2012 Gurin Forum

This year’s Gurin Forum features a panel of CDOs and CEOs discussing the opportunities and challenges they face in an increasingly complex fundraising environment.  The program will discuss the relationship between the CDO and CEO, their mutual expectations – and the need to manage those expectations appropriately, as well as the role of the CDO as a senior officer of the organization and related issues.

 The discussion will be moderated by Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy and include the following panelists:

•     Karen Alexander, Vice President of Development, Chicago Symphony Orchestra
•     Dean Harrison, President & CEO, Northwestern Memorial Healthcare
•     Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, President, DePaul University
•     Betsy Hughes, Vice President, Institutional Advancement, Illinois Institute of Technology
•     Sophia Siskel, President & CEO, Chicago Botanic Garden
•     Randy Varju, FAHP, CFRE, President and Chief Development Officer, Advocate Charitable Foundation

Who Should Attend The Gurin Forum?

•     Giving Institute member firm executives and their employees
•     Giving Institute member firm clients
•     Nonprofit executives and development professionals
•     Nonprofit Board members

About the Gurin Forum

The purpose of the Gurin Forum is to honor Maurice Gilbert Gurin, a foremost leader and thinker who impacted the evolution of philanthropy, and bring attention to timely issues facing the sector. The periodic forums are designed to stimulate dialogue, debate, research, and education. Funding for the Gurin Forum is made possible through an endowment created primarily through the generosity of Mr. Gurin. We would also like to note that Mr. Gurin is a past chair of the American Association of Fundraising Counsel, now known as The Giving Institute and one of the original incorporators of the American Association of Fundraising Counsel Trust for Philanthropy, now known as Giving USA FoundationTM.

Maurice Gilbert Gurin (1911-1990), was nearly 50 years old in 1959 when he made the career change from public relations to fund-raising. Gurin incorporated new and innovative fund-raising methods with more traditional techniques and in only 12 years rose from free-lance fund-raising to president of a fund-raising firm with offices in New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. He continued over the next 30 years to seek creative new answers to old questions, using imaginative new approaches to fund-raising focused on individual client needs and making the fund-raising plan fit the client rather than the client fit the fund raising plan. – reprinted with permission from the Maurice Gurin Papers, Ruth Lilly Special Collections and Archives.