# Thomas Claffey

Thomas Claffey shares practical fundraising guidance and funding opportunities for nonprofit leaders through Philanthropy Solutions Group. Claffey's posts cover major gifts, donor-advised funds, corporate sponsorships, and grants.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/thomas-claffey/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasclaffey
- LinkedIn followers: 24,321
- Based on 20 dated posts, latest 2026-10-07

## Summary

They are most useful for practical fundraising guidance and funding opportunities for nonprofit leaders.

- Best for: Nonprofit fundraising consultancy selling a workshop on corporate sponsorship and DAF giving.
- Not for: B2B software vendor wanting paid product demos, vendor comparisons, or trial sign-up campaigns.
- Check first: Confirm delivery record, audience analytics, and commercial terms.

### Takeaways

- Fundraising should follow the donor's calendar, not the nonprofit's.
- Corporate sponsorship conversations belong in the company's budget season.
- Year-end major gifts run on a month-by-month sequence.

## Main ideas

- **Fundraising should follow the donor's calendar, not the nonprofit's**: Across different subjects, Claffey argues that donors and funders decide on their own timelines, so a nonprofit's internal schedule is the wrong starting point. A campaign that begins when the nonprofit is ready can arrive after the money has already been allocated.
- **Corporate sponsorship conversations belong in the company's budget season**: Claffey argues that nonprofits planning corporate sponsorship for 2027 should pitch in fall 2026, when companies set marketing, community engagement, employee engagement, and corporate social responsibility budgets. They call the belief that companies keep flexible charitable pools available year-round a myth that costs nonprofits significant sponsorships: large sponsorships often need advance planning and approval. Companies, in this account, want more than a logo on an event banner. They want brand visibility, employee engagement, community impact, and measurable results, and can meaningfully support only a limited number of organizations.
- **Year-end major gifts run on a month-by-month sequence**: Claffey lays out a calendar of preparation, not a single appeal: clean and segment donor data and narrow the caseload in October, make personalized asks in November, and follow through in December. Major gifts depend on relationships, clean data, and disciplined follow-up, so preparation has to start before the giving season is underway. Not every conversation needs an ask.
- **Donor-advised funds are a channel to prepare for, not something that just happens**: Claffey argues that many nonprofits treat donor-advised fund giving as something that simply happens, rather than something they can actively encourage. The best DAF prospects may already be in the organization's database; the task is to make giving easy to act on. The posts pair that argument with a readiness checklist for DAF Day on October 8.
- **Grant opportunity roundups are a recurring service to nonprofit leaders**: Claffey frequently posts roundups of funding opportunities, listing each funder, award range, priority areas or eligibility, and an explicit deadline. The premise is that nonprofit leaders miss opportunities that are otherwise available; Claffey filters and passes them on. The posts end with a call to share or tag an organization that might fit.
- **Community building through member introductions**: A smaller stream of Claffey's posts welcomes named practitioners to the Philanthropy Solutions Group community with a short career narrative. These posts describe other people's work, not Claffey's arguments, and close with an invitation to join the membership community. They recognize members rather than clients, so ask whether the people profiled are endorsed before treating the posts as endorsements.

## Work to read

- [Plan year-end major gifts with a month-by-month calendar](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/thomasclaffey_majorgifts-fundraisingstrategy-activity-7513192640113299456-mtYQ)
- [Pitch corporate sponsorships for next year starting in the fall](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/thomasclaffey_fundraising-corporatesponsorship-nonprofitleadership-activity-7507769712206901249-A6IY)
- [A DAF Day readiness checklist any nonprofit can use](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/thomasclaffey_donoradvisedfunds-fundraising-philanthropy-activity-7509680593123749888-duJD)
- [Curated grant opportunities offer a recurring service to nonprofit leaders](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/thomasclaffey_grantopportunities-grantfunding-nonprofitleadership-activity-7512169484007243777-e44x)
- [How to summarize a specific grant opportunity](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/thomasclaffey_grantopportunities-nonprofitfunding-veterans-activity-7501249354826108928-eMfM)
- [A model grant brief with eligibility and funding details](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/thomasclaffey_grantopportunities-nonprofitfunding-smallbusinesssupport-activity-7513705720815570945-q83d)
- [Community welcomes reveal cross-sector priorities](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/thomasclaffey_philanthropy-fundraising-nonprofitleadership-activity-7506661835077570560-Ksxa)

## Brand relationships

- **Philanthropy Solutions Group** (disclosed_partnership)
- **Visa Foundation** (mention)
- **General Motors** (mention)

## Partnerships

Thomas Claffey's partnership guidance comes through Philanthropy Solutions Group. Their most detailed post (21 September 2026) advises nonprofits to build a year-long corporate partnership menu instead of selling one event at a time. They say companies set budgets for the following year in the fall, so sponsorship conversations need to start then, not in January. Significant sponsorships also need lead time for the company to arrange employee volunteers, marketing, communications, and co-branded materials. Claffey says companies look for brand visibility, employee engagement, community impact, and measurable results through partnerships aligned with their own priorities, rather than the nonprofit's calendar. Ask for the current package structure, rates, and partnership inquiry route.

## Alternatives

- Rob Wu: Rob Wu is the stronger alternative if the consultancy's client request shifts from sponsorship and DAF instruction to making donor data usable. Wu's posts describe using CauseVox and Claude to create pipelines and cards, enrich contacts with outside data, write custom fields across many contacts at once, clone and rebuild email campaigns, and ask questions such as who should be followed up with—all without exporting a spreadsheet. The same work applies to donor moves management, stewardship updates and reporting. A workshop built around that material would end with a working CRM and AI routine rather than a sponsorship calendar or DAF checklist.
- Tracy V. Allen, Ph.D., PMP, LSSGB, MLC: Tracy V. Allen is the better choice if the goal is helping nonprofits design a sustainable revenue mix rather than run a seasonal sponsorship or DAF campaign. Allen's posts offer a structured exercise: map every outcome and every party who benefits, identify who receives enough financial or mission value to pay, price the outcome, and choose a model such as fee-for-service, government contracts, employer partnerships, shared savings, licensing or membership. A second post argues that workforce, arts, advocacy and community organizations can all be financially sustainable with different revenue mixes. That gives a strategy session a stronger foundation for clients who rely too heavily on grants.
- Karriem Kanston: Karriem Kanston is the closest match if the consultancy wants a live, hands-on grant sprint and the audience is nonprofit or small-business grant seekers rather than development directors managing corporate sponsors. Kanston's post advertises a 120-minute AI Grant Strategy Sprint on 26 September 2026. Promised outputs include a breakdown of AI tools that can write a large share of a grant, applying for one grant during the session, real grant examples, a three-step SMART Grant Success System, and a focus on hiring and training grants. The session also promises to cut research and writing time using AI. That is a concrete live format, unlike the other alternatives for this narrow task.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/