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PARTNER ADVISORY
Helping external partners compete, win, and deliver more effectively in advancement.
I work with a small number of partners who want to win more advancement work and stop missing in subtle but costly ways. This includes agencies, production firms, technology providers, campaign and fundraising consultants, boutique service firms, and select independent advisors.
At its core, this work connects back to growth: winning the right opportunities, building more credible offers, making your value clearer to clients, and avoiding gaps that keep strong firms from being fully trusted.
While most of my work sits in higher education, the same dynamics often apply in nonprofit contexts where fundraising, communications, and institutional trust intersect.
Some partners are already doing donor and alumni work but still being evaluated like outsiders. Others are trying to grow into the space more intentionally but don't yet have a clear read on how to do it credibly.
Leaders on both sides—institutions and external partners—keep coming to me with questions that don’t have an obvious home. The language varies, but the point is usually the same: “I’m asking you because I’m not sure who else I’d even ask.”
Advancement doesn't operate like brand or enrollment. Partners who assume it does usually find out too late.
This rarely looks like obvious failure. It's usually something more frustrating:
Being almost right.
Close, but not selected.
Brought in, but not fully trusted.
Valued for execution, but still outside the real strategy conversation.
Where I tend to be most helpful is in closing that gap—sharpening positioning and aligning your work with how advancement leaders and teams think, evaluate, and decide.
The Gap Partners Miss
Not because of talent or creativity, but because they're still signaling "general marketing partner" in a context where advancement leaders are evaluating against a fundamentally different set of pressures:
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philanthropic revenue
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donor behavior
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campaign dynamics
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internal politics and optics
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institutional capacity
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reputational risk
That disconnect rarely gets called out directly. The outcomes usually tell the story.
You lose quietly.
Or you win—but at a lower level than you should be playing.
Who This Is For
This tends to resonate with partners who:
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are already in higher education but know advancement is a different system
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are getting into rooms with advancement leaders and want to hold their own strategically
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are trying to move from capable vendor to trusted partner
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see advancement as a real growth opportunity—not just adjacent revenue
If you're looking for extra hands, quick feedback, general marketing support, casual brainstorming, or informal referrals, this probably isn't the right fit.
This work is about strengthening how you're understood, trusted, and ultimately chosen in advancement.
Four Ways I Typically Plug In
1
Opportunity / Positioning Support
Working on active or upcoming opportunities where how you're understood matters as much as what you present—especially when the deal is competitive, the stakes are high, and generic marketing language won't hold up under advancement scrutiny.
This may include tightening a pitch narrative, strengthening RFP language, or reshaping how your team is positioned for a major opportunity. The goal isn't to polish the pitch. It's to change how you're evaluated.
2
Work + Positioning Diagnostic
Reviewing proposals, offer language, product positioning, sales materials, or recent client work—and talking to the people behind it—to identify:
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where the work is landing
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where it's being misread
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where the value is underdeveloped
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where clients or competitors may already be seeing gaps
This is often where the most useful insights surface. Not because the work is weak, but because strong thinking can still be interpreted differently than intended.
3
Advancement Expansion Strategy
Helping partners with strengths in enrollment, brand, video, communications, technology, or adjacent areas expand into advancement with more precision.
Not as an add-on. Not as a translation exercise. Not as "we already serve higher ed, so we can serve advancement."
But as a deliberate move into a space that will expose weak assumptions quickly.
What to offer. How to position it. Who needs to hear it. What proof is missing. And what not to do.
This isn't a quick read on your materials. It starts with understanding your business, your team, and where you've been before mapping a credible path forward.
4
Strategic Advisory
In some cases, partners bring me in as a strategic advisor when added advancement credibility, perspective, and judgement can strengthen the work. That may happen behind the scenes or, when appropriate, as part of a visible advisory role in a proposal, pitch, or client conversation.
This can include:
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participating in select prospect or client conversations
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contributing to RFP responses or pitch narratives
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advising on offer structure, buyer logic, and positioning
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being named as part of the strategic team behind the work
For the right firm, this can also extend into a more formal advisory relationship tied to growth strategy, positioning, and advancement-facing business development.
The value isn't just in the input. It's how that perspective sharpens the work—and what it signals.
What This Work Often Produces
Depending on the engagement, the work may result in clearer offer architecture, sharper pitch language, stronger buyer logic, refined service packaging, advancement-facing messaging, market-entry recommendations, or a practical path for testing an idea with the right audiences.
How I Work
I'm not an executional extension of your team. I work at the layer where positioning, alignment, and institutional understanding determine whether your capabilities and work land as strategic—or get treated as capable but replaceable support.
In most cases, I'm working directly with senior leaders and small teams on specific opportunities or focused areas where the outcomes matter—the difference between growth and stagnation, or worse, being consistently close but not chosen.
I'm also clear about what sits inside the work. Introductions, pitch participation, visible advisory support, or ongoing business development support can be valuable but they need to be scoped intentionally.
From the Other Side of the Table
I've been on the other side of this—evaluating partners, sitting in campaign discussions, and seeing where strong work gets discounted, misunderstood, or left outside the real decision-making.
I continue to operate in that seat, working with institutions as they assess partners, shape campaign strategies, and make high-stakes decisions.
Before moving into consulting, I spent eight years inside a major university advancement division, leading enterprise-wide marketing and communications that helped define and drive a comprehensive campaign and broader institutional priorities. Prior to that, I spent over a decade in competitive, entrepreneurial agency environments, working across brand, marketing, and higher education clients.
That combination—deep agency experience plus in-house advancement leadership—is rare. It’s also why I see risks, gaps, and high-value opportunities that others miss.
A Note on Availability
I keep this work intentionally limited. It works best when the fit is right, the stakes are clear, and there's a real opportunity worth solving. I'm also deliberate about where and how I engage. I typically don't work with competing partners in the same category or space at the same time, and I don't share confidential client or partner information across engagements. It keeps the work transparent, focused, and aligned.
