The Fundraising Counsel Relationship: A Guide for Nonprofit Leaders
Table of Contents
What Fundraising Counsel Does — and What It Cannot Do (Section 1 of 10)
The Academic Foundation: Rosso, Tempel, and the Lilly School (Section 2 of 10)
Understanding Your Options: A Taxonomy of Counsel Types (Section 3 of 10)
Why Percentage-Based Fees Are Prohibited — and What That Means for You (Section 4 of 10)
How to Find and Select Fundraising Counsel: Five Essential Questions (Section 5 of 10)
What Fundraising Counsel Costs — and How to Budget for It (Section 6 of 10)
How AI and Technology Are Changing Counsel Practice (Section 7 of 10)
Virtual and Hybrid Counsel: What Has Changed and What Has Not (Section 8 of 10)
The Early Phase of Engagement: What to Expect and When (Section 9 of 10)
How to Get the Most From the Relationship (Section 10 of 10)
Executive Summary
Engaging fundraising counsel is one of the most consequential strategic decisions a nonprofit organization makes. Done well, it raises significantly more money, builds lasting donor relationships, and develops organizational capacity that outlasts the engagement itself. Done poorly — or not done at all when it should be — it leaves money and mission on the table.
The 2024 Capital Campaign Benchmark Study found that nonprofits that hired a capital campaign consultant raised 20 to 40 percent more funds on average than those that managed campaigns internally, and the success rate of capital campaigns reached 96 percent in 2024. These are not marginal gains. They represent the difference between a campaign that transforms an organization and one that exhausts it.
This white paper is grounded in the foundational scholarship of Henry A. Rosso and Eugene R. Tempel at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, informed by current sector data, and drawn from thirty years of practice with nonprofits of every size and sector. It covers what counsel is and is not, how to find qualified firms, how to understand your options, what questions to ask before signing a contract, what the early months of an engagement look like, how AI is reshaping the work, and how to be the kind of client that gets the most from the relationship.
Section 1 of 10 — What Fundraising Counsel Does — and What It Cannot Do
"Fund raising is at its best when it strives to match the needs of the not-for-profit organization with the contributor's need and desire to give. The practice of gift seeking is justified when it exalts the contributor, not the gift seeker." — Henry A. Rosso, A Philosophy of Fund Raising, in Achieving Excellence in Fund Raising
Hank Rosso defined fundraising as "the gentle art of teaching the joy of giving" — perhaps the most quoted sentence in the literature of the profession. It is also the most important framing for understanding what fundraising counsel does and why it matters.
Counsel is not hired to do your fundraising. No reputable firm will accept that assignment, and no client that offers it understands the process. Counsel is hired to teach — to bring the strategic discipline, the institutional knowledge, the external perspective, and the sustained accountability that transforms a well-intentioned development program into one that reliably produces the resources the mission requires.
The evidence for why this matters is substantial and current. According to the 2024 Capital Campaign Benchmark Study, nonprofits that engaged a capital campaign consultant raised 20 to 40 percent more funds on average than those that managed campaigns internally, and in 2024 the success rate of capital campaigns — defined as achieving or exceeding the original goal — reached 96 percent, up from 94 percent in 2023. These figures reflect a sector that has learned, often through painful experience, that the complexity of a major campaign exceeds what internal staff can manage while simultaneously running daily operations.
The case for counsel extends beyond capital campaigns. Organizations engaging counsel for annual fund development, major gifts programs, planned giving initiatives, and development audits consistently report deeper donor engagement, more systematic cultivation, and stronger organizational capacity than those that rely on internal staff alone. The relationship between an organization and its fundraising counsel, when properly structured, is among the most productive investments a board can authorize — and understanding that relationship begins with the scholarly tradition that gave the profession its intellectual foundation.
Section 2 of 10 — The Academic Foundation: Rosso, Tempel, and the Lilly School
No serious treatment of fundraising counsel can proceed without grounding itself in the scholarly tradition that gave the profession its intellectual backbone. That tradition has a name, a place, and two figures who above all others shaped it.
