Show Notes
In this episode of The First Day from The Fund Raising School, Bill Stanczykiewicz, Ed.D., welcomes back Phil Purcell, Director of Planned Giving for the Central Territory of The Salvation Army, a veteran faculty member at The Fund Raising School, and nationally recognized expert on planned giving, nonprofit law, and charitable organizations. Phil joins the conversation fresh from leadership roles with the American Bar Association’s charitable giving and organizations work, where he helps advance legal understanding across the nonprofit sector. Together, Bill and Phil tackle a topic that gets plenty of conference-room chatter but not always enough action: nonprofit collaboration, partnerships, and mergers. As Bill notes, everyone loves to say, “Those organizations should work together,” but actually making it happen can feel like trying to assemble IKEA furniture during a thunderstorm.
The conversation begins with why nonprofits pursue partnerships or mergers in the first place. Phil explains that financial pressure is often one driver, especially when an organization has strong programs but a fragile bottom line. Grassroots organizations may also seek fiscal sponsorships or other partnerships because they have mission energy but not yet the fundraising base to sustain themselves. Other collaborations emerge from strategic opportunity, such as organizations with different strengths coming together to address a complex community challenge, or 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) organizations coordinating around advocacy and public policy. Bill adds that donors can be powerful catalysts, sometimes asking why two organizations serving similar missions, neighborhoods, or populations are operating separately when a combined effort might produce greater impact.
Bill and Phil then move into the human side of mergers, where the spreadsheets meet the feelings, and sometimes the feelings bring snacks and a lawyer. Phil emphasizes that while boards ultimately decide whether a merger or partnership moves forward, the idea may come from staff, board members, volunteers, thought leaders, or major donors. Still, staff may understandably feel anxious about redundancy, job security, and organizational change. Phil stresses that mission alignment and culture must be addressed before the legal documents arrive on the scene wearing sensible shoes. Work styles, leadership expectations, office norms, governance habits, and organizational identity all matter. Outside consultants can help by conducting interviews, assessing cultural fit, facilitating strategic conversations, and helping leaders determine whether the whole really can become greater than the sum of its parts.
The episode closes with Phil outlining the legal and structural issues nonprofits must consider once collaboration becomes serious. He advises organizations to start by understanding exactly who they are legally: their true legal name, articles of incorporation, bylaws, tax-exempt status, state and federal standing, and any unusual provisions that may have been forgotten in the filing cabinet of history. From there, a merger may require a plan of merger, articles of merger, decisions about which entity survives, and attention to state law differences. Phil also explains alternatives to full mergers, including fiscal sponsorships and supporting organization structures, each with its own responsibilities, agreements, and governance questions. Above all, he reminds listeners not to overlook donor intent, restricted gifts, leadership structure, and stakeholder trust. The takeaway is clear: nonprofit collaboration is complicated, emotional, legal, financial, and cultural; but when it strengthens mission, it can be well worth the work.
More from First Day Podcast
In this episode of The First Day from The Fund Raising School, Bill Stanczykiewicz, Ed.D., is joined by Christy Coulter, MA, CFRM, CEO of Apex Legacy Consulting and a faculty member at The Fund Raising School, to discuss the growing importance of planned gift fundraising. Once viewed as a complicated area that many nonprofits were reluctant to pursue, planned giving is attracting renewed interest as organizations consider the opportunities associated with the great wealth transfer. Coulter explains that an estimated $120 trillion in wealth could change hands over the next 20 to 30 years, much of it held in non-cash assets. As nonprofit leaders recognize the potential of these gifts, fundraisers must demonstrate how planned giving can strengthen long-term sustainability without compromising immediate fundraising priorities.
In this episode of The First Day from The Fund Raising School, Bill Stanczykiewicz, Ed.D., is joined by Jasmin Johnson, executive director and founding staff member of the Baton Rouge Area Youth Network, to discuss fundraising for intermediary organizations. Unlike nonprofits that provide direct services, intermediaries strengthen the organizations doing that work through coordination, partnerships, and capacity building. Johnson explains how the Baton Rouge Area Youth Network, known as BRAYN, began as a volunteer-led network of out-of-school-time programs and expanded to connect educators, health care providers, mental health organizations, and other youth-serving partners. Its four pillars, connect, strengthen, align, and sustain, frame a distinctive fundraising challenge: helping donors understand the value of an organization whose impact happens through the work of others.
In this episode of The First Day from The Fund Raising School, Bill Stanczykiewicz, Ed.D., is joined by Carla Knorowski, Ph.D., a veteran fundraiser and advancement leader whose work has included institutions such as The Henry Ford, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, and the U.S.-based foundation supporting Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Knorowski shares how she became involved with fundraising for Notre-Dame shortly before the devastating April 2019 fire and how the crisis transformed an effort originally focused on long-term support into an urgent global campaign to save, restore, and rebuild one of the world’s most recognizable landmarks. The experience offers fundraisers a vivid example of how powerful storytelling can connect donors to a mission, even when they may live thousands of miles away from the organization or cause.
In this episode of The First Day from The Fund Raising School, Bill Stanczykiewicz, Ed.D., is joined by Angela Seaworth, Ph.D., MBA, ACFRE, Instructional Associate Professor at the Bush School of Government & Public Service, Texas A&M University, to explore how fundraisers can move beyond annual and major gifts toward transformational giving. Seaworth explains that a transformational gift is not defined by a particular dollar amount. While headlines may focus on gifts of $20 million, $50 million, or more; a $250,000 gift, or even a much smaller investment, can be transformational if it changes an organization’s trajectory, expands its capacity, or makes exponential impact possible. The key is for each nonprofit to define transformational giving in the context of its own mission, scale, and ambitions.
In this episode of The First Day from The Fund Raising School, Bill Stanczykiewicz, Ed.D., is joined by Jeff Grandy, Vice President of Client Development at Catapult Fundraising, to discuss why every nonprofit should be thinking seriously about legacy giving, and why the best planned gift prospects may already be hiding in plain sight. Grandy explains that while surprise million-dollar bequests make headlines, they are not the typical story. More often, legacy donors are ordinary, deeply committed supporters whose long-term loyalty to an organization matters far more than the size of their annual gifts.