Deborah Kaplan Polivy, Ph.D.

The planned giving workshop session was excellent…lively and energetic. Debby was a fun and interesting moderator, providing good information in a thought-provoking, entertaining, and engaging style. Conference sessions can get dry after a while, so thanks for making this session interesting and fun!

— Doug Crisafulli, Director of Planned Giving, Moody Bible Institute

Deborah completed assignments for two very different clients in 2009 – Bikur V’Ezrat Cholim, a social service organization in Jerusalem, Israel and the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, a family oriented facility in Springfield, Massachusetts – and yet the issues that each faced were the same.  Both organizations needed a new or refurbished building and neither had a fully operating development department. Deborah conducted a Feasibility Study for a capital campaign for each and made recommendations about not only such a fund raising initiative but also about creating an in-house development department.

Cover layout - National Yiddish Book Center Marketing Piece

The endowment development project for the National Yiddish Book Center is complete. It primarily entailed three different parts.

1. Reviewing current endowment policies and procedures and recommending changes.
2. Drafting marketing piece and working with staff and design firm (see above and below).
3. Training staff on endowment development (ongoing).

Internal spread - National Yiddish Book Center Marketing Piece

Deborah Polivy and Maxine Stein, Director of Development of the National Yiddish Book Center, described how they completed this endowment development project, including the marketing brochure, in 4 months at the 2009 AFP Rhode Island Chapter Fundraising Day, “They did it. Yes, you can.”  Audiences members described the presentation “as clear and easy to understand.”

Deborah also received rave reviews for a presentation made to Women in Philanthropy of Western Massachusetts.

Evaluations from participants included the following quotes.

“She Rocks.”

“Reinforced things I’ve been doing, and raised some new questions for my Board.”

“She is always great!”

Deborah’s newest client is the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts where she will help the organization design and implement a new endowment development program.

Upcoming speaking engagements include Bay Path College on Fundraising in These New Economic Times — Reflections from the Field (January 9, 2009); Women in Philanthropy of Western Massachusetts in Holyoke on Some Thoughts About Cultivation (January 13, 2009) and a similar topic at the Northshire Nonprofit Network meeting in Manchester, Vermont (November 7).