Meet Our Award Winners: Matthew Bregman

Why did you choose fundraising as a career: Like most fundraisers, I fell into it. The nonprofit I worked for 20 years ago needed money, and we couldn’t afford to hire this thing called a “development director” because they demanded obscenely high salaries in the area of $35,000. So I volunteered to take on that responsibility, at a significantly lower salary, and then scrambled to figure out how to do it. What I quickly realized was that I loved pursuing money — I think that’s human nature. And I’ve never gotten tired of the thrill of finding the money to make important work possible.