Executive coaching: how a Director of Fundraising made a step change in her strategy

Anna, an experienced fundraiser, knew she needed to make a significant step change to her development strategy to raise critical funds for the continued running of the school. Not only did she need to develop and launch a brand new major fundraising campaign, but her strategy needed to be radically different from historical fundraising at the school.

The enormity of the task, and accompanying responsibility, was daunting and Anna had avoided what really needed to be done by tending to procrastinate. She felt stuck and could not see a way forward.

Through one-to-one development coaching, Anna explored her ideas and identified what steps she needed to take to make most difference. We also focused on how she could get started and stay on track.

In the space of just one meeting, Anna had:

• scoped the framework of a brand new development strategy
• pinpointed critical stakeholders she needed to engage
• identified three critical next steps to move her closer to her three year goals.

Crucially, I was able to help Anna understand what was really holding her back from getting started so that she left feeling confident about taking the next steps.