Henry A. Rosso and the Birth of a Profession
Henry A. "Hank" Rosso (1917–1999) was the founding director of The Fund Raising School, which he established in 1974 and which later became the cornerstone of what is now the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy — the world's first school devoted entirely to the study and teaching of philanthropy. Before building that academic infrastructure, Rosso was a senior vice president of G.A. Brakeley and Company, one of the country's leading fundraising consulting firms. He crossed both worlds deliberately, and that crossing is the biographical embodiment of this white paper's central argument: rigorous scholarship and practical counsel are not separate disciplines but two expressions of the same commitment to the mission.
Rosso's foundational text, Achieving Excellence in Fund Raising — first published in 1991 and now in its fourth edition, co-edited by Eugene Tempel, Timothy Seiler, and Dwight Burlingame — remains the most widely taught book in the field. Its central contribution was to establish fundraising as a strategic management discipline, not a collection of techniques, and to articulate the philosophical principle that has since anchored the profession's ethical standards: fundraising is justified when it serves the donor's needs as fully as the organization's, and when the process exalts the contributor rather than the gift seeker.
For nonprofit leaders considering fundraising counsel, Rosso's philosophy has a direct practical implication: the right counsel does not merely help you raise money but helps you build the donor relationships through which giving becomes genuinely joyful — on both sides of the transaction.
Eugene R. Tempel and the Lilly School
Eugene R. Tempel, Founding Dean Emeritus of the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and Professor of Philanthropic Studies, is Rosso's intellectual heir and the architect of the academic institution that has done more than any other to professionalize fundraising practice globally. Under his leadership, the Lilly School established the Giving USA Annual Report on Philanthropy as a rigorous academic product — beginning with the 2001 edition, the Lilly School's research department has been retained to research, analyze, and write the definitive annual report on charitable giving in the United States.
Tempel's contribution to the question of counsel is rooted in his insistence on ethical grounding as the prerequisite for effective practice. As he has put it: "I emphasize the importance of staying grounded — not just becoming a technician of sorts in management or fundraising. Staying grounded in ethical principles about what you do, asking yourself constantly: why you're doing things, what motivates you, what your passions are, and working to your passions." That standard applies equally to organizations selecting counsel: the right firm is not the one with the most impressive client list but the one whose values align with yours and whose methodology reflects a genuine commitment to the philanthropic process.
The Lilly School as Resource
The Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy is the sector's premier academic resource on giving and fundraising practice. Its Fund Raising School offers professional development programs, certificates, and courses representing the evidence-based standard for fundraising practice. Its research — including the annual Fundraising Effectiveness Project data, the Bank of America Study of Philanthropy, and the Philanthropy Panel Study — provides the empirical foundation on which strategic counsel is built. Organizations engaging fundraising counsel should be working with professionals conversant with this body of research, and any counsel that is not is working from intuition rather than evidence. With that foundation established, the next step is understanding the full range of counsel available.
Section 3 of 10 — Understanding Your Options: A Taxonomy of Counsel Types
The landscape of fundraising counsel is considerably richer than a simple firm-versus-freelancer distinction, and selecting the right type of engagement requires understanding the full spectrum of available options.
Full-Service National Consulting Firms
The largest and most established firms — among them CCS Fundraising, Graham-Pelton, BWF, Alexander Haas, and Marts & Lundy — offer comprehensive counsel across all aspects of major campaign strategy: feasibility studies, case development, principal and major gift strategy, board coaching, and full campaign management. These firms serve primarily hospitals, universities, large cultural institutions, and national nonprofits with annual budgets above $10 million. Their depth of bench — multiple senior consultants working a single engagement — provides a breadth of expertise that smaller firms cannot match. Their limitation is cost, and the occasional disconnect between the senior executive who makes the sales presentation and the associate who runs the day-to-day work. When interviewing a national firm, insist on meeting everyone on the team before signing a contract.
Boutique Consulting Firms
Smaller firms — typically three to fifteen professionals — offer a different value proposition: direct, sustained involvement by the named principals whose reputations are on the line with every engagement. Boutique firms are often the strongest choice for organizations with budgets between $2 million and $15 million that need genuine senior attention rather than supervised junior staff. Their principal limitation is capacity: if a boutique firm's partners are overextended, the quality of attention falls quickly, and the early conversations about team availability should be direct.
