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Jackson Cooper is making his mark on the world of fundraising and philanthropy. He has been a fundraiser throughout his entire career, starting by sealing mail envelopes with donor acknowledgement letters inside as a volunteer for an organization he loved. Today, he is a well-established leader in philanthropy, arts and culture, and nonprofit leadership. In this episode, we kick off the last of a 2-part conversation where Jackson answers questions submitted by listeners about fundraising, working with a development director, and how to build a donor-cultivation strategy within small organizations.
If you’re inspired byJackson, and found this episode helpful, consider connecting with him at https://jcooperarts.com/.
This episode was produced by Jordan Thierry of Dream Chase Media; with essential production and marketing expertise from Aranza Garcia and Issac Gsoria.
You can follow How to Build a Nonprofit on Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube. Sign up for Jordan’s free newsletter at DreamChaseMedia.com.
Creators and Guests
Host
Jordan Thierry
Jordan Thierry is a one-of-a-kind dude. He’s been called a master generalist, thought partner, community leader, documentary filmmaker, resource connector, international man of mystery—and that’s just the beginning. Jordan once dreamed of being a big-time filmmaker, but he could never quite pull himself away from activists, teachers, and social workers long enough to make it in Hollywood. Those are his people. And he’s always found more purpose in the movement than the industry. If you’ve worked with Jordan, you know he’s gracious, grounded, curious, and ambitious in that laid-back, West Coast kind of way. He’s also known for asking really good questions. A lot of them. Which is exactly why podcasting is such a natural fit. Too bad it doesn’t pay. So do him a solid—listen to an episode. He thinks he’s pretty good at it. You might agree.
Guest
Jackson Cooper
Jackson Cooper is a leader in philanthropy, arts and culture, and nonprofit leadership. He has over 15+ years of experience curating performing arts, fundraising for national NGOs and nonprofits, teaching at universities, and serving on boards and government commissions. He was named one of the Top 30 Global Arts Professionals by Musical America and a 40 Under 40 recipient from Puget Sound Business Journal. He is authoring upcoming books on fundraising and boards for Columbia Business School Publishing and the For Dummies Series and teaches nonprofit leadership at UNC-Greensboro and Seattle University. You can connect with Jackson at https://jcooperarts.com/.
What is How to Build a Nonprofit?
How to Build a Nonprofit isn’t your typical “thought leader” podcast. It’s real talk with real people who’ve dared to start something meaningful—and managed to keep it going (most days).
Each episode dives into the messy, inspiring, behind-the-scenes stories of nonprofit founders and builders. We talk about the stuff people don’t usually put on grant reports—burnout, bad board decisions, flopped fundraisers, surprising wins, and the little pivots that made a big difference.
If you’re starting a nonprofit, scaling one, or just wondering if you’re the only one making it up as you go… you’re in the right place. This show is here to remind you: you’re not alone, you’re not crazy, and yes—this work is still worth doing.
Jordan Thierry (00:26)
In this episode, we will delve into part two of Ask a Development Director with Jackson Cooper. Jackson has a storied career in fundraising, the arts and nonprofit leadership. He's probably played a part in every role you can imagine in the fundraising process. From drafting acknowledgement letters to writing grant proposals to planning capital campaigns to making big asks of major donors. He also teaches fundraising and nonprofit leadership at multiple universities.
and has two book projects underway, one on fundraising and the other on board development and engagement. I reached out to some of our listeners that I know are leading or helping start nonprofits to invite them to submit questions they have for an experienced development director. And we received some amazing questions, so many that we couldn't do it all in one episode.
So thank you all to the folks who submitted these really thoughtful prompts and fodder for our discussion. And let's jump in to part two of Ask a Development Director.
Jordan Thierry (01:18)
What do development directors look for in an organization they want to work with?
Jackson Cooper (01:24)
Well, a lot I'm actually going through a, finishing up an interim assignment at the moment and we're hiring for this director of advancement. I was thinking about this the other day on my walk I was like, what would compel somebody? Obviously, there's just, there's very basic things, you have benefits? Do you have a 401k match? you have what's salary?
