The Development Debrief

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

This week we get some AI forecasting from Andrew Gossen. He reflects on how much technology has developed over the past six years, and shares predictions about ways our work will change and evolve. Andrew outlines the risks and rewards of keeping up with artificial intelligence and how we should think about the use of human time verses machine time.

Andrew Gossen is the executive director for communications, marketing, and participation in Cornell University's Division of Alumni Affairs and Development. He joined Cornell in 2010 to integrate emerging digital technologies – among them social media and crowdfunding – into the division's strategic plan. Previously, Gossen spent eight years at the Alumni Association of Princeton University in a number of diverse roles. His focus is using digital technologies and approaches to engagement to build audiences and mobilize them on behalf of a range of causes and organizations.

In addition to speaking frequently on this topic to domestic and international audiences, he has served CASE Commission on Alumni Relations, co-chaired the CASE Joint Commission Task Force on Social Media, and received a CASE Crystal Apple Award for Teaching Excellence in 2018. Gossen holds a bachelor's degree from Princeton and a

This week, I get the opportunity to talk with Stephanie Cook

Stephanie Cook brings over 20 years of experience to her work as a fundraising executive for the National Audubon Society—leading operations, donor services, and fundraising teams on behalf of the international conservation NGO.

Prior to joining Audubon, she led NYC-based regional advancement teams for Syracuse University and Villanova University, where she led teams of development professionals charged with building relationships with and securing philanthropic support from alumni, parents, and friends.

Her early career included service as a major gift officer for Columbia University and the Wildlife Conservation Society as well as in support of the fundraising efforts on behalf of the Central Park Conservancy. She is a native of Madison, Wisconsin and holds a BFA from the University of Kentucky in acting/theatre and an MS from Columbia University in fundraising and non-profit management.

Hello and welcome to Season 13! This season is different because ½ of the 8 episodes are going to be focused on AI. However, there are a few episodes that aren’t focused on AI including today’s. While understanding AI is important, we also need the EQ that occurs in between skilling up and one of those huge skills is navigating difficult conversations. As Jennifer says, contact and context before content! This episode is the pep talk you perhaps didn’t even know you needed. Jennifer empowers us to tackle our challenges head on, eliminate negative self talk,  and take care of ourselves throughout the process. We go through three real life examples and Jennifer talks through how she would handle them. These examples were submitted by real life listeners with their real life challenges.

Jennifer Zaslow is an Executive Coach who believes that harnessing your full potential begins with finding your voice. She began her professional life in New York as an aspiring opera singer, an experience that led to a twenty year career as a leader and senior fundraiser in the non-profit sector. 

Jennifer has worked with leaders and teams from a wide variety of sectors, including higher ed (Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, University of Pennsylvania), arts and culture (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The New York Public Library, The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, BAM, The High Line), sports/media/entertainment (The NFL, Sundance Institute, BuzzFeed, WNYC, KCRW) and tech/startups (Google, CHIEF, Angi, and TodayTix).

Prior to coaching, Jennifer held the chief development officer role at three New York City cultural institutions: Manhattan Theatre Club, New York City Opera, and The New York Public Library.  There, she successfully completed a $500 million capital campaign during the 2008 recession and grew the Library’s endowment to over $1 billion. 

Jennifer holds a B.A. cum laude from Wesleyan University and a CPCC coaching certification from CTI. She is certified in the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, is a Gallup Clifton Strengths Coach and is a recipient of Harvard Law School’s PON certificate in Mediation and Conflict Resolution. She is also Director of the Floria Lasky Institute for Arts Leadership, sponsored by The Jerome Robbins Foundation.  She lives and practices in New York City.

Resources:

1. Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury

2. Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen

3. Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, Emily Gregory

4. How to Work with Anyone (even difficult people) by Amy Gallo