Last week, I attended the Parents Fundraising conference hosted by Cornell University. Chris McGowan (Yale's former co-chair of the Parents Leadership Council) joined me for a live audience conversation about working with parent volunteers and donors. It is worth listening to the end where we will have a live Q and A!

Chris McGowan has been a private equity and venture capital investor for the last 29 years, and is the General Partner of CJM Ventures and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. He married his high school and college sweetheart, Sandy, and they have three children. Chris and Sandy have been volunteering at each of their children’s schools for the last 21 years. At the University of Chicago’s Laboratory Schools, Chris started as a room parent and eventually served for nine years on its Board of Directors including four years leading Lab’s Development Committee (two as Chair, two as Co-Chair), including oversight for Lab+, the School’s $80 million capital campaign. Chris also served for five years as President of Friends of Walter Payton College Prep (after two years chairing its Annual Fund, and one year as President Emeritus), and serves on the SHSAA Board of Trustees for Stuyvesant High School, where he attended with Sandy in New York City. Chris and Sandy recently completed 2 years as Co-Chairs of the Parent Leadership Committee at Yale (and serve on the Campaign Committee for Yale’s $7 billion capital campaign), and recently became Co-Chairs of the Parent Leadership Committee at Columbia. At Columbia, Chris is also a member of the College’s Board of Visitors and served on its $750mm Core to Commencement Campaign.