Sybil Ackerman-Munson is the President at Do Your Good LLC. They offer online courses, podcasts, and resources to help donors make a difference with their donations. With over two decades of experience, she knows how to establish best funding practices and help donors make a tangible difference in the world.

Sybil has helped give away over $45 million in large and small donations throughout her career. She's worked with almost every type of charitable funder and has a thriving career working with philanthropists.

To help your donors give in an impactful way, you need to understand who they are and what they’re interested in. According to Sybil Ackerman-Munson—a consultant who helps donors make a difference with their donations to charities and worthy causes—there are three common types of donors: sustainer, campaigner, and launcher donors.

The sustainer donor cares about your organization, the work you’re doing and wants to continue to support that work. On the flip side, there’s the campaigner donor who cares deeply about a cause and is primarily looking for collaborators for partnerships. What about the launcher donor? How do you identify the different types of donor, and most importantly, how do you get in front of them?

Listen to this episode of the Philanthropy212 Podcast with Penny Cowden featuring Sybil Ackerman-Munson, the President of Do Your Good LLC. She shares insight into donor trends, the different types of donors, and how to identify and connect with them. They also go into the top three things to consider when working with all three types of donors. Stay tuned to find out more!

Steven D. Lavine is the longest-serving president of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). The institute was born out of Walt Disney's vision for an art school over 50 years ago. CalArts had become embroiled in crisis until Steven became president, leading it to financial prosperity and international acclaim.

When Steven took over the school, their debt was at 1.8 million out of a 16 million dollars budget. Steven served as its president from 1988 until 2017. During this time, CalArts became a pacesetter in domestic diversity, community engagement, international linkage, and cutting-edge production and presentation.

Today, CalArts is the cradle of many Academy Award and Pulitzer Prize winners as well as Mellon and Guggenheim fellows, becoming a hotspot for American creativity. Steven's nearly 30-year tenure is the longest, not only in the history of CalArts but also one of the longest-serving college presidents in the United States.

Steven D. Lavine began his journey at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), almost certain to fail. He was faced with a 10% debt to budget ratio. A big supporter had become tired of giving more to the institution. He swam in a sea of ideas from everyone’s opinions on how to proceed. These were but a few of the many failures the CalArts presidency faced. What then would a first-time college president do to provide lasting change?

Steven takes us on a journey through these many challenges from 1988 until 2017 and how he pushed through them all. Find out how Steven wrought the $150 million dollar fundraising miracle for CalArts, whose previous highest raise was $2 million. In short, there’s a lesson for every philanthropy professional in this episode.

Listen to this installment of the Philanthropy212 Podcast with Penny Cowden featuring Steven D Lavine, the longest-serving President of CalArts. They discuss the travails of CalArts at the time Steven became president and how he led them out of the woods. Steven shares his leadership style throughout his time there, why it worked, and what he did when rebuilding CalArts after the 1994 earthquake. Stay tuned for these inspiring stories and more.

Tim Kachuriak is the Founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter. NextAfter is a fundraising research lab and consultancy. They work with cause-driven businesses and nonprofit organizations to help them better understand their customers and inspire their donors to give generously.

Tim is renowned as a nonprofit thought leader. He is the author of the book Optimize Your Fundraising, lead researcher, and co-author of  Online Fundraising Scorecard, Why Should I Give to You? (The Nonprofit Value Proposition Index Study), and The Mid-Level Donor Crisis.

He has trained organizations in fundraising optimization worldwide and is a frequent speaker at international nonprofit conferences.

Philanthropy is entirely built on the generosity of other people. But the question that’s always on the fundraisers’ mind is, “What makes people give?” While there is no one answer, this question is crucial for the success of philanthropies. In trying to solve the giving puzzle, Tim Kachuriak created NextAfter. The business has started running experiments to determine what makes people give. 

They found that giving is irrational behavior, but people rationalize it with different reasons. Sadly, many fundraisers do not understand these different motivations, so they struggle to connect donors to the right opportunities at the right time. But what are these triggers that move people to give? 

Listen to this episode of the Philanthropy212 Podcast with Penny Cowden. She discusses research on what drives giving with Tim Kachuriak, Founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter. They talk about human behavior and giving, the different motivations for giving, how to generate more responses, and online giving. Stay tuned to find out about all these and more!