Brian Gawor, CFRE

Brian Gawor has spent 25 years answering one question: why do donors give — and what gets in their way? That curiosity drove him from early roles in annual giving at Knox College (where he boosted the $3M+ Knox Fund) through major gift and development leadership at Illinois State University, where in his first year as Director of Development for the College of Fine Arts he achieved a 100% increase in overall giving and set an institutional record for alumni participation. Over the course of his career, Brian has contributed to more than $1 billion raised for organizations across higher education, faith communities, international causes, and human services — including a $90M synagogue campaign and a $10M initiative for an innovative residential farm community. He also serves as Vice President of Fundraising at 3E, taking the tested data-driven technology from the enrollment world into donor engagement.

His drive to understand donor behavior at a research level led him to spend a decade as Vice President for Research at Ruffalo Noel Levitz, one of the country’s leading advancement technology and strategy firms, where he worked with hundreds of institutions, helped generate over $100M in contracts, authored industry-standard indexes on major solicitation channels, and convened record-setting donor engagement summits. Along the way, he developed the Donation Equation — a research-backed framework that treats donor behavior as a formula: philanthropy and gratitude, amplified by connection, story, and urgency, all shaped by the barriers standing between a donor and a gift. It’s not a metaphor; it’s a working model tested across hundreds of organizations and thousands of donors.

Brian holds a BA (cum laude) in Political Science from Knox College and an MS in College Student Personnel from Western Illinois University, and has held the Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) credential since 2012. He is a longtime faculty member with the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), a repeat presenter at AFP ICON, and a highly rated speaker at 50+ conferences and events per year. He created and hosts the Fundraising Voices podcast — with over 500,000 downloads and 75+ LinkedIn Live broadcasts — and has been featured in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, NonprofitPRO, and Inside Higher Ed.

At Giving Geek, Brian works with nonprofits and philanthropic startups — from organizations raising $500K to those running $100M+ campaigns — to build donor engagement programs that are rigorous, relational, and built to last. A dedicated giving geek (it’s on his license plate), he believes fundraising is a science, and that the organizations willing to treat it that way are the ones that win.