“I am a great advocate for nonprofits. The simple fact is this: there would be no grateful patients, no student scholarships, no water wells provided in undeveloped countries, no animals rescued and no beauty of a ballet or other arts if not for the tireless work in fundraising from dedicated nonprofits.” - Paul A. Dunne

49% of nonprofits are operating without any knowledge of or access to a strategic plan.

27% of nonprofits report budgeting less than $1,000 a year to marketing or community relations.

42% of nonprofits do not have any formal mechanisms in place to measure performance

77% of nonprofits reported not having a leadership transition plan or a leadership-training program

One in four nonprofits say they don’t have a vision compelling enough to unify the board, staff, and donors and facilitate decision-making.

Studies show the ROI on executive coaching is more than 300%

70% of nonprofits reported not benchmarking against any other nonprofits in creating a strategic plan

about thinkpadsolutions

Approximately half of all non-profits are set up to fail, due to a lack of strategic planning and forethought. The goal for thinkpadsolutions is to help non-profits in health care, education, human services, the arts and faith-based organizations craft their own solution to clearly identify and conquer their unique challenges.

thinkpadsolutions will offer consulting services in the major areas of development, communications, and events, through detailed analysis, targeted coaching, and connecting you with effective resources. We look forward to partnering with you to assist your non-profit in realizing its potential and affect greater impact within your community and the world.

about paul

Paul A. Dunne,

CFRE

After a successful business career and inspired by the need to serve after the event of 9/11, Paul joined the nonprofit sector as a Senior Development Officer for the Denver Rescue Mission. He furthered his career serving as Executive Director of Development for the Inner City Health Center where he started…

about evan

Evan White,

Director of Operations

With a heart for service, Evan has always looked for ways to give back to his community. Throughout his course work in college he spent time volunteering and gained valuable experience in grant-writing and development through various internships with Communities in Schools of North Texas…

about jennifer

Jennifer Gosselin

Jennifer brings a creative eye to nonprofit marketing and administration. Her background in theatre and small business organization work together to help find original solutions for marketing, media, mail and management. Having worked with the performing arts has given her insight to raising support through donations and memberships. With a BFA in Theatre and over 10 years in business environments ranging from international marketing, corporate events, and theatre production, she has a commitment to serving the client and building relationships that work toward their specific goals.

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Non Profit Strategic Planning
& Fundraising

Strategic Development Plan(s)

Success never happens overnight. Every successful business has a strategy and successful non-profits are no exception. Your brand, team, communications, and structure are all intertwined in how you plan (or fail to plan) to utilize them. With nearly 20 years of experience, let thinkpadsolutions work with you to craft an intentional and comprehensive blueprint to empower your organization.

Prospect Identification

Having a steady flow of new prospects is the catalyst to accelerate a non-profit on to greater works. By helping your organization to identify the right kind of prospects that resonate with your mission, thinkpadsolutions can propel you to make a greater impact.

Donor research/wealth screening

Knowing your donors inside and out is of paramount importance to the future success of your organization. Through thinkpadsolutions and its partners, we can help you discover the information you need to construct your strategic development plan and prioritize your donor engagement.

Capital Campaigns

Whether you are in the midst of deciding if you should plan a campaign, need to identify and assess your donors or even have a campaign that has stalled, thinkpadsolutions can assist your organization in any stage of the campaign and push it to complete the goal.

Events

Engage your donors and prospects with a variety of events specifically tailored to the audience. thinkpadsolutions has experience that spans large-scale organizational development events, major donor destination events, intimate prospect briefings, and donor retention events. Let us help you strategically craft your playbook for engagement, impact, and follow-up.

Planned Giving/Endowment

Legacy donors have a special bond with their organizations, and yet, a lot of non-profits do not know how to approach their long-time partners about planned gifts. Let thinkpadsolutions guide your organization through this delicate process to give honor and respect to those who have been your most dedicated donors.

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Donor Communications

We offer visual communications for fundraising, direct mail, branding, print and interactive design that sets you apart from your competitors, calls your audience to action, and increases donor retention. We understand the importance of reaching your audiences with an image that is not only visually appealing but which also uniquely represents your brand.

Direct Mail

We keep your product or service in the forefront of your customers’ mind by creating eye-catching, clearly-written and well-designed direct mail pieces that will stand out among the clutter, and help to increase donor retention.

Organizational Branding

We begin by reviewing your current communications in order to understand your existing brand. We then provide distinctive branding that sets you apart from the competition.

Communications & Marketing

Bryan Peterson

Bryan is lead creative and principal at Peterson Ray & Company. His work has been recognized nationally for achievements in corporate and college communications, and has appeared regularly in leading design publications. His best-selling book, Design Basics for Creative Results, is a design textbook used by college campuses across the nation.

Scott Ray

Scott is lead creative and principal at Peterson Ray & Company. He came to the company in 1986 and was named partner in 1994. He has served as lead creative for a number of Fortune 500 companies and universities, and his work has been recognized in design competitions and publications nationwide.