I think a lot of it is connection to the cause. ⁓ So development directors, I always encourage people like, you you work in your sector, like you know it best. If you're passionate about arts and culture, stay in arts and culture. know, if you're passionate about education, like have some hook in because it's important that you have a connection to the cause because you will be out there talking about it. And so you want to...
not convince yourself, but convince others about the cause. So I mentor a lot of fundraisers and they go, well, could, you know, I'm into education, but there's, you know, the hospital is hiring a gift officer and it's a really good salary. And I go like, yeah. And, you know, understand that if you're, it's a new language, right? It's a whole language of programs and services. I took a detour.
in my career and worked for a houselessness organization that provided shelter support and services to families and children. I was passionate about that because of education. So I had to hook in know, and truly it aligned with my values, which is I think the bigger part of what a development director should be looking at is does this organization align with your values? So
in terms of the hook and interest, that's passion and passion can't be everything. You have to have an organization that aligns with your values in the mission, but also in the leadership and the board. Not everything is going to be perfect, but you do really have to have that intuitive feeling about going like, this is an organization where I can grow and where I can help it grow. So, obviously collaboration, but also
support from the executive director, support from the board is extremely important. As well as, you know, making sure that in your interviews, because if you are going for a director of development role, you will be asked a lot of tough questions. You can also ask a lot of tough questions. Are you walking into, do you want me to raise a lot of money very quickly? Or do you want me to grow a department and an organization strategically?
Jordan Thierry (03:48)
Yep.
Jackson Cooper (03:58)
And it's not that it's one or the other, not everyone is a unicorn. And I think a lot of these jobs expect unicorns. They expect you to not only raise a big portion of the contributed revenue budget line yourself and be the frontline gift officer with a portfolio. You also have to manage the team. You also have to build a strategic plan. And quite frankly, it's very unrealistic.
Jordan Thierry (04:05)
Yeah.
Jackson Cooper (04:24)
So I think you have to really get in those rooms when you're interviewing and say, what are the actual priorities and what's the financial reality of this organization and situation? So those are things that I like to coach. I mean, my students, obviously, but also professionals I work with where it's like, does it align with your values? Can you talk about the cause and what is the reality that you're walking into and are you prepared for it?
Jordan Thierry (04:49)
Yeah.
Jackson Cooper (04:49)
Because if you are ready to come in and say, am gonna, you gloves off and raise a bunch of money, great, good, but just, you know, you have to be ready for what you're walking into,
Jordan Thierry (04:59)
Yeah, absolutely. And to dig in a little bit more to the nitty gritty, you know, as a, if you're coming in, especially at a higher level, development director, director of advancement, you know, if you, you have kind of a responsibility to understand, like you said, the financial reality of the organization. Obviously you want to review the organization's 990s, you know, over the past several years, if you're in the middle of some kind of campaign.
Jackson Cooper (05:03)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Jordan Thierry (05:26)
having an update sort of on like where you're at on that campaign. know, are there a bunch of gift commitments that need to be collected? know, how are on track are you? Right? ⁓ And like what, you know, where did the last, the person that was in that position before like leave the status of those relationships.
Jackson Cooper (05:26)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. That's great.
Jordan Thierry (05:48)
And then just the fiscal solvency and like the, you know, status of like reserves. mean, you know, like you said, are we in a situation where like, if we don't raise $10 million, you know, and then the next year, like we're going to have to close down like, or so just, you know, and if any organization is coy with providing that information, like that's kind of a bad sign, right? Yeah.
Jackson Cooper (05:59)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. And I think that's, well, you also hit on something that, I mean, I podcast is very evergreen, but I mean, we're in a moment right now is in 2025, where is a need for development directors to close some budget over from the pandemic. And I think...
There is, I don't want to say there's dishonesty in the sector right now, but I think there is not as much transparency for these roles as I think there should be, especially because, but I don't blame the leaders. I actually point to the system itself. blame, I actually blame the structure, the business model of nonprofits where
You know, we weren't meant to really, I'm sorry, this controversial take, like we weren't meant to really survive major global events like a pandemic. We really weren't. And I don't think, or I don't think we were set up for sustainability through those things because we didn't think it would ever happen or it would ever affect us. And so I think a lot of organizations now are facing the reality that yes, we do not have a lot of cash and
Donors are, know, donations are extremely volatile because of economic and as we're seeing now like political influences, you know, the price of eggs does affect people's charitable giving because that's disposable income, right? ⁓ And so, so I think there's a lot of realities we're facing. So I think the more candid and transparent candidate can go into the interview process. That also will help them just
with planning and sort of ground them in a reality where it's like, well maybe I can't do this big, you know, this big aspirational, I'm gonna just raise money for a great theater or a great education institution. Maybe I do need to do damage control for the first three years of my job. And honestly for...
to prevent burnout and such, it's good to just know that stuff before you accept the offer. Because if you're like, my first two years are just going to be cleaning things up and then planning for a campaign in five years, great, you have a plan now. There's your work plan. And that's a better place to go into than finding all that out within your first six months and then you're stuck. Yeah.
