EPISODE 123
Episode 123 of Tales From the Trenches Tuesdays again features Amanda Smith, a professional that has spent 20 years in the trenches of advancement services and strategic data management. She holds both an MBA and an MPA, and currently serves as Executive Director at Lehigh Valley Health Network, where she’s done things like grow a donor pool by 1,455% in three years. She’s been recognized in the Association of Healthcare Philanthropies 40 Under 40, and she brings the kind of hard-won, practical wisdom that makes you rethink how you approach the work. I was thrilled to have her on Tales from the Trenches.
One of the things Amanda and I talked about that stuck with me was board giving. She described a campaign she ran at Poplar Forest — Thomas Jefferson’s retreat home in Virginia — where the goal was 100% board participation. The approach wasn’t to slap a minimum gift amount on people and call it a day. Instead, it was education first. Help board members understand why their giving matters. Why it signals something to the broader donor community. Why showing up financially is part of the responsibility they said yes to when they joined the board.
That principle extended into our conversation about donor stewardship. Amanda made the point that too many fundraisers assume they know what donors want — the thank-you call, the impact report, the handwritten note — without ever actually asking. Bespoke stewardship, as I’d call it, means meeting donors where they are. Some want everything. Some want their privacy. Neither is wrong. But you don’t know until you have the conversation.
Nobody wants to go back to a donor and say we screwed up. But if we take them along the journey with us, we can quickly pivot it around and actually benefit the organization.
Noble Failure
We also got into something that makes a lot of fundraisers nervous: what happens when a program fails? A donor gives you $50,000 to do A, B, and C — and B and C don’t work. Amanda’s take was refreshingly direct. You bring them along the journey. You share progress updates along the way so there are no surprises. And when things don’t land, you reframe it: you learned together, and now you have the opportunity to partner on something even more impactful. That’s not spin. That’s stewardship done right.
The takeaway from my conversation with Amanda is simple but worth saying out loud: fundraising isn’t a transaction. It’s a relationship. And the organizations that treat it that way — investing in cultivation, communicating honestly, and thinking beyond the dollar goal — are the ones that build something that lasts.
Just click on the picture of Amanda below to hear our conversation.
L’chaim,
jack