Carl Peterson

In addition to designing websites at Peterson Ray & Company, Carl also programs sites in HTML/CSS/JS and develops online campaigns across a variety of platforms, including HTML email. Because he has a good understanding of how backend web development is carried out, Carl is skilled at communicating with our web development partners, who take the designs and implement the backend programming. This helps to ensure that all of the goals and needs created in the design portion of each project are executed accurately and appropriately.

Click on the button below to check out some of Peterson Ray & Company’s work:

Work Samples

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Human Resources

Board Recruitment & Development

We provide a range of employee assessments, including leadership assessments, pre-hire assessments, and personnel assessments. Get consistent, in-depth, and objective information about your people.

Staff Development Training

Personnel Training, management training, and employee coaching are interactive ways to recognize employees and invest in their future success with your company.

CEO/BOD Development Training

Having someone there to listen, coach, and counsel can save time and money, and boost the bottom line. From EEOC Compliance to Succession Planning, Rethink Personnel provide Human Resources Consulting to fit your needs.

Carol Hausler

Carol Hausler, from ReThink Personnel, is a certified Profiles International dealer with over twenty years’ experience. She offers companies the information they need to make the best decisions regarding employees from pre-hire, job matching to manager effectiveness.

Carol served eleven years as VP Human Resources for OP3 whose primary clients were non-profits. They were the company selected by the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to plan, staff, train and implement their fundraising events. Carol’s role was to develop the process in 9 different cities across the country from pre-hire through termination and serve as trainer, coach and mentor for the staff/managers. She provided weekly coaching calls, meetings and follow up with the staff. Their goal was to eliminate costly turnovers and have a stable staff with few terminations for cause.

The result was that in 11 years they only had one employee who was let go.

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“A dynamic presence”

“The most fun I’ve ever had learning”

“I was able to implement his suggestions immediately and saw instant results”

These are just some of the quotes that attendees wrote after hearing one of Paul’s presentations. Whatever your specific needs might be, let thinkpadsolutions tailor a presentation to exceed your expectations. Some of the recent places Paul has presented are:

Staff Retreats & Training
Board Retreats & Training
Development Meetings
Organizational Meetings
University departmental fundraising meetings
Nonprofit & Development Conferences

To confirm Paul as a speaker for your event, please contact jennifer@thinkpadsolutions.com

Personal Speaking Engagements

endorsements

Diane M. Carlson

CEO

“Paul Dunne and I have had the pleasure of working together on three capital campaigns during the past 9 years. He is an outstanding fundraising professional with amazing credentials that span higher education, social service, and healthcare. Besides all that, he is fun to work with.”

Kellie Tiner

Area Director

“Thanks so much for everything, you were awesome.”

Brandon Jernigan

Director of Operations

“Paul helped Grad Resources create an overall development plan that has given us clear and measurable goals to work towards. He helped bring clarity and structure to our development strategies that we continue to reap benefits from. In addition, our communications have never been better and clearly communicate our mission and vision to our partners. I have no reservations recommending Paul to you and your organization.”

Hank Hunter

Chairman of Board

“When the board of our community theater completed restoration of a century-old downtown facility, we were faced with a major transition. Instead of raising funds for construction, we were raising funds for operations. After the second year of producing shows, we had proven what we suspected, that ticket sales alone were not adequate to sustain the theater. Paul Dunne led a workshop with the board explaining how to work with patrons, potential backers, and previous donors, providing specifics on how to best approach those in the community for increased support. We’re still early in the process, but the materials and concepts developed with Paul’s guidance have already borne fruit with donors, and our productions that played to half-full houses previously are now sold out. Paul is a pro, and he produces tangible results.”

Tori Hobbs, CFRE

Chief Development Officer

“Paul is a terrific presenter. He presents the information in a clear and organized manner and is very engaging with the audience. His presentation energy level is just right – no one will go to sleep nor be put off by exuberance. Paul speaks with authority yet is very approachable from audience participation and questions. I was really, really impressed by him. Any organization would be lucky to have him work with them.”

“AJ” Stapleton

Executive Director

“I have been able to work with Paul in a Board of Directors capacity over the last 10 years. I have witnessed his passion for the Lord and his desire to be of service. I was fortunate to be mentored by him in a Development capacity. He is responsible for my growth in the non-profit sector. Paul can help you achieve your non-profit goals by implementing systems that work.”

Brian Heider

Development Specialist

“Paul has a personal and professional passion for helping others and has guided nonprofit organizations to secure funding in order to become sustainable. Through his comprehensive and strategic fundraising and marketing plans he has assisted nonprofits in providing services and programs. When working at a national nonprofit, he succeeded at identifying, cultivating, soliciting and stewarding donors for capital campaigns, annual funds, major gifts, grants, and special events. He did this effectively because he takes great attention to implementing, tracking and evaluating on-going personal, written, and phone contact with donors and/or potential donors. Paul is a firm believer in the use of a donor software system to track donor engagement, run reports and evaluate results. Paul also thrives on having the responsibility for providing information, advice, and counsel to the Board of Directors and the Board’s Committees in the creation of policies, programs, and strategic direction of the organization.”