My Unforgettable Journey at IFC 2023:Transforming Growth, Deep Connections, and Powerful Insights10 November 2023I have to say that the IFC puts the Fun in fundraising! I am thrilled to share with you my incredible experience at the International Fundraising Congress...

Writing With a Loss for Words 19 October 2023 Jackie Hryncewich is a Senior Consultant at The Athena Advisors. Here she writes honestly about the feeling of being at a loss for words in the face of world events, and the importance of human kindness. When I began to...

To Read or Not to Read: The Importance of Literature in Advocating for Social Justice 08 September 2023 Laetitia Pancrazi is the Executive Vice President of The Athena Advisors. Here, in honour of International Literacy Day 2023, she considers the power of written...

Strength In Numbers Women in Philanthropy 05 September 2023 Lucy Hart-Yeomans is the Director of Client Services at The Athena Advisors. Here, she considers the richness and power of being part of The Conduit’s Women in Philanthropy group, a group The Athena Advisors...

Reflecting on The Athena Advisors’ Racing Upwards Fellowship 14 August 2023 The Athena Advisors’ Racing Upward Fellowship is a six-month fellowship with the purpose of offering educational opportunities to a professional who is interested in increasing his or her...

How I Became Data Driven with a Change of Heart 25 May 2023 Jackie Hryncewich is a Senior Consultant at The Athena Advisors. Here she explores the transformation of her relationship with data and the importance of stats-knowledge to the fundraising profession. Data...

How a Master of Science, Nonprofit Management, Candidate Made Her Way to The Athena Advisors' Racing Upwards Fellowship 21 APRIL 2022Lori Nsimpasi, 2023 Racing Upwards Fellow, talks us through what brought her to the fellowship and what she hopes to gain from her...

How a Lesson in Giving, a Mothers’ Beautiful Heart, and a Mosquito Led a Mosquito Control Specialist to the Racing Upwards Fellowship at The Athena Advisors 06 April 2023 As children we all aspired to grow up to be like the superheroes in our favourite comic books. In...

How Publish or Perish in Academia Perpetuates Inequality 28 March 2023Mira Philips is a Senior Consultant at The Athena Advisors. Her primary responsibilities include conducting prospect research and enhancing clients’ donor stewardship efforts and board performance....

The New Face of CSR: How Technology is Revolutionising Corporate Social Responsibility and How Nonprofits Can Benefit 20 March 2023Pauline Kwasniak is a Polish-born, Irish-raised digital marketer and business founder. She has been on the list of Ireland's 30...

HAPPINESS 06 March 2023 Since 2000, Peggy Moore has been owner and principal of Moore Executive Coaching and Consulting. Peggy partners with executives, teams, and boards at large global companies, multi-generational family businesses and everything in between to...

Building a Community of Black Giving 15 February 2023 Patricia Hamzahee is an advisor, impact investor and philanthropist. After almost 20 years in banking and finance, Patricia now helps social enterprises attract private capital through her company Integriti Capital...

Indian Philanthropy – A Personal Journey 24 JANUARY 2023 Sara Kalim is a Fellow and Director of Development, Somerville College, at the University of Oxford. She studied Classics at Somerville at a time when the college was still all-female. She spent seventeen years...

Lessons From Being on A Board – The Nonprofit and For-Profit Kind05JANUARY 2023Miles Webber is a Senior Partner at Baytree (since 2020). Miles is a trustee of the UJIA and the Institute for Jewish Policy Research. He is Co-President of Inspirasia, Board Director of...

Reading for Social Justice08DECEMBER 2022Books of 2022, by The Athena Advisors team Last year, we ran our first round up of team recommendations for our top reads for 2021. It had great traction, so we find ourselves here again, and this time, with more...

The Privilege of Making Space: A Few Thoughts on Race  1DECEMBER 2022Robin Heller, PresidentPicture the scene: A young social worker a few years out from receiving her master’s degree, interviewing at one of the world’s most prestigious children’s hospitals. The...

Putting the Human in Human Rights: 16 NOVEMBER 2022Senior Consultant at The Athena Advisors, Diana Angeret, considers some of the challenges of dealing with international law and the need for emotional education for law and human rights practitioners to better serve...

A Better Blend: Strengthening Philanthropic Research & Practice 01NOVEMBER 2022Michele Fugiel Gartner, PhD, CAP®, is a philanthropic advisor for individuals, couples, and family foundations. She specialises in advisory for women and next generation clients. She is...

5 INCLUSIVE STEPS TO IMPROVE YOUR SEO AND AUDIENCE REACH17OCTOBER 2022Michelle Bergsma is a Canadian expat living in the Netherlands, she supports nonprofits in bridging the gap between marketing and fundraising. She specializes in digital marketing, graphic design,...

