From Bankruptcy to Billions: Fundraising the Naomi Levine Way

We are challenged today as never before, and we need connection and transformative thinking to keep us all moving forward.  In response to this, on April 1st, I launched a series of podcasts on my LinkedIn Live, Twitter and Periscope platforms, through which I aim to inspire, connect with and activate viewers to help them create the transformation they seek in their organization and/or in their professional and/or personal life. Addressing a global audience, I am also incorporating content that is relevant to various geographies.

As part of that series, on Wednesday, April 15th at 9:00AM PDT / 12:00PM EDT / 5PM GMT, I will be presenting and commenting on an exclusive talk given by my mentor Naomi B. Levine, the renowned fundraising leader, former Senior Vice President at New York University (where she raised $2.5 Billion over 25 years) and the founder and former Executive Director of the NYU Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising, where she hired me to teach over 10 years ago. 

I am presenting Mrs. Levine’s talk in tribute to her on the occasion of her 97th birthday. In the talk (based on the book From Bankruptcy to Billions: Fundraising the Naomi Levine Way, that she published at the age of 96), she recounts some of her own remarkable story – of a mid-career transition to fundraising that she undertook at a time of great financial hardship for NYU, and of the transformation of the University’s fortunes that she helped to facilitate through her prodigious talent as a fundraiser. Her story and her practical rules of fundraising offer lessons from which we can all – individuals and both large and small organizations – benefit at this time when the world has shifted under our feet and we must take extraordinary steps to transform ourselves and our organizations.

In the talk, she shares her 16 rules for successful fundraising, including:

• everyone in an organization bears some responsibility for fundraising;
• an effective Board Chairman is essential for fundraising success;
• fundraisers must be interesting human beings;
• it is necessary to study and understand what motivates your donors to give;
• expressing the uniqueness of your organization is a key fundraising skill;
• understand whom and how to ask; and
• fundraisers need to know the law and be sensitive to ethical issues

Mrs. Levine’s insights are exceptionally valuable in these times. Please join me on Wednesday April 15th at 9:00AM PDT / 12:00PM EDT / 5PM GMT in the feeds of my LinkedIn Live, Twitter and Periscope platforms, where they will automatically play when you click on my profile any time during the broadcast.

Looking forward to having you join me! Please feel free to send me questions in advance.

Here are are other talks I have hosted that may be of interest to you and/or your colleagues:

• Bernard Ross (in the UK), Director of =mc about Decision Science For Effective Supporter, Donor and Customer Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond
• Barbara Talisman, CFRE, Executive Director of College of Southern Nevada Foundation about the importance of leadership, agility and the ability to pivot quickly - during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond.

Be well!

Elizabeth (Liz) Ngonzi, MMH ‘98

Founder / CEO, Liz Ngonzi Transforms

eCornell Course Instructor, Cornell University

Adjunct Faculty, New York University Center for Global Affairs 

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