Why I Left a Market Leading Organization to Join Movement Funding

For more than a quarter of my life, I worked as the chief fundraiser for the largest pro-life organization in the country. My employment at Susan B. Anthony List is older than our three children, our home, our car, and is two months younger than my marriage.

This is why the last month has been one of the most surreal experiences of my life. It marks the first time in nearly a decade I find myself helping other organizations raise the funding they need to share the gospel, protect our vulnerable, and shape the future of our country.

So why make the move?

To start, I remain an SBA List donor. For nearly ten years my wife Michal and I gave alongside the supporters we asked to support SBA. We believed and we continue to believe in the team Marjorie has put together.

It is actually the strength of this team that led to my decision to leave.

Because, right now, there are great organizations with great leadership that but they don’t have great fundraising operations. But they can grow, rapidly, if they can connect with their donors.

I can help with that.

When I first joined SBA in 2012 our budget was $4.5 million. We were small, we were overshadowed by other organizations, and we struggled to get the attention of our donors.

But what we did have was important: excellent leadership, a bold vision, and a commitment to bringing our major donors with us in our mission.

I joined Movement Funding because I saw firsthand what groups can accomplish when we put these pieces together. SBA List raised $35 million dollars in 2020. That is a long road from when we started.

Getting to that moment wasn’t easy. Identifying donors, securing visits, crafting our message, and building a system that provided accountability to our donors took a tremendous amount of time and a good strategy.

But it was worth it.

I don’t want fundraising to be a hindrance to how organizations change lives for the better. I am not a political strategist. I get nervous when sharing my faith. And, with three kids under six, I don’t have a lot of time to volunteer.

But for 15 years I have raised significant funding by respectfully sharing with donors what they can make possible through their philanthropy.

My colleague Amanda Robey and I are working at Movement Funding to help organizations make that connection with their donors and to build lasting systems that retain their donors.

We decided, early, that we wanted to make our services affordable and that we could make a bigger difference by focusing more time on a small number of clients.

If there is an organization you love that has excellent leadership and a great vision I would love to hear about it. Helping SBA List grow was one of the most rewarding stretches of my life. And I’m looking forward to helping other organizations grow by connecting with their donors.