to.

You will...

  • Learn the 6 core principles of successful women’s philanthropy.
  • Learn how to approach your influencers and decision-makers so you have the buy-in for this new path forward.
  • Receive feedback on draft implementation plans, strategies, materials and talking points.
  • Create and begin to implement your institution’s unique strategic roadmap for a sustainable women’s philanthropy focus that is integrated across your team.
  • Gain the enthusiastic commitment, engagement, networks and first gifts from women who care about your organization.

You know that fundraising is a long-term game, and you won’t have achieved your vision by the end of nine months. But you WILL have begun to implement and gain early wins so that you know you’re on the right path.

The Senior Leader Seminar also provides you a community of peers that will endure far beyond the time we spend together. Why is this important?

Current best practices for fundraising were designed across two decades for the dominant donor of the 1970s – white, male and primarily straight.

 These best practices became codified as fundraisers shared across institutions what worked. To more quickly design better practices for the more diverse donors of today, our seminar will accelerate the sharing of what works, what does not and why. Together we will create more tools and templates and amplify stories and impact across multiple institutions. The richness of all these resources will benefit you, your institution and far beyond.

During our sessions I will share the experiences I’ve gained working with dozens of organizations, such as William & Mary, Duke University, University of San Francisco, The Jewish Federations of North America, Young Life, The American Red Cross and the National Coalition of Girls Schools. And YOU will share with each other as you and your colleagues grapple together with the content to design your own unique plans to grow women’s support. DOING the work is the fastest way to LEARN the work.

“Kathleen is a voice our sector has long needed. She shines a spotlight on the women in our databases that we too often overlook and definitely underestimate. As a speaker, she is clear and compelling. She brings to life her rigorous research through interesting stories and insights—and then translates findings into concrete actions that fundraisers can take. It’s impossible to listen to Kathleen without becoming inspired to engage women in new ways to achieve more for important causes.”
Bianca Derouene
President and Founder, Aperio Philanthropy

Session details:

This Senior Leader Seminar is designed to dive right in, not wasting any time.
Here is the curriculum:

This Senior Leader Seminar is designed to dive right in,
not wasting any time.
Here is the curriculum:

  • In this foundational first session, we’ll cover the key principles for growing women’s philanthropy and how they affect your current organization. Then, we’ll cut through the overwhelm of donor data and help you zero in on exactly what data is needed to kick-off your efforts.
  • Your assignment will have you apply what you’ve learned by reviewing one slice of your organization’s data.
  • Successful organizations have strong internal leadership commitment and involvement before they start. Using case studies of compelling documents used for leaders, we’ll discuss how to maximize your leaders’ championship of this effort.
  • Your assignment will be to create or enhance your compelling internal case for women’s philanthropy at your institution.
  • External women influencers can both help guide your approach and be bold champions with leaders as well as their own networks. I’ll share various task forces and advisory groups who have helped accelerate the results.
  • Your assignment will be to create a list of your influencers and begin first conversations to create your “guiding group.”
  • It is time to stretch – as in stretching your understanding of the 5 Ts of women’s philanthropy (Time, Talent, Treasure, Ties and Testimony). Honoring this broader definition of philanthropy makes all the difference in creating your tailored approach that will be robust, effective and sustainable. We’ll discuss the unique approaches of multiple institutions that have had early wins.
  • Your assignment will be to draft a potential vision and focus for your initiative.
  • Our discussion and case studies this month will get into further details about the critical components of successful approaches, including the voice of your women stakeholders, metrics and meaningful inclusion.
  • This month’s assignment is to enhance your high-level draft with what you learned in the session and then create a short version ready to share externally.
  • Women stakeholders who care about your organization are often more enthusiastic and bolder than you might anticipate. You can listen deeply to them through appreciative focus groups and/or surveys to find out what resonates and what is possible. We’ll share case studies, sample questions and various formats to gain this critical input.
  • You’ll take what you learned and draft your “listening tour” plan to gain input from a broader set of women.
  • While you reach out to the “Who” (your women stakeholders), we’ll do a deep dive into “What” is also needed for your early success. “What” includes fundraising processes, tools, templates, or skills and practices that have successfully been adapted in various institutions to connect with women effectively.
  • Continue your outreach to your women stakeholders this month but also begin creating a list of the “What” actions you will eventually need across your organization for success.
  • You are moving on many cylinders, and you can’t do it alone. So now is the time to broaden the “who” within your institution that will be critical to achieve success. The understanding, support and integration of the work across your organization is key to long-term sustainability.
  • Your assignment is to create a list of who will be critical to helping achieve your early success and set up time to have at least two conversations.
  • We’ll discuss what you can anticipate as your initiative flourishes and more and more women are involved. Success of your first initiative will open up the evolution of other ways women can provide support across your organization.
  • While this is the last session, you will not be left alone. You’ll receive resources to stay in touch with this cohort, as well as join a larger women’s philanthropy learning community.
“In an era of declining alumni participation and greater dispersion of philanthropy, colleges and universities need to redouble efforts to engage all members of the alumni body, particularly since many institutions have historically underserved women. Doing this successfully requires thoughtful and intentional design and execution, but it begins with training and re-training staff who may not know how to do this effectively. Kathleen Loehr is, quite simply, the expert in women’s philanthropy and she worked with me and our executive leadership team in advancement to design and execute a first-rate training for our entire team. Kathleen’s training model helped our advancement leadership first to learn and apply a highly effective whole-systems model and then for all of our advancement staff to commit to a well understood and agreed upon direction for women’s philanthropy at the university, together with a systemic, detailed plan of action to achieve this.”
Matthew T. Lambert
Vice President for University Advancement, William & Mary

How the seminar works

The key points of each session are simple to grasp, which means we can spend time actually implementing and course correcting within your organization, which means that instead of ideas you have an initiative that is getting results.

