CEOs play a crucial role in major gift fundraising, but not all of them are natural fundraisers. In this episode, we’ll discuss how to prepare and coach your CEO for major donor meetings, including messaging, body language, and overcoming objections. Learn how to position them as the ideal storyteller and ambassador for your mission.

🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy.

🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the script.

More from Mary:

📘 Mary's books. What to Say and Small Table Big Philanthropy. The books behind the methodology.

🔥 Major Donor Meeting Mastery. My step-by-step system for donor meetings that move the relationship forward.

👩🏻‍💻 Momentum Training. My complete packaging + ask system, all in one place.

💻 Connect with Mary Petersen

• Website: heyfundraiser.com
• YouTube: @heyfundraisers
• Instagram: @heyfundraiser
• LinkedIn: ...

This is a different kind of episode, and it might be one of Mary's favorites yet! No theory, no framework from the top down. Just three real questions sent in by fundraisers like you, answered live.

Mary digs into how to do prospect research in-house with zero fancy tools (hint: your donor database already knows more than you think), how to translate big campaign priorities into asks that actually feel personal to a donor, and how to build a real system for stewardship and donor upgrades so gratitude doesn't rely on one exhausted fundraiser's memory. She closes it out with the story of how she got into fundraising in the first place, and yes, a 22-foot python named Rajiv is involved.

Got a question of your own? Send it to mary@heyfundraiser.com or drop a voice memo on Speakpipe. It might be the next episode!

🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy.

🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the script.

More from Mary:

📘 Mary's books. What to Say and Small Table Big Philanthropy. The books behind the methodology.

🔥 Major Donor Meeting Mastery. My step-by-step system for donor meetings that move the relationship forward.

👩🏻‍💻 Momentum Training. My complete packaging + ask system, all in one place.

💻 Connect with Mary Petersen

• Website: heyfundraiser.com
• YouTube: @heyfundraisers
• Instagram: @heyfundraiser
• LinkedIn: ...

In this episode, I walk you through what we built together and answer the six questions that came up in the room, because I guarantee you're asking them too. Does the dinner have to be in someone's home? What do you do with loyal donors who won't return your calls? Can you invite people who have never given? And the big one: do you ask for the gift at the table, or the next morning? (The answer to that last one took me years and a lot of money left on the table to learn.)

If you've read Small Table Big Philanthropy and thought "okay Mary, now help me actually build mine," this episode is your preview of exactly what we do in the Small Table Intensive.

🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy.

🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the script.

More from Mary:

📘 Mary's books. What to Say and Small Table Big Philanthropy. The books behind the methodology.

🔥 Major Donor Meeting Mastery. My step-by-step system for donor meetings that move the relationship forward.

👩🏻‍💻 Momentum Training. My complete packaging + ask system, all in one place.

💻 Connect with Mary Petersen

• Website: heyfundraiser.com
• YouTube: @heyfundraisers
• Instagram: @heyfundraiser
• LinkedIn: ...

Your year-end success is being decided right now. Not by your appeal letter, not by your Giving Tuesday plan, but by what you're doing with your top donors today. In this episode, Mary steps back from the tactics and hands you the thinking that makes every year-end move actually land: ask a major donor once, then thank them for the next 180 days.

The Year-End Major Gift Playbook: Mary's complete six-month strategy to crush year-end, with scripts, calendars, trackers, and her 20 best cultivation ideas. Everything you need between now and December 31.

--> Get your Year-End Major Gift Playbook Here!

🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy.

🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the script.

More from Mary:

📘 Mary's books. What to Say and Small Table Big Philanthropy. The books behind the methodology.

🔥 Major Donor Meeting Mastery. My step-by-step system for donor meetings that move the relationship forward.

👩🏻‍💻 Momentum Training. My complete packaging + ask system, all in one place.

💻 Connect with Mary Petersen

• Website: heyfundraiser.com
• YouTube: @heyfundraisers
• Instagram: @heyfundraiser
• LinkedIn: ...

Most fundraisers treat summer like the slow season. That's the mistake. Summer is the single best relationship-building season of the year, and what you do with your donors in July and August is what you'll close in October and November.

