May 16, 2019 | Read Time: 11 minutes
In the early 1990s, Dwayne Ashley knew he wanted to be a fundraiser for the United Negro College Fund, but he didn’t have enough experience for the position he wanted. So he did something few people would try. During an interview for a job at another organization, a local United Way, he said he intended to use that job as a stepping stone to get to the UNCF.
The strategy worked.
Ashley landed his first fundraising job at United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast — in spite of his candor or perhaps because of it. The following spring, UNCF hired Ashley to direct corporate fundraising in Philadelphia, Delaware, and New Jersey, a position he held for five years.
Ashley went on to take the helm at several prominent organizations, including 100 Black Men of America and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. But after many years as a nonprofit leader, he decided to become an entrepreneur. In 2016, he founded Bridge Philanthropic Consulting, and to date, the company has helped nonprofit clients raise more than $800 million.
Ashley, a graduate of Wiley College who later earned a master’s degree in nonprofit and government management at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke to the Chronicle about his career, how to know when it’s time to move to your next venture, and the goals he set for his black-owned company.
This interview was edited for brevity and clarity.
Julian Wyllie: When did you first become interested in philanthropy?
Dwayne Ashley: My parents were very active in the church, and they helped fundraise. I also was influenced by the Boy Scouts. My mom was a den mother, and my brother and I were very active in scouting, which required my parents to do some fundraising. I was born in Houston but spent my summers in Louisiana.
Also, my great grandmother donated land for the first colored school to be built in Heflin, La. Her generosity was widely known, and although they didn’t call it philanthropy, the family was very proud of it. (The former school is now one of the oldest predominantly black churches in the state.)
Wyllie: Even with that familiarity, you weren’t instantly set on philanthropy as a career. What changed your mind?
Ashley: At that time, when I was growing up, no one knew about careers in fundraising. They certainly weren’t talking to black kids about that in my high school. We just didn’t know.
But when I was in Distributive Education Clubs of America, they trained students about being in the work force. They allowed us to go to school for half of the day, then leave for work. It was all about developing a pipeline of talent for corporations. I really thought I was going to be in “Corporate America.”
My mother was an entrepreneur who owned a jazz club, and I was manager of a school store at my high school, so that’s how I learned about management. I thought I was going to follow my mother’s footsteps and help open up another club, so I majored in hotel and restaurant management. I later got a spectacular internship for the Atlanta Falcons at the hotel that was part of their training camp, the Falcon Inn.
But after college, I learned that I didn’t like hotel jobs and decided it wasn’t for me. So I came back home to Houston and spoke with a family friend, Sylvia Brooks, who worked for the United Way. Brooks was vice president there, the highest-ranking African-American at the time. She helped me get an interview.
Wyllie: What do you remember most about your first fundraising job?
Ashley: United Way taught me how to build relationships with corporations. That’s when a light bulb went off. I was just 22, 23 years old, right out of college and running a campaign for CEOs. What other job would give you that kind of access to corporate leadership and influencers?
At the United Way, I also learned about crisis management because just as I was coming in, they had this huge scandal concerning William Aramony. (Aramony, who was president of United Way of America, was convicted of defrauding the charity of hundreds of thousands of dollars.)
I learned how to help the community understand that United Way was doing great work while the board handled a difficult situation. We were very forthcoming with donors: We shared salaries of the staff and our agency costs. We realized we had to emphasize our mission to people in Houston and make sure donors felt they could trust us.
Wyllie: After the UNCF and 100 Black Men of America, you were CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund for 10 years. What did you learn about leadership and networking during that run?
Ashley: At the time, there was a lot of concern about the fund’s connection to tobacco companies. The TMCF was founded with the help of a major grant from Philip Morris, and the fund was located in the headquarters of Philip Morris before we established a more diversified board and moved to a separate headquarters. That’s when we started to diversify the donor base, too.
As an executive in this field, you have to be out there making relationships and networking. That’s what allowed me to have access to people. I was a beast when it came to going to events and being connected to folks and getting involved with my fraternity and community. I also served on the board of the Association of Fundraising Professionals in Philadelphia and New York.
When you’re committed to this sector, you’ve got to go all in and make sure you know people in the foundation world, the corporate world, and keep up with executives who make the C-suite. With TMCF, I targeted their expertise and experiences to determine what we were missing from our board.
I also helped get Thurgood Marshall’s sons more engaged and put one of them on the board. We had Elena Kagan on the board when she was the dean at Harvard Law School before she became a Supreme Court justice and it was Goodie Marshall [Thurgood Marshall Jr.] who helped us recruit her.
