Fundraising Expertise, Proven Results
Providing Fundraising and Management Consulting Services to Educational and Other Nonprofit Institutions
Advancing Your Institution Through Our Fundraising Experience
Patricia King Jackson Associates (PKJA) provides fundraising and management consulting services to educational and other nonprofit institutions. Based in Washington, DC, PKJA provides a variety of customized services designed to help institutions maximize and sustain their fundraising capacities in support of their institutions’ missions.
Building Fundraising Programs
The firm’s principal, Patricia King Jackson, has spent a thirty-five-year career building fundraising programs from the ground up. She makes use of—and, in some cases, has helped to pioneer—some of the best practices in the fundraising field.
About Patricia King Jackson
Pro Bono and Leadership Service
Pro Bono and Leadership Service
Patricia King Jackson has spent thirty-five years fundraising for educational and academic medical institutions. A graduate of Mills College in Oakland, California, she has held senior staff responsibilities at Bryn Mawr and Dartmouth Colleges, and she has served as the chief development officer in the fundraising programs at Fox Chase Cancer Center and Sidwell Friends School.
- Achievements at Sidwell Friends School: During her fifteen years at Sidwell Friends, she raised over $85 million, bringing the annual cash flow from fundraising from under $2 million to over $10 million during that time period and winning the CASE Circle of Excellence Award in fundraising three times.
- Consulting and Campaign Leadership: As a vice president of Grenzebach Glier and Associates, a national firm specializing in higher education, Pat served as lead consultant to a variety of clients, including Chatham and Hood Colleges, Gallaudet University, and the University of California at San Diego and the University of Washington. She has planned and consulted on campaigns with goals totaling over $1 billion.
Pro Bono and Leadership Service
Pro Bono and Leadership Service
Pro Bono and Leadership Service
- President, Historic St. Mary’s City Foundation, 2006-2008
- Board of Trustees, Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), 1996-1998
- Member, Advisory Committee for Management Reporting Standards for Educational Institutions, 1996 and 2001
- Editor and Author, “Advancement in Special Sectors of Education,” The Handbook for Educational Advancement. Jossey-Bass Inc., 2000
- Board of Trustees, Maryland Historical Society, 2013
- Author, with James M. Theisen, “Raising Funds for Independent Schools,” New Strategies for Educational Fund Raising, Michael J. Worth, Editor. ACE/Praeger Series on Higher Education, 2002
- Author, “Why Fund Raisers Need Standards for Counting and Reporting Gifts,” CASE Currents, March 2005
- Active speaker and presenter at CASE conferences
- Board of Directors, Historic St. Mary's City Foundation, 2000-2016
What We Do
- Benchmarking: This is a framework for measuring success, both against the institution’s history of fundraising and against the experience of peer institutions in their fundraising programs.
- Review of Development Programs: Also termed a development audit, the Development Program Review assesses an institution’s internal readiness to reach its maximum fundraising potential.
- Feasibility Assessments of Goals: The Feasibility Study assesses the external readiness of the institution’s constituencies to take on the challenges of volunteer leadership and philanthropy that would be required in a major campaign.
- Campaign Planning: We assist the institution in drafting policies, procedures, timetables, and volunteer structures and handbooks in support of a campaign.
- Campaign Counsel: Ongoing counsel helps focus leadership, staff, and volunteers on the priority activities and goals of the campaign and maintains momentum against the timeline.
- Organizational Design and Planning: Counsel can identify appropriate short-term and long-term fundraising goals and advise on appropriate strategies to reach these goals, including the development of annual plans.
- Board Development: Using analytical and anecdotal examples, counsel can help the board understand and assume its key role in the fundraising process.
- Volunteer and Staff Training: We train volunteers and staff on professional fundraising issues, as well as providing solicitors’ training.
Clients We Serve
- American University of Rome
- Beauvoir, The National Cathedral Elementary School
- Bishop John T. Walker School for Boys
- Calvert Marine Museum
- Chatham University
- DC Preparatory Academy
- Diener School
- Edmund Burke School
- FOCUS (Friends of Choice for Urban Schools)
- Interfaith Alliance
- Lowell School
- Maret School
- McLean School
- Meadowbrook Stables Foundation
- National Cathedral School
- Pinecrest School
- Randolph-Macon College
- Sheridan School
- St. Paul’s School for Boys
- The Calverton School
- Sandy Spring Friends School
- Sidwell Friends School
- The Lab School of Washington
- The River School
- Trinity University (Washington, DC)
- Washington International School
- Washington Jesuit Academy
- Washington Tennis and Education Foundation (WTEF)
- Washington Waldorf School
Testimonials
1. “Pat inspired and empowered our Trustees and Campaign volunteers to give and get the funds needed to meet our goals.”
