Reach for the Stars!
His work with charities is unique and renowned. According to colleague Geoff Peters, “When Special Olympics didn’t have enough money to mail its own housefile, Ray loaned it the postage and rebuilt the file from fewer than 40,000 names to more than 400,000. When the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation wound up on the front page of The New York Times because it had paid a fundraiser $1.1 million to raise $1 million, the organization came to Ray to turn its program around. (CDR now raises approximately $15 million annually for Toys for Tots, with an overall cost-of-fundraising ratio of less than 2 percent.)
Ray also is known in the fundraising sector as a donor of time and money to causes he holds dear. He sits on the board of a Catholic secondary school and has been a formal and informal advisor to a number of local Catholic charities.
We’re honoring Ray here for his enduring attitude that fundraisers need to live the art and act of fundraising — rather than just work it — and embrace a philanthropic lifestyle and charitable heart. And also because we know he’s created a working atmosphere at CDR that nurtures risk and creativity, as well as integrity and longevity. Both reasons signify a style of leadership that holds the nonprofit sector to a higher standard than its for-profit counterparts and increasingly helps secure both donor and public trust.
TOP FUNDRAISING STARS
Kimberly Galberaith
Executive vice president
Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy
Kimberly took on the lead fundraising role at PPMD and has championed a successful $18 million capital campaign (completed in less than two years, ahead of schedule), launched a marathon-running team to diversify individual funding streams and supported a massive online push to use the Web to raise money. Since Kimberly took on this role, PPMD’s income has grown from approximately $1 million annually to just more than $5 million — largely through her efforts. And like any good fundraiser, nominator Sarah Durham of Big Duck says, she does the work of about a hundred people.
