Interim Fundraising Leaders: Building Culture and Sustaining Development

Explore a rarely discussed intersection in nonprofit leadership: the power of interim roles in development and fundraising, with Jeffrey R. Wilcox, President of Interim Executives Academy, and Joan McBride, CEO of GreatRake, McBride and Associates. This conversation charts new ground—arguing that interim fundraising leaders are not temporary placeholders but catalysts for cultural and operational evolution.

Jeffrey emphasizes that nonprofit organizations often treat development challenges as process issues, when in fact, they require deeper organizational change. “We don’t need a consultative intervention,” he declares. “We need an evolutionary capacity-building process.” Interim development professionals, he explains, are trained not just to execute fundraising tasks but to reimagine philanthropy as a shared, embedded function across an organization.

Joan shares her own trajectory—from consultant to interim executive—and reinforces the value of a full-year commitment in interim roles. This timeframe allows for relationship-building, stabilization, and insights into the entire annual fundraising cycle—giving successor hires a strong foundation for long-term success. She points to one assignment where her interim groundwork helped a permanent hire stay three years—well beyond the national average of 19 months for development directors.

The episode also confronts difficult truths about turnover, burnout, and unrealistic expectations in fundraising leadership. Jeffrey notes that many fundraisers are “kicked to the curb” despite their talent. His solution? An intentional training program rooted in 14 core protocols for sustainable philanthropic leadership. These protocols are designed to ensure that interims leave behind a strengthened infrastructure and a clear pathway for future leaders.

The discussion widens to explore systemic issues—from federal funding cutbacks to AI’s impact on communication, from work-life balance across generations to equitable fundraising in diverse communities. What ties it all together is Jeffrey’s passionate statement: “Interims have to bring an organization a commodity called hope.” More than strategists or managers, interim leaders are meant to restore belief in what’s possible.

This fast moving episode reframes interim development leadership not as a stopgap, but as a proactive, strategic solution to one of the sector’s most persistent challenges: building a culture of philanthropy that endures.

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