Transformational philanthropy demands exceptional people
Principal gifts are not simply larger major gifts.
They are an institution’s most significant philanthropic partnerships, involving senior leadership, institutional decisions and relationships built over years. At their most ambitious, they change what an institution can achieve, and how it works.
The Philanthropy Fellowship develops experienced fundraisers to lead this work.
It combines experiential practice, strategic mentoring and coaching with Fellows’ own live philanthropic opportunities.
Rarely taught,
seldom rehearsed
Most senior fundraisers built their expertise through major gifts: understanding donors, developing propositions and securing significant commitments. Those disciplines remain essential.
The most significant philanthropic partnerships ask for more. They require professionals who can recognise possibilities before they are fully formed, navigate complex relationships, engage influential individuals and mobilise institutional leadership.
The challenge is rarely a lack of knowledge. It is performing well when the stakes are high, the situation is uncertain and there may be no second chance. Few professionals ever get to practise these moments realistically, with expert feedback, before they happen for real.
The Philanthropy Fellowship was created to change that.
What principal gifts demand
The Fellowship develops five interconnected capabilities.
None can be acquired through knowledge alone; together, they distinguish the
professionals who lead an institution’s most significant philanthropic partnerships.
PHILANTHROPIC INTELLIGENCE
Understanding philanthropists: their motivations, families, advisers and networks,
and the wider context
of their decisions.
STRATEGIC IMAGINATION
Seeing beyond established projects, and co-creating new possibilities with philanthropists and institutional leaders.
PERSONAL
AUTHORITY
Holding credible, confident and appropriately challenging conversations with powerful and influential people.
INSTITUTIONAL ORCHESTRATION
Bringing together leaders, expertise and resources across the institution around exceptional opportunities.
RELATIONAL
LEADERSHIP
Building trust and sustaining progress through ambiguity, competing interests
and long timescales.
How the Fellowship works
Developed through practice
The Fellowship is not a training course. Over ten months, Fellows move repeatedly between rehearsal and real work, combining experiential workshops with professional actors, one-to-one mentoring, coaching and a small cohort of senior peers.
Learn · Practise · Apply · Reflect · Refine
What you rehearse in a workshop, you test with a mentor, apply with a philanthropist or colleague, and reflect on with a coach.
Developing the individual,
strengthening the institution
FOR FELLOWS
FOR INSTITUTIONS
Your next stage of development
An investment in institutional capability
You are an experienced fundraiser, moving into principal gifts or already working at this level. You understand the realities of ambitious philanthropy. And you recognise that what comes next will not be learned from more information alone.
​
Over ten months, working with experienced practitioners, a small cohort of peers and your own live opportunities, you will strengthen your judgement, extend your influence and develop the confidence to operate at the highest levels of philanthropy.
​
Fellows typically include Directors, Deputy and Associate Directors, Heads of Philanthropy and senior principal and major gifts fundraisers.
Ambitious philanthropic goals do not, on their own, create the capability to achieve them.
​
The Fellowship is a targeted investment in institutional capability, delivered through an individual: preparing a colleague for principal gifts, or deepening the expertise of someone already leading your most significant relationships. Each Fellow works on real opportunities and institutional challenges throughout, agreed with a senior sponsor.
​
Progress is measured not only in gifts secured, but in stronger relationships, sharper judgement and more ambitious opportunities: lasting changes in how your colleague thinks and works.
​
Sponsoring institutions engage directly with the Founding Partners before, during and after the Fellowship. The Fellowship complements, rather than replaces, broader development across the team.
MEET THE FOUNDING PARTNERS
Led by people who do this work
Fellows learn from three practitioners who are doing this work today: an advancement leader at one of the world’s great conservatoires, an international principal gifts fundraiser, and a professional coach to senior fundraisers.
Â
This is not teaching from memory. It is learning from current practice.
Kirsty MacDonald
Founding Partner
Christopher Whitney
Deputy Principal (Advancement), Royal Academy of Music, and a prominent voice in the leadership of the fundraising profession.
Founding Partner
Tess Nixon Spiller
Principal gifts practitioner and campaign specialist, actively developing significant philanthropic partnerships across the UK, Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East.
Professional coach and facilitator, combining frontline fundraising experience with specialist expertise in developing senior professionals.
Founding Partner
THE INAUGURAL FELLOWSHIP
Join the founding cohort
DATES
January–October 2027.
Onboarding is now under way.
COHORT
Approximately ten Fellows, selected for their experience, readiness and the contribution they will make to the group.
FORMAT
In-person experiential workshops, virtual development sessions, and individual mentoring and coaching.
INVESTMENT
£11,000 + VAT
per Fellow
To be considered for the inaugural cohort, please arrange a conversation by 30 November 2026.
Every Fellowship begins with a conversation with a Founding Partner.
Explore what could become possible
Whether you are considering your own development or sponsorship for a colleague, we would welcome a conversation. Speak with a Founding Partner about your ambitions, your institution’s context and whether the Fellowship is the right next step.
​
Conversations are confidential.