Jordan Thierry (08:22)
Right.
Yep, yep.
And we've heard too many cases like that, right? Yeah.
Jackson Cooper (08:34)
And
we're seeing a lot of job postings and not a lot of qualified candidates because people, know, either boards or executives or whomever, or the candidates themselves, like there was just information withheld at some point in the process that was then discovered later. And either someone left or the expectations were too high. I think that's also an epidemic that's hitting our sector is
Jordan Thierry (08:37)
Lots.
Yeah.
Jackson Cooper (09:03)
expectations are way too high for these roles and there's also not a lot of support, I think, from leadership because of a lack of understanding of how fundraising works.
Jordan Thierry (09:15)
Yeah,
absolutely. And to your point around the job descriptions for these development, these fundraising jobs, it's so unrealistic. And sometimes I don't read them and I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, what are you? Yeah. And you're like, come on. I mean, those are indicative in and of themselves of like, do you go in and educate?
Jackson Cooper (09:20)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. six pages. Six pages, six pages, and then it's like starting salary is $70,000 and you're like, I can't, I don't get it.
Jordan Thierry (09:41)
This is what I can offer you, but like this, all of this is not realistic for one person to do. And it's probably not all that you, all you shouldn't need to be focusing on all these things at this moment, right? ⁓ Exactly. Yeah.
Jackson Cooper (09:41)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah. And that's okay to say that by the way, like that is
okay to say like you're asking for a gift officer and it's unrealistic. Like what is the priority? And that's sort of the question you can pose is like, okay, I see the six page job description. What is the most immediate priority? And then long-term, what is it? Because if you're a director of development, you are a manager, you are a strategic leader and a team manager. There should be no.
pressure put on you to also be a principal gift officer. You should be able to do it, but there shouldn't be like you get a hundred principal gifts and you have to manage a team of 20. You just can't do that and create an operational plan and a strategic plan. You just can't do that. Yeah.
Jordan Thierry (10:37)
Yeah, absolutely. so one thing I do see in these, and this is an anonymous question submitted, one thing I do see in these job descriptions is bringing donor relationships with Is it fair for organizations to expect incoming development directors to bring donor relationships with them? Which I'm assuming means they need to materialize.
Jackson Cooper (11:02)
Not at all. No, no, no, it's in fact, it's very rude to assume that. And I've really ticked off some executive directors since I've started my consulting practice I have been asked point blank, like, we will hire you because of the people you know. And I go like, that's not fair. And that's also incredibly rude.
and a violation of my relationship with that person, with that donor. Because it is, you know, I am very close with very philanthropic people, but I don't ask them for things that they themselves are not giving to. Like that is a personal relationship that I built from a professional setting. And, you know, I have been lucky where, you know, those folks have
ask me who I'm working with and if it aligns with them, great. no, I actually, will say that's incredibly rude to say, we are gonna hire you because we think that you have a little black book of contacts who you can bring. And I think that's also, well, it is just like on a human level, it's very rude because is sort of like you're using me to get to...
wealth and you're also presuming that that person will give because I am associated and that's not the case. That's very lazy. I think it's also very troublesome because you're not actually stewarding that relationship and so becomes very trans, it's purely at that point and a violation of for the director of development.
Jordan Thierry (12:21)
Mm-hmm.
Jackson Cooper (12:37)
I've had to, you know, really put some executive directors in place where I'm just like, that is not okay to say at all because that's, you know, like, I will only hire you for my personal gain. That's what they're saying. Like point blank. I will only hire you so that you can give me what I want and not, hey, I'm going to hire you because I see that you're
Jordan Thierry (12:50)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Jackson Cooper (13:01)
you know these people so you must have some way of building relationships that could be valuable to my organization. That really is what EDs and boards need to see is is wow this person knows all these people they must have some strategy or they they themselves might be a good relationship builder. But no you should never you should never do that I don't think and and big red flag if your potential or current employer says that to you.
