About This Resource
This session was part of the Spring 2026 Planning Effective Fundraising Strategies CE Week series
Series Overview
Contributed revenue is a key strategic growth lever for many social enterprises across the country. This Continuing Education Series focuses on effective fundraising strategies that help you maximize your effectiveness and prioritize your team effectively to support your impact goals. Across three workshops we cover how to develop repeatable, winning funding pitches, utilizing your existing development resources to accomplish your annual fundraising goal, and Identifying key hiring decisions for the expansion of your development team.
Session Description
Hiring decisions for a development team carry significant consequences. Should you hire a seasoned Director of Development or a less experienced Development Associate? And when your team is under pressure, how do you determine which role will actually relieve the strain and move your fundraising forward?
In this workshop, we will examine how to make strategic hiring decisions that strengthen your contributed revenue function. Using examples from several social enterprises at different stages of growth, we will review development team structures across a spectrum of revenue levels and organizational maturity.
By the end of the workshop, you will have greater confidence in identifying the position your team truly needs and in developing a job description that supports your organization’s next phase of growth.
Below is the session recording and accompanying materials
About Flying Whale Strategies
Hillary Frances has over twenty years experience working with nonprofit leaders. She is the Founder and CEO of Flying Whale Strategies, a boutique consulting firm working to launch a new wave of nonprofit leaders who design definitive solutions to age-old problems. She has supported over 125 national organizations and nearly 300 leaders as they clarified their fundraising strategy and operationalized their day-to-day practice.
She has worked for state government through the Colorado Refugee Services Program, and higher education as the Dean of Adult Education and the Language Learning Center at Emily Griffith Technical College where she was responsible for employment-focused education programs for over 2000 refugee and immigrant students per year. She is the co-founder of Prodigy Ventures, a non-profit social enterprise apprenticeship for young adults in Northeast Denver. She teaches as an Affiliate Faculty member of research methods at Metro State University.
These roles have built her reputation as a thoughtful and lean program designer and program evaluator. Hillary holds a Master’s degree in International and Intercultural Communication from the University of Denver.