The Time for Endowment Building Is Now

Deborah Kaplan Polivy served as the Director of the Endowment Foundation of both the Jewish Federation of Greater Springfield (Massachusetts) and New Haven (Connecticut). She started both of these organizations “from scratch” and also began a formal endowment development effort at Goodspeed Musicals, the original producer of Annie, as well as Connecticut Public Television. As a consultant, Polivy has helped numerous organizations create endowment programs including training boards and staff on gift giving; developing recognition policies and procedures, as well as those for investing and managing monies; creating marketing materials and designing strategic plans for launching and implementing the respective efforts. She is the author of two books on using the Donor Lifecycle Map to obtain and retain philanthropic contributions up to and including the endowment gift: Donor Cultivation and the Donor Lifecycle Map: A New Framework for Fundraising (Wiley, 2014) and The Donor Lifecycle Map: A Model for Fundraising Success (Charity Channel Press, 2017.) Polivy has conducted workshops across the United States and in Israel and has written numerous articles on the nonprofit sector in general and endowment development in particular. Her doctoral degree is from The Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University where she is a member of the Board of Advisors.