Jordan Thierry (13:08)
Hmm.
Thank you so much for providing clarity on that question. I think that's something that so many people in the sector need to hear and understand. And I think it also it's telling because I think there's just a lot of general basic non-fundraising education orientation that people need, because they don't understand like the development.
Jackson Cooper (13:31)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jordan Thierry (13:51)
process and world and the ethics and the values that live within that. And so you hear people say, I saw you guys got a gift from Mackenzie Scott. Can you get Mackenzie Scott to give us some money? man, come on.
Jackson Cooper (14:03)
Yeah, and the and the fact is,
like, it's like, she will give if if this is aligned to her, right? Like, and that mindset to ⁓ or in that example, you gave is from a very transactional point of view, all I need is five minutes in front of Mackenzie Scott, and then I can do that, that that that and and then she's going to give me money. And the fact is, is like, that is a very transactional way of thinking. If you really want to build personal relationships and
Jordan Thierry (14:20)
Yeah.
Jackson Cooper (14:29)
by God, community centric relationships, because that phrase, community centric fundraising is thrown around so much now, you can't be doing that. You can't be, and also you can't be focused on one person because you do not know, and this is something that Hannah and I talk about in the sustainable fundraising book, you do not know who in your current donor base could be a secret Mackenzie Scott.
Jordan Thierry (14:35)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Jackson Cooper (14:55)
And all
they need is extra education or that consistent stewardship feeling belonged to give that million dollar gift, to leave their entire estate in your bequest. You're focusing on people especially with development directors, like if you're hiring somebody for their contacts, quote you're completely ignoring your current donor base. And you're completely ignoring taking care of the people who are
Jordan Thierry (15:18)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jackson Cooper (15:22)
already supporting you and who might ability that you don't know because wealth is not seen, it's shown you don't know who has that ability to give you a Mackenzie Scott gift, right? And then what are you gonna do? Well, and then just to sort of go with your example further, once you get in front of Mackenzie Scott and she gives you the gift, what are you gonna do after that?
Jordan Thierry (15:28)
All
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Jackson Cooper (15:45)
Are
you like, what are you gonna do after that? What, keep asking her every single year? Great, well she, like everybody else, may decide she doesn't wanna give. That's it. And so you're kind of SOL with the rest of your donor community, because you're ignoring them to focus on this one person. And what does that look like to values wise? You're putting one person on a pedestal above your community of donors.
Jordan Thierry (15:50)
Right.
Hmm.
Jackson Cooper (16:10)
So there's a lot there, there's a lot, you're right, ethically that is wrong with it. And also you have to walk the walk if you want to lead as a community organization with values and a vision and mission, focus on the people who are already giving to you. Yeah.
Jordan Thierry (16:22)
Yeah.
Yeah. Since we're talking about the likes of Mackenzie Scott, ⁓ I have a question I think a lot of people, yeah, a lot of people are curious about is these, it's my understanding that there's lists that you can buy wealthy donors. What is the value of those lists? Or is it worth the money for, you know, how do people know if it's worth
Jackson Cooper (16:31)
Love her, love her. Yes, yeah. Yeah.
Jordan Thierry (16:48)
investing in that? And if you're ready to take that approach or is it something that is really only for a small niche of nonprofit organizations?
Jackson Cooper (16:58)
Yeah, so I think what's interesting is, well, part of my next chapter in my career is I'm studying to get my CAP certification, Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy, and would love to work sort of on the side of advising folks on how to give away their money because, well, I've always just loved that and I love working with folks who want to give their money away and having those conversations about impact.
and saying like, you should check out this organization or that. But I think is there value in stuff like that? I think what we're gonna see in the next few years is the greatest wealth transfer we've ever seen in history. mean, that's that's like documented, that's out there. New York Times did a big editorial on it. So it's difficult when you take the approach of buying a list.
and then putting something out there and hoping that somebody writes a million dollar check. They might be capable of it, but as we know from like donor cycle and prospecting, capacity is only one third of what a prospect is. It's capacity, affinity, and propensity. So yes, they might be givers, propensity. They might have the capacity, but do they have the affinity for you to do that?
