The Development Debrief

Welcome to the podcast! Today, we’re thrilled to welcome Jessica Carbone, the Associate Director of Development for Major Gifts at Boston College, where she oversees initiatives in Seattle and Denver. A proud alumna of BC herself, Jessica graduated from the Lynch School of Education and Human Development in 2014, and her journey since then has been nothing short of inspiring.

After earning her degree, Jessica jumped into the nonprofit world with Partners In Health, where she made a significant impact as a major gifts coordinator and stewardship associate. She played a key role in launching their first fundraising gala, "An Evening for Equity," and was honored to tour nationally with the late Dr. Paul Farmer for the documentary "Bending the Arc."

Continuing her pursuit of knowledge, Jessica went on to complete her master’s in Education Policy and Management at Harvard. From there, she moved to Denver, where she excelled as a Major Gift Officer at the University of Colorado Boulder. In July 2023, Jessica returned to her roots in Massachusetts, taking on her current role at Boston College.

In addition to her impressive career, we’re excited to discuss Jessica’s book, Philanthropy Means Love, which delves into the deep connections between giving and love in our communities. Beyond her professional accomplishments, Jessica is an avid traveler—having explored destinations like Bangkok, Madrid, and Sorrento. When she’s not on the go, you can find her enjoying time at Long Beach in Rockport, MA, where she has made cherished memories with family.

Join us as we dive into Jessica’s journey, her insights on philanthropy, and the themes of her book.

You can find the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Philanthropy-Means-Love-Jessica-Carbone/dp/B0DC4S4K1R

Welcome back to another episode of The Development Debrief! It’s Episode 153, and today we’re diving deep into the world of effective communication with our special guest, Ben Feller, who joins us for the second time. If you’re interested in looking back, he was also featured in Episode 66, a few years ago.

Here’s a powerful thought to kick things off: It’s not what you say, it’s what they hear. Ben, an expert in communications consulting within higher education, is here to explore this concept with us. We’ll be discussing the critical role of urgency and language use in making sure your message hits the mark. And stick around for a memorable segment we’re calling “The Oatmeal Story”—trust us, you won’t want to miss it! Let’s get started! 

Ben Feller is a partner at maslansky + partners, the firm that finds exactly the right words to ensure audiences will listen, care and act. An award-winning writer during his distinguished career in journalism, Ben now specializes in moving organizations from how they are known to how they want to be known. As a strategic adviser, Ben has a distinctive ability to help companies by asking the right questions and distilling their stories with clarity. His business role follows a 20-year reporting career in which he was honored as a "master of deadline reporting" and served as the Chief White House Correspondent for The Associated Press. During the presidencies of Barack Obama and George W. Bush, Ben helped lead White House coverage for the largest news organization in the world. Ben is also a writing coach, event moderator, public speaker and the author of Big Problems, Little Problems, a children's book on conquering life's frustrations that reviewers have described as "simply extraordinary." He lives in New York City.

This week, we chat with Boi Carpenter about her career journey and her business, Inquisitive Leader. In the first half, we dive into her career path, and in the second, we explore her business. We discuss management, the role of curiosity and inquiry, strategies for preventing burnout, modeling behavior, and the importance of unplugging on vacation days.

Boi Carpenter serves as Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations at Johns Hopkins University. In her role, she has operational and frontline responsibilities and manages several large-scale teams. Her professional career in development and alumni relations spans over twenty-nine years, twenty-four of which have been spent in her current organization.

 In 2022, Boi started a personal endeavor, Inquisitive Leader, a community inspired by her conversations with bright, enthusiastic, talented professionals. She has a blog covering topics like navigating personal and professional growth dynamics, career management, belonging, managing, leading, recruitment, hiring, and retention. She is also regularly active on LinkedIn.

This week, we feature Justin Fincher (Chief Deputy to the President of Stony Brook University and Senior Vice President for Government and Community Relations and Executive Director of the Stony Brook Foundation) for the second time.

The first time he was featured was episode 55 where he spoke with Mike Eicher in his former role at The Ohio State University.

Justin’s view on leadership inspires me. We talk about how he has navigated his career path, ways he has created growth for himself, and how he has guided his team to step up in times of change. Justin encourages us to find the signal in the noise and inhabit the gap! We get to hear a bit about what Stony Brook’s “secret sauce” is and I encourage you to think about what it is at your home institution. Let’s get started.

 Please reach out and follow on @devebrief. Let me know if you decide to explore your secret sauce and if you found this episode helpful. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

As we wind down the summer, I wanted to share a bit about our CASE intern. We had the opportunity to hire someone to join our team and work on a project. This summer’s project was a data driven analysis. We hired a student who told us he was interested in human behavior and economics, and we thought that might be a fun combination. Special shout

Ben Outar is a rising sophomore at the University of Toronto, studying economics and psychology. At Toronto, he is a resident at Trinity College and an editor for Trinity’s newspaper. He hopes to study behavioral economics in the future, particularly its applications to data and human behavior. At Yale this summer, he has been working with the Parents Gifts team, specifically using data to analyze and provide insights into the Parents Leadership Council program.

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.

This week we talk about management and leadership. Elizabeth has developed training materials to help managers at all levels increase the performance and retention of their teams.

Elizabeth Keppel is the Senior Director of Annual Giving & Digital Strategy at Johns Hopkins University, where she leads a comprehensive, university-wide annual giving program. Prior to joining the Hopkins team in 2020, Elizabeth served in several roles at the University of Florida, most recently as the director of development for annual giving and strategic initiatives. In that role, she led UF’s leadership annual giving program which served as the organization's talent pipeline for major gift fundraisers. At the outset of her fundraising career, she worked as an assistant director on the advancement team at her alma mater, the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Elizabeth has a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Education in Higher Education Administration from William & Mary and a Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification.

This week we hear from Heather who just relocated to Houston, Texas for a new role as Executive Director, Annual Giving at Rice University. She talks to us about how we can get started using AI in our work and she suggests a few places to start. She equates learning new systems like training for a marathon--start small.

A few places to start include but are not limited to: Google Gemini, Microsoft co-pilot, learning how to write prompts, developing an awareness of bias within what AI creates, and large language models.

This week, we continue to drill down into the burning questions about AI and how it will change our work. What comes up again and again with Mark is, how do we work alongside this? Listen to discover the answer to that overarching question.

 Mark Koenig is the vice president for technology and chief

Mr. Koenig is the past chair of the Ellucian Advancement Executive Advisory Committee and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) District VIII.

In 2019, he received the Distinguished Service Award from CASE District VIII recognizing his many years of service to the organization and in 2018, he received the Ellucian ‘EllumiNation’ Community Award recognizing his dedication to infusing innovation throughout the advancement profession.

Mr. Koenig earned his bachelor’s in history and economics from the University of Houston and a master's in adult education and organizational capacity from OSU.

This week, Deb shares her perspective as a corporate and