Join us for the Virtuous User Summit

August 19-21, 2025

📣 Responsive Nonprofit Summit • Free + Virtual 🎉

June 4-5, 2025

Practical Strategies. Real Results. Free to Attend.

The Responsive Nonprofit Summit June 4-5, 2025

Responsive Nonprofit Summit • Free + Virtual

March 11-12, 2026

Respond '26 (User Summit)

May 27-29, 2026

Already a Virtuous customer? Our Professional Services help with Data and Report Clean-Up, Custom Training, Consulting and Giving Page Optimization.

Contents

[Podcast] Martin Leifield On What Makes A Tremendous Fundraiser

 

Martin Leifield joins us to share his insights and experience, while also highlighting the characteristics of an effective fundraiser and the GCC methodology that helps you cultivate deeper donor relationships.

Martin would sit in his car rehearsing his ask with sweaty palms praying he wouldn’t get another rejection. Determined to master his craft he learned the power of embracing discomfort and through powerful human behavior techniques was able to raise over $500 Million for 3 organizations!  

Martin served as vice chancellor for university advancement at the University of Missouri–St. Louis for ten years. While there, he led a dramatic increase in fundraising, averaging $26.4 million per year. 

Prior to joining UMSL, Martin was associate vice president or university development at Saint Louis University where he led his team raising $158 million in 3 years.

Raising money became his #1 passion, and Martin has since been able to distill the art of fundraising into core fundamental principles and a clear formula that anyone can learn.

author avatar
Virtuous Team

What you should do now

Below are three ways we can help you begin your journey to building more personalized fundraising with responsive technology.

See the Virtuous platform in action.  Schedule a call with our team for personalized answers and expert advice on transforming your nonprofit with donor management software.

Download our free Responsive Maturity Model and learn the 5 steps to more personalized donor experiences.

If you know another nonprofit pro who’d enjoy reading this page, share it with them via Email, Linkedin, Twitter, or Facebook.

The Responsive Maturity Model
5 Steps to More Personalized Donor Experiences
Get Responsive Fundraising Tips
Get updates delivered directly to your inbox.

Summarize with AI

Building Diversified Revenue Streams for Nonprofit Growth with Audrey Cooper

Building Diversified Revenue Streams for Nonprofit Growth with Audrey Cooper

TL;DR Diversifying nonprofit revenue starts with a mindset shift, not a new channel. The work takes leadership buy-in, real trade-offs, and room for the team to try things that might…
What is a Good Donor Retention Rate for 2026?

What is a Good Donor Retention Rate for 2026?

TL;DR The donor retention rate measures how many donors from last year gave again this year, and the sector average sits at 54.73% in 2026. Top-performing nonprofits retain nearly 7…
How to Build a Fundraising Dashboard Your Board Actually Trusts (In 6 Steps)

How to Build a Fundraising Dashboard Your Board Actually Trusts (In 6 Steps)

TL;DR Most nonprofits don’t have a data problem. They have an infrastructure problem. AIM went from scattered spreadsheets to a real-time executive dashboard in six to eight weeks. They used…

Grow generosity with Virtuous

Virtuous is the responsive fundraising software platform proven to help nonprofit organizations increase generosity by serving all donors personally, no matter their gift size.

“Virtuous truly understands nonprofits and the importance of our mission. And their open access to data and built-in custom reports gave us access to the data we need.”
Todd Shinabarger​
Chief Information Officer