Nadia Ammar Email and Phone Number

Buoyant Giving is a highly personalized consulting service that connects donors and nonprofits to create lasting change through the power of philanthropy. Just as buoyancy lifts and stabilizes by countering forces that push down, philanthropic giving elevates others and provides stability in challenging times. More at buoyantgiving.com.

Led the restructure and strengthening of the fundraising team during a time of budget cuts, layoffs and significant need for funds at the L.A. site of this national nonprofit that helps students in under-resourced public schools to succeed by placing young mentors and coaches in classrooms to provide 1:1 academic and social-emotional support.-Audited staffing structure and individual strengths and expertise against the needs of the team to meet an $8M fundraising goal-Restructured the team to cast individuals in the right roles. Created the role of New Business Development Officer to respond to the need I saw for much more focus on qualifying new prospects to diversify funding streams-Trained less experienced staff to become stronger frontline fundraisers and to empower them to build and manage their own portfolios-Made tough decisions to let under-performing staff go-Restructured the Civic Engagement team, which does school beautification projects, to make work more efficient and dramatically increase its contribution to our fundraising target as a fee-for-service revenue stream-Brought new strategic direction to the Senior Leadership Team-Re-imagined the annual gala and moved it to SoFi Stadium after 12 years on the Sony Picture Studios lot, raising a record-breaking $2.5M-Got stuck in where there was a lack of on-site skill or capacity, e.g. writing speeches for leadership, designing collateral and overseeing graphic design, training team members, developing and planning imaginative and engaging fundraising events-Reported on fundraising to the Board and worked closely with board members to engage them and their networks in fundraising

Played a defining leadership role in developing strategy for the successful capital campaign that saw us raise enough funds in two years (during the pandemic) to renovate our theatre, athletics and wellness spaces. Personally solicited 6- and 7-figure gifts to the campaign.Raised over $2M in 21/22 for two new projects that allowed the School to launch an Accelerator program and to begin a teacher training program for female-identifying people of color to increase representation of people of color among faculty.Managed a portfolio of 100-150 major donors, contributing $1.5-$2M a year to the annual fund in major gifts.

I supported the development of the Conservancy’s California policy media engagement plan and helping to create a template for social media content related to that policy to drive action and civic engagement.

I joined this growing start-up charity as their first fundraising professional and brought structure and process to donor management. I designed and implemented a comprehensive fundraising strategy and put systems in place to track donor interactions and created the organization's first fundraising pipeline. I also designed a "Whole Story" tour for donors, showing donors our work in El Salvador first-hand while providing social and cultural context for an understanding of how our work could lead to systemic, national change and better outcomes for vulnerable children growing up in institutional care.

Recruited to lead the Major Gifts team, I introduced structural change by separating out Leadership Circle giving ($1,500-$10,000) from Major Gifts, allowing the organization to best leverage the time and expertise of Major Gifts Officers to go out and ask for larger gifts for the organization. I also advocated for and hired a Data and Analytics manager to help us better prospect the pool of 80,000+ members who had potential to give $25,000 or more. I also introduced new ways of packaging our work to appeal to donors who had specific interests, while still raising general unrestricted funds. I designed and managed our second annual gala, netting $800k.

Define American recruited me to help them to establish their fundraising function. Before I had even moved from London to the US to join their team, I wrote a successful application that generated a $300k grant from The Ford Foundation. I wrote several further successful funding applications and grant reports that helped the organization sustain itself and designed and implemented a fundraising strategy to raise $2 million a year.

I established the first Major Gifts fundraising team at Teach First, resulting in over $1 million raised in the first year of the Major Gifts program. I grew the function from scratch to a team of three, leaving to move to the United States. When I left, we were nearly 50% over goal for the year and had already raised 30% of the following year's revenue goal.