Transforming Corporate Engagement

Ready for a transformational breakthrough with your corporate engagement efforts?  FundraisingInfo.com guest speaker Tammy Zonker led the effort to engage Mark Reuss, President of General Motors North America to make a $27.1M gift to the United Way for Southeastern Michigan. This represents the largest gift ever given in the 34 year history of General Motors Foundation, and the single largest gift given to any individual United Way in the U.S. for educational preparedness.

Through hearing the story of securing this transformational gift, insights will be explored and participants will consider how they may apply these same strategies with their own corporate partners towards securing major and mega gifts for their own organizations. 

Participants will explore:

• How to develop a compelling case for support 'placemat'
• How to solve business problems through corporate/nonprofit partnership
• Creating transformational cultivation strategies  

As a Fundraising Practitioner, Tammy Zonker has more than ten years of experience fundraising, consulting and training nonprofit organizations. A native Midwesterner, Tammy led workshops throughout the U.S. for Seattle based Benevon (formerly Raising More Money) as Senior Coach and Workshop Instructor for nearly six years. In 2008, she felt a calling to return to the front lines of fundraising in one of the most economically challenged communities in the country: Detroit, Michigan.

Her current large-scale engagement is leading United Way for Southeastern Michigan’s corporate fundraising strategy; contracting as Senior Director of Corporate Relations & Strategic Initiatives where she collaborates in the areas of corporate social responsibility, earned-income partnerships, cause-marketing, co-branding, employee engagement and corporate giving. She believes corporate philanthropy is a vital tool for corporations to further both their corporate social responsibility objectives and their larger missions.

In the past decade, Tammy’s fundraising and training efforts have resulted in more than $300M in contributions to nonprofit organizations. Tammy also serves as Adjunct Faculty at Indiana University concentrating on social profit excellence in fundraising. Further, she was technical editor for Wiley Publishing’s third edition of “Fundraising for Dummies.” She is a sought-after public speaker, trainer and consultant.

Prior to her social profit career, Tammy spent 17 years consulting with Fortune 500 companies with both Xerox Corporation and in the IBM Business Partner Network. She has served on a variety of nonprofit boards where she became passionate about helping organizations fulfill their missions. She transitioned her career from for-profit to nonprofit by completing the Fundraising Management Program at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy in Indianapolis, Indiana.