Build community that holds

when the work gets hard.

I’ve proven so convincingly how it can work they made a documentary about it.

I help nonprofits build lasting support by aligning storytelling, community, and fundraising strategy.

After years in fundraising, finance, and communications, I keep returning to one lesson:

Connection is what sustains the work.

Even strong missions lose momentum when engagement weakens. The organizations that endure are the ones that build communities capable of holding together through uncertainty, disagreement, and change.

Services & Background

Fundraising can become complicated, but its fundamentals are remarkably simple: understand what an organization needs, identify the people and institutions who might care about that work, make a compelling case, and build relationships that last.

I learned those fundamentals firsthand through an unlikely fundraising campaign in Phil Campbell, Alabama. Since then, years of nonprofit work and consulting have added strategy, structure, data, and experience to that basic approach. Today, Phil Campbell Consulting provides organizations with support across the full range of fundraising and development work, including:

Fundraising & Engagement

Donor pipeline strategy
Retention and stewardship systems
Major donor and recurring giving strategy
Sponsorship and partnership development
Engagement analysis and donor journey review

Communications & Storytelling

Messaging and narrative development
Communications audits
Donor-facing communications strategy
Media and public-facing storytelling
Campaign positioning and mission clarity

Operations & Infrastructure

CRM review and optimization
Segmentation and pipeline analysis
Development infrastructure assessment
ROl and fundraising performance review

My work has included grant writing, corporate partnerships, and individual giving, while also contributing to broader initiatives tied to disaster recovery, social justice, civic engagement, community organizing, and independent filmmaking.

Community & Organizational Strategy

Community engagement strategy
Stakeholder and coalition-building
Organizational positioning during periods of transition
Relationship-centered fundraising systems
Cross-functional alignment between development and communications

Following the 2011 tornado in Phil Campbell, Alabama, I helped organize a grassroots campaign that drew international media attention and ultimately inspired the documentary I'm with Phil.

My background includes communications and storytelling published in The New Yorker, Columbia Journalism Review, and Harvard Review, alongside corporate finance and operational leadership experience at Yahoo, AOL, and Verizon Media.

My work focuses on the intersection of fundraising, narrative strategy, public trust, and community-building for organizations seeking sustained engagement and long-term support.

…and I am a member of the following industry organizations…

“I’ve seen it with my own eyes: Phil understands that successful fundraising depends on sustained relationships, not isolated asks. He combines strong communications instincts with strategic discipline and a clear understanding of how community engagement translates into long-term organizational support.”

— Eileen Loh, nonprofit communications director and former AP reporter
“I've had the privilege of working with Phil Campbell to promote better public transit in New York City with Friends of the QNS, a 501(c)4. Phil has a keen sense for what matters to the various stakeholders surrounding transit issues, can recruit partner organizations effectively, and excels at activating the community to his cause. This was evidenced by a hugely successful community activity to ride bikes along the route and produce a report, which gained us an audience with the NYC Department of Transportation.”

— Joshua Steinberg, board member of Friends of the QNS and a GTM director in the tech industry
"We miss Phil at our company! His communications skills with our clients were of the highest quality. Very few others got the sort of appreciative responses he received. We gave him some of the hardest accounts because we knew he could be counted on to clean them up. And his experience and ease with CRM (all of our software tools, really) ensured that I never had to worry whether he would meet (or exceed) monthly deadlines."

—Former Customer

It began as a simple attempt to bring together people named Phil Campbell in Phil Campbell, Alabama, an intentional effort to foster an unlikely community. It eventually evolved into real community as explained in the Amazon documentary I’m with Phil—and it sparked a much broader conversations about what community, storytelling, fundraising, and resilience all mean.

My ongoing relationship with the town of Phil Campbell has utterly transformed both my personal philosophy and my professional outlook, and it continues to inform my work with people, nonprofits, leadership groups, and organizations that are interested in how lasting public support is actually built.

The Story Behind the Work

Booking & Speaking

Available for nonprofit conferences, fundraising events, leadership discussions, podcasts, and community conversations.

Inquire Today

Common Discussion Topics

How connection becomes sustained support
Community as organizational infrastructure
Storytelling, trust, and donor engagement
What nonprofits can learn from grassroots movements
Building resilient communities during uncertain time

Turning connection into sustained support

Many nonprofit challenges appear as technical or structural problems. Those problems do exist, but underneath them are often more fundamental questions of connection, trust, clarity, and engagement.

What’s needed is a durable model.

I’ve been applying these same lessons in my consulting work ever since.

My extended experiences in Phil Campbell, Alabama reshaped the way I think about fundraising, communications, and organizational sustainability. With the help of my fellow Phil Campbells, I helped create a community of stakeholders where none had previously existed. We then worked with an independent filmmaker to expand that community far beyond what any of us originally imagined.

But it didn’t end there. We spent years sustaining our relationship with the town because helping Phil Campbell recover became more than just rewarding. It became one of the most meaningful experiences of our lives.

That’s the kind of passion and commitment that keeps good nonprofits going.