Irwin-Wells Associates - A Fundraising Journey

A Fundraising Journey

Let me take you on a fundraising journey through my life. You can get off at any stop. Best of all, there are no traffic jams, flight delays or lost luggage! So fasten your seat belt; here we go.

Our first stop is Quincy, Illinois, Hog Capital of America and my hometown. As with most other girls of the time, my introduction to fundraising was through Girl Scout cookies, which in those days cost 35 cents per box. One year I won the prize for selling the most boxes, 53 in all. My aunt bought 3 and my father bought 50.

Word of my stunning success spread and I was later recruited by a headhunter to become the teen chair of the Heart Association’s Heart Fund Sunday. My job was to recruit other kids to go door-to-door with coffee cans covered in red construction paper, soliciting for the Heart Association. Afterwards, everybody came over to my house for my mother’s famous chili and to have our group’s picture taken for the local paper. I think the shot must have gotten bumped for an expanded hog report because I never saw it in print. So much for volunteer recognition.

Our next destination is Evanston, Illinois, about 280 miles to the north and home to Northwestern University. Somebody must have decided I was not quite ready to be VP for University Advancement so I made a lateral career move and coordinated car washes to raise money for student volunteer projects.

After graduation and moving a couple of thousand miles south, I got my first REAL job, i.e., one with a paycheck. I worked at a PBS station in Florida where I did various entry-level jobs, including writing fundraising copy, PSAs, etc. I was stunned by my huge monthly paycheck of $345 (before deductions).

Although I remain a devotee of the Gulf of Mexico and its beaches, living in Florida was not my cup of swamp water and I headed west, landing in the San Francisco Bay Area. I remain grateful to have been lucky / smart / prescient enough to make it all the way out here.

My first fundraising job in California came as a result of heavy recruitment – I attended a political rally and signed a petition. Before I knew it, I was a canvasser and cold-caller for the Committee to Mobilize Against the War (as in Vietnam). This type of fundraising is the hardest job of all, especially for a controversial issue. We should all be grateful to the gutsy folks who do this all the time. After several ensuing political campaigns, I co-founded the Marin Rape Crisis Center which gave me my first experience starting an organization from scratch.

During the next 30 years in the Bay Area, I started another nonprofit, got an MBA, worked for 10+ years as a development director for organizations small and huge, served on a zillion boards, taught a few classes, met some of the best, most wonderful, generous, broadminded, humanity-embracing folks in the world and eventually settled in as a fundraising consultant.

I will always be grateful to the wonderful tour guides I have had on my voyage – from my mother who taught me about compassion, to the too-many–to-count people who believed in me along the way, to the Sunday School teacher who led me to a few words in the Bible that say it all: “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of one Spirit . . . If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.”

Blessings to you all.

– Suzanne Irwin-Wells