The Partner
Guillermo Arribas is a fundraising consultant with experience supporting directors, executives, and board members with major gifts solicitations and comprehensive campaign management. He develops outreach, engagement, and sustainability within the education, nonprofit, and charitable sectors. Over $25 million in charitable donations and pledges across 8 nonprofits has honed his skills with prospect research and identification and campaign feasibility assessment and stress testing. His strength lies in his ability to identify donor engagement patterns to guide institutional strategy and simplify complex and long-term objectives.
The Philosophy
Nurture relationships and streamline engagements.
Fundraising is a complex but rewarding venture. There are many ways to confront fundraising: corporate donations, fiscal sponsorship, grassroots fundraising, grants, the list goes on. Yet, regardless of the approach there will always be a relationship that must be cultivated and maintained. Donations are a symbol of support toward a shared vision or aspiration. Finding like minded individuals and organizations with the desire and capacity to provide support, while maintaining consistent funding for your organization, presents a constant challenge.
A well known aphorism in fundraising is “your last donor is your best donor.” For many institutions this results in an overreliance on a few irreplaceable sources of funding. This doesn’t have to be the case; organizations can widen their engagement, meet each donors unique needs, and cultivate diversified channels of funding that will sustain the shared aspirations of all involved. This highlights the foundation of our approach: nurture relationship and streamline engagements.
The Approach
Our focus is getting your organization to sustain tried and true fundraising practices
Circular Donor Pipeline
We assess your pool of potential funding sources and place them along a pipeline of engagement to create a comprehensive overview of bottlenecks, priorities, and opportunities. We use this pipeline ensure the adequate generation of leads, the development of the overall prospective funding pool, and thoughtful stewardship and priming of donors to start the process anew.
Comprehensive Oversight
We look closely into your engagements and records up to and into your next fundraising campaign. From an accurate picture of recent giving, unique preferences, event participation, and beyond, we work with you to modify your record keeping to support your fundraising efforts. With access to highly detailed and accessible donor engagement, your institution can make more informed decisions along every stage of the engagement.
Community Consensus
We work with your leadership and stakeholders to define a clear statement of intent that will guide engagement. We prepare materials that provide potential donors a transparent, reassuring, and detailed understanding of your organizations aspirations and the steps in place to realize them. This ensures everyone involved agrees how the funds will be utilized.
Scrutinized Prospects
We look into your prospective donors and beyond through third party software and in depth research to identify the sources of funding, or the individuals, most critical to your current needs. We prepare complete donor profiles that guide engagement, strategy, and solicitations. This ensures each relationship is personalized to the values, capacity, and preferences of each donor.
The Fees
The hourly consulting rate is €150. The cost for services is based on the complexity of the assignment. Most contracts are personalized to the project and will clearly outline the total but the following cases give a sense of the pricing structure for the most typical client needs.
| Project | Individual Donor Research | Major Solicitation Preparation |
|---|---|---|
| Engagement | Passive | Active |
| Turnaround | 1-3 days | 1 week |
| Purpose | Confirm, or determine, a realistic target for upcoming solicitation | Ensure all steps are taken to increase the probability of a crucial solicitation |
| Deliverables | Individual Donor profile | Family donor profile One-on-One coaching Meeting script |
| Fee | €200 | €1.500 |
| Project | Feasibility Study | Campaign Management |
|---|---|---|
| Engagement | Passive | Active |
| Turnaround | 2 months | >2 months |
| Purpose | Comprehensive review of prospect pool to determine capacity or stress test fundraising target. | Offload management of fundraising to G.A. Consulting so you can focus on the work. |
| Deliverables | 200 prospects screened At least 10 profiles with recommendations Summary of research including highlights on 50 top prospects | All services mentioned plus Team support and training Oversight of database Reporting to stakeholders |
| Fee | €10.000 | €12.000 per month |
FAQs
What tools do you use for donor research? Is my client data safe? How invasive is the process?
All services will be run through trusted third party software (iWave, DonorSearch, WealthEngine, etc) which are the industry standard. All services can be run through the client’s own accounts to further guarantee their data safety standards are met.
Prospect search engines use accessible public records to create a detailed summary of capacity. While each search engine uses proprietary algorithms to estimate capacity, our services will rely solely on the compilation of primary sources that provide the most secure assessment of the prospect’s philanthropic capacity.
Do you work on site? Are you available to meet with donors?
All services are provided off site. Remote donor meetings are available upon request. On site visits paid for by the client are available with consultation.
Do you subcontract any of your services?
No. All services can be carried out by G.A. Consulting alone. The use of third party software, though recommended, is optional. Any subcontracting to outside consultants will be agreed upon in advance.
How are payments arranged?
Payments can be made by bank transfer in any major currency. All rates will be converted from Euro at the time the invoice is submitted.
Are you insured?
Yes. G.A. Consulting is fully insured for errors and omissions and has a comprehensive global $1,000,000 financial liability policy.
Do you specialize in any sectors?
Yes. Our services are applicable to all fundraising needs across any sector, however our experience is greatest in the education, health, and human services sector.
Do you support organizations with grant writing, grassroots, corporate, or other forms of fundraising?
Yes. Although we focus on major gifts solicitations and campaign management through individual donors, our services have proved equally useful for organizations fundraising through any and all channels.