The CDO Operating System
Leading philanthropy at the institutional level: CEO partnership, cross-functional influence, and the systems that scale past you.
Through the Arts & Culture lens
Many cultural organizations run two chief executives, an artistic director and an executive director, so the CDO's "CEO's effectiveness as chief fundraiser" accountability often has to be built with both, and the operating agreement's decision-rights section has to name which one owns programmatic naming conversations. Patron relationships built around a single beloved artistic director are a continuity risk the risk map should name plainly, since that relationship rarely survives their departure on its own.
Continuing education
1.25 points
Leadership and Management
Learning objectives
- State the four accountabilities of the CDO seat, the institution's philanthropic strategy, the CEO's effectiveness as chief fundraiser, the pipeline as an institutional asset, and the culture that makes fundraising possible, and name what the seat keeps and what it releases.
- Draft a one- to two-page CEO-CDO operating agreement that caps the CEO's portfolio at 10 to 20 relationships, sets the time contract, the brief-and-debrief choreography, and decision rights, and writes in the candor clause and the renegotiation triggers.
- Lead through directors by working one level down and never two, running weekly one-to-ones, a monthly leadership hour, and quarterly skip-levels, and developing each director toward a named next step with board-facing exposure.
- Write a six- to ten-page philanthropy strategy memo for the CEO and board that covers where philanthropy stands, the decade's ambition and revenue mix, the campaign calendar, priced capacity investments, the risk map, and the asks.
Designed for CFRE continuing education. Not yet accepted; no CFRE points can be claimed.
Lessons
- 23 min
Video lesson
The CDO's real job
I Pause · Leadership and Management
- 20 min
Template· DOCX
The CEO-CDO operating agreement
VII Multiply · Leadership and Management
- 18 min
Field guide· PDF
Leading through your directors
VII Multiply · Leadership and Management
- 25 min
Template· DOCX
The philanthropy strategy memo
III Discern · Leadership and Management
This is members-only material.
Members get every lesson, template, and worksheet in all eight tracks, plus the support to put them to work in your shop.
More in this stage
Capital Campaigns
Campaign Strategy: Feasibility to Celebration
The full arc of a modern campaign: feasibility, goal-setting, phases, communications, and the ending that sets up the next one.
Fundamentals & Ethics
Culture of Philanthropy: Leading Across the Organization
When program staff, finance, and the front desk understand their role in fundraising, the work gets easier. Building that culture is executive work.
Planned Giving
Endowment & Legacy Strategy
Permanence as a product: building, marketing, and governing endowment, plus the blended gifts that fund it.