You’ll be bringing assignments from in between sessions, so we can do the deep work of grappling with what you have and making it apply it in real-time to what you’re working on and needing now.

“A game changer, Kathleen understands the dimensions and demands of transformation. She is deeply intuitive and instinctive with others, recognizing the challenges each individual will face. She speaks with grace and authority whether she is with one person or talking to a room of 100, clarifying, challenging and celebrating as need be.”
Martha Johnson
Former Administrator, GSA

Sample learning assignment

Your read-ahead will be the Six Principles of Women’s Philanthropy so we can discuss this together (10 min read). Your assignment will be to take one piece of the national data (your choice) and see if it holds true when you review your own data (a few hours). This homework assignment begins to reveal your opportunities for adaptation.

Each session will start with a discussion on what you learned from doing your assignment, before moving onto new content.

Of course you have competing priorities, which is why there’s accountability to keep you focused on making this new initiative work for your institution.

In these 90-minute sessions I’ll be providing no more than 30 minutes of content. Our time together will be spent in full group and break-out rooms to discuss the homework, readings, new content, as well as grapple with questions and issues you are finding as you do this work.

In addition to the live consulting I’ll provide to the group each session, you will receive an additional 1.5 hours of individual coaching with me. This is your opportunity to get personal guidance from me, leaning into my years of experience and expertise across many institutions. You can choose to have one deep dive 90-minute coaching session, or do three 30 minute sessions. The goal of this coaching is to further help you with issues and provide course correction.

Participants, Dates, Price

Participants:

The program is by application only. I’ll be choosing participants based on already articulated leadership commitment from their institution to grow women’s philanthropy, as well as the participant’s own purpose and passion, commitment and resilience to do the work, and ability to access resources of time and talent from team members as needed to get homework assignments accomplished. The 12 participants will be a mix of nonprofit and higher education. Each participant will commit to participating fully in every class.

Meetings:

We’ll be meeting across 9 months for a 90-minute virtual session each month. Our meeting time is 3:00 to 4:30pm EDT to accommodate multiple time zones. We will begin Thursday July 8th, and meet every second Thursday after that: 8/12/21, 9/9/21, 10/14/21, 11/4/21(*), 12/9/21, 1/13/22, 2/10/22, 3/10/22.
(*) We will meet the first Thursday of November due to Veteran’s Day.

Price:

Early Bird Price by June 17, 2021: $4,900 per participant

Regular Price after June 17, 2021: $5,400 per participant

I can accommodate two payments if you need to pay across two fiscal years – let’s discuss.

Interested in applying?

Please complete the application forms.
Apply now
Apply now

Interested in applying?

Please complete the application forms.
Apply now
Apply now

Frequently Asked Questions

Organization leaders and their designee (the participant) who are fully committed to intentionally focusing on women and how they approach philanthropy. Full commitment means:

  • that the leader is actively interested in and supportive of the work that will unfold across nine months.
  • that the participant is supported by the institution to engage fully in each session as well as complete the assignments each month.
I want to hear more about what you mean by targeted support. Let’s talk and find out if this seminar will serve you.

We get it! Sometimes they aren’t there yet, and yet it’s so critical for success. Let’s talk and see about how to build the support, and whether it’s possible in time for this cohort or the next.

The pacing is designed for you and your team to build sustainable buy-in and early successes up, down and across your organization. We also know that no women’s philanthropy initiative is successful without both the internal and external integration. That being said, you WILL have many early wins, such as identifying and working with influential women stakeholders, unexpected early gifts and other offers of support, and a measurable growth of your pipeline. Nine months is needed to gain both the early wins and future sustainability.

You’re right to question being formulaic, and it’s exactly this that we want to avoid in your programs. I make a distinction between principles, which describe the reality we’re in, and the strategies. There may be a dozen different valid, effective creative strategies for each principle. Experience with dozens of organizations tells me that this framework, built on these principles, gives you a foundation, so you can focus your creativity on the strategies, and not spend all of your time trying to figure out the map you’re on.

I do a lot of “coaching in the virtual room” when I’m facilitating the cohort of 12 participants; you will learn from all those conversations even when I’m speaking to others. The personal coaching is in addition to the group time; it is 1:1 and specifically focused on YOU. Some topics could be: what does your unique data say, or how do you work with an inclusive group of women stakeholders, or how do you make your work compelling to the women who want to create collective impact. The personal coaching time is to help you when you are grappling and need targeted support. You may ask for my time as needed, up to 90 minutes total during the nine-month period.

You will receive a roster to stay in touch throughout the seminar, and after. You will also be invited to join a quarterly meeting I convene of over 40 institutions who are leaders of women’s philanthropy initiatives, so your learning will continue with these peer discussions and connections.

We certainly understand, after 2020, that life can be unpredictable. If you can’t complete the seminar, we ask that you and your leader choose someone else to finish it for your institution and that you provide her/him/them all the materials and activities you’ve gained so the learning still benefits your mission.

Seminar application

Please fill out and submit a participant application if you are interested and have leadership commitment. We’ll then have a call to clarify details on your application and answer your questions. If it feels like your institution is ready, I’ll ask you to have your leader fill out the leadership form so I have both in hand as I’m making final decisions on enrollment.

Use the toggle button below to select the desired application.

Participant application
Leadership application

Participant application:

Are you able to commit to the full seminar, including the assignments?