Studying Successful Strategies: Preparing for School Fundraising in 2024

Roger Devine is a Partner and Marketing Director at SchoolAuction. He is an experienced marketing professional, with a focus on helping small businesses, technology start-ups, and non-profit organizations. Roger has extensive experience in the software, merchant-processing and publishing industries.

Derric Bakker is one of those rare individuals who has been in fundraising for almost his entire career. In 1990 – just a couple years out of college – Derric was approached by a colleague serving on a Board seeking to fill a key fundraising position. It soon became apparent that fundraising was a strong fit for his unique set of gifts and what started as a whim grew into a lifelong career.

Over the next ten years Derric would hone his craft working at three different nonprofit organizations. In 2001 he shifted into consulting. Over most of the next decade Derric worked for two different firms providing consulting services to dozens of different nonprofit organizations. In 2010 Derric started his own consulting firm, which became DickersonBakker after a merger with Clark Dickerson’s Denver-based firm in 2012. Since then, he has served as President of DickersonBakker. Under his leadership, Derric has fostered a culture at DickersonBakker that has been magnetic to talent, enabling the company to build a nationally recognized team of over forty highly skilled full-time professionals, who collectively serve well over a hundred different nonprofit organizations each year.

Derric’s particular specialty is in major gift development. He has successfully solicited countless major gifts, including many multi-million-dollar gifts and some in the tens of millions of dollars. He has coached dozens of fundraisers in the art of major giving and teaches and writes regularly on the subject. With over three decades' experience across multiple sectors of the industry he is also now a sought-after expert on strategy and organizational development.

Witnie A. Martinez is the Founder & CEO of Absolute Impact Consulting—a social impact advisory firm that helps nonprofits maximize their impact through expert consultation and professional development opportunities led by industry experts. Witnie thrives at the intersection of education, philanthropy, and leadership.

For over a decade, her career has focused on expanding & diversifying revenue streams, increasing organizational impact, building systems and driving brand awareness for nonprofits across the country. Martinez has helped organizations generate revenue for multi-million dollar annual budgets and campaigns alike. Through these experiences, she saw a need to shift how philanthropic and educational resources are distributed throughout the nonprofit ecosystem. To be a part of the solution—Witnie launched Absolute Impact Consulting. She speaks about and leads a variety of professional development opportunities focused on increasing effectiveness for organizations, teams and individuals.

Her passion for helping others through her work comes from growing up in low-income communities and realizing the need for access to basic resources that can bring about transformational change in people’s lives. As a former teacher, Martinez believes that children in under-resourced communities—particularly Black children—need equitable access to quality and holistic educational experiences, to break systemic cycles of generational poverty.

Martinez was born in Haiti and is a first generation college graduate. She holds an Ed.S. in Educational Leadership and a M.S. in Psychology—both from Nova Southeastern University; a certificate in Nonprofit Management from Duke University; a B.A. in Theatre and a B.S in Health Sciences both from Florida International University. Martinez lives in the Charlotte Metropolitan area with her husband and two young children. Her values of faith, family and integrity keep her grounded.