Bloggers
Lori Hood Lawson
Lori is the Co-Founder and Chief Experience Officer of WorkingPhilanthropy.com. She previously served as Director of Strategic Solutions for Kintera P!N, where she managed a team serving more than 300 nonprofit organizations in identification of prospective donors via wealth screening. Prior to that role she was the Community Director of Prospect Information Network (P!N). Before joining P!N Lori was the Associate Director of Research for The Florida State University Foundation, where she received the Administrator of the Year Award and served on the New Employee Orientation Committee and The Committee for Acknowledgement and Recognition of Employee Excellence. Additionally, she is a member of the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement International (APRA) and has served on the board of the Florida chapter of APRA, most recently as President and Director-At-Large. Lori holds an MS from The Florida State University School of Information and a BA from Emory University.
David M. Lawson
David is the Co-Founder and Chief Futurist of WorkingPhilanthropy.com. He brings more than 25 years of experience in the art of finding and profiling America’s wealthy. In 1997, he founded Prospect Information Network (P!N) to provide prospect identification services and software to the nonprofit community. P!N was acquired by Kintera in 2004. David served as a Senior Vice President of Kintera until 2008. In the 1980s he founded The Information Prospector, a company that grew to employ more than 30 researchers and writers producing 300 in-depth profiles monthly. In 1988 David introduced Securities Prospector, the first asset screening service for the fundraising community. From 1993-97 David was a senior consultant at CDA/Investnet (now part of Thomson Financial), where he created their Real Estate MATCH product and designed the first dedicated wealth screening software application, FACT$ Viewer. David has authored numerous articles for publications such as The Chronicle of Philanthropy, The Nonprofit Times, CASE Currents, and APRA Connections. He is a contributing author to Major Donors: Finding Big Gifts in Your Database and Online and People to People Fundraising: Social Networking and Web 2.0 for Charities. David is a Member of APRA, AASP, a CASE Steuben Apple Award recipient and Co-Founder of The WOW Institute, a training organization for fundraisers and philanthropists.
Jay Goulart
Jay is the Executive Director of Advancement at Ridley College. He has moved to Canada after working in fundraising for over a decade in the US. Jay is known for building advancement models that are innovative, dynamic, fun and focused. His strategic and creative approaches have attracted international attention from all nonprofit segments in the areas of the ask, communication models and customized stewardship.
Among his various accomplishments, Jay is the architect of the Family of Funds annual fund concept that allows donors a choice for their philanthropy and one that has been embraced by many independent schools. He created new paths with stewardship and communication strategies, strategies that have been studied by hundreds of nonprofits including organizations such as Dartmouth and MIT. Additionally, Jay designed a nationally recognized Ask Training Program, which has been utilized to train professionals from the American Red Cross, McGill University, Lakefield College, Strathcons-Tweedsmuir, Harvard Business School, Williams College and Purdue University. Jay is a co-founder of the WOW Institute, a unique and innovative conference for development professionals, and is the first development professional nationally to publish a multimedia e-book on the Art of The Telephone Solicitation. Jay has the distinction of being one of two people to have received CASEs Crystal Apple Award for teaching excellence in less than 8 years in the development profession.
Lesley Pratt
Lesley has extensive experience working in nonprofits including early jobs at the American Red Cross NYC Chapter and Catholic Charities of Brooklyn. More recently, while at Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, she was deeply involved with the use of nationwide donor management systems that have integrated websites, e-communication, support for personal/team page fundraising and advocacy. In addition to nonprofit technology, Lesley has a background in hospital settings installing and maintaining clinical systems.
In her role as an educator, Lesley has worked for the University of Phoenix Online; has chaired conferences for the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE); and has volunteered at Reboot Philadelphia teaching adults computer skills. Lesley has a BA from Columbia University’s Barnard College; a Masters in Nonprofit Management from New School University; and a Masters in Information Technology from the Baruch Graduate School of Business, all in New York City.
Christina A. Pulawski
Christina is an independent consultant specializing in development research, prospect management and information flow for fundraising. Previously, she was Director of Development and Donor Services at Loyola University Chicago, overseeing the areas of research, prospect management, data management, systems, and stewardship. Prior to joining Loyola, she was Director of Development Research at Northwestern University from 1994-2003, which earned “top research shop” distinction under her direction. A Chicago native, Christina earned a BA in Political Science from Northwestern and a JD from the University of Illinois. She is admitted to practice in Illinois and practiced in the fields of real estate and litigation before taking the opportunity to explore development in 1991.
Christina completed a six-year term on the board of the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA), serving as Vice President for Education and Professional Development and Secretary-Treasurer. She chaired APRA’s International Conferences in 1999, 2001 and 2002, developed APRA’s Boot Camp and other symposia, and received the organization’s Distinguished Service Award in 2005. She has also served as President of APRA’s Illinois Chapter and is currently vice president of the Association of Advancement Services Professionals (AASP). She co-chaired AASP’s inaugural Summit, several CASE Development Research and Campaign Research conferences, earned CASE “faculty star” distinction several times, and has frequently published, presented, and consulted on the field of prospect research and advancement services for APRA, CASE, Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, AFP, other public and private organizations and nonprofit education and management programs.
David Robertson
David is Director of Operations Research at Syracuse University. He has been at SU for 7 years. His area of expertise is data mining and analytics with a strong interest in forecasting and predictive modeling. He has presented at APRA and CASE conferences throughout the US and Canada. David has a BS and MBA from Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY where he teaches statistics and business management strategy as an adjunct professor in the Business Department. He is currently a doctorial student in the Social Science Ph.D. Program within the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. David’s doctorial research focuses on the charitable giving and philanthropic activities of the underrepresented; specifically focusing on the philanthropic activities of disenfranchised or marginalized members of society. His research will bring to light the unrecognized and informal charitable contributions of these individuals. Currently his doctorial research examines New York State migrant farm workers and their charitable contributions within their temporary micro-communities as well as philanthropic activities that extend back to their ancestral homeland. He utilizes both qualitative and quantitative methods as well as visual ethnography.
Eric Siegel
Eric is the Director of Prospect Management and Research at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. With over 25 years of prospect management, research and identification experience, he has served in senior advancement services capacities at UCLA, UC San Diego, and Claremont Graduate University. He has also worked on the for-profit side of the nonprofit industry at JSI FundRaising Systems and Kintera. He is the author of chapters on prospect management and research for Michael J. Worth’s Educational Fund Raising and New Strategies for Educational Fund Raising.