Big Ideas, Greek Mythology and Pasteis De Nata Financial Times Weekend Festival 2022 29SEPTEMBER 2022On September 7, 2022, The Athena Advisors team returned to Kenwood House for the Financial Times Weekend festival. We were thrilled to be back for the second year with...

Learning to be Better at Doing Good: Reflections on The Racing Upwards Fellowship15SEPTEMBER 2022Back in April, 2022 Racing Upwards Fellows, Diana Angeret and Emma Orefuwa, talked us through what brought them to the fellowship and what they hoped to gain from their...

Poetry for Social Justice Tapping the Authentic Well – For Yourself and Others01SEPTEMBER 2022Caroline Langston Jarboe is the Director of Development at the Constitutional Accountability Center. She has an MFA from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program....

Respecting Grantees Maximizes Impact 18 AUGUST 2022 Natalie Grandison is the Director of Engineering Initiatives for the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation and a former Racing Upwards Fellow at The Athena Advisors. Here she makes the case for why, in...

Desert Island Desk Where shall I work from today? 04AUGUST 2022Zoe Galea is the Executive Assistant to the President of The Athena Advisors, Robin Heller. Zoe is the Founder of ZCG Consulting LTD and you can find her on Instagram and Facebook: @zoecgalea and LinkedIn....

How Many Enslaved Adults and Children Do You Have Working For You? 01AUGUST 2022Racing Upwards fellow, Diana Angeret is a lawyer by trade in the areas of human rights, gender, and corporate law. In this blog, Diana reflects upon the opaque supply chains...

A Lesson in the True Meaning of Stronger/Together28JULY 2022Shayna Horwitz is the Development and Communications Director for the Human Trafficking Legal Center in Washington D.C., where our President, Robin Heller is a member of the advisory board. They're...

Are we still hanging onto old new ways? 07JULY 2022 A recent Gartner report cites that following the recognised eras of manual labour, followed by the industrial revolution and then the more recent digital revolution, we are now entering “the biggest experiment in the...

Is Your Mind as Fit as Your Body? 10 JUNE 2022 Achieving and maintaining physical fitness is hard, vital to a good life, and everyone talks about it. Mental fitness is harder, crucial to a successful life and career, and not enough of us talk about it. The good news...

An Unrepentant Idealist on Transformative Leadership 01JUNE 2022Flagrant inequality surrounds us, yet even our quotidian experiences of inequality do not necessarily change how we live, act, or decide among life’s many choices. Perhaps we take perverse comfort knowing...

Disclaimer: i don't know where i want to be in five years 16MAY 2022 Lucy Hart, Coordinator of Research and Capacity-Building I didn’t know my current job existed until I had it. Genuinely, I am being serious. I did my BA in Human Geography at University College...

Making Marks Towards Social Justice 27APRIL 2022Eleni Litt, Artist in Residence, The Athena Advisors There are many ways to think about the connection between visual art and social justice. Even as social justice concerns are increasingly taking a well-deserved front...

How a Ugandan Lawyer made her way to The Athena Advisors’ Racing Upwards fellowship 04APRIL 2022Diana Angeret, 2022 Racing Upwards Fellow, talks us through what brought her to the fellowship and what she hopes to gain from her time with The Athena Advisors. Growing up...

How a Public Health Professional made her way to The Athena Advisors’ Racing Upwards fellowship 04 APRIL 2022 Emma Orefuwa, 2022 Racing Upwards Fellow, talks us through what brought her to the fellowship and what she hopes to gain from her time with The Athena...

Can Fundraising Be Beautiful? 14 FEBRUARY 2022 I think so. Tamaria Kai Perry is Assistant Vice President of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Thurgood Marshall College Fund, the nation’s largest organization exclusively representing the Black College Community and a...

Stewarding Your Way to Success: A Brief Guide to Donor Stewardship for Nonprofits 28 JANUARY 2022 Mira Philips, Senior Consultant at The Athena Advisors is our in-house stewardship expert. Here she offers a bitesize guide to stewarding nonprofit donors. Fundraising...

It’s not you, it’s us! 10 JANUARY 2022 You’re looking for the right consulting firm. We’re looking for the right clients. Here, our Coordinator of Research and Capacity-Building, Lucy Hart, talks us through how we, at The Athena Advisors, decide whether to work with a...

Reading Our Way to A Better World20DECEMBER 2021An overview of The Athena Advisors’ top reads for 2022, by Coordinator of Research and Capacity-Building, Lucy Hart. If you’re anything like me, you have more books you intend to read than you could possibly manage in...

Mindful or Mindless Fundraising10DECEMBER 2021Hana Mandikova, Senior Consultant What is Mindful Fundraising? The concept first came to me as I reflected on some disappointing moments during my fundraising career. I have watched organisational restructures by new...

Mind The Carbon Gap 25 NOVEMBER 2021 A reflection on COP26 by our Vice President of Strategy and firm's sustainability expert, Laetitia Pancrazi MIEMA CEnv. Laetitia holds an MSc in Sustainable Urbanism from UCL and an MSc in Development Management from The London...