And I think like, if you have it, maybe not solicitations should be sent, but cultivation invitations to things, right? Or those are the lists that you give to your board or that you give to your development committee to say, you know, what are the connections here? But I don't think there needs to be, you know, a lot of brain space or time spent on those because it's a lot similar to buying a list from the local business journal.
for corporate sponsorships. It's great, you can email them, but ultimately, who is going to get you in the door with those corporations are the employees or somebody who is associated with that, who has experienced what you've done. And, you know, as I mentioned, cultivating a new donor, including corporate takes like 12 to 18 months. So if you're, if you want to go all in on that, great. But if you just want to, you know,
maybe reach out to them, invite them to something and just keep inviting them or ask if they can be added to the marketing list, great, because it might strike them at a certain have a little bit it rubs me the wrong way, the list thing, because again, those are wealthy, affluent people who have shown their wealth.
through or charitable giving or purchasing real estate. So that wealth is shown, but a lot of wealth is very quiet and hidden. again, don't know who donor community, for instance, maybe is sitting on a bunch of Apple stock from the 90s, right? You just don't know. ⁓ And you will never know because wealth and money is personal.
Jordan Thierry (19:26)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Right. Right.
Jackson Cooper (19:52)
to the people, you don't go out and ask how much money do you have in your bank account. So I would say take it with a grain of salt and try not to get emotionally attached to those lists because they also serve a purpose. They're generated by data that is public and property records, political donations, things like that.
Jordan Thierry (20:03)
Mm-hmm, right.
Jackson Cooper (20:16)
So it's an aggregate of sorts and ⁓ you want to take that with a grain of salt.
Jordan Thierry (20:21)
Yeah, that made so much sense. have any direct experience with these lists, right? The organizations I work with are mostly very small, barely have any development staff, and definitely don't have money to buy those lists. But this point around the greatest wealth transfer in American history is so important. And I think sometimes we get hyper fixated on the billionaires, right?
Jackson Cooper (20:27)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yes.
Jordan Thierry (20:44)
And
we look at the billionaire class now and are extremely discouraged, at least those of us in the social justice space, because we see how they're really investing in the opposite of what we're trying to achieve in the social justice equity space with, know, Mackenzie Scott and a handful of others being the exceptions. ⁓ But like you said, there's a lot of quiet money out there.
Jackson Cooper (21:04)
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Thierry (21:09)
So do you know how much someone can potentially give?
Jackson Cooper (21:10)
lot.
that's a great question. Well, there are prospecting tools out there. There's iWave, I've used many times. There's a lot of great prospecting tools out there that does aggregate public data. Although I will say that is good to have that as a tool.
But much like chat GPT, shouldn't be the sole reliable resource for you to analyze or make decisions because a lot of that data is contingent on property value. And so someone can look very wealthy because they bought their house in Santa Monica in 1963 and Jesus over time, right? Like that has now a.
Jordan Thierry (21:50)
Mm-hmm.
Jackson Cooper (22:04)
four billion, four million dollar house. So this person who might be a, just a regular, Joe working class family might look like they have the ability to give millions of dollars based on the data that is accessed by this database. I do say one thing to look at though is your donor data.
Jordan Thierry (22:04)
Yeah. ⁓
Jackson Cooper (22:26)
And so so like obviously looking at year over year have people increased their giving have people given more when asked or prompted by a specific thing right we need a thousand dollars we need a hundred people at a thousand dollars to raise our goal and then a $50 donor gives a thousand like you want to notice patterns and ⁓ sort of very macro patterns of donor behavior, but the other thing is
I've told organizations is like, you do actually need to beta test your donor base. You need to A-B test. You need to have a message that might be a little more reliant, right? Give today, support us for $25. And then maybe a more riskier one, right? Like we're looking for 100 people to give $1,000. Will you join us? And then segment out your donor base. Maybe the...
Jordan Thierry (22:57)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Jackson Cooper (23:17)
first time givers and lapsed donors get the, you know, renew at $25, then your tried and true is get the thousand dollar one. And you kind of test, like you can do your own prospecting through sort of beta tests within your communications. Now the biggest fear though of that, that EDs have told me is like, well, what if I lose donors or what if a donor unsubscribes, right?
