Invitation-based fundraising
What if fundraising didn't feel like asking for money?
The Fundraising Co. is the home of invitation-based fundraising: a method, training, and tools for making invitations donors are free to accept, taught for your sector and your career stage.
8 sector tracks · 4 career stages · no email required to start
Generic training isn't working. Neither is pressure.
Sector data tells one story two ways: dollars up, donors down. Fewer people give each year, and the field responds by squeezing the donors who remain — harder asks, more urgency, one more matching deadline. Donors feel it and leave. Fundraisers feel it and leave faster; the revolving door on development jobs is measured in months, not careers.
And the training on offer? A church, a theater, and a hospital foundation don't raise money the same way — but they're all handed the same webinar.
Another way to do this work
What is invitation-based fundraising?
Invitation-based fundraising starts from one conviction: generosity should never feel forced. A genuine gift is voluntary — invited, not extracted. The Invitation Framework™ turns that conviction into a practice you can run donor by donor, conversation by conversation.
The framework is published in full, free, for anyone to read. What membership buys is the practice of it — for your sector, at your stage, with feedback on your real work.
Training you practice, not content you watch.
Learn it for your sector
Eight sector tracks across four career stages. The examples are your donors, not someone else’s.
Practice it on real work
Templates, scripts, and worksheets built for immediate use, with expert review of your actual appeals and plans.
Run it with Willingly™
The donor guidance workspace that walks the method with you: where each relationship stands, and when the invitation is ready.
Measure what matters
The free Retention Snapshot reads your sustainer churn from four numbers you already know. No sign-in.
Jane, you have spoken about helping parents feel less alone and more confident in passing on the faith. We are looking for three founding partners, and I would like to invite you to consider a gift of $25,000 to make that first year possible.
Built from her own words, captured two steps earlier.
Built for how your donors give.
An invitation lands differently in a parish than in a gallery. Every track teaches the same method in your sector's language — your donors, your calendar, your legal realities.
Faith-Based
Stewardship, offertory, and mission funding for churches, parishes, dioceses, and ministries.
Human Services
Fundraising for food banks, shelters, youth programs, and the organizations holding communities together.
K-12 Schools
Annual fund, auction, and capital work for independent, parochial, and charter schools.
Arts & Culture
Membership, patrons, and campaigns for museums, theaters, orchestras, and cultural organizations.
Healthcare
Grateful patient programs, hospital foundations, and health-system philanthropy.
Higher Ed
Advancement for colleges and universities, from annual fund calls to comprehensive campaigns.
International NGOs
Individual giving, institutional funders, and cross-border fundraising for global missions.
Environment
Member programs, campaigns, and major donors for environmental and advocacy organizations.
Free instrument · The Bridge
Changing sectors? Cross without starting over.
Most of the craft transfers; the language and donor psychology don't. Pick where you are and where you're going — The Bridge shows what carries over, what to re-learn, and how to sound like you belong.
The scoreboard
Measure the relationships you sustain, not just the gifts you secure.
We hold a minority opinion: the total you raised matters less than the relationships you built to raise it. Donors who stay. Fundraisers who stay. That's the scoreboard invitation-based fundraising plays to.
Overall donor retention was 43.3% in 2025 (AFP Fundraising Effectiveness Project). Price your own cold outreach →
Free instrument · no sign-in
See your own number first.
The Retention Snapshot estimates your sustainer churn and its recoverable share in about a minute, from four numbers you already know.
Launching with a cohort, not a content dump
Join the founding cohort.
The first 250 members lock the founding rate for as long as they stay, $290 a year, and go through the Invitation Framework together. Your results become the case studies this method gets judged by.
$290/yr
founding rate · locked for life of membership
Read it before you believe it.
The complete written editions of six modules are open to everyone, every lesson end to end. Template downloads open as each one clears review, and video editions are being produced for the founding launch. No account, no email, no time limit.
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- Free previewThank-Yous That Keep DonorsFoundations
- Free previewMetrics That Matter: Your Development DashboardPractitioner
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- Free previewSuccession, Consulting & Your Next ChapterExecutive
- Free previewEthical AI in Fundraising: Keeping the Donor FreePractitioner