Independent Consultants
Solo practitioners represent the most common engagement for small and mid-size nonprofits. When the fit is right — a seasoned practitioner with deep sector-specific experience and genuine chemistry with your leadership — an independent consultant delivers exceptional value at lower cost than any firm. When the fit is wrong, or when the consultant lacks depth in a specific area, there is no team to compensate. Interview at minimum three references from organizations of comparable size and mission before engaging.
Fractional Development Directors
A newer model of particular relevance to growing organizations is the fractional development director: a senior fundraising professional who serves multiple clients on a part-time basis, providing CDO-level expertise without CDO-level overhead. This model is particularly well-suited to organizations with budgets between $500,000 and $2 million that need major gifts experience and development infrastructure but cannot yet sustain a full-time Chief Development Officer. The fractional model has grown significantly since 2020 and represents one of the most practical paths for organizations at this stage.
Resident and Outposted Counsel
Resident counsel refers to a consultant who works on-site at the organization rather than consulting from a distance. The model originated with younger fundraisers relocating to client cities, but it has been largely superseded by hybrid arrangements in which a senior consultant maintains a part-time physical presence combined with intensive remote engagement. The substance of the work — strategic oversight, staff coaching, donor cultivation support, board engagement — is unchanged; the logistics have modernized, as Section 8 addresses in detail.
With these options in view, the ethical framework governing all of them deserves careful examination before any selection decision is made.
Section 4 of 10 — Why Percentage-Based Fees Are Prohibited — and What That Means for You
The prohibition on percentage-based compensation is one of the most important and most frequently misunderstood principles in the field. It is not a preference or a tradition but a codified ethical standard, enforceable by the profession's governing body.
AFP Standard 21 of the Association of Fundraising Professionals Code of Ethical Standards — as revised by the AFP Board of Directors in December 2023 and now fully enforceable — states: "Members shall not accept compensation or enter into a contract that is based on a percentage of contributions; nor shall members accept finder's fees or contingent fees." The full code is available at afpglobal.org/ethics/code-ethical-standards.
Three distinct reasons ground this prohibition.
Ethics. Percentage-based compensation creates an inherent conflict of interest between the counsel's financial incentive and the donor's philanthropic interests. A consultant paid on commission has an incentive to close gifts regardless of whether the timing, the amount, or the specific designation reflects the donor's best interests. Rosso's principle — that gift seeking is justified only when it exalts the contributor — is incompatible with a fee structure that rewards extraction over relationship.
The Client's Best Interest. Organizations hiring fundraising counsel on a percentage basis frequently misunderstand what they are purchasing. A major campaign requires the active, committed involvement of the board of directors, senior staff, community volunteers, and professional fundraisers working in genuine partnership. When counsel is compensated by percentage, volunteers disengage — the implicit message becomes "the consultant is paid to do this, not us." Beyond the motivation problem, percentage fees routinely lead clients to pay far more than necessary. A well-managed campaign with total fundraising costs between 5 and 15 percent of goal — the standard established by AFP and the Giving Institute — will almost always cost significantly more on a percentage basis in a successful campaign.
Long-Term View. Fundraising counsel engaged on a flat-fee basis is free to focus on what matters: the long-term health of the donor relationship, the development of staff capacity, and the cultivation of the philanthropic community around the organization. The flat-fee structure aligns counsel's incentives with the organization's genuine long-term interests rather than the size of the next gift. Development staff learn and grow through a properly structured counsel engagement, and that professional development is an organizational asset that compounds long after the engagement concludes.
Section 5 of 10 — How to Find and Select Fundraising Counsel: Five Essential Questions
Where to Look
For organizations engaging counsel for the first time, the search process is unfamiliar and the stakes feel high. That is normal, and the sector has built reliable infrastructure to help.
The most practical starting points are: the AFP chapter consultant directory, available through your local AFP chapter and at afpglobal.org; the Giving Institute (givinginstitute.org), whose member firms have committed to ethical practice standards and represent the most established names in the field; peer referrals from executive directors and development directors at comparable organizations, which consistently produce the highest-quality leads; and the Fund Raising School's alumni network at the Lilly Family School, which connects organizations with credentialed practitioners. For organizations in a specific sector — healthcare, education, faith-based, arts — sector-specific associations often maintain their own counsel referral resources.