3 Easy Practices to Increase Creativity08NOVEMBER 2021At The Athena Advisors we are dedicated to raising the performance and capacity of our mission driven sector. In this blog post, Boriana Ditcheva, Founder and Head Creative at design firm, Linia Lab offers our...

A DIFFERENT BEAT24OCTOBER 2021At The Athena Advisors we are passionate about advocating for the powerful role the arts can play in the field of social justice. Different to conventional consulting firms, we are committed to raising the performance and capacity of our...

Image courtesy of FT Weekend13OCTOBER, 2021A short reflection by Lucy Hart, Coordinator of Research and Capacity-Building   On September 4, 2021, The Athena Advisors journeyed to the historic Kenwood House. A former 17th century stately home in Hampstead, London,...

23 SEPTEMBER, 2021 Robin Heller, President of The Athena Advisors, is a member of the advisory board for The Human Trafficking Legal Center in Washington, D.C. This organization does vital work in providing legal support for those involved in terrifying situations,...

9APRIL, 2021By Lucy HartCoordinator of Research and Capacity-Building According to Missing People, a UK based charity whose mission is to reunite missing children and adults with their loved ones, someone in the UK goes missing every 90 seconds. Many of these people...

THE MYTH OFTHANKSGIVING25NOVEMBER 2020By Karla BrollierRacing Upwards Fellow It has been 400 years since the “first Thanksgiving” and now the average American celebrates with a turkey dinner, family, and football and believes the myth that there was a happy feast...

10 SEPTEMBER, 2020  Like many of us during these strange days, the list of people I’m worried about is a long one. My family. Friends. Clients. Strangers near and far. But often, persistently, my thoughts go to one group of people I think will be most affected by...

29APRIL, 2020We are seeking our fourth Racing Upwards fellow at RHI. This is a paid fellowship focusing on people from communities of color who want to add new fundraising skills to their portfolio. Past fellows have been come from all kinds of backgrounds: a...

More important than ever: Above all, Connect 16 MARCH, 2020 I woke this morning to the news that my friend Roxy, teaching in Uganda, is going to be evacuated along with thousands of other Peace Corps volunteers, due to COVID-19. It’s not clear what the afternoon news...

20FEBRUARY 2020Three days into 2020, I relocated to London from Washington, D.C. Like most complex, invigorating, and remarkable decisions, several things prompted this move. One was very personal: in October 2019, I married a Londoner I met four years ago while...

28 JUNE, 2019 Doing our work—fundraising, nonprofit consulting—requires the entirety of our hearts and minds. And the arts have a strong role to play in inspiring us and enlivening us. That’s why I’m delighted to announce that we have named our first-ever...

30 APRIL, 2019 We are delighted to share the news of a $10 million agreement between Hennessy and the Thurgood Marshall College Funds (one of our clients).  TMCF’s mission is to ensure student success by promoting educational excellence and preparing the next...

15 APRIL, 2019 For the past ten years, Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs) have become increasingly a popular, albeit controversial, giving vehicle. The principle behind DAFs is simple: Donors make charitable contributions to a DAF and recommend where and when this money goes....

13 MARCH, 2019 The 2018 Salesforce Nonprofit Trends Report: Insights from over 450 Nonprofit Leaders into the Trends Shaping the Social Sector tells us that 78% of nonprofits are finding it difficult to keep up with growing demand for programs and services. In the...

31 JANUARY, 2019 When 15-year-old Greta Thunberg addressed world leaders at the COP24 in December 2018, she bravely and unapologetically voiced what so many of us are thinking: That our planet and our future are being sacrificed for the opportunity of a few...

12  DECEMBER, 2018  As the leader of a social enterprise, I try to make sure that everything we do is in some way connected with social good. The term “virtuous circle” is overused, but the day today business choices really matter to big goals like social justice. How...

21 JANUARY, 2018 I consider mentorship of up-and-coming professionals one of the most important values of this firm, along with ethics, passion, and social justice. Providing emerging fundraising professionals with great opportunities and skills in fundraising can...

09 APRIL, 2017 Europe’s largest international development conference, sponsored by Bond in London on 20 and 21 March, brought together diverse organisations and inspiring thinkers from all over the world to discuss the most pressing issues facing the international...

15 FEBRUARY, 2017 It’s been a jarring, complicated time in our world in recent days. From that sunny day in London in June 2016, when I learned the news that the UK voted to leave the EU, to that rainy day in Washington when Donald Trump was inaugurated as the...

01 JANUARY, 2017 As someone who has spent the last six years flying from the US, to London, to Geneva, to Milan, to Munich, to Berlin, to Amsterdam, and to Kiev, all in service of raising funds for global nonprofit organizations, I found the toughest border to cross...