Keynotes and workshops for fundraisers and nonprofit leaders.
Anne Murphy brings 35 years in major gifts and campaign leadership to her speaking and workshops. She teaches fundraisers how to have better gift conversations and helps nonprofit leaders examine the practices that affect their teams. Her research on AI applies that experience to donor trust and the decisions organizations face as they adopt new tools.
Each one runs as a keynote, a workshop, or a session built for your team. Tell Kate the audience and she will tell you which format fits.
Fundraisers often feel pressure to say yes to people who have power over their jobs. Anne examines what happens when that pressure overrides professional judgment, including the extra effort a single promise can create for colleagues. Through fundraising scenarios, she shows how to communicate boundaries and respond to unreasonable requests, with attention to the unequal risks people face when they speak up.
The way we measure fundraising affects which activity gets done and whose contributions get recognized. Anne examines how portfolio assignments and unequal experiences with donors influence results. She helps leaders reconsider what their metrics reward and involve frontline fundraisers in setting expectations that lead to effective fundraising and equitable career advancement.
A useful gift conversation begins well before the meeting and continues through the follow-up. Anne teaches her approach to securing conversations, preparing everyone involved, and asking questions that help donors make decisions. The method extends across the portfolio, with AI applications for meeting preparation and contact reports that preserve what colleagues need to know next.
Individual experimentation with AI raises decisions for the whole organization. Anne helps nonprofit leaders consider how to guide adoption and protect stakeholder trust. The session examines the role of an AI council, who needs to participate in decisions, and how education informs policies people can use day to day.
Working with AI in fundraising and advocacy requires careful decisions about the information we collect and the relationships we depend on. Anne connects practical applications to those decisions, from research and outreach to donor engagement. Her Trust Moat concept gives the session a common purpose, with attention to personal AI policies and the difference between useful research and surveillance.
Fundraisers write in several voices, including their own and those of the leaders they represent. Anne teaches how to use writing samples to develop a voice profile and give AI the context it needs for a useful draft. Participants work through revisions while examining accuracy and consent in the stories they tell about people.
Planned giving involves long relationship histories and deeply personal decisions. Anne connects responsible AI use to preparing for donor conversations and understanding opportunities across a planned giving program. The teaching includes communication and the preparation of institutional leaders who join gift conversations, with experienced professional judgment guiding the use of donor information.
A productive partnership between an academic leader and a fundraiser takes deliberate preparation. Anne draws on her higher education experience to examine how new leaders enter their donor communities and how colleagues prepare them for gift conversations. She also addresses developing fundable priorities, with clear roles and a credible connection between institutional ambitions and donor interest.
A small gathering can give donors a closer connection to what an organization does, and give its leaders useful insight. Anne teaches the planning and facilitation of a salon series, from choosing the purpose and inviting guests to preparing the discussion. Follow-up turns what people shared into individual conversations and next steps.
For organizations preparing to lead their campaign in-house, Anne guides developing a plan they can run themselves. The process starts with readiness and a gift table informed by their own prospects. It continues through donor prioritization and board involvement, with preparation for solicitations and a launch plan that accounts for ongoing annual fundraising.
For fundraisers, advocates, organizers, and social-impact leaders who need to move people and money to advance a cause. Use AI to identify who can influence an issue, understand the relationships and motivations around them, prepare stronger outreach and asks, and stay on top of follow-through while keeping the human relationship central.
No one wants to talk about this, but we have to. Gift officers are finding it harder to secure donor visits and close gifts, and they are showing signs of burnout. Burnout means less staff engagement, weaker donor relationships, and declining results. This workshop rebuilds the reliable portfolio, and hands the busywork to tools built for it, so the conversation stays fully human.
Every section teaches the human move first, then the tool that handles the busywork. Participants run a working prompt against their own portfolio in the session, so the practice sticks.
Anne taught the original Donor Visits course to gift officers across higher education. This is the version with AI at the table.
Tell us about your audience and the session you have in mind. We will discuss the topic and format with you.