Jordan Thierry (23:28)
here.
Jackson Cooper (23:41)
And it's like, well, you have to take some risk, right? It's one or the, know, and if a donor unsubscribes from your emails, it doesn't mean they're gonna stop donating. They still have a donor renewal date. But you you do wanna kind of take a little bit of risk when it comes to messaging. that's important for segmenting your donor base. Again, like who is in your base in terms of like,
the groups, whether that's the levels that they give at, or whether you do, Hannah and I in our book, we talk about you should have a major donor threshold, and it should, literally your segment should start major donors and then everybody else. ⁓ And if you wanna really create equity with your donor base, it should be major donors and everyone else. And then from there, you just get to see.
Jordan Thierry (24:19)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jackson Cooper (24:28)
you know, how people respond and whether they upgrade, whether they're renewing. but you really want to kind of understand what your donor donor based behavior is. Yeah.
Jordan Thierry (24:38)
Hmm, no, that's super helpful. And you can also look at their, your peers, like see if they've given to your peers, right? So they give them to the ballet, have they given to the symphony? Have they given to the museum and how much did they, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.
Jackson Cooper (24:42)
Yeah, yeah, uh-huh. Totally, totally.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And
yeah, when I was at the Pacific Northwest Ballet, mean, Seattle is Seattle is a very unique city that obviously there's a lot of wealth here. ⁓ but in terms of and it's a very philanthropic city, a lot of people poo poo it as non but it's a very, philanthropic city. But there are people who do support multiple organizations at once because they can't.
And that was very different for me coming from the South where there is a lot of generational money and with generational wealth also comes generational ideals and generational sort of commitments and so people who did give to the symphony did not give to the art museum and vice versa. So it was very hard to quote unquote convert a donor who was you know, it's like well you like the arts and it's like no I like
the North Carolina Symphony. I don't like, you know, the Museum of Art. So there are, there is, there are giving cultures in certain areas as well and certain regions too. The, the Tri-State area of New York City gives in a very different way than Southern California donors. And you can read all about that and like giving USA and the Lilly School. But I think like notice those nuances too. Like who gives where?
and maybe don't obsess over it, definitely notice where money is given.
Jordan Thierry (26:12)
Thank you. And another question that came up was around like what's changed the course of the last 10 years and also how has technology affected fundraising? I really want to lean into that kind of framing of the question around technology, especially now, because with the likes of, know, chat GPT and Gemini and others, right, folks are, you know, it's taking folks a lot less time to do their
Jackson Cooper (26:21)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Jordan Thierry (26:36)
their grant proposals, for example, or the solicitation letters and ⁓ even the automation tools that are out there help you respond to donors in a very timely way and make sure you know to find them. But yeah, what have you seen changed the most as a result of the new, of the technological tools that emerged over the last decade or so?
Jackson Cooper (26:37)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
I love that question because I just was on a call Louis Dietz, who's kind of piloting a fundraising AI software called it's pretty revolutionary, incredible. And it's just one of many Instrumentl, the grant prospecting tool has an amazing AI integration that...
doesn't help you write your proposal, but you can upload past proposals and it will summarize, you know, the different sections of it, of a grant proposal. So you can just pull it in and then it's already auto populated by like the best of your language of your summary. And then you can edit it towards, you know, whatever the proposal is. won't, like I said, it won't write the proposal for you, but it'll have the sections. And I think that's
Incredible. mean, yeah, Instrumentl is doing amazing work with very happy. I'm uh, as somebody who has been an executive director of one and worked in fundraising shops where there's nothing, I am so happy that now AI can just give you a fundraising plan and give you annual fund templates. And I don't have to spend, you know, sleepless.
hours trying to build all of those. ⁓ I do think it's really going to be helpful for templates and starting places. I do think that of course everything needs to be double checked with a human set a set of human eyes, especially things like acknowledgement letters. I'm I think that's the thing I'm weariest about is like tax receipts need to be double checked and triple checked for data.