Wyllie: What attracted you to working at Jazz at Lincoln Center?
Ashley: At TMCF I got to be creative and innovative, but by year eight, I felt burned out, which can happen when you stay at a job too long. I needed something new to inspire me.
I wanted the expansion of their endowment to be my legacy. That I could help sustain jazz, which came from the black community, really motivated me. I was hired to run a major campaign. And since I had just been a CEO at TMCF, they empowered me to run my own department and do the hiring. (Ashley says it was easier to work for a cause that made him happy. He is a fan of Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Horn, Nancy Wilson, Pearl Bailey, Sarah Vaughan, and the famous trumpeters Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong.)
Nonetheless, I told the Lincoln Center at the outset that I wouldn’t stay more than five years because by then I intended to start my own company.
Wyllie: Was everyone accepting of how forthcoming you were about your career goals and intentions not to stay at any organization for more than a set amount of time?
Ashley: When you’re early in your career, you think about what you want to become, but then you soon get to understand your strengths and gather a sense of the timing for when you get that itch to move on. I knew I was ready for the next level at these places, and people understood that.
Only you can know your own pathway. I journal about this and have since high school. I do it at different points of my life because I believe in visualizing your goals. When you write those things out, they tend to self-actualize. It’s good to check in with yourself.
Wyllie: What do you think separates your consulting firm from the rest of the pack?
Ashley: When the National Museum of African American History and Culture launched its fundraising campaign and issued requests for proposals, no full-service fundraising firms owned by people of color existed. There were many individual consultants, of course, but no full-service firm to run the campaign. That was a catalyst for me. I thought, “What a shame: We don’t have even one African-American firm to run the major campaign for one of the most important historical institutions in the history of our community.”
I realized then that I might as well create one.
I want people to know that when they go to our website, they’ll see all of America represented. That was done by design. Clients say they’re excited that we’re a diverse firm. That’s a key reason why people want to work with us.
In general, people call us because they want a firm that brings a cultural sensitivity. We are unapologetic about the fact that our market is communities of color. That is our mission. Of course, we work with everyone, but we feel that the market has been underserved.
Wyllie: How does your work with smaller nonprofits differ from the larger ones?
Ashley: Sometimes we get calls from someone that’s just starting out. It can be a social entrepreneur who is passionate, but we know they’re not ready for a traditional consulting firm, nor would it be ethical for us to engage them in that way because they really can’t afford it and they don’t have the infrastructure to support it, either.
So we offer a one-day consulting program that’s more affordable. In that case, we spend four to six hours working with them. We look at their boards, investigate what their needs are, and help them build their prospect list or plan a fundraising structure. It’s an abbreviated program.
Wyllie: When did you know you needed to create separate offerings for groups based on their size?
Ashley: As you can imagine, when you start out, you think you’re going to work one way, but then you get into the actual business and realize you need to pivot. That’s why we have developed more products, but our core consulting business is there for the more mature organizations.
For example, we had a wonderful young activist that called us. She and her family members have dealt with thyroid problems, so she wanted to start an organization that spoke to women of color about this health issue.
But first she needed to learn about starting a 501(c)(3), creating a board, and more. Her mission really grabbed us, and she wasn’t even a formal client, but we spent time guiding her and giving advice. We didn’t bill her for that. We just wanted to help her get going.
Wyllie: What advice do you give smaller groups during uncertain economic times?
Ashley: There’s a danger in spending too much time on corporate relationships and foundations. You have to have a diversified portfolio, which is why we stress the role of major individual gifts. Individuals tend to stick with you during downturns.
We always ask new clients: “Who is your $100 million donor, your half-billion dollar donor, and your billion-dollar prospect?” Most groups never think they can attract a gift like that, but they can, so we help them think about building those relationships. It may take 10 years or more, but it can happen with cultivation, research, and stewardship. The process of fundraising really starts with identification.
Wyllie: Do you think there will be more consulting firms like yours? Would you help them get started or offer advice even if they could become competition?
Ashley: We see our firm as a disrupter, and of course we want to grow, but we don’t want to be the only one. We want to see more large full-service firms because the market is so big and we would never have the physical manpower to serve everyone.
A couple of entrepreneurs have called my partners and me, and we’ve had conversations with people who are thinking about this. We want to help them understand the challenges and pitfalls.
I would love to see one of our consultants get inspired to go out and start their own firm like I did. We don’t see that as competition because that’s how big the market is. This is more a movement than a business to me. It’s about helping people make a difference in their community.