In this episode, Mary makes the case for summer as your secret weapon and hands you the exact moves to use it. You'll learn the low-stakes cultivation tactics that actually deepen donor relationships (yes, the lemonade and the walk are strategy), and the one conversation that takes the pressure off your entire fall: sitting down with your prospects to map out the next six months together, so you're protecting their holidays on purpose instead of chasing them through the Jewish High Holidays, Halloween chaos, and Thanksgiving.

🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy.

🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the script.

More from Mary:

📘 Mary's books. What to Say and Small Table Big Philanthropy. The books behind the methodology.

🔥 Major Donor Meeting Mastery. My step-by-step system for donor meetings that move the relationship forward.

👩🏻‍💻 Momentum Training. My complete packaging + ask system, all in one place.

💻 Connect with Mary Petersen

• Website: heyfundraiser.com
• YouTube: @heyfundraisers
• Instagram: @heyfundraiser
• LinkedIn: ...

Mary shares highlights from her keynote at the AFP Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties Summer Symposium, a full morning with 110 fundraisers built entirely around major gift confidence. She covers the difference between cultivation and avoidance, the relationship rhythm that moves donors forward without feeling transactional, and why confidence isn't a personality trait – it's a skill set you can build.

She also breaks down the three takeaways that landed hardest in the room: go deeper not wider (why 20 deep relationships beat a portfolio of 150), ask sooner with permission-based language, and why getting out from behind your desk and living your life might be the most underrated major gift strategy there is.

🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy.

🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the script.

More from Mary:

📘 Mary's books. What to Say and Small Table Big Philanthropy. The books behind the methodology.

🔥 Major Donor Meeting Mastery. My step-by-step system for donor meetings that move the relationship forward.

👩🏻‍💻 Momentum Training. My complete packaging + ask system, all in one place.

💻 Connect with Mary Petersen

• Website: heyfundraiser.com
• YouTube: @heyfundraisers
• Instagram: @heyfundraiser
• LinkedIn: ...

Mary teaches the board fundraising framework from Small Table Big Philanthropy — the one that works because it doesn't ask board members to do anything that feels like selling. She covers the 3-questions exercise (30 minutes, dozens of new prospects), the 4 board fundraising roles (none of which require 'the ask'), the small table approach to activating board networks, and how to celebrate and reinforce board fundraising wins so the momentum continues.

🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy.

🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the script.

More from Mary:

📘 Mary's books. What to Say and Small Table Big Philanthropy. The books behind the methodology.

🔥 Major Donor Meeting Mastery. My step-by-step system for donor meetings that move the relationship forward.

👩🏻‍💻 Momentum Training. My complete packaging + ask system, all in one place.

💻 Connect with Mary Petersen

• Website: heyfundraiser.com
• YouTube: @heyfundraisers
• Instagram: @heyfundraiser
• LinkedIn: ...

Mary makes the case for summer as the most strategic cultivation season of the year. She covers the summer small table strategy (the backyard dinner, the outdoor lunch, the informal gathering at a board member's home), the fall calendar booking strategy (book October visits now, while calendars are still open), and the specific summer actions that directly lead to Q4 gift closures.

She also addresses the board's summer role — and why summer social gatherings are one of the most underutilized major gift tools in most organizations.

🪑 The Small Table Intensive. Half a day. Build or rebuild your major gift program around fewer donors and deeper relationships, using the methodology from my book Small Table Big Philanthropy.

🎯 The Ask Workshop. Half a day. The exact words to use when it's time to ask for 5 and 6-figure gifts. Walk in nervous about the ask. Walk out with the script.

More from Mary:

📘 Mary's books. What to Say and Small Table Big Philanthropy. The books behind the methodology.

🔥 Major Donor Meeting Mastery. My step-by-step system for donor meetings that move the relationship forward.

👩🏻‍💻 Momentum Training. My complete packaging + ask system, all in one place.

💻 Connect with Mary Petersen

• Website: heyfundraiser.com
• YouTube: @heyfundraisers
• Instagram: @heyfundraiser
• LinkedIn: ...