Jordan Thierry (28:10)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jackson Cooper (28:35)
but I do think the automation of email invites and annual fund letters and such, mail merges, I think that's really, really exciting. I also think AI is gonna be really helpful in, going back to my previous answer, in analyzing donor behavior and in are the donors who have been giving year over year and-
but you know, because there hasn't been consistent software or tool that can do that. BlackBaud, Razor's Edge can, but you still have to build a dashboard in order to get an analytics report. so there's a lot of steps for each individual unique software, Tessitura, Salesforce, BlackBaud, Razor's Edge, Bloomerang, all those, they're all different. And I think AI will really help with like, I'm gonna upload, you know,
Jordan Thierry (29:07)
Mm-hmm.
Jackson Cooper (29:23)
the past five years of donor data and give me a summary of analytics of this. So I'm really excited about that. And I'm really excited too about how it's going to be used for efficacy for teams. Like how it's going to really streamline, you know, major gift proposals and organizing it so that gift officers can, you know, go out and, and
Jordan Thierry (29:30)
Hmm
Jackson Cooper (29:46)
have done is one of the one of the it's a joke, but I do my students I said fundraising looks like it's galas and wine and dinner and then you get in and you're like, wow, this is a lot of And because you're because you're like, I have to do the mail merge and I have to input the gifts and I have to and do all of that. you know, it is a job, right? I mean, it should every of it should feel like a job in some way. But I
Jordan Thierry (29:57)
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Jackson Cooper (30:13)
I think a lot of that job though and the lack of infrastructure and processes can be helped with AI so that people can go back to sort of really thinking about strategy more and relationship building.
Jordan Thierry (30:25)
Yeah.
Yeah. Getting out in the community exactly and building your contact list and just having more conversations, know, yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. I agree. I would also love to hear, maybe this is a little side project for you if you're not already doing it. I would love to hear from the foundation side on like how, you know, since the release of ChatGPT and these other tools,
Jackson Cooper (30:29)
Yeah.
Totally. Yeah.
Jordan Thierry (30:49)
how that has impacted their grant making, their grant review process. Just over the last couple of years, the number funders, foundations that are coming back and saying, we got 800 proposals. You know what I mean? When we usually get 150. It's so competitive now with these grants.
Jackson Cooper (31:04)
Yeah
Yeah.
Jordan Thierry (31:12)
I'm convinced that a part of that is the technology, right? That that's helping people get these things submitted in a more timely fashion. But also, I don't know. I mean, I myself have read, you know, more kind of chat, GPT generated grant proposal answers than I'd like, you know what I mean? I'm just like, come on, man, this is, you know, like, can tell this is, this is not you, right? And so, yeah, I am curious of like, what that how that is.
Jackson Cooper (31:27)
yeah, it's the worst. It's the worst, it's the worst, it's the worst.
Absolutely terrible.
Jordan Thierry (31:40)
shifting grant making. My initial sense is that more funders are and will continue to be moving to invitation only ⁓ grants opportunities.
Jackson Cooper (31:42)
Mm-hmm.
Yes. Yeah, I
agree. What I would like to see, and what I would like to see foundations do is actually allow for more community panels for their review processes and allow AI and chat GPT to work on that process rather than the process of evaluating the proposals that come in because
one of the biggest barriers of grant proposals is a lack of knowledge of how to write a grant proposal. And so with AI and ChatGPT and all these sort of tools that will go in and evaluate it, I want to try to phrase this the best. If a, well, I'll use an example. I've served on several,
grant panels for National Endowment for the have been grant proposals that are very clearly written, first time grant proposals organizations. And so they either over explain it or under explain, not really answering the question. And some panelists will notice that and say, well, this is a deterrent, blah, blah. But then,
we have to explain, well, maybe this person, is the first thing we can assume, of course, but like we have to give grace for that not everything is perfect and not everybody has the professional grant writing language. And so I worry that in evaluating grant proposals through AI, that AI, which does have sort of a level of standard dismiss
you know, organizations that do need the funding, but perhaps they are not, you know, they're, haven't, they're, they're, it's not being written by a professional, right? It's being written by a volunteer who serves on the board of the small organization that deserves the funding. So I hope that grant makers actually use it and this corporations too use it to create like processes for community panels.
Jordan Thierry (33:33)
All right.
Jackson Cooper (33:42)
who can evaluate these on a very human level, right? Where it's like, well, it's not the best written grant, but we're not basing it off of the quality of the writing. We're basing it off the quality of the project, which is ultimately how those conversations in the NEA panels ended up, where it was like, well, regardless of how it's written, does the project make sense? Does their community impact artistic quality? And I don't think a robot or software can really determine that. And I think it's very unfair.
if we AI to evaluate it based on the quality of the writing.
