What Fundraising Entrepreneurs Know About Raising Money

“Fundraising is both a science and an art,” says M. Gasby Brown of Bridge Philanthropic Consulting, one of the nation’s foremost fundraising firms. “It is great to give strategy,” adds her partner, Dwayne Ashley, “but an organization needs money coming in the door. If you don’t drive that result, nothing else matters.”

Before Brown and Ashley co-founded Bridge Philanthropic Consulting (BPC), America’s only African American owned full service fundraising firm, they each raised separately in their careers as much as a billion dollars.

“Unlike Venture Capital or startup fundraising rounds, nonprofit fundraising is all about individuals,” says Ashley. That means the two of them they raised that figure from individual donors ask-by-ask. If anyone has actionable advice about how to make a winning request for financial support, the co-founders of BPC do.