Petrus Blog

By Andrew Robison,  President of Petrus Development 

This post is an excerpt from the Fundraising Focus series presented by the Catholic Campus Ministry Association (CCMA).

Many years ago, I was sitting in a donor meeting with my boss at the time, Greg Gorman, and a major benefactor for St. Mary’s Catholic Center at Texas A&M University. Pat and her husband had recently made a $50,000 gift to the Foundations in Faith capital campaign so this was a stewardship visit to bring her up to speed on the progress of the campaign. I remember Greg asked Pat a question, or maybe it was more of a statement to the effect of, “Pat, for you to make a gift of this size, you must have had a really wonderful experience at St. Mary’s when you were in school at A&M.”

Her response has stayed with me for many years and I still share it with development directors and chaplains today. Pat looked directly at Greg and said, “No, I really didn’t. I...

By Andrew Robison and Jamie Cappetta, President of Our Savior Parish and Caruso Catholic Center at the University of Southern California 

In the business world, setting goals, creating metrics and tracking progress is the name of the game if you want to succeed. Imagine if a Fortune 500 CEO was asked to discuss his or her goals for the upcoming fiscal year. What would the response be if they answered,

“We’ll probably sell more than we did last year. But I don’t really know how many we sold last year, so I can’t tell you how many we need to sell this year. And I don’t really know what we did that worked well this year, so I can’t tell you what we’re going to do better this year to sell more. And to be honest, why we did those things that I think worked well is a bit of a mystery to me, so I can’t tell you why we’re going to do those activities that I think helped us sell more.”

It sounds a bit ridiculous, and...

Jamie Cappetta, President of Our Savior Parish and Caruso Catholic Center at the University of Southern California

In this episode, Andrew visits with Jamie Cappetta, President of Our Savior Parish and USC Caruso Catholic Center. Jamie started his career as a street minister in South Boston but found his way into development thanks to an invitation from John Flynn, one of the co-founders of Petrus. In this episode, Andrew and Jamie discuss his career transitions, the great speaker series at Yale Catholic Center, his strong feelings about the importance of goals and metrics, the powerpacked board that he manages at the USC Caruso Catholic Center and much more.

Show Notes:

• Jamie started his career as a street minister in South Boston. After some time discerning the priesthood, Jamie went to work at the Catholic Center at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst as the director of development. Jamie was later recruited to the Yale Catholic Center and then the Caruso...

Frank Shannon, Executive Director of Development at St. Mary’s Catholic Center at Texas A&M University 

In this episode, Andrew visits with Frank Shannon, Executive Director of Development at St. Mary’s Catholic Center at Texas A&M University. Frank and Andrew covered a variety of topics, including Frank’s career before St. Mary’s, how he transitioned from 25 years in higher ed to a Catholic ministry and how the current campaign at St. Mary’s is going.

Show Notes:

• Frank’s first job out of college was as a loan officer for the Stephenville Savings and Loan but left the S&L business to became a development officer at Texas A&M after a call from Bob Walker, Vice President for Development at the Texas A&M Foundation.
• Frank’s training at Texas A&M mostly came from going on donor calls with Bob Walker and other senior development officers. It was during a meeting with Pat Zachry, long-time donor for A&M,...

Mike Perkins, President and CEO of Heroic Media 

In this episode, Andrew visits with Mike Perkins, President and CEO of Heroic Media about his career, what he has learned about fundraising and ministry along the way and how he came into his current role with Heroic Media.

Show Notes:

• Mike began his career as a youth minister but was asked to help with fundraising projects along the way. When he was discerning how to support his growing family and remain in ministry, he received two invitations in the same day to consider working as a development officer.
• Mike considers that his passion for ministry and his ability to articulate the needs and opportunities well were characteristics that other people saw in him and made them think he would succeed.
• People sometimes equate philanthropy and sales but Mike believes they are very different. He never “pitches” prospective donors on giving to an organization, but he presents opportunities to support. Mike...

By Tara Doyon, Director of Stewardship and Development at St. Paul Catholic Newman Center and Parish at Indiana University and Fr. Patrick Hyde, OP Campus Minister

When I tell people about my job, the response is almost always a bemused look followed by the statement, “I could never ask people for money.” Awkward as it is, this provides a wonderful opportunity to tell the person that fundraising for the Church is not about asking people for money. Rather, it is about forming relationships and sharing a mission, a vital mission.  I love my job.  I love connecting people to projects. I love sharing a vision with a community working hard to realize a goal. I love talking about my own faith and my duty in building the Kingdom of God.  As a byproduct of these relationships and collaborative projects, I help to find the resources to make hopes and dreams come true.  By no means is it without challenges or roadblocks, but nothing worthwhile ever is.

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The following is from the Petrus Annual Manual Weekly Emails. Visit the Annual Manual page to learn more about the Petrus Annual Manual.

Development is a demanding job, and it can be emotionally taxing.

Successful fundraising requires you to put yourself out there in a vulnerable way. If you are doing development right you are likely to find yourself in some uncomfortable or awkward situations. Fundraising also inherently requires some level of failure. No matter how you approach it, some percentage of your mailing list will ask to be removed each year. A percentage of people whom you ask for money will say “no” immediately, sometimes rudely. Some people may even start avoiding you, thinking that you are simply out to shake them down for money.

Most, if not all people who embark in development efforts experience moments of discouragement because of this.

However long that you have served in a development role now, you have dealt with some of these experiences. On top of...

How can a development committee increase the effectiveness of your development office?

What is a development committee, and how does it function?

Recently Petrus Development President Andrew Robison was on site with Steve Nache from Lumen Christi Institute in Chicago. They had the opportunity to discuss the success of the Lumen Christi Institute’s development committee on Facebook Live (available below), and they explained how other organizations can begin their own development committee and put it to work to increase fundraising effectiveness.

Some of the questions answered in the video include:

• How does the development committee work at the Lumen Christi Institute?
• What is the primary function of a development committee?
• How often does Lumen Christi Institute’s committee meet, and what does a typical meeting look like?
• Who should be on the committee?
• How did Lumen Christi Institute’s development committee help them to turn a $500 gift into a $5,000 gift?

CLICK...

Petrus Development is pleased to announce that Megan Dillon recently joined the Petrus team as our newest Consultant. In addition to her work with Petrus, Megan is also Director of Advancement and Communications for the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder. In her role as a Petrus Consultant, Megan will work with ministries to help them expand their ministry programs through investing in building sustainable development programs.

The President of Petrus, Andrew Robison, is very excited to have Megan joining the team. “I have known Megan for many years and have always been impressed with her. She is a fearless fundraiser and I believe that comes from her intense desire to grow the ministry and evangelization efforts to the Catholic students of the University of Colorado.”

Prior to her role at the Catholic Center, Megan worked in the Washington, D.C. area as the Director of Media Relations at the National Right to Life Committee and...

As the practice of fundraising has evolved and become more professionalized and complex, many new terms have been created or repurposed that people unfamiliar with fundraising may not understand. For this reason, the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) developed a complete glossary of terms to help individuals become more comfortable “talking the talk” of development. In this Annual Manual Guide, we have gathered the most common terms from that glossary (and added a few of others) to help anyone new to development understand the lingo.

The complete list of terms can be found at http://www.afpnet.org/files/contentdocuments/afpfundraisingdictionary.pdf

acknowledgment Written expression of gratitude for gift or service.

acquisition mailing (or prospect mailing) A mailing to prospects to acquire new members or donors.

advisory board A group of influential and prominent individuals whose association with a development program is calculated to lend luster and...