Rafael OrtizConsulting Book a first call

Albuquerque, New Mexico · Nonprofit fundraising

Bring the whole board. We’ll bring the agenda.

Rafael Ortiz sits at the table with your board, not across from it — fundraising audits, grant strategy, board training, campaign planning and donor communications, worked through in order.

Book a first call See how engagements work

Fundraising audits
Grant strategy
Board training
Campaign planning
Donor communications

Overhead view of a deep green boardroom table set with a legal pad, gold pen, coffee cup and place cards — A working session, Albuquerque

Services

Five jobs. One agenda.

Every engagement starts with what is actually on your table: the deadline, the shortfall, the board that will not ask. Then we work through it in order, with the board in the room.

Fundraising audit

A straight read of where the money comes from and what it costs to bring it in.

Revenue by source, side by side
Cost to raise a dollar
The short list of fixes, ranked

Grant strategy

Stop writing grants that were never going to fund you. Build a calendar the team can keep.

Funder prospects matched to your work
A name on every deadline
Language you can reuse next cycle

Board training

Boards don’t need another lecture. They need a job they can actually do.

Roles, give/get and expectations
Agendas that end in decisions
The ask, practised out loud

Campaign planning

A campaign is a schedule before it is a story. We build the schedule first.

Goal and feasibility read
Phases, dates and quiet periods
Who makes which ask, and when

Donor communications

Say the same thing, clearly, in the right order, to the right people.

A case for support in plain language
An appeal calendar that repeats well
Stewardship letters that don’t beg

Some services are one meeting; others run the length of a campaign. Start with a first call.

Approach

Four steps, in order.

No deck, no pitch. The work happens at your table, and the board sees it at every step rather than at the end.

Board members reading printed figures together during a working session — Reading the numbers together

01

Intake call

One conversation about what is on your table right now: the numbers, the calendar, the board, the deadline.
02

The read

We go through revenue history, grant files, board lists and campaign materials, and put the findings in writing, in plain language the whole board can follow.
03

The plan

A written agenda with owners, dates and a short list of things to stop doing — built to be voted on at a board meeting, not shelved after one.
04

The table after

Training for the board, language for the donor file, and check-ins while the plan is in motion, so the work keeps its owners.

Engagements

Start where the problem is.

Three ways boards usually begin, and what you leave with. Scope follows the problem rather than a package, and every engagement ends with something written down.

When the audit is the start

Revenue is flat

Nobody can say which program pays for itself, and the same fixes get discussed every year.

Revenue by source and cost to raise a dollar
A ranked short list of fixes
A working session to decide what stops

When the board is the start

The board has stopped asking

Meetings end without decisions, and the people closest to the mission never make the ask.

Roles, give/get and expectations in writing
Meeting agendas that end in decisions
The ask, practised out loud

When the campaign is the start

The goal is set, the calendar isn’t

A number has been agreed and a date has been named, but no one owns the sequence between them.

Goal and feasibility read
Phases, dates and quiet periods
A named owner for every ask

Annotated fundraising reports and sticky notes laid out on a working table — Working papers

Full case studies, client names and references are shared in a first conversation.Tell us what you are working on and we will send the ones closest to your situation.

Get in touch

Tell us what’s on your table.

Send a few lines about the deadline, the shortfall, or the board that won’t ask. If it is the right fit, the next thing you get is an agenda.

Overhead detail of two empty chairs and a closed notebook at the end of a green boardroom table — Between meetings

01You send the note.
02We set a time to talk.
03You leave with an agenda.

Based in Albuquerque, working with boards across New Mexico — in person and on screen.