Susan Schaefer, PRINCIPAL

I founded Resource Partners with a commitment to integrity, teamwork and client satisfaction. Twenty years later, those remain my guiding values.

I have steered major fundraising growth as a staff leader, consultant, board member and chair, so I bring a broad perspective of what it takes to make the whole organization work cohesively toward a common goal. My work moves nonprofits toward ever-larger income targets, resulting in the social changes their leaders seek to make.

Prior to founding Resource Partners LLC, I served as National Director, Foundations at the United Negro College Fund. There, I was part of the small team that designed the historic Gates Millennium Scholars, a $1.6 billion program funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This and so many other major grants have resulted in a career’s worth of encounters with people who have been directly affected by the awards. For me, that has been the ultimate gift.

My desire to give back to budding nonprofit leaders led me to teach a graduate course in fund development at Johns Hopkins University. And my current role as trustee at the National Center for Children and Families reflects the latest in a long line of volunteer roles.

My work has been featured in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Candid, BoardSource, the Grant Professionals Association and the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ International Conference, among others. I write a monthly series of articles called Major Grants.

In addition to fund development, I am deeply engaged in areas that contribute to the quality of nonprofits broadly and my client engagements in particular. To that end, I co-edited The Nonprofit Consulting Playbook: Winning Strategies from 25 Leaders in the Field and co-authored Serving on a Nonprofit Board with Bob Wittig.

I hold a master’s degree in Not-for-Profit Management and a bachelor’s degree in English, both from the University of Maryland.

Outside of work, you can find me biking, enjoying live music with my husband, rooting for favorite basketball teams with my sons or drawing new pastel creations.

Susan Schaefer is an ED’s dream come true. She understands how many competing demands there are on your time and quickly assesses what is feasible, offering concrete and doable action items yet inspiring you to take on even greater challenges. She made a big impact on our bottom line right away and didn’t just tell me what I wanted to hear but what I needed to hear. She is extremely knowledgeable, friendly and upbeat. She engaged and motivated our board to become a team of fundraising enthusiasts. I highly recommend Susan to any organization that wants strong results.

— Tara Libert, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Free Minds Book Club and Writing Workshop