Tim Burgess

Pork roll. Man, I hate that stuff. I’ve tried it a few times, but I just can’t get it down. Does it bother me that I can’t find an appreciation for it? Being a true-blue foodie, sure. Can I live with my anti-pork-roll predilection? Yes. I still manage to sleep pretty well at night knowing that lips that touch pork roll will never touch mine. (That’s not necessarily true, but it did have a nice little lilt to it, no?)

Come back with me, if you will, to a time very early in my career with FundRaising Success. I had been editor for about five minutes. Then-Associate Editor Paul Barbagallo and I were meandering around one of our first fundraising conferences, sitting stiffly among our new colleagues, all of us dressed for business with our game faces on.

In the back, at a table far from the rest of the crowd, was a tall, laid-back-looking drink of water in a suit jacket and blue jeans. And I knew from the moment I saw him that I would know him better.

It comes as no surprise that the hot topic of conversation whenever development pros gather these days — whether at a conference, a cocktail party or the water cooler — is the impending postal and legislative changes affecting nonprofit fundraising.