EMBRACING THE GOOD IN GOODBYES AND GROWTH

I didn’t know until recently how much I have raised and helped teams to mobilize in my quarter century of professional fundraising.

 While in a time of deep grief, it encouraged me to know my work had been fruitful, the reason I didn’t know these details earlier is because money metrics is never how I quantify “success”. I have always found it to be a trustworthy principal to prioritize people over programs. The cumulative benefits of loving and cheering on people from all walks of life has far, far outshone, out-performed and rendered almost insignificant any numerical value.

 So when it came to starting a business helping charities and non-profits get “unstuck”, I didn’t have to engage a recruiting company. People I loved, worked with and walked alongside came to me.

 One such person was Alison Chapman. Truth be told, I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to start DO Philanthropy without her. For the last two years, Ali has been a discerning, trustworthy and enormously skilled team member at DO Philanthropy. She has spent hundreds of hours coaching clients. She makes probing observations, laughs as often as she questions, and has perfectly lived out DO Philanthropy’s values of love, efficiency, effectiveness, and authenticity.

 Ali has been a bulwark against discouragement; a friend in pain; a fire hydrant of ideas; a word of wisdom and caution when enthusiasm threatened to overbalance efficiency. She listens more than she speaks and always made us - and our clients - feel both heard and emboldened.

 This month, Ali will take up a new role as the Director of Philanthropic Partnerships for Yonge Street Mission. With an empty nest and a husband deeply engaged in his medical work, the time was right for her to move from consulting to throwing herself into a role that will require her considerable skills as well as her physical office presence.

 “What a great couple of years it has been,” Ali wrote me recently. “I have met THE MOST amazing charities and people. What a privilege to have grown through coaching, consulting on strategic plans, capital campaigns, cases for support, major donor strategies, and a hundred other things! All of this, along with the support and love of the DO team, have prepared me for my next exciting role. I’m leaving with my heart full and with gratitude to you for having brought me in ‘at the beginning’ of what will no doubt, be a long run for the talented team at DO Philanthropy Inc.”

 As one of our team quipped, “when people leave an organization, the only thing you need to ask is ‘is this a cake or no cake departure?’. Ali’s departure is definitely “cake” and we will miss her hugely!

 As is often the case, when one door closes, another opens.

 This month we have welcomed Andy Stouffer to the DOP Team. Andy is kind of like a professor wrapped up in the brains of a financial wizard, but with the people skills of a professional comedian. It’s a winning mix. Andy has joined the DOP Team as a financial analyst, and after his very first DOP engagement, the client said “well, if Andy is on your team, we have full confidence in your recommendations.” I couldn’t think of a better endorsement.

 We are also overjoyed at welcoming Martha Arias to lead our Technical Grant Writing Team. Martha speaks several languages and has spent most of her career leading teams in international development and finance. Her super-power is her uncanny ability to decipher the foreign languages of law, governments, diplomats, and grant application forms that befuddle the rest of us. We are so thankful to have some in-house hands to now oversee this process.

 Finally, two years into the joy that is DO Philanthropy, and a little more sure of our touch, tone and personality, we have revamped our website.

 This is the beauty of having graphic designers on your team who can communicate everything about your heart and business in pictures. Angie Gauthier designed our website using the image of a hive as a metaphor for what DO Philanthropy seeks to do:

§  Bees are social creatures engaged collaboratively in highly complex tasks.

§  You, charities and non-profits and philanthropists, are the worker bees going out into the world and making it a better, more pollinated and beautiful place.

§  The DO Philanthropy team are the worker bees that help build the hive. If the hive structure is unattended, the entire colony falls apart.

 DO Philanthropy is about YOU. Making you stronger. Better able to flourish where you have been called. Our entire website is now filled with photos not of us, or our work, but of your work. That’s just the way we like it.

 Thank you for allowing us to be part of what you are doing to make the world a better place. With so much love and respect,

 Doris Olafsen,

Founder and Principal