All Things Fundraising

Master sales with four game-changing principles: Focus on what matters, target the right people, craft the perfect pitch, and follow up like a pro. Packed with actionable tips, this guide helps you turn meetings into deals—fast! 💼🔥

In this episode, we cover new RIA launches as well as RIA acquisitions, including the acquisition of Mill Creek Capital by Pathstone and the acquisition of Jackson Wealth Management by Carson Group. We also share updates on commitments from the Firefighters' Retirement System of Louisiana, Sacramento County Employees' Retirement System, and Monroe County Employees Retirement System. On the search front, we highlight activity from the Falmouth Retirement System, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority Employees' Retirement System, and New York City Comptroller. We also cover fundraising from Argosy Strategic Partners, Blume Ventures, and AttoTude — plus a reminder to register for our next Dakota Cocktails event. 

We cover new RIA launches as well as RIA acquisitions, including the acquisition of Mill Creek Capital by Pathstone and the acquisition of Jackson Wealth Management by Carson Group. We also share updates on commitments from the South Carolina RSIC, New York State Common Retirement Fund, and Chicago MWRD. On the search front, we highlight activity from Cook County Annuity and Benefit Fund, Los Angeles Fire and Police Pensions, and Boston Retirement System. We also cover fundraising from Benchmark Capital, Longship, and Supabase— plus a reminder to register for our next Dakota Cocktails event.

In Episode 44 of the Emerging Manager Growth Show, Gui Costin and Andrew O'Shea explore practical, high-leverage marketing tactics for small investment firms, covering where allocator capital is flowing — hedge funds, credit strategies, active ETFs, and private markets — heading into 2027. The episode focuses on content marketing consistency, from quarterly webinars as cost-effective brand-building tools to disciplined, a16z-style content strategies that compound into real pipeline over time. It closes with actionable advice on using AI tools like Claude and LinkedIn for professional copywriting and outreach, plus leveraging AI-powered call notes via Slack to transform every meeting into searchable institutional knowledge.

Master sales with four game-changing principles: Focus on what matters, target the right people, craft the perfect pitch, and follow up like a pro. Packed with actionable tips, this guide helps you turn meetings into deals—fast! 💼🔥

We cover new RIA launches as well as RIA acquisitions like the acquisition of Hoff Bujnoch & Associates by MCF Advisors, Sherpa Wealth Strategies by Wealth Enhancement, and Savant Wealth Management's two latest additions. We also share updates on commitments from Mass PRIM and the Los Angeles Fire & Police Pension System. On the search front, we highlight activity from the Cook County Annuity and Benefit Fund. We also cover fundraising from Fundamentum Frontier Advisors, Yolo Investments, and Régia Capital — plus a reminder to register for our next Dakota Cocktails event.

In this episode of The Rainmaker Podcast, Gui Costin sits down with Dan Amir, Managing Director of Investor Coverage at Crow Holdings, for a wide-ranging conversation on building a wealth distribution team, applying institutional rigor to the wealth channel, and leading a sales organization through a difficult fundraising environment.

Dan grew up in New Jersey, spent the first 13 years of his career in New York at BNY Mellon and Morgan Stanley in relationship and distribution roles, and made the pilgrimage to Dallas in 2017 — pre-COVID, before it was cool to go south. He joined Crow Holdings, the Dallas-based real estate investment and development firm founded by Trammell Crow, which today operates a development platform across multifamily and industrial sectors in 20 offices nationwide and an investment management business spanning industrial, multifamily, manufactured housing, self-storage, retail, and student housing.

Crow Holdings Capital started its partnership journey in the institutional world — foundations and endowments first, then pensions and sovereign wealth. Over the last six years, the trajectory of growth in private real estate has shifted decisively toward the individual wealth community, which is why Dan was hired to lead a dedicated wealth coverage effort. His team of four (going to five) is structured geographically rather than channelized, with deliberate diversity of backgrounds — RIA, wirehouse, and non-linear distribution paths — to create overlap with how RIAs, wirehouses, and private banks actually behave in a market.

Dan and Gui dug deep into the discipline of communication: starting every year with a written business plan, measuring weekly against benchmarks, and once a quarter looking back at the original plan. Communication up to leadership is succinct by design — pull data from Salesforce, summarize the position on each strategy, and engage the executive team only on genuinely strategic decisions. Dan emphasized the judgment of knowing when you need executive input.

The CRM is the backbone of the operation, and AI sits on top of it. Dan ranked the CRM as indispensable for activity tracking, goal measurement, meeting note memorialization, and populating pre-meeting briefs across the broader client engagement team. Gui shared Dakota's pro tip for using Claude to dictate call notes in the lobby immediately after a meeting — eliminating the typing friction that has historically been the biggest barrier to capturing IP. Both agreed that AI is only as good as the data going in, and that picking one source of truth and training the team on it is now a strategic business decision, not a data decision.

