The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s capital campaign was a well-choreographed project that breathed new life into the organization’s fundraising plan

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

It was a new approach for Ailey but would become an important part of its future fundraising efforts.

“As we start to focus on major gifts, now that we’re coming out of the [capital] campaign, I think the lesson we learned is how important it is to try to sit down with the donor and hear from them, first and foremost, what their interests are and then to present them with something that is tailored to what they’re interested in as opposed to just trying to guess at it and sending them a letter,” Rink says.