Kim Rich is Senior Director of Advancement Services and Operations at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. She says a love of data, relationship building, and mission are at the heart of her career in advancement.
How did you get into advancement?
I fell into advancement. I had no career plan to get into this work. It found me. At my first job, I was an administrative assistant at the crisis intervention center in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. I had some type of word processor with a green screen and blinking cursor. I couldn’t even tell you what it was, but I was intrigued by it.
I managed my first database at Planned Parenthood in Tennessee. From there I jumped into development operations at the South Carolina Aquarium (U.S.) and did a stint at Blackbaud delivering Raiser’s Edge to arts and cultural clients. My first time in higher education was at The Citadel Foundation supporting the Military College of South Carolina. There, I learned about alumni and how to incorporate affinity and loyalty to engage constituents in a different way. I was recruited to the Medical University of South Carolina, where I helped formalize the advancement services department for six colleges and nine health care areas.
I think of myself as an engineer at heart. I like to take things apart and put them back together. That is, I think, what opened me to advancement services. There’s a lot of “How do we look at things differently? How do we use data to reach constituents? What are they responding to or not responding to?”
I have spent my professional career in advancement and fundraising, working my way up through various organizations and opportunities. I find true passion in advancement operations and consider myself an enterprise architect—one who brings the necessary operations and services together utilizing processes and procedures that support and help elevate fundraising.
How did you find your way to Sidwell Friends?
I started talking with Sidwell just as we were coming out of quarantine and, honestly, I was ready for a change—a new state and a new type of institution. I was intrigued by the K–12 school setting, and I thought I could bring a different perspective to the table. I joined the team in October 2021, during the quiet phase of the Together We Shine campaign.
What do you enjoy about the school setting?
I love seeing the kids on campus and the energy of them being there—school plays and musicals, assemblies, athletic events, all of that. There is such excitement in the school community. I love that the current parents are so committed, not just to support the school in the present, but for future students. We just completed a financial aid giving day and fundraiser built around our Founder’s Day celebrations. The goal was $350,000 and we raised almost $600,000. That speaks to community engagement at Sidwell. It was a coming-together and celebration of this community with a commitment toward broadening it, making it accessible to students who might not otherwise have a chance to attend.
You recently presented at DRIVE (CASE’s annual conference focused on data and analytics). Why is data important to you?
It was a lot of fun sharing our story (“From Data to Action: How to Build your Donor Pipeline”). Data to me is only as important as the strategy behind it—leveraging data to make better decisions, especially around pipeline management. I can create all sorts of data sheets and I can tell you where the trends are and I can give you any type of report you need, but you must understand what all of that represents. Data doesn’t raise money; it doesn’t create the relationships. With a strategy, it informs and facilitates these things.
What I have built my career on and what I brought to Sidwell is a collaborative approach with gift officers, which I shared in the presentation. You meet them where they are, just like you meet the donors where they are. I like to break down a record and walk them through it. We talk about the person in the record, the story the data tells. Data provides the outline of the story. The gift officers then color that story in via engagement and partnership with the donor.
We meet weekly as a team to actively focus on the database. I love to help them see what data points are useful and which are not. And how we can dig deeper with modeling and metrics, adding new people to their portfolios and refreshing relationships. Sometimes advancement services and frontline fundraisers can be at odds. We’ve overcome that scenario. We are at 84% of our campaign goal with a little more than a year to go. We’re very happy with that, knowing we have all contributed to the teamwork it took to get to this point.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
That’s easy and it goes back a long way: Never ask someone to do something you are not willing to do yourself.
Have you had mentors along the way?
I have a “board of directors,” a group of people I go to for different questions, frustrations, or aspects of life management. A friend, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, shared this concept with me years ago. I was already forming a trusted group organically. I just didn’t have a name for it. Of course, you have to contribute too, and you have to show up for people.
Do you enjoy being a mentor yourself?
Yes. I find I learn a lot from those I’m mentoring. I’m excited about the next generation of advancement professionals. They are curious; they want to be in a space of making the world a better place through working for organizations whose missions they believe in. I saw so many young, excited professionals at DRIVE. It gave me chills. I’m not worried at all about the incoming generation of advancement professionals.