The conversation closed on leadership, trust, and culture. Dan's philosophy centers on understanding individual motivations, holding everyone accountable consistently, and trusting the team to do their jobs without micromanaging. In a difficult fundraising environment, maintaining team motivation comes from giving people the room to build durable, non-transactional relationships. Dan credited Crow Holdings' top-down culture as the reason he has never felt more like himself professionally — and the reason the team can apply institutional rigor to the wealth channel without losing the human element.

Tired of chasing outdated leads? Book a demo to see how Dakota Marketplace simplifies your fundraising process with accurate, up-to-date investor data. 

We cover new RIA launches as well as RIA acquisitions like the acquisition of Hoff Bujnoch & Associates by MCF Advisors, Sherpa Wealth Strategies by Wealth Enhancement, and Savant Wealth Management's two latest additions. We also share updates on commitments from the The City of Fresno Retirement Systems. On the search front, we highlight activity from the Iowa Public Employees' Retirement System, the Fresno County Employees Retirement Association, and the Oakland County Employees' Retirement and Deferred Compensation Board. We also cover fundraising from Admaius Capital Partners, Verdane, and SPARX Group — plus a reminder to register for our next Dakota Cocktails event.

In Episode 43 of the Emerging Manager Growth Show, Gui Costin and the Dakota team take on the pension channel and how emerging managers should think about Emerging Manager Programs (EMPs). Gui debunks four of the most common myths around marketing to public pensions — from track record and AUM minimums to consultant gatekeeping — and walks through how pensions actually define emerging managers across vintage, track record, and AUM, with examples from CalPERS, Texas Teachers, Maryland State Retirement, and LA Fire & Police. The episode also covers diverse/women & minority-owned EMPs, a market update on where Dakota is seeing wins across long-only equity and alternatives, and closes with fundraising best ideas spanning city scheduling, email creation, the quarterly webinar playbook, and a pro tip on using Claude to take call notes off your plate entirely.

In this episode of The Rainmaker Podcast, Gui Costin sits down with Dominica Ribeiro, Chief Marketing and Distribution Officer at Breckinridge Capital Advisors, the legendary asset manager based in Boston. The conversation covers Dominica's non-traditional career path, the structure and discipline of Breckinridge's distribution team, and the leadership philosophy that has shaped how she runs sales and marketing as a single integrated function.

Dominica started full-time in the industry directly out of high school at Putnam Investments, working through her associate's, bachelor's, and master's degrees while building her career. After 5 years at Putnam, she spent 14 years at Fidelity, including a long stretch at Pyramis Global Advisors in Smithfield, Rhode Island, where she worked institutional marketing in lockstep with the distribution team. That alignment of marketing and sales, unusual in the industry, became the foundation for her current role at Breckinridge, where both functions sit under her leadership.

Breckinridge is a 30+ years old independent asset manager with roughly $55 billion in AUM (as of 3/31/26) and 89 employees across offices in Boston and San Diego. The firm specializes in investment-grade fixed income and equity income portfolios delivered through customized separately managed accounts. Despite its size, the firm operates with a deliberate boutique feel, and Dominica's 20-person distribution and marketing team is structured to reinforce that. She walks Gui through how the team is organized, two regions split east and west of the Mississippi, with specialized state-level coverage, plus dedicated private wealth, institutional, national accounts, and distribution strategy teams.

A key theme of the conversation is continuity of relationship. Breckinridge does not hand prospects off from sales to a separate relationship management team. The same person who brings the client in stays with them through quarterly updates and ongoing engagement, which Dominica believes drives better retention and cross-sell. That continuity is reinforced by a transparent scorecard that incentivizes business development, retention, execution, and collaboration, shared with the team in January so reps know exactly how they will be measured.

Dominica is candid about CRM implementation. Breckinridge uses Salesforce, and her advice to boutique managers considering a CRM rollout is simple: don't do it without a dedicated sales enablement or operations resource. The cost only pays off when someone is responsible for data discipline and reporting consistency. Gui shares how Dakota has integrated Slack, Salesforce, and Claude to make meeting note capture nearly frictionless, eliminating the most common source of CRM data decay.

The conversation closes on leadership. Dominica describes herself as leading with empathy while holding a high bar, direct when the team falls short, transparent about expectations, and clear that proactive communication is non-negotiable. Her advice to early-career salespeople is to trust their gut and communicate constantly, even in internal-facing roles. Looking ahead, she names focus as her biggest challenge: at 89 employees, the firm has to be disciplined about where it invests its time, talent, and resources, and the feedback loop from clients and prospects is what drives those decisions.

Tired of chasing outdated leads? Book a demo to see how Dakota Marketplace simplifies your fundraising process with accurate, up-to-date investor data.