Susan Sachs Goldman
Former Board Chair, Sidwell Friends School
2. “As an independent consultant, I put all of my energy and passion into my relationship with clients. I am not distracted by the pressures of subordinate staff or of the need to grow a business.”
Pat Jackson
Principal
3. “We worked together on a successful $30 million campaign. Pat was a colleague and mentor!”
Mary Kay Poppenberg
Retired Executive Vice President, Chatham University
4. “The time Pat spent getting to know the School paid off in both the Feasibility Study and a successful capital campaign!”
Caitlin MacKenzie
Director of Development, Washington Waldorf School
5. “Everything I know about development I learned from you and I thank you for your leadership, energy, dedication and friendship.”
Courtney Clark Pastrick
Trustee, Campaign Co-Chair, Sidwell Friends School
What We Think
In times of crisis, remember that the Financial Markets curve upward over time.
Are You Ready for a Feasibility Study?
Feasibility studies are time-consuming and expensive. They are best utilized when an institution feels that they have done their homework, they know their major donors, they know what they need, and they are relatively certain of a positive outcome from the study. A premature study not only wastes money but also risks sending a negative signal to the institution’s largest donors. The irony of feasibility studies is that the best ones only confirm what the Development Office “thinks” that it knows; new and surprising information from a feasibility study is likely to be negative.
Why a Feasibility Study Matters
The value of the feasibility study—even for the most sophisticated and well-developed fundraising program—is threefold:
- A positive feasibility study confirms the best guesses and judgments of the institution about what it can raise, for what, and from whom; and
- A feasibility study educates the institution's largest donors about what will be required of them and of the institution during a major fundraising campaign; and
- A substantive, data-oriented feasibility study report constructively engages the trustee and fundraising leadership in the process of decision-making leading up to the campaign.
Feasibility Study Checklist
To ensure that your institution is ready to hire a consultant and start the feasibility study process, ask yourselves the following questions first:
- Is your institution and its leadership—its Board of Trustees, President or School Head, and senior administration—positively regarded by the community you serve?
- Do you have a strong case for fundraising support for the institution, and is this case related to a multi-year strategic plan, and does it involve a fundraising goal that is not totally unrealistic?
- Do you have a good sense of your major gift community and a strong suspicion about where the lead gifts in your next fundraising campaign are likely to be?
- Is your Board of Trustees supportive of this fundraising effort, and are there other fundraising volunteers ready to join in, particularly at the leadership level?
- Is this the right time—internally, in terms of staff readiness to undertake an intense fundraising effort, and externally, in terms of competing campaigns or the economy?
If you answer yes to all questions, you have a good chance of gaining a positive feasibility study result. Have a question? Contact at pkjackson@pkja.com.
How Do You Measure the Success of Your Fundraising Program?
Most heads of institutions and development offices are used to setting goals and measuring results against last year’s achievement. But, for many of us who get too far into the trees of our own programs, measuring our successes against the single ruler of our own history may leave us unaware of new techniques and best practices used elsewhere to maximize fundraising revenues.
Maximizing Performance with Strategic Benchmarking
Benchmarking is the continuous and systematic process of comparing and measuring our own productivity against leaders elsewhere. It helps us gain information and improve performance. Specifically, benchmarking will help you to:
- Identify “best practices” among your peers by examining leaders in various areas, such as annual giving from alumni or parents or planned giving.
- Concentrate your scarce personnel and dollar resources on programs that are most likely to have the best payoffs, as demonstrated by the experience of peer institutions.
- Educate your institution’s leadership about the real experiences of institutions within your peer group, as measured objectively by standardized data.
- Set reasonable goals that might be aspirational but realistic, and measure progress over time against these goals.
While CASE and NAIS offer programs to help institutions compare their fundraising results, we prefer the data-mining programs and database histories available through CASE now that it has acquired the Council for Aid to Education (CAE), which has been in the data-mining and data collection business for six decades. Their database includes most institutions of higher education, the boarding schools, and most of the larger independent day school programs.
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Patricia King Jackson Associates
2555 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Suite 805, Washington, DC 20037
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