Episode Details

Mars Sailors joined my coaching program, The Purpose & Profit Club®, as a graphic designer and marketing manager, not a fundraiser. The work already included telling the story of The Source LGBT+ Center across communications, social media, and email. What changed was learning how to connect those dots to donors.

In this conversation, Mars shares how that mindset shift turned into a first full SPRINT™ campaign: a Give Out Day fundraiser that raised $16,000, exceeded a $15K goal, included a $5,000 match, and brought in 100+ donors.

Mars also shares the story behind the Build to Belong capital campaign, which has raised nearly $700,000 toward a $1 million Phase One goal to secure a permanent home for LGBTQ+ people in California’s Central Valley.

This one is for every communicator, designer, or marketing manager who’s been handed fundraising responsibilities and isn’t sure they belong there. You do.

Topics:

• How Mars reframed fundraising as a communications discipline, and why the stories he was already telling were halfway to a donor ask
• The Give Out Day campaign: a $5K match, 100+ donors, and exceeding a $15K goal with a campaign built around "Pride doesn't end in June"
• What it felt like to send that last email and have two donors independently close the $1,000 gap at the same time
• The Build to Belong capital campaign: $700K raised, a campus purchased, and belonging framed as infrastructure
• Fundraising in a politically turbulent climate, and why The Source doubles down instead of going dark
• Being named a PR Daily finalist alongside Make-A-Wish, Guide Dogs for the Blind, and MD Anderson

For a full list of links and resources mentioned in this episode, click here.

Bloomerang is the complete donor, volunteer, and fundraising management solution that helps thousands of nonprofits like yours. Book your demo here. Read The 2026 Giving Signals Report here. 

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Resources:

• Easy Emails For Impact™: The $5K+ Fundraising Campaign System
• Purpose & Profit Club® Fundraising + Marketing Accelerator   
• The SPRINT Method™: Your shortcut to 10K fundraisers 
• Instagram, LinkedIn, website , weekly newsletter  
• [FREE] The Brave Fundraiser’s Guide: Stop getting ignored. Start raising more.
  
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