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Dr. Adrian Sargeant  

Adrian Sargeant is the Director of the Hartsook Centre for Sustainable Philanthropy

Professor Adrian Sargeant is the world’s foremost fundraising academic, holding a Chair in Fundraising at Plymouth University and directing the Centre for Sustainable Philanthropy. He was formerly the first Hartsook Chair in Fundraising at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University. He also holds visiting appointments at Avila University and the Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, Queensland University of Technology. He has received many awards for his services to the profession, notably being named to the prestigious Nonprofit Times Power and Influence List in the United States in 2010. In the UK he received a Civil Society Award for his Outstanding Contribution to Fundraising.

Professor Sargeant is one of the world’s leading authorities on how to achieve growth in philanthropy. In 2011 he ran Growing Philanthropy summits in Washington DC and London drawing together leaders from the nonprofit communities in both countries to discuss the role that the sector itself might play in growing philanthropy. He also helped facilitate a philanthropy summit for the Rockefeller Foundation and the Resource Alliance in Bellagio, Italy, the primary goal of which was to improve the flow of philanthropy in the development system.

He is a prolific author and educator. He has published over ten books and around 150 peer reviewed academic publications in the domain of individual giving, fundraising and nonprofit marketing. Most recently he has designed new qualification frameworks for fundraising professional bodies across the world. In the UK, for example, he designed the new Certificate/Diploma in Fundraising courses that are now offered by the Institute of Fundraising. He is doing similar work in the United States working with the Association of Fundraising Professions and was recently commissioned to design a new higher level qualification that is now be being shared internationally. The Advanced Diploma in Fundraising launched in the Spring of 2016

Professor Sargeant is considered a world class and motivational speaker, regularly delivering plenary presentations in a variety of different international venues. Topics include donor retention/loyalty, philanthropic psychology, bequest giving and digital fundraising. He works now on both sides of the Atlantic having become a naturalized American citizen in November 2013.

In 2010 Professor Sargeant received a Civil Society honor for his services to fundraising. In the same year he was also named to the prestigious Nonprofit Times Power and influence List. In 2016 he received a lifetime achievement award from the Insight Group of the Institute of Fundraising in London.

Speech Topics


Outstanding fundraising: what does it take to double or treble your income

This session will report the findings of a new research study into what it takes to deliver fundraising success. What characteristics do effective fundraising leaders have and what actions do they typically take in organizations to sustain that success. We'll look at how they manage their teams, develop a culture of organizational learning and the systems and structures to support it. We'll also look at how these individuals think about their fundraising. A session for senior fundraisers or those aspiring to be so.

Successful Bequest Fundraising: Lessons from Research

In this session we review the learning from over 25 years of research on who offers bequests, why they choose to do so and how the idea might best be communicated to donors of varying degrees of wealth. We'll look at the demographics of this form of giving, trends that are currently being seen in that space and what causes charitable bequests to go into wills (or estate documents) and on occasion to be taken out again. We will also look at bequest messaging and some of the latest research using fMRI scanners depicting brain activity when viewing messages of this type. Participants will leave with a much sounder grasp of how to solicit gifts of this type, drawing on the learning from both academic research and the very best from professional practice around the world

Building Donor Loyalty

In this session I will review what we currently understand about the science of donor loyalty and retention. We'll talk about the key metric of donor lifetime value, how to calculate it and what it can be used to inform. We'll also explore the three major drivers of donor loalty and some of the practicalities of managing a retention program. The session will cover all the latest research and numerous examples of what charities are doing in the USA and UK to retain their donors

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