Fully Funding Your Aggressive Strategic Plan: A Case Study with Jenny Dale at MAIA
Nonprofit CEOs: what happens when your board approves an aggressive new strategic plan, and the budget to actually fund it doesn't exist yet? That was MAIA's starting point a year ago. MAIA is an international organization led by Indigenous women, focused on education and leadership opportunities for Indigenous girls and young women in Guatemala, with a nearly 90-person staff based entirely in Guatemala. Jenny Dale is MAIA's sole US-based development team member, and she didn't set out to become a fundraiser. The deep connection she felt to the mission pulled her into the role anyway. Over the past year, Jenny and her team shifted how they approach their top donors, built out intentional donor journeys instead of one-size-fits-all asks, and got comfortable asking for what MAIA actually needs rather than what felt safe. The result: MAIA closed their fiscal year having raised $2.7M, launched their first endowment with multi-six-figure gifts already secured, and are heading into an even more ambitious year, with their board fully bought in. What You Will Discover: ✔️ Why MAIA's team stopped asking "what can we raise" and started asking "what do we actually need," a shift that helped them close the year at $2.7M against a bigger, more honest target ✔️ Why there's rarely a one-size-fits-all approach with top donors, and how MAIA's donor communication tracker keeps every touchpoint intentional instead of generic ✔️ How reframing the ask as an invitation, not a transaction, helped MAIA secure multi-six-figure gifts to launch their endowment ✔️ Why building a global donor pipeline, from Guatemala to Europe, starts with relationships and introductions long before it shows up as revenue ✔️ How giving board members a concrete, specific ask ("who are the one or two people in your network who'd want to be part of this?") turned hesitant board members into confident connectors —————————————— Jenny Dale is U.S. Executive Country Director at MAIA, an organization led by Indigenous women that maximizes and amplifies the transformative power of women to create a society of equity and opportunity. MAIA works alongside Indigenous girls and young women in Guatemala through education and leadership opportunities so they can create transformational change in their lives, communities, and the world. Jenny leads fundraising and U.S. operations, working closely with donors, the board of directors, and MAIA's leadership team. She began her career as an immigrant rights organizer in Chicago, then spent nearly a decade in Guatemala working across education, gender equity, and nonprofit leadership. For over 15 years, the central thread running through her work has been building bridges between philanthropy and local leadership. Jenny lives in Chicago with her husband and two children. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Sociology and Latin American Studies from Grinnell College. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-dale-b56a64106/ Website: https://www.maiaimpact.org/ ---- Welcome to the Business Behind Fundraising podcast, where you’ll discover how to raise the kind of money your big vision requires without adding more events, appeals, or grant applications. Learn how to stop blocking overall revenue growth and start attracting investment-level donors with Sherry Quam Taylor. Sherry Quam Taylor’s unique approach and success combine her background of scaling businesses with her decade-long experience advising nonprofit leadership teams. With out-of-the-box principles and a myth-busting methodology, proven results, and an ability to see solutions to revenue problems that others overlook, her clients regularly add 7-figures of revenue to their bottom line.