Jordan Thierry (34:13)
Yeah.
yeah. ⁓ that's great. That's deep. You know, I hadn't even thought about the other side of it, like foundations using AI to review the proposals. Like, whoa. But of course they are. Like, some are at least.
Jackson Cooper (34:17)
Hahaha
Well, it's well and and and well and
and you know, there's the bigger conversation about, know, just foundations already sort of being a little gatekeeper with their process. so therefore, therefore shutting out BIPOC LGBTQ, know, female led, you know, minority led organizations because the organization doesn't feel that they have access. So so imagine if it's like, well,
Jordan Thierry (34:36)
chorus.
Jackson Cooper (34:50)
we don't feel like we have access. and our proposal, you know, the first proposal that we're writing, maybe, maybe, right, is going to be evaluated by chat GPT. There's like a real sense of like, real, you know, inequity there. and, know, so am I calling AI kind of a, you know, propelling some very problematic ideas? Well, yes, if you're using it to evaluate language, right, and quality of language.
Jordan Thierry (35:03)
Yes.
Yes.
Jackson Cooper (35:17)
it's this, again, it's that perfectionism sort of monitor, right? And it's, and that's very unfair, but I do think AI could, a foundation could say, how can we create community panels for our, or, you know, our cause, and sort of create a panel process, create an inclusive panel process, and then split up your 800 proposals into, you know, like maybe like 50 community proposals.
or and then they evaluate it. It's gonna be a lot more work on the foundations part, but you're gonna be more inclusive and you're gonna be better. Yeah.
Jordan Thierry (35:50)
Yeah.
Oof. Yeah. No, that's deep, man. That's a whole nother episode. this is, yeah, no, it's, Wow. Well, let me just ask a few things about how folks can, you know, access your expertise and what you have to offer. Can people, you teach at ⁓ Seattle Pacific University?
Jackson Cooper (35:59)
Happy to come back! Happy to come back about that, yes.
sure.
Seattle University, the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, UNCG. ⁓
Jordan Thierry (36:15)
Excuse me,
And people can take those classes
on their own or they kind of have to be admitted into the program.
Jackson Cooper (36:25)
It's admitted, it's undergraduate and graduate, but I do have my own consulting practice, Artful Living, and my website jcooperarts.com. You can follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram, always happy to connect, but yeah.
Jordan Thierry (36:38)
Yeah,
absolutely. can you just, what kind of services are you offering under your consulting practice?
Jackson Cooper (36:44)
A lot of my focus individual giving strategy and also board fundraising is really my niche. So how to get your boards to fundraise or at least like fundraising training sessions and such. I really like to work with organizations that are needing also coaching for their development directors or executive directors and staff as well, teams on.
not just how to fundraise, but how to think about fundraising. phrase culture of philanthropy gets thrown around a lot. And so I like come in and be like, how do we define that? How do we define our values? How do we define how fundraising works in our organization? So a lot of it is coaching. A lot of it is, I definitely do create strategy and plans and can do that. But I really like to be a partner with an organization because I...
personally don't have one set way of doing fundraising and like to just work with the organization to be, to be very reflective about like, you where do we want to go? Where are we at? What are the processes that need to be built? And here are best practices. And I think that's where my, you know, research and writing has come in handy a lot. And also being a frontline fundraisers, I've seen what can work and also what is.
evolving and changing. so I don't come in and say this is how I've done it. It's just like, well, you know, an organization like yours is doing it similar to this. Let's see how it fits within your organization. So really tailoring it, but I definitely have a lot of focus on individual giving strategies and boards. Yeah.
Jordan Thierry (38:20)
Awesome, Thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure to have this discussion with you. And I also want to thank all the wonderful people that submitted really thoughtful questions. So applause for them. Yeah, give them a lot of Appreciate the fan base that we have that's submitting questions and would like to do more of that. But thanks again for everything and have a great weekend. This has been so fun. All right.
Jackson Cooper (38:21)
Oh, thank you! Ah, this is so fun!
Yeah.
Yeah, totally.
Thanks, Jordan. Yeah, you too. Great
to see you. Thank you so much.
Jordan Thierry (38:49)
Thank you.