Executive Coaching for Nonprofit Leaders & Fundraisers
You already know what you need to do. So why does it feel this hard?
You’re carrying the revenue burden for an organization that changes lives. You know the fundamentals. Research your donors. Build relationships. Make the ask. Steward well. Repeat.
And yet.
The board doesn’t understand what fundraising actually takes. Your executive director has twelve other fires burning. Every January, the counter resets to zero and you start climbing again. You’re doing some of the riskiest, most important work on the planet, often with razor-thin margins for error.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, isolated, or stuck, it’s not just you. Nonprofit leadership is one of the hardest forms of leadership there is. You carry all the responsibility for outcomes but share the authority with a board that may not fully understand the work.
You don’t need another webinar. You need a thinking partner.
Why Coaching? And Why Now?
Well-meaning leaders sometimes say, “This isn’t the right time for coaching. Things are too uncertain.”
We disagree. Uncertainty is exactly when coaching matters most.
Marc A. Pitman, CSP, has coached nonprofit leaders through the dot-com bust, the aftermath of 9/11, the 2008 recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Not from the sidelines. In real time, with real leaders making real decisions under real pressure. What he’s seen, consistently, is that leaders who invest in coaching during turbulent seasons don’t just survive them. They grow through them.
There is never a “good time” to fundraise. There’s always an election cycle, an economic wobble, a global disruption, a board transition, a staffing crisis. The leaders who thrive aren’t the ones who wait for calm. They’re the ones who build the capacity to lead well regardless of the weather.
Coaching gives you that capacity. Not by adding more to your plate, but by helping you think more clearly about what’s already on it.
What Coaching Actually Looks Like
A Safe Place to Think Out Loud
Our clients tell us the thing they value most is having a confidential sounding board outside their chain of command. Someone who can’t hire or fire them. Someone who isn’t on their board, isn’t a direct report, and doesn’t have an agenda. Just a trained, experienced guide who listens well and asks the questions that unlock your own wisdom.
Leaders we work with use coaching sessions to process board dynamics, navigate difficult staff conversations, think through capital campaign strategy, and work through the self-doubt that comes with leading in hard seasons. (That doubt, by the way, is not a sign you’re failing. It might be a sign you’re on the verge of something important.)
Strategies That Fit Your Wiring
Too many leaders try to fundraise or lead using someone else’s playbook. It doesn’t fit. It never did.
Coaching helps you discover your natural gifts and talents, then build fundraising and leadership strategies around them. Board members learn how to do the fundraising part of their role in harmony with who they actually are. Executive directors and development staff build systems that are sustainable because they’re built on strengths, not willpower.
We use proven tools like the Highlands Ability Battery or the Enneagram to help you understand your natural abilities and motivations, the Quadrant 3 Leadership framework to map your growth as a leader, and the R.E.A.L. methodology from Marc’s book Ask Without Fear!® to structure your fundraising around research, engagement, asking, and stewardship.
Accountability That Moves the Needle
Twice a month, you’ll speak with Marc for a 45-minute coaching call. At the end of each call, you’ll agree on your next steps: the tasks you’ll complete before the next session. These aren’t busywork assignments. They’re strategic actions tied to your actual goals.
Between calls, you have virtually unlimited email and phone access to your coach. If something comes up on a Tuesday afternoon that can’t wait until your next session, you can reach out without worrying about whether the meter is running. It’s included. And encouraged.
Fundraising and leadership happen between the calls. That’s why access matters.
Who Coaching is For
Development directors and major gift officers who know the fundamentals but feel stuck, overwhelmed by their portfolio, or unsure how to communicate their process to leadership. Coaching helps you tell the story of your work in a way your boss and board can actually see and understand.
Executive directors and CEOs who are carrying too much alone. You’re managing programs, managing people, managing a board, and somehow also expected to be the primary fundraiser. Coaching gives you a strategic partner to help you prioritize, delegate, and lead without burning out.
Board members who want to contribute to fundraising but dread it. Marc’s approach helps board members find a way to participate in the funding of their organization that feels natural, not forced. You won’t be turned into a salesperson. You’ll learn to connect donors with a mission you already believe in.
Coaching is One of the Best Investments You Can Make
We believe in coaching so much that Marc is coached himself. He recently started working with a new coach, not because things are going badly, but because he knows from 25 years of experience that he makes better decisions when he has a thinking partner. So do his clients.
Research backs this up. Studies show executive coaching produces significant returns on investment, and participants consistently report increased clarity, confidence, and effectiveness. But the numbers only tell part of the story.
Our clients say they get reconnected with why they got into nonprofit work in the first place. They stop performing a version of leadership that doesn’t fit and start growing into the leader they were created to be. They raise more money, yes. But they also lead with less stress and more purpose.
Bill Pieczynski, Vice President for Advancement
Nichols College
Dudley, MA
What People are Saying
“With his genuine interest in people, and in helping them become more effective promoting their charitable causes, Marc has been a tremendous support to me and my efforts. He keeps me focused and on task, he reinforces what he teaches with literature and fundraising resources, and anytime I email him with questions, he promptly replies with creative and insightful suggestions. The most important lesson I have learned from Marc is to put people first, and my nonprofit work second.”
You’ll Come for the Fundraising. You’ll Stay for the Leadership.
One of our clients put it this way:
“I came to Marc for fundraising coaching. I was amazed to find out I actually got leadership coaching as well.”
That’s by design. Fundraising doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s tangled up in board relationships, staff dynamics, organizational culture, your own confidence, and your capacity to lead under pressure. Coaching that only addresses the mechanics of asking would miss the point.
Marc is also CEO of Concord Leadership Group, where he coaches CEOs and senior leaders across sectors using the Quadrant 3 Leadership framework. That same depth of leadership expertise is built into every FundraisingCoach.com coaching engagement. You don’t have to choose between fundraising coaching and leadership coaching. You get both.
Proud member of the
