Hello! I’m Ligia

Thank you for visiting my website.

Over the past 20 years I have been working as a fundraiser for organizations in Canada and internationally. I have done everything from donor acquisition, direct mail, foundation grant writing, major gifts to legacy giving (more commonly known as planned giving). Not to mention, communications, strategic planning, board development and everything in between.

Over the years, I have worked with organizations that work in the area of mental health, environmental education, at-risk youth, social services, arts and culture, to international NGOs. You can see my full list of past clients.

2010 was a great year … I earned my CFRE designation (tell me if you are thinking of getting your designation, I can help you!). It was a proud career moment, I must say!

In 2014, getting certified as a Master Trainer by the AFP Faculty Training Academy and in 2016 as a Creative Facilitator by Fantastic Studios means that I am certified to deliver creative, inclusive, and interactive strategic planning meetings and retreats that are based on Design Thinking and Human-Centred Design.

Since 2019, I have been delivering webinars through Charity-How-To

My two super powers:

  1. Building fundraisers’ capacity through teaching, coaching, mentoring and presenting at conferences. My personal mission is to empower nonprofits to be strong and resilient and that can be accomplished by sharing all the knowledge I have acquired and continue to learn on a daily basis. Check out where I have taught in the past and where I’ll be presenting soon by clicking here.
  2. Helping organizations build (or rebuild) their fundraising infrastructure from scratch (or fixing what’s not working so well). Basically, how I see it is that if your house is not in order, you will struggle to reach your fundraising goals.

Did I mention contributed to a book? I authored the Small Shop Fundraising chapter in Excellence in Fundraising in Canada, Volume 2. I also regularly contribute to the AFP’s newsletter, Advancing Philanthropy.

And in super exciting news, in January of 2020 I became a doctoral candidate at the University of Kent School for Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research. Over the next few years I will be researching organizations’ attitudes towards national legacy marketing campaigns as a tool to change people’s behaviour towards gifts in wills. My research will touch topics of psychology, sociology, behavioural and decision sciences – more specifically I’m reading a lot on how people make decisions, the concept of nudging, etc.

As you can imagine, I’ll be generating a lot of content and research on this so sign up to my blog to stay up to date on this research and how it applies to your fundraising work.

On a more personal note, when I’m not geeking out on legacy or fundraising related things, I’m either knitting, cooking or planning my next trip.

You can follow my adventures by clicking any of my social media at the foot of this page 👇🏼👇🏼