From Top Fundraiser to Effective Leader: How Group Coaching Can Help
You Were Promoted Because You Were Good at Fundraising
You were successful as a fundraiser. You built relationships, secured major gifts, exceeded goals, and earned the confidence of your institution.
Then you were promoted.
Suddenly, your job isn't just about raising money. You're responsible for developing other fundraisers, delegating work, managing performance, navigating difficult conversations, and building a team that can succeed without you doing everything yourself.
That's a very different job.
I've seen this transition throughout my career in higher education fundraising and executive leadership. The qualities that make someone an exceptional fundraiser—independence, persistence, personal accountability, relationship-building, and a relentless focus on results—don't automatically translate into effective leadership. Sometimes, those same strengths can make the transition harder.
The Skills That Made You Successful Can Become Your Biggest Challenge
A new advancement leader may think:
"It's faster if I just do it myself."
"I know how to raise money, but I'm not sure how to coach someone else to do it."
"How do I hold a good employee accountable without damaging the relationship?"
These aren't necessarily fundraising problems. They're leadership-development problems.
And leaders don't always have a safe place to work through them. They may not want to tell their supervisor they're struggling, and they certainly don't want their staff to know.
You Don't Have to Figure It Out Alone
This is where I see tremendous potential in group coaching.
Group coaching brings together leaders with shared developmental goals while allowing each person to work on individual challenges. The coach provides the structure, questions, facilitation, and accountability. But participants bring something equally valuable: their own lived experience.
Research on group executive coaching identifies benefits including diverse perspectives, behavioral change, and economies of scale (Ward et al., 2014). Jain (2024) similarly describes peer learning and accountability as important advantages of group coaching.
What Happens When Fundraising Leaders Learn Together?
Consider a new development director who is struggling to delegate.
She was one of her institution's strongest major gift officers. She knows how to get things done. But six months into management, she's still carrying too much of her old portfolio, working long hours, and becoming frustrated that her staff isn't taking enough initiative.
In a group coaching session, another advancement leader says, "I had the same problem. I realized I was delegating tasks instead of delegating ownership."
Someone else asks, "What would happen if you stopped measuring your value by how much you personally raise?"
The coach doesn't provide the answer. The group creates the opportunity for the leader to see her challenge differently.
That's the power of group coaching.
The Coach Brings the Process. The Group Brings the Experience.
Group coaching provides benefits that are difficult to replicate in a one-on-one conversation:
Perspective: Participants hear approaches they may not have considered.
Peer support: They discover that other leaders face many of the same challenges.
Shared learning: One person's challenge becomes a learning opportunity for everyone.
Accountability: Participants return to the group and report on commitments they made.
Community: Leaders have a place to be honest about their experiences.
Accessibility: Group coaching can make professional coaching more accessible than individual coaching alone (Team Simply.Coach, 2024).
These benefits don't make group coaching better than individual coaching. They make it different. Individual coaching remains valuable when a leader needs highly personalized attention or wants to explore sensitive issues privately. Group coaching adds the experiences and perspectives of other leaders. The two approaches can complement each other.
Research also demonstrates positive effects of coaching on performance, well-being, coping, work attitudes, and goal-directed self-regulation (Theeboom et al., 2014), as well as learning and performance outcomes in workplace settings (Jones et al., 2016).
Why This Matters in Higher Education Advancement
I've spent much of my career in higher education fundraising and leadership. I understand the pressure to produce results while developing people, managing institutional expectations, working with senior leadership, and building donor relationships.
That's why I believe leadership coaching for advancement professionals should be specific to their world.
You shouldn't have to spend half of a coaching conversation explaining what a major gift officer does or why managing a fundraising team is different from managing many other teams.
I understand the position because I've lived it. And I can help leaders navigate the transition from being a successful fundraiser to becoming an effective leader.
Leadership Doesn't Have to Be a Solo Journey
My coaching experience has reinforced something I now believe strongly: the coach doesn't have to be the smartest person in the room. The coach creates the environment where people can learn, challenge themselves, and grow.
For higher education fundraising leaders, that environment can be particularly powerful when it includes peers who understand the work.
You don't have to figure out leadership alone. If you're a higher education fundraising professional who is ready to become a more confident and effective leader, I invite you to explore whether group coaching could be the right next step for you.
References
Jain, S. (2024, November 6). Group coaching: The hidden gem in a coach's toolkit. International Coaching Federation. https://coachingfederation.org/blog/group-coaching-hidden-gem
Jones, R. J., Woods, S. A., & Guillaume, Y. R. F. (2016). The effectiveness of workplace coaching: A meta-analysis of learning and performance outcomes from coaching. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 89(2), 249–277. https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12119
Team Simply.Coach. (2024, May 9). How to structure a group coaching program (step-by-step). Simply.Coach. https://simply.coach/blog/group-coaching-program/
Theeboom, T., Beersma, B., & van Vianen, A. E. M. (2014). Does coaching work? A meta-analysis on the effects of coaching on individual-level outcomes in an organizational context. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 9(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2013.837499
Ward, G., van de Loo, E., & ten Have, S. (2014). Psychodynamic group executive coaching: A literature review. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 12(1), 63–78. https://doi.org/10.1177/174183051401200106