Interview a minimum of three firms or consultants before making a selection. The five questions below apply to any engagement, regardless of organization size or counsel type.
Question 1: Has this firm worked with organizations of our size, sector, and stage — and can we speak with three references that match our profile?
Experience at peer institutions is the single most predictive indicator of effectiveness. A firm with a strong record in hospital campaigns may have limited relevant experience for a $1.5 million community arts organization. Ask for references specifically from organizations within 30 percent of your annual budget, in your sector, and at a comparable stage of development. When you call those references, ask: Did the counsel deliver what was promised? How did they handle the moments when the campaign hit a wall? Would you hire them again?
Question 2: Who will actually do our work — and can we meet them before signing?
The executive who makes the sales presentation and the associate who runs the day-to-day engagement are frequently different people. Before signing any contract, meet the full team assigned to your account. Evaluate their experience, communication style, and the chemistry between them and your leadership. Campaign work is intimate and sometimes difficult, and the relationship has to work at the human level.
Question 3: What is the firm's track record on feasibility study accuracy?
A firm that recommends campaigns that consistently hit or exceed their feasibility study projections is a firm doing honest work. Ask specifically: of the feasibility studies conducted in the past three years, what percentage led to campaigns that achieved their goal? The answer is revealing.
Question 4: How does the firm measure success beyond dollars raised?
Staff development, board engagement, donor relationship depth, pipeline growth, and organizational capacity are all legitimate metrics of a successful engagement. A firm that measures success exclusively by dollars raised is missing what Rosso called the "fund raising cycle" — the ongoing process through which an organization and its donor community grow together over time.
Question 5: What is the firm's current approach to data analytics and technology?
Understanding how a firm uses prospect research tools, donor segmentation, and data modeling is a reasonable part of due diligence. Most established firms are integrating these capabilities at varying levels of sophistication, and a brief conversation about their approach — without expecting any single answer — gives useful insight into how they work. This is one question among five, not a pass/fail threshold.
Section 6 of 10 — What Fundraising Counsel Costs — and How to Budget for It
Most fundraising consulting firms charge a flat monthly retainer, set at the outset of the engagement, that reflects the scope of services, the seniority of the team, and the duration of the project. The retainer continues until both parties agree the engagement is complete.
The Cost Range
The figures below reflect practitioner experience and general market practice, informed by AFP benchmarking guidelines and Giving Institute published standards; specific retainer amounts vary considerably based on geography, firm size, and engagement scope.
For small and mid-size organizations — annual budgets of $500,000 to $5 million — monthly retainers for campaign counsel typically range from $3,000 to $8,000 for boutique firm or independent consultant engagements. Larger organizations engaging national firms will pay $10,000 to $40,000 per month or more at the full-service level. Fractional development director arrangements, which blend counsel and staffing, typically range from $2,000 to $5,000 per month depending on hours committed.
As a percentage of campaign goal, the professional standard for total fundraising costs — including all counsel fees, printing, events, and collateral — is between 5 and 15 percent, as established by AFP and the Giving Institute. The percentage decreases as campaign size increases: a $500,000 campaign might legitimately carry 12 to 15 percent in costs, while a $10 million campaign should aim for 5 to 8 percent. In a successful campaign — one that raises more than the original goal — the relative cost percentage decreases further, and volunteer motivation and engagement typically increase.
The Campaign Budget
Every campaign should have a comprehensive budget developed at the outset of the engagement. For capital projects, this budget includes architectural and engineering costs, equipment, furniture, and systems — expenses entirely separate from fundraising costs. The counsel fee is one line item among others alongside printing, events, part-time staffing, and donor recognition.
The most important budget principle, and the one most frequently overlooked by first-time campaign organizations, is this: the campaign goal should include the development costs so that the organization is made whole at the end. An organization with a $5 million construction need and $400,000 in projected fundraising costs should set a $5.4 million campaign goal, not a $5 million goal with the expectation of covering costs from unrestricted operating funds. Counsel should offer to draft the campaign budget at the start of the contract so that a realistic projection is established before commitments are made.
Large campaigns run 36 to 60 months on average, and budgeting counsel fees across the full timeline requires a realistic assessment of both organizational capacity and donor cultivation timelines. With costs understood, the next dimension worth examining is how technology is reshaping what counsel actually does.
Section 7 of 10 — How AI and Technology Are Changing Counsel Practice
Fundraising counsel in 2025 operates in an environment that Rosso could not have imagined in 1991, and the most significant change is the emergence of artificial intelligence as a practical tool at multiple points in the campaign process.
The statistics establish both the opportunity and the challenge. Thirty percent of nonprofits report that AI has boosted fundraising revenue in the past 12 months. Eighty-two percent of fundraisers are comfortable using AI for donor research, while 63 percent remain uncertain about using generative AI for donor communications. Seventy percent of nonprofits believe AI can help reduce workload and improve communications, but 60 percent say they lack in-house expertise to assess available tools, and only 4 percent have AI-specific training budgets.
This gap — between the potential of AI and the sector's capacity to evaluate and deploy it — is an area where experienced fundraising counsel can add practical value.
Where AI Adds Value in Campaign Counsel
Prospect research and scoring. Tools like DonorSearch Ai deploy machine learning against giving history, wealth indicators, and philanthropic affinity markers to produce composite scores measuring a prospect's likelihood of making a major gift to a specific organization — a meaningful advance over traditional wealth screening, which measures capacity but not affinity.
Campaign readiness assessment. AI-assisted modeling can help assess whether a donor pipeline can sustain a campaign of a given size and duration before a feasibility study is even commissioned, allowing organizations to enter the feasibility process with clearer expectations.
Donor segmentation and cultivation sequencing. Data modeling can identify which annual fund donors show behavioral signals of major gift potential, which lapsed donors are most likely to reactivate, and where cultivation attention will be most productive.
Generative AI for communications. CCS Fundraising's 2025 position paper on AI in fundraising examines how generative AI can assist in drafting cultivation materials and stewardship communications — while noting that the human voice and authentic donor relationship must remain primary.
When speaking with prospective counsel, it is reasonable to ask how they use data and technology tools in their practice. Most established firms have some answer to this question, and the quality and specificity of the response gives useful information about how the firm works. This is a helpful area of inquiry, not a litmus test. With technology addressed, the question of how and where counsel is delivered deserves direct attention.
Section 8 of 10 — Virtual and Hybrid Counsel: What Has Changed and What Has Not
The description of resident counsel as someone who "moves to your city" reflects a model that, while still occasionally appropriate for the largest campaigns, is no longer the norm. The pandemic normalized virtual and hybrid consulting arrangements across every professional service sector, and fundraising counsel is no exception.
The evidence suggests that outcomes are comparable between in-person and well-structured hybrid engagements. What matters is the quality of communication, the frequency of structured contact, and the clarity of accountabilities on both sides — not physical proximity.
What Should Remain In-Person
Some moments in a campaign engagement benefit from physical presence. Major donor cultivation visits — particularly the first significant meeting with a high-capacity prospect — benefit from in-person connection in ways that video cannot replicate. Board presentations seeking authorization for a major campaign, or reporting feasibility study findings, typically land with more force in a room than on a screen. Campaign kickoff events, where collective energy is the product, are in-person by nature.
What Works Well Remotely
Strategy sessions, writing and editing of campaign materials, prospect research reviews, staff coaching and training, weekly accountability check-ins, and regular reporting all function effectively in virtual formats. The discipline of a structured agenda, a consistent meeting cadence, and clear written follow-through between meetings is what makes virtual counsel work — and that discipline belongs in any counsel contract regardless of delivery format.
A Typical Hybrid Engagement
A well-structured hybrid engagement for a mid-size organization might involve a senior consultant on-site one or two days per month for cultivation visits, board meetings, and staff sessions, combined with weekly video check-ins, on-call availability for urgent questions, and shared digital access to all campaign materials and prospect databases. The monthly on-site presence is sufficient to build institutional trust and maintain momentum; the virtual work between visits keeps strategy current and accountability intact. With the delivery model understood, the next practical question is what happens at the start of the engagement.
Section 9 of 10 — The Early Phase of Engagement: What to Expect and When
The early weeks and months of a counsel engagement set the tone for everything that follows. Organizations that understand what this period involves — and come prepared for it — consistently find the relationship more productive than those that expect immediate fundraising activity.
The early phase is fundamentally a discovery and diagnostic period, and its pace will vary considerably depending on organizational size, staff capacity, and the availability of board members and key volunteers for interviews. A lean organization with a part-time development staff should expect the full discovery process to take three to four months before a campaign structure is genuinely in place; a larger, more complex organization may take longer still. What follows describes the phases in sequence, not as a countdown.
The Discovery Phase
Counsel will request access to the donor database, recent audited financial statements, the current strategic plan, any existing development plans, and the results of previous fundraising efforts. Interviews with senior staff, the board chair, the development committee chair, and key board members will be scheduled and should be treated as genuine strategic conversations, not administrative formalities. Counsel will review the case for support, assess the donor pipeline, and evaluate the organization's readiness for the campaign or program being contemplated.
A good counsel is a candid counsel. The findings of the discovery phase will include weaknesses as well as strengths, and organizations that are prepared to hear an honest assessment — rather than a validation of what they hoped to hear — will get far more from this phase.
The Assessment
Good counsel produces a written assessment at the end of the discovery phase. This document describes the organization's current fundraising capacity, identifies the gaps between that capacity and campaign readiness, and makes specific recommendations for the pre-campaign work required. It is not a campaign plan but a diagnosis — and its value depends entirely on the honesty of the practitioner and the willingness of the leadership to receive it.
The Board Presentation
Counsel should present the assessment findings to the board — or at minimum to the development committee — before the formal campaign structure is established. This presentation builds the shared understanding of where the organization stands, what the effort will require, and what the board's specific role will be. Boards that engage with this presentation seriously become genuine campaign partners; boards that receive it as a formality remain the most common cause of campaign underperformance.
The Accountability Calendar
One of the most practical and often overlooked benefits of engaging outside counsel is the accountability calendar: the shared schedule of meetings, deliverables, cultivation contacts, and milestones that governs the engagement going forward. This structure imposes a discipline on the development program that internal staff, managing competing priorities, cannot sustain alone. The calendar should be reviewed at every meeting, and departures from it should be treated as signals worth examining rather than administrative inconveniences. With the early phase complete, the final question is how to be the kind of client that gets the full return on this investment.
Section 10 of 10 — How to Get the Most From the Relationship
Tempel's standard — staying grounded in ethical principles, checking yourself constantly, working to your passions — applies as much to clients of counsel as to the practitioners they engage. The organizations that get the most from a counsel relationship are the ones that bring genuine commitment, honest self-assessment, and the willingness to hear difficult truths.
The clients that get the least are the ones that hire counsel as a validation mechanism — having already decided what they want to do, and looking for an expert to confirm it. They resist recommendations that require board behavior to change. They skip meetings when the calendar gets full. They invoke "the culture of our organization" to explain why established best practices do not apply to them.
Good fundraising consultants have heard every shortcut possible, have been presented with every left-field idea that can derail a campaign plan, and have learned to be candid — in the client's best interest — when the path being taken is leading away from the goal. Clients who learn to welcome that candor, rather than resist it, consistently raise more money and build better organizations.
The best consulting contract is a genuine partnership. It requires active involvement from board and staff, not passive receipt of professional services. It requires that internal tasks be accomplished on schedule — because even the best counsel cannot move forward efficiently when organizational follow-through is missing. And it requires the discipline to attend the strategy sessions, follow the accountability calendar, and implement the recommendations even when they are uncomfortable.
This is what Rosso meant when he described fundraising as a developmental process: it unfolds gradually, requires sustained commitment, and produces results that compound over time. Counsel accelerates that process and deepens its quality — but only when the organization brings the same commitment to the partnership that it asks of the professionals it engages.
The voice of counsel exists to be heard. Organizations that listen to it raise more, build deeper donor relationships, and develop the internal capacity to sustain those gains long after the engagement ends.
A Note on Use
This white paper is offered freely for educational purposes. Please share it with executive directors, development staff, board members, and organizational leaders who may find it useful — provided the author's byline remains intact: By Laurence A. Pagnoni, MPA. Reproduction in publications, training programs, or institutional materials requires attribution. To request permission or discuss reprint rights, please reach out through the contact page.
What has your experience been with fundraising counsel — what worked, what did not, and what would you tell a first-time client? Share your thoughts in the